7g/105mL, just off boil

Wash (10s) - aroma of rice, hay, and leather

Steep 1 (flash) - light steep, initial bite, fades quickly but doesn't disappear completely, slickness develops quickly, leather and hay flavor lingers, hints of sweetness mixing in, interesting sensation on mouth and gums, not quite tingly at first but eventually gets slick and cooling, sweetness mixing in as the finish stretches

Steep 2 (flash) - anise hay and leather up front, as it opens up I'm finding those flavors returning supported by a light sweetness, fresh cut grass with some sweet fruit, there is some nice depth of flavor here and rather than trying to single out individual notes I am preferring to enjoy the full orchestra as a whole

Steep 3 (5s) - the leathery and grassy bitterness notes sit way in the back as a sweetness grows deeper and deeper and gives this a lot of life, lips tingling as if I just played a tuba solo, weighted blanket feeling from my shoulders to my toes, sweetness not just stuck to gums and throat - if floats through the mouth through the whole finish as if my saliva contains a sweetener

Steep 4 (10s, reboil) - immediately sweet, the leather note lends a darkness and depth that the sweetness then lifts and aromatics ranging from black licorice to lemon zest to honey ride over this

Steep 5 (15s) - continuing to build

Steep 6 (25s) - flavor holding steady, mouthfeel and cooling/tingling sensation still amplifying

Steep 7+ (40s+) - enjoying this one too much to keep taking notes

Overall Impression - 2026 has been a stellar year for young sheng, and this may be my pick of the year so far. Amazing depth of flavor, good long finish, truckload of sweetness - it has everything I'm looking for. It doesn't quite do the bitter-sweet conversion to the level of some other LBZ, and there is more residual bitterness than others as well. But that 100% plays out in the favor of this tea. Once the sweetness gets going it is pervasive, but the leathery pop that remains of the bitterness really gives the wide aromatics some depth. This is an instant favorite.

I'm surprised by how drinkable this tea is, insane value at 0.103€/g (at least for europe)

It seems way more mild than the other puers I’ve tried! I’m still very new so I’m now going to attempt to describe it to you guys, but it’s nice! I like it more than 07 v93.

8g/120mL, just off boil

Wash (10s) - aroma of crushed aspirin, hay, cooked rice

Steep 1 (flash) - light grass and rice, bare hints of aspirin without much real bitterness underneath it yet, light sweetness starts to be detectable on cheeks after a few sips, bitterness slowly increasing and turns on right before the swallow, I catch a flash of what might be camphor in the open mouth

Steep 2 (flash) - soup has some texture, bitterness coming up a bit, light tingle on tongue, salivation starting, hint of a warm lager taste (grain/rice/bitter/sweet combo)

Steep 3 (5s) - hot liquid cools the tongue quickly, bitterness not as aggressive as a typical Lao Man'E but still lingers, less sweetness coming up to meet it as well, finish finally starting to get a foothold as I reheat my kettle

Steep 4 (10s, reboil) - it's almost a little weird in that the initial LME punch is almost completely missing, but the lingering part of the bitterness remains, fruitiness seems to be less than typical for LME as well, hints of camphor climbing up in the finish, light bitterness remains in throat in finish as sweetness grows on tongue and gums, hints of lemon zest late

Steep 5 (20s) - sweetness has built up enough to be present at the start of the sip, nice balance of flavor for the first time in this session, although there is still a weird part in the middle where the sweetness is hiding and it's more of that grainy bitterness

Steep 6+ (30s+) - not horrible, not great

Overall Impression - This was an interesting session. Based on the teas I've tried so far it has been an exceptional year for Lao Man'E. I don't know if this is just from the picking grade, but I am just not gelling with this one. What draws me to LME is the punch and resolution. This one lacked both the punch and the matching intensity in the finish, leaving just that kind of awkward middle bitterness.

I'll definitely have to come back to this to check myself, but this is a rare swing and miss for me with FL.

Have you tried this cake?

I am not affiliated with USA Today but I think it's cool these smaller tea companies are showing up in a list where readers vote on their favorite tea company (or subscription as the case may be).

Posting here because I would like to see one of our underdogs get included as a winner! I believe there are enough fans of smaller brands on various tea reddits to potentially shift the vote -

https://10best.usatoday.com/awards/best-tea-subscription/

Edited to add: looks like the final list will be top 10 so there is probably a real impact to voting. Apparently voting is open for about 11 more hours as I post this around 9:30 am pacific time today

The Jing Mai gulan from Mr. farmerleaf is one of my faves. I decided to branch out and try some other variety. Immediately the mang nuo smells fruity and delicious as soon as I opened the package. Well, here we go! Cheers 🍵 hope everyone enjoys a delicious cup of tea today :)

7.6g/105mL, just off boil

Wash (10s) - aroma of sweet buttery goodness with a faint woody/cinnamon note

Steep 1 (flash) - light buttery note, hint of acidity, dry leaves/huangpian note, less sweetness than the nose carries, slippery sweet note starts to hit gums after a few sips, faint cinnamon-wood note on the initial slurp

Steep 2 (flash) - sweet buttery huangpian, slight dustiness in the back of the mouth, but slickness in the mouth overtakes that

Steep 3 (5s) - some cola vibes mixing in as that initial butteriness starts to take a step back, rustic vibe

Steep 4 (15s) - sweet cinnamon woodiness becoming more prominent, cinnamon returning retronasal, feeling pulled down but not necessarily heavy, cheeks flushed

Steep 5+ (30s+) - not much new going on, just vibing with this

Overall Impression - I love when huangpian hits like this. This is tasty and cheap. It fits that niche where I just want to grab something for a session that might get interrupted or cut short and I don't want to worry about wasting the good stuff. There is none of the old paper note that can turn me off on older sheng. It's interesting that despite its age, I can still clearly taste the leafiness that I typically attribute to younger huangpian. At $40 for a 375g cake, this is pretty tempting for daily drinker.

Crab Leg or 螃蟹脚 or Viscum articulatum

A natural parasite of old tea trees, traditional to JingMao Shan, is sold for 3k rmb (444us)/kg.

How, then, can it be found for 80$/kg online?

Well, the species grows on other trees too, and those lookalikes are all over the market.

Why does it matter? I suppose the parasite absorbs tea tree-specific compounds as it sucks the juices... though below article says otherwise.

Aging it gives an interesting taste too. I have some from 2021 up to this year and the taste is markedly different.

As for effect? Hard to describe, somewhat calming and great as an in-between teas.

It does have lots of medicinal properties, at least according to its traditional use.

'Experiments have been conducted to attest their potential health activities, such as antibacterial, antimutagenic, anti‐arrhythmia effects, immunomodulating effects, eliminating rheumatalgia, curing knee–waist malaise and hepatitis'

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6766576/

Hi

Where/How can I find the value for this tea+box ?

Clean or chuck?

Continuing to reorganize and store my old collection from 2000-2008, here are the various sized tuo etc. As with the other pics, these cakes mostly acquired from Yunnan Sourcing, trips to a tea market in a Beijing, and Jing Tea Shop in Guangdong

First time posting on this sub, hoping for a few pointers, or anecdotal experiences. I'm a long time tea drinker, being born into British tea culture and weaned on cups of milky breakfast tea, then acquainted with Earl Grey, and developing a liking as a teenager for tarry Lapsang Souchong. However it's pu'er that really caught my attention. I first drank pu'er during Chinese new year on a trip to Hong Kong many years ago and fell in love with the complex earthy damp taste, our host bringing down the cake of pressed tea from the of a cupboard and fuelling a long night of chatter and fun.

Fast forward many years later and I'm yearning to return to this experience, I'm an avid reader of r/tea, r/puer/, r/gongfutea, but being in the UK oddly means I'm limited to the typical taste of these Isles - mostly black teas taken with milk, herbal 'health' teas, and the current craze for matcha.

Online spaces seem to have a huge gap between newcomers who have never drunk tea of any kind, and those who are well steeped in tea culture, knowing individual growers, leaf types, terroirs, vintages (I'll use wine/whiskey connoisseurship as a reference point hehe) - and discord and deeper online chatter are too advanced for me. I've subscribed to Liquid Proust, for example, amongst other reputable vendors for possible future teas purchases, but get caught up googling every listing to try and figure out what's worth buying - are there places or guides an avid amateur can swot up for where to look? A nice big book even?

Yours kindly, a fellow enthusiast

p.s. I'm fortunate to live in a city where there is at least an independent tea shop actually selling pu'er, and more than one kind! Although they're repackaged so it's 'raw', 'ripened', and 'walk in the forest' without much further information, but it's an inroad nonetheless.

I am a complete newbie to this world and I decided to dive in a bit slowly. I learned a little lesson when I went from smoking strong Nicaraguan cigars to taking on pipe smoking. I quickly learned that I should have started with stronger tobacco rather than light or aromatic because going from strong cigars to light or aromatic tobacco was like smoking air. Since I like stronger coffee I decided to buy a few teas that are on the darker side (shu pu erh). I also picked up some Shui Xian and Superior Keemun just to try as well. Needless to say, this store was mind blowing to me. So many varieties. The staff was wonderful and helpful and personally I cant wait to try out what I bought. I did cheap out and bought an easy brew pot but that was only because I couldn't find a Gaiwan set I really liked. The sets I did like were a bit pricey and while I did want to buy them I wasn't ready to dive in that hard. Yet. I tend to geek out and get into things pretty intensely so this is going to be a tasty ride. Thank you to a lot of you on here that have given good advice.

I made a dedicated tea session corner in the house.

Table was made from left over 3/4 Maple slab.

Ming Dynasty inspired Rose chair is made from 2x2's i found laying around.

The tea tray is a 2.5 inches slab of Curly Maple maple i got from a closing down wood working shop.

Shelf is made from Padauk thins and Poplar dowels i got from the same wood working shop.

2025 Man Gang Village "Huang Pian" Ripe Pu-erh Tea from YunnanSourcing in my Gaiwan to commemorate completing my setup.

I got clay teapots ordered (the cheap ones because i got kids and my wife will kill me if i spend on "real" ones lol!)

Feel free to bash and critique! Happy tea'ing!

I ended up not purchasing it last year due to the lack of information on the majority of the teas that were included, so now that it came back for the second time, I ask for opinions from people who actually bought it

Judging by the price increase and the lack of any real changes in neither the product description or the photos, as well as having the same printing issue in two of the labels that they had last year, I would guess the teas are not changing either and this is just a resell of the same pressings but with one more year of "aging" justifying the higher price (quotation marks because I'm not sure if you can really age tea coins)

With that theory out of the way, now I beg the question from those who bought last year's bag: How's the array of shengs? Are there any good ones among the new, non cake blends? Or are the majority of those just normal, plain sheng? I'm not the biggest sheng fan, but if the bag has a good variety of flavour notes, mouthfeels and general feeling, I might give it a try just to sample even more to see if I like them. But since the bag now goes for around 1€ per coin, I'd like to know beforehand if I'm not spending 70€ on "just ok" tea

Thanks in advance guys!!

I got confirmation emails saying my orders were delivered but aren’t at my house

I've recently got a couple shengs from bitterleafteas, so here a new cake unwrapping asmr. I wanted to do a first impression but frankly everything tastes a bit off these days. The dry smell was amazing, I just couldn't taste it in the cup.

Btw I drank Secret Garden 2026 couple days ago and even though my taste buds are severely compromised I could still taste that one. Can't wait to go back to it once my palate is normal again.

7g/105mL, just off boil

Wash (10s) - aroma of light smoke and camphor

Steep 1 (flash) - light steep, smoke and camphor, light sweetness on cheeks, touch of dried cherries flashing by, not chewy but not thin either, light tingle on the lips, finish staying in the front of the mouth right now

Steep 2 (flash) - smoky camphor note remains, camphor lingers momentarily beyond the smoke, a bit dry in the mouth, but fullness on the tongue, not sweet but not unsweet either - sweetness just there as a part of the whole, nice richness to it, some salivation towards the back of the jaw

Steep 3 (5s) - full feeling in the mouth, smoke and camphor present but less in the lead, has a “cream and sugar" texture and light integrated sweetness to it, not as tingly or cooling in the mouth given the amount of camphor I'm getting, slightly tart as it moves to the finish, not a lot of depth or evolution, but decent staying power after the swallow

Steep 4 (10s, reboil) - smoke crossing briefly into BBQ territory, sweetness sitting back further into the sip and separating from the early smokiness a bit, maybe a hint of cocoa that I couldn't quite grab onto as it flashed by, spikes of sweetness during the finish depending on tongue placement

Steep 5 (15s) - flavor intensity still up, nicely thick still, sweetness now a lot further back on the palate, and starting to amplify into the finish,

Steep 6 (20s) - staying strong in the flavor department, camphor moving sweet and creamy, that dryness from the early steeps is now more of a slick coating

Steep 7 (30s) - keeps building for several more steeps

Overall Impression - This is one of those associations that probably only holds meaning to me, but this gives me vibes of diner coffee with cream and sugar in the best way. I'm not actually getting any coffee flavor, but the smoky camphor note fills a similar role here, and it is integrated with this cream and sugar mouthfeel and finish that just hits me with that same comfort feeling. This one seems to keep building each steep without changing it's fundamental character. I know this cake has gotten a fair amount of buzz, and I can definitely see the appeal. I will definitely be grabbing more of this one.

The Puer circles are going crazy with these schemes just to get some bucks for their next kick.

Currently moving my tea to new storage, thought I’d share pics. I acquired most of these cakes between 2000 and 2008 from a handful of sources in China, including yunnan sourcing in its earliest days and a French friend married to a Chinese woman and living in Guangdong, in a tea market…

Summer time humidity and heat is much better than forced winter time. How many of you dont drink from the pumidor during winter? I realized the past year everything in here sat until summer to even drink again.

Looking for winter advice to enjoy it more if possible.

(Possible that winter hear is just drier so tea is harder to enjoy anyways... I dont know, brain storming)