This was a shootout for my daily drinker puerh. I would never have been able to decide without drinking both at the same time.

Tea & Water

Tea 1: 2003 Tian Di Ren "7572" (9g in my 120ml gaiwan)

Tea 2: 15 Years Aged Golden Melon Ripe (7g in my 100ml gaiwan)

Water Temp: 203-205F

Tasting Notes

Dry Smell:

(1) Sweet Wood

(2) Bright Punchy Wood

Wet Smell (Post Rinses):

(1) Minty hay, fresh plants by a creek

(2) Deeper minty hay, chocolate

Brews: (*) Indicates that I liked that tea more for that brew.

• Two flash rinses so I start further into the teas.
• Steep 1. [flash, flash]
  • (1) Orange/Tan: Light wood
  • (2)* Dark Brown: Rich chocolate wood
• Steep 2. [12s, flash]
  • (1) Dark Red: Bright honey pencil in nature
  • (2)* Dark Brown: Honey pencil
• Steep 3. [18s, flash]
  • (1)* Red Orange: Writing in my notebook by a pond
  • (2) Dark Brown: Rich body, lower aromatics
• Steep 4. [28s, 15s]
  • (1)* Elegant Red: Honey, creek, pencil
  • (2) Dark Brown: Pencil, deep
• Steep 5. [35s, 25s]
  • (1)* Elegant Red: Playing outside on a rubber tire swing
  • (2) Elegant Red: Nice pencil
• Steep 6. [55s, 40s]
  • (1)* Elegant Red: Mint, mulch, nostalgia
  • (2) Lighter Elegant Red: Nice pencil, metallic/slight bitter mouth feel

Qi: After drinking both of these teas I feel the familiar lazy feeling I get after drinking more puerh than is needed. There was a moment around brew 3 that I felt quite nice and energized and motivated in a comfortable way, but now I am passed that. I just want to laze around and consume any content that is at least mildly interesting.

Overall: At the start I enjoyed tea 2 more because it was stronger. However, it seemed to extract quicker and with less complexity and joy in the aromatics. So, tea 1 slowly pulled ahead and stayed ahead as the brews continued. Tea 1 was cozier and more inviting, had better staying power, and brought me to more enjoyable places.

Price Notes: Both teas come to about $0.21/g. That makes a 10g day of tea only $2.10.

Both teas had more brews in them. I am just too affected at the moment to keep brewing.

This is a 2026 loose leaf raw puer from Farmer Leaf.

Brewing setup: 3.5g of leaves grandpa style in a large mug brewed with boiling water

Dry leaf aroma: very fragrant, sweet hay and dried fruit

Tasting notes: earlier steeps had sweet fruity notes with vegetal, green foresty undertones, along with low bitterness and astringency. In later steeps, the bitterness and astringency faded away completely, and the focus was more on moss and river rock minerality, with a background of fruity sweetness and a cooling sensation.

Tea high: very mellow and relaxing

I have reviewed this tea before in the gaiwan, but today was feeling lazy to I wanted to see how it tasted grandpa style. Turns out, it’s also delicious like this. Overall this is a great tea, albeit a little pricy. But I think that extra cost really shows in the way the tea drinks. Compared to the more economical Miyun cake I have from them, this tea has larger leaves, a slightly cleaner flavor profile, and more complexity that comes from the older tea trees used for this.

This is a hybrid tea from white2tea. From their website: “Picked and processed most similarly to yueguangbai moonlight white tea that has been shade dried, this tea was also intentionally partially oxidized, about half way to being a black tea.”

Brewing setup: 7g in a gaiwan brewed at 95C.

Dry leaf aroma: faint fruity sweetness

Wet leaf aroma: fruity sweetness and florals

Tasting notes: the tea has a pleasantly thick, almost oily mouthfeel. Flavors of orange blossom, raspberries, and honey abound. The endurance is strong on this one, allowing many steeps throughout the day.

Overall this is a very lovely tea that both me and my partner enjoy drinking. It’s very unique, exhibiting characteristics that are present in white teas, black teas, and oolong teas due to its unique processing method. Not only would I buy a full cake of this tea, but I actually did buy a full cake of this tea. Unfortunately when our order arrived though, it only contained a 25g sample instead of the full 200g cake I ordered. Hopefully we can get this fixed and we’ll have our full cake sent to us soon.

This is a 2025 white tea from Farmerleaf.

Brewing setup: 8g of leaves brewed with 95C water.

Dry leaf aroma: very aromatic and sweet smelling

Wet leaf aroma: more intense, sweet golden fruits

Tasting notes: strong sweet golden fruit, honey, and some floral notes

Overall, this is a very easy drinking tea. It’s sweet and fragrant with absolutely no bitterness or astringency. Before today, I was having this sample as thermos tea, and I think I prefer it better that way than in the gaiwan. On today’s session, I ended out brewing pretty long steeps to bring out all that delicious sweetness. I would buy a cake of this tea because I like it and my partner really likes it.

This is a Spring 2025 raw puer from Farmerleaf.

Brewing setup: 7g in a gaiwan brewed at 95C

Dry leaf aroma: super fragrant the moment it’s unwrapped. Strong dried apricot aroma. 

Wet leaf aroma: dried apricots, jasmine flowers, grass clippings, some earthiness

Tasting notes: intense jasmine florals, dried apricot sweetness that lingers in your throat, some grassiness on later steeps. Very little bitterness or astringency, though there is some drying mouthfeel when pushed. 

Overall, this tea is very tasty and elegant, but still easy to drink on a daily basis. I got the full cake on a whim without trying a sample just based on the reviews of the tea and the relative affordability ($45 for a 357g cake), and I’m happy I went for it. I’ve had it for a couple of weeks now and it’s great both grandpa style and in the gaiwan. This is the first raw puer that my partner has really enjoyed due to the low bitterness and astringency. She said that before I told her it was a puer, she would’ve guessed it was an oolong based on how floral and sweet it was.

This is a black tea from white2tea.

Brewing setup: 3g grandpa style with boiling water

This is a delicious tea that is very forgiving and perfect for grandpa style or thermos brewing. It’s very sweet, with no bitterness or astringency. The name of the tea may be influencing me here, but it really does taste like strawberry jam mixed with butter, just missing the toast. Also quite an affordable tea too at just $6.50/50g.

I shot this photo-essay ages ago and thought it might be appropriate for here. Note that in one of the pictures the ISBN is provided, for those who might want a copy of their own.

No, really. That's its name. And it's not an "unfortunate translation artifact" either. It's just as crass in the original Chinese.

This is a 2025 raw puer from white2tea. I’ve had it in the gaiwan, but today I am having it grandpa style since I’m traveling without my tea equipment.

It’s a tasty tea grandpa style with a decent bitterness, vegetal notes, and some sweetness in the aftertaste. Not quite as delicate as when brewing in the gaiwan, but still tasty.

Little red cup is all fair trade tea! This is the only fair trade Puerh I've found so far, and it is quite good!

Leaf smell:

Dry: Chocolate, Fish, Graham Crackers

Wet: Brown Sugar, dry erase marker

Tasting notes:

• First brew was light and leaned towards dry erase marker with a bit of chocolatey richness.
• After that brews either tasted quite chocolate with a syrupy background or quite brown sugar esk with a steamed milk background.
• Each brew got a bit sweeter
• I pushed brew 6 kinda hard and got a really sweet brown sugar taste.

Tea high: very balanced. Decent energy, but very smooth. Not relaxing, but in some sense I do feel a bit calmer than when I started my session.

Price notes: I got the 3.75oz canister for $16.75. That comes to 15¢/g. So this session of ~5-6g was 75-90¢. That's a fine price for a very solid puerh.

Overall: This will likely become my go to puerh. It is fair trade, tasty, and a nice price. It doesn't have my favorite flavors of leather and wood, but it more than makes up for that by being fair trade. I can have puerh from worse paid workers here and there as a treat.

This is a 2014 raw puer tea from white2tea.

Brewing setup: 7g tea ball brewed in a tall glass with boiling water.

Tasting notes: good bitterness up front, leading to a fruity huigan after bitterness fades. Later steeps have a more fruity floral note to them.

Overall quite a tasty slightly aged puer to have while traveling for work. Not too fussy and does well grandpa style.

This is a 2021 sheng puer tea from Crimson Lotus Tea.

Brewing setup: 5g tea ball grandpa style with boiling water

Tasting notes: some bitterness and astringency, vegetal notes, refreshing

Tea high: normal caffeine alertness, nothing crazy as expected by the name/description of the tea

Overall, this was a good raw puer. I’m brewing grandpa style this week because I’m traveling for work and don’t have my gaiwan. I was looking forward to getting my gourd smashed by this tea, but unfortunately I didn’t experience that. Maybe I'm not someone who’s super sensitive to cha qi.

This is a raw puer tea from Farmerleaf.

Brewing setup: 7g of tea in a 125ml gaiwan brewed at 95C

Tasting notes: this is a very soft tea, low bitterness and astringency, some vegetal notes, fresh tree bark, and some fruity floral notes in the later steeps.

This is a raw puer tea from Farmerleaf. It is maocha instead of a cake because apparently they had a small harvest this year.

Brewing setup: 7g of tea in a 125ml gaiwan, brewed at 95C

Dry leaf aroma: super fragrant, smells like a cool wet forest in the Pacific Northwest with apricot notes.

Wet leaf aroma: vegetal, cool forest, apricots, freshly shredded tree bark.

Tasting notes: some intensity in the earlier steeps, PNW fern forest, fresh tree bark, minerality, mint, apricot, floral notes, good huigan.

Mouthfeel: intense on the early steeps, then leading to refreshing, cooling, and juicy feelings on later steeps.

Tea high: happy, energetic, heady.

This is a delicious and complex tea. Even though it was a bit pricy at $38/80g, I’m happy I got it. Looking forward to trying the other teas from them in my order.

This is a black tea from white2tea.

Brewing setup: 1.5g of tea in a mug with boiling water

Just having some black tea grandpa style today. This one is tasty and comforting. The tasting notes I’m getting are: milk chocolate sweetness, cream, slightly herbaceous. I’m on refill #3 right now and I think it can probably go for at least one more time.

I finished my session with Glider yesterday a bit prematurely because I was feeling over caffeinated. So I took the leaves and put them in a jar with water and stuck it in the fridge overnight to make cold brew tea.

The cold brew tea still had a decent amount of flavor in it. The tea tasted sweet, vegetal, and a bit fruity.

This is a sheng puer tea from white2tea.

Brewing setup: 7g ball of tea in a 125ml gaiwan brewed at 95C.

Tasting notes: green grapes, fresh cut grass, apple blossoms, balanced astringency, good returning sweetness.

I like this tea, I think it has interesting flavors and good huigan. However, my partner is not a fan — she says it has a sour or astringent aftertaste that doesn’t sit right with her.

This is a shou puer from white2tea.

Brewing setup: 7g tea ball in a 125ml gaiwan brewed with 95C water.

Wet leaf aroma: dry wood, campfire ash.

Tasting notes: starts out with dry wood, campfire smoke, bitterness, and I guess a camphor taste. After a few steeps, the bitterness fades and it becomes sweeter, with some nuttiness and leather; the dry wood and ash notes are still there.

Overall a good tea with a good value at $26 for a 200g cake. I’d consider buying a full cake of this tea.

This is a yancha oolong from white2tea.

Brewing setup: 5g of tea in a 125ml gaiwan with 95C water.

Wet leaves aroma: very floral and tropical sweetness.

Tasting notes: super floral, juicy tropical fruits, slick mouthfeel, and some herbal notes like thyme or oregano.

Overall, this is a very tasty tea. It was a bit tricky to brew, some steeps got a bit too punchy / perfumey if I let it go just a bit too long. I ended out dropping the temp a couple degrees down to 90c to help with that.

This is another lightly fermented shou puer pressed in 2022 and released this year.

Brewing setup: 7g in an 125ml gaiwan brewed with 95C water

Tasting notes: river rocks, damp forest floor, a bit of cocoa powder in earlier steeps, some raisin sweetness on the later steeps.

Overall, this is a very drinkable shou. It isn’t as interesting or complex as the Fleet I had yesterday, this it more like a standard smooth shou that is maybe a bit lighter and has a bit more sweetness. At just $22 for a 200g cake, it would be a great option for a daily drinker. I’d consider buying this tea.

This is a lightly fermented shou puer tea pressed in 2022 and released this year.

Brewing setup: 6g of tea in a 125ml gaiwan, brewed with 95C water.

Tasting notes: 10s rinse 

10s steep: antique books, forest floor, some brightness. My partner says: straw in a barn on a hot day. 

Wet leaf aroma: hot cocoa and fruit jam

10s steep: old library books, cocoa powder

10s steep: forest floor, cedar incense, slightly drying finish. Slight sweetness lingers in the mouth 

10s steep: hot cocoa, old books, cedar incense

10s steep: nectarines, old books, sauna essential oils. My partner says it’s dusty in a good way, fruity tartness, and aerating it reminds her of a petting zoo on a hot summer day.

15s steep: more fruity now, blackberries and dusty library books. 

20s steep: juicy, woody

30s steep: more dry wood with juicy mouthfeel

45s steep: raw yeast dough, dry firewood, blueberry, juicy but drying mouthfeel. 

1min steep: dry leaves, grassy, honey sweetness

2min steep: dry leaves, cocoa, blackberry

5min steep: dry leaves, incense, berries

10min steep: sweet and woody

Overall, this is a very tasty and complex shou. I believe the intent of this light fermentation is to try and mimic an raw puer; and while I haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing well aged raw puer, I can say that this is a lot more interesting to drink than most other shous I’ve tried. We would likely buy a brick of this tea. Now I’m interested in trying a couple of his other light ferment shous that were released this year for comparison.