Working again on similar teas, Osmanthus Scented Qi Hong (qimen/keemun black tea) from MyTeaPal. Pleasantly light osmanthus flavor allows the tea to shine and the osmanthus scent to complement.
Coincidentally White2Tea also included a couple aged raw puerh in a recent tea club. This one, 2002 LC Brick, is the more unverifiable of the two, material might be from the Lincang area and may have been produced around 2002. Clean storage taste, mellow tea energy, low bitterness. Not great durability/length, but quite reasonable for its (alleged) age.
Fifth Puerh sample from Pu-erh.sk's Taiwan tea adventure, a raw puerh tuocha of indeterminate age, "Jingua Gongcha Jixing". Looser pack for a tuocha. Super clean storage character, perfume/incense, slight smoke, light bitterness. Very nice.
My favorite US tea blender Friday Afternoon Tea (queer, latinx, & small-farm supporting) is running Kickstarter.
They are fully funded, BUT they have a few stretch goals close to my heart, including at 60k getting a second tea bag machine for separating common allergens! If any of you fedi friends are interested:
Moonbloom Dancong from White2Tea. After losing my favorite light porcelain gaiwan for Dancong to klutziness, experimenting with flash steeps in a Jiri Duchek Kohiki pot.
As far as tea drinking goes, I'm finding that after years of drinking tea out of a borosilicate glass cup when not doing it gongfu style, it generally doesn't taste as good as drinking it out of this classic ceramic mug. Who knew? Not me. #tea#gongfu@tea
The third tea from Peter's visit to a Taiwan tea shop is a Dayi Shou Puerh of indeterminate age. Raw Puerh is often not really prized until it has decades of age on it. Ripe Puerh was originally created to mimic the effect of decades of age, by fast aging Puerh material in warm, wet piles. Dayi is a very well known factory Puerh producer. It may not be well known, but a little age on Shou Puerh, and it loses the characteristics that many find distasteful in young ripe puerh.
A second raw puerh found by Peter of pu-erh.sk in a Taiwanese tea house. This one was a Xiaguan Tuo of indeterminate age. Xiaguan is known for tightly compressed "iron cakes" and tuo. The first challenge, thankfully handled by Peter, is breaking them up. The second is being patient enough to let them steam a bit or soak before getting to the brewing proper.
Since I don't drink anymore and am not supposed to eat grapefruit, I get my recommended daily allowance of pleasant bitterness from tea. Astro Red Yunnan black tea from White2Tea is a particularly rich source.