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.
Yeah it’s quite tasty and I recommend it. I’m even tempted to go for their Gulan cake after I get through this one, which is supposed to be the fancier version of this cake. At $150 for the 357g cake though, I’ll need to do a little more convincing myself to pull the trigger, but I bet it’ll be worth it based on how good this one is.
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.
Sounds tasty! I’ll have to give that a try
That sounds yummy. I haven’t done nettle tea, but I like a good pine or fir shoot tea. So fresh and full of vitamin C. I do like putting stinging nettles on a pizza or roasted with some chicken though. Always cool to find a fellow forager!
Nice, let me know what ya think! And yeah, using the gaiwan is nice, but it can be inconvenient sometimes! This tea is perfect for those busy days when you just want a tasty no-fuss brew
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.
Ha yeah it’s a nice one. Idk where my friends got it from, otherwise I’d let ya know where to pick one up for yourself. I always find myself trying to untangle the white strings on the edges of the placemat whenever I visit them
Glad to hear that! Hopefully our posts can inspire even more people to post their reviews
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.
Sounds delicious! I might have to order a canister
Ha thanks! Unfortunately that came from a giant sticker pile at work and I’m not sure where it was sourced from. But agreed, Hank Hill in party mode is hilarious haha
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.
I think it depends on the tea! With this one, it has absolutely zero bitterness or astringency that other black teas can get when oversteeped, so I just leave the leaves in the mug and keep topping up with more hot water when it gets low.
We have another black tea that my partner will do 1-2min on because it does start to get oversteeped for her. I’ll usually do 3min with that one because I like it a little stronger, but I can’t leave the leaves in indefinitely like with this jinjunmei.
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.
After finishing the cold brew, I was able to get a few more hot brews out of the leaves. These leaves have got a lot of juice in them!
Yancha is a category of oolong from the Wuyi mountains.
And yeah I’ll probably start brewing mine at lower temps now too! 95 was good for the first couple steeps, but once the leaves opened up a bit it just got to be too much.
I currently am set up with Jellyfin as the GUI which gives your media library a Netflix-like front end. And I use Tailscale as a VPN to access media off my home network. You can send an invite link to your family to join your Tailscale network, and they create an account there. With Jellyfin, I just have everyone use one main account, but maybe there’s some other benefits to using separate Jellyfin accounts that I’m not aware of. Overall it’s pretty straightforward to setup in my opinion. Both those apps have Apple TV apps, which is important because that’s what my family uses to watch their tv already.