A New Way of Matcha

 There was a pleasant surprise in my last order from Jagasilk! Jarred and Miyuki sent me a gift of their freshest in house roast and grind just weeks before my order…. What a treat. I honestly am not used to drinking in-house ground and roasted matcha.  It looks like Jagasilk has been doing this since 2018. 

Things have come a long way with matcha consumption in the West and I am still of the old school of ceremony and the main brands Hoshino and Marukyu-Koyamaen (of which all grades can be found on this blog).  Besides a few monastery  matcha that’s all I have consumed!  Actually, my very first exposure to this sort of thing was a free sample that was slipped into my last order of Hoshino matcha at Cultivate Tea.  I just consumed it last month blind without reading the sample package which I threw out and I instantly called my wife over to the bowl in disbelief.

There is now so much information available to the drinker these days- cultivar, location, elevation, blend, competition Score, date of grind… and Jagasilk gives the discerning drinker all of it… this is going to be a learning experience.  Jagasilk reviews are coming next…

Peace

MattCha Shortage? Highlights from the Year Past… And Posts to Come?

 Oh Yes…. I’m alive and well…. And STILL drinking great teas!  I hope you are also alive and enjoying life and, of course, tea!

I fell off posting again abruptly as life became busy… very busy… mainly with my many kids and with career as well… tea is a beautiful respite and it’s been a while since I even did an evaluation session… I’m mainly drinking for enjoyment …. And this year I did!

Some of the highlights of the past year was trying the fresh 2025 line ups of both puerh.uk and Tea Encounter… nothing beats a sampling of fresh puerh once a year…. Nothing.  See these last posts for my tastings…

Also I did a pre-order of Xang Ming Tea Factory puerh from TeasWeLike which had great dry storage on them… all those cakes are long gone in my house… ha!  I wrote up evaluations posts on these but never got to editing them … sad.

TWL have just put up a re- order on these and I can highly recommend the 2007 Manlin Gushu… which won the speed test out of those Xang Ming tea cakes at my house.  It’s a priority for me to post these notes…. 

Also Ordered a bunch of nice Malaysian stored cakes from Liquid Proust… another highlight is always picking up some of his Korean Tea that he sources from Lady Hadong and others… he even sent me some free famous Korean herbal tea blends that are common to support immune health and I definitely needed it this year!

So I’ve been drinking good puerh for sure! I’m sure you have also hit the good stuff lately, no?

I also have been drinking some random free samples from Puerh.uk off and on… One of my best sessions in recent memory is a good experience from their 2011/2016 GuaFengZhi Gold … the right tea on the right day at the right time is some sort of beautiful harmony… so good! The last weeks puerh I had was a sample of 2016 Puerh.uk Ethereal… it’s sort of at an in between stage but nice and smooth in the mind with a certain throaty presence. Last few days I’m sipping a 2013 BHYJ Tong Qing He from puerh.uk…. Brilliant cola and root bear depth with a Spacy high.  These are all hitting soooo nicely this month!

Before I feel off evaluation sampling I was sent a box of samples via Alex of Puerh Blog samples… haven’t gotten to them yet …. Eeeeeee… it’s next on the list. Check!

A huge highlight for me this year was randomly running into Jared of Jagasilk on the streets of Victoria, BC last summer! I had a nice long trip to Victoria where I took a weeks supply of Traditional roasted Hong Kong Oolong!  In Victoria I was absorbed in the family vacation energy…. But fate would intertwine me with Jared!  We had a short but good talk, he put the big invite to have us for tea … but it was the last day and we were heading home but I promised to check out what was new at Jagasilk and make my next matcha order Jagasilk…

As twists go, I fell ill a month or so ago with that damn virus that leaves your taste and smell missing and altered…. Dare I say it gave me an aversion to puerh tea ….. NNnnOOoooooo…. It tasted like rotting!

But on the plus side… and this is strange.. it somehow made matcha taste better than ever!  So I have been making myself some top shelf matcha every morning for a good month or two now!  I’m not joking when I say top shelf because I had tins of the highest grades of Hoshino matcha such as the cloud floating Houju (and then imagine that experience amplified). It was glorious indeed…

I so drank through all my top matcha and was left to re-order when I noticed something super strange…. First thing is that it was very difficult to track down my fav brand of matcha Hoshino… Second the price of replacement of Houju was hundreds of dollars more per tin!?!?!?

In my digging I found an explanation on no other that Jagasilks website!  There was indeed a matcha shortage that has been going on since last year and dealing havoc on the price of matcha!  But I also discovered that Jagasilk has evolved quite a bit since their offering of exclusively Harimen estate matcha. This was their whole brand for the first many years (see here and here and here and here!) but now they were doing so much more! The next posts are on Miyuki and Jarred at Jagasilk’s latest offerings.  They were honestly the first people in the North America as far as I knew that we talking about single estate and freshly in-house ground matcha and 30 years later they are still doing it…. Amazing.

Anyways, my taste for puerh did in-fact return but not before really loving and falling into a daily morning matcha ceremony.  Only a few times a week have I been afternoon steeping puerh at work.  I have been appreciating it more because you never know how good you have it until it’s gone!

I’m back! 

Peace

2025 Puerh.uk TianMenShan Extra Tall Ancient

 

This 2025 Puerh.uk Tianmenshan Extra Tall Ancient is not listed on the site…. 

Dry leaves have a sweet peach and penetrating candy odour…

First infusion has sweet sugar and candy watery taste with a soft chalky mouthfeel. Cooled down it has a spice pungent onset with a stronger sugar icing sugar sweet return that stays for quite a while.

Second infusion has a sweet and spice pungent onset very delicious and pure.  Sweet layers that finish in a strong sweet icing sugar with layered pungent and forest taste and sticky mouthfeel.

Third infusion has a floral sweet pungent buttery sugary sweet taste.  Oily sticky texture.  Soft feeling in the body and mind.

Fourth infusion has a slight bittersweetness pungent forest woody fruity icing sugars. Sticky mouthfeel.  More present mouthfeel with sticky roof tongue and sides.  Mild peaceful feeling.

5th is left to cool and is a bitter sweet fruity pungent forest onset that evolves into very sweet icing sugary with banana and fruity layers.  Mild Spacy mind relaxing.  Mild heavy jaw feeling and face heavy feeling.  Chest slight heavy as well.

6th has a bitter sweet onset with pungent forest but mainly layered sweet tastes and even some woody.  Qi builds up and biggest in the chest with stronger beats now and stronger deeper sighs of relaxing and more face Qi is evident.

7th is left to cool and is a bitter mainly sweet fruity that transforms to icing sugary layers woody.  Qi in chest and face and jaw deeper relaxing mild and deep.

8th is an overnight mug infusion and it is a sweet ashy oily with long sweet fruity almost papaya and sugar.  Oily viscus sweet smooth thick and sweet with deeper relaxing feeling and some face sensations.

Peace

2025 Puerh.uk BoHeTang Laos Exrta Tall Ancient Trees

 

This 2025 Puerh.uk BoHetang Laos Extra Tall Ancient Trees goes for $380.00 for 200g cake or $1.90/g.  ( edit to correct pice Sept 26/2025).  It was my favorite of the sampling with its cozy feeling Qi and delicious taste…

Dry leaves have a sweet floral slight barnyard gamey creamy candy purfume.  Smells very delicious to me…

First infusion has a watery sweet and slight barnyard forestry taste with very wet mouthfeel and saliva producing effects.  Candy faint breath.

Second infusion is a forestry faint barnyard sweet taste forest with very wet mouthfeel and slight sticky sandy on the roof of mouth. Face sweating and warming feeling.  Spacy feeling.

Third infusion has a spice barnyard sweet taste with stronger warming face and body. Cooled down it is a sweet banana creamy sweet tropical soft slippery feeling.  Warming and deeply relaxing almost slightly or mildly hypnotic.

Fourth has a creamy tropical sweet slippery creamy almost banana with warming face and body qi very chill feeling sort of forest bland taste left in the mouth.  Warming coming feeling and relaxing chill out vibes.

5th infusion is a forestry blandly sweet with a cozy warming relaxing by the fire feeling.  Chest warming face warming.  Spaced out feeling.

6th has a slight sweet creamy banana almost tropical bland with Space out cozy warming feeling.

7th is cooled down and is a wet not that sweet forestry with warming cozy spacy feeling.

8th is an overnight mug infusion… and has nuances of barnyard and deeper forestry pungent layers.  Smooth Austere and mysterious in its depth.  A strong bring sweetness emerges which pops a while later and stays long in the mouth.  Candy peachy fruity sugar.  It stays in the oily saliva for minutes later… so yummy!

Peace

2025 Puerh.uk ManZhuan WaLong

This was the first sample of Puerh.uk 2025 puerh I tried and it was maybe my favourite or second favorite of the lot.  This 2025 Puerh.uk ManZhuan WaLong Pure Ancient Trees goes for approx $300.00 for 200g cake or $1.50/g.

This is the first sample I tried in Puerh.uk 2025 productions.

Dry leaves smell of pure ethereal candy … very sweet….

Rinsed leaves are a sweet fresh tropical candy sweet forest!

First infusion has a watery smooth sweet subtle candy wash and fade out on the breath.   chest swelling peaceful high with mild energy rising… visual acuity improved… mood uplift… cooled down is more forestry almost barnyard pungent.

Second infusion is left to cool it is a smooth pungent barnyard with a wet tongue coating and uplifting energy chest swelling and happy uplifting with mind sharp and visual acuity laser.  There is a wonderful conflicting feeling of there being strong energy boost and chesty expansion with a sharp focusing peace with no astringency nor bitterness.

Third infusion has a wet mouth onset with soft flavours slight woody slight pungent slight sweet with a mouthwatering effect and powerful Qi mind and bodyfeeling! Big deep energy boost with laser focused eyes and mind chest expanding face tingling. Wow this is really really good ManZhuan WaLong!

Fourth is left to cool and is a pungent barnyard sweet taste with a wet and slight sticky chalky mouthfeel.  Big chest swelling and energy boosting and eyes mind sharpening with face tingles! So good.  Big energy expansion feeling but yet the mind remains razor- laser sharp.

5th is left to cool and is a wet mouth with pungent cooling forest woody lesser sweet taste but chalky sticky feeling and big deep energy boost. Big chesty feeling and energy uplifting.

6th has a woody bland forest taste.  Still some uplifting but less bland woody mouthfinish and sticky mild mouthfeel.  

7th is an overnight mug infusion… it is mild sweet oily with a bit on the edges of sticky mild bitter woody forest pucker.  Mild lingering sweet fruity taste. Chest expanding and energetic uplift with mild almost apricot sugar that lingers on the saliva minutes later.

Peace

2025 Puerh.uk Line Up Release!

 Okay last year Puerh.uk started to release their very own fresh puerh!  It really offered me a very nuanced Gushu puerh experience with each production really offering a very high quality product… I enjoyed some of the free samples sent for review more than others as a matter of preference but taken together they took me through quite a journey… the Puerh.uk 2024 puerh is all really comfortable in the body and mind and most of it is more on the, dare I say, ethereal end of the spectrum instead of having very grounded in the classic tastes and feels of a particular production area.  I loved the journey last year.

This year Puerh.uk sent me another batch of free samples for review of their recently released 2025 line up.  I’ve just tried two so far but they seem ever better than last years.  It’s always awesome when Puerh vendors I frequent strive for better year after year and it seems like that’s happening with Puerh.uk.

Join me in the next posts as I engulf the ethereal and beyond!

Peace

Hoshino White Tea Powdered “Matcha Platinum”

This is a unique production from Hoshino in Yame it goes for $45 for 20g tin at Cultivate Tea they call it “Matcha Platinum”.  It’s one I’ve heard about before yet never tried so I was really excited about this matcha made from a white tea varietal.

Powder has a roasted sweet almonds and slight floral background overall sweet smell. 

Sweet with nut shell bitterness that moves fast to a chalky sweet finish.  More chalky sweet tastes.

Nice focus high Qi mind.

Peace