I’m totally late with the White2tea Club December edition. Now that the holidays are over and the relatives have flown home, I finally have time to myself to drink tea by myself. No Dad lurking around with his smelly instant coffee. On the upside, my father put a dent in my spiced tea collection.

I was super excited to see the offerings for this month – 2008 Often, a 250 gram sheng/raw puerh tuo with sweet wrapper artwork and a 25 gram sample of Barb’s Breakfast Black.

The teas were part of a “Work Horse” theme for the month of December, a great theme for this month as I worked my butt off during the holidays! Right off the bat I realized this month was a decent deal to be a part of this tea of the month club – 2008 Often is $22.50. The full size of Barb’s Breakfast Black is $15.50, so I got $7.75 worth. With that said, I got free shipping ($14.99) on teas I wanted anyway. There was NO WAY I’d pass up on 2008 Often!

I was able to sample Barb’s Breakfast black right away, but it took a few weeks before I could try 2008 Often.

White2Tea Club’s Barb’s Breakfast Black

The leaf on Barb’s Breakfast Black is fuzzy and gorgeous!

A secret of mine – I enjoy teas that I can oversteep the living jeebus out of. I don’t do my oversteeped guilty pleasure often as I also like steeping tea by the book. Some times when I’m on the go or working on long projects I like a tea that can take my beatings. Barb’s breakfast black was able to withstand Oolong Owl tea thermos abuse. I steeped the grapey scented black tea for like 45 minutes and it was rich, robust, thick, fruity sweet without being dry and awful from being oversteeped. Barb’s Breakfast Black was also good gong fu style, providing a lighter, but just as rich and fruity tea experience – a great black tea that all black tea lovers would enjoy regardless how they steep it.

White2Tea Club’s 2008 Often Sheng/Raw Puerh

OMG YES show time! I’m sucha retro video game nerd so I love the art work on the 2008 Often wrapper as it looks like a fav video game from my youth. I rubbed my thumbs raw playing River City Ransom back in the day – my favorite upgrade was the combat boots for curb stomping fun. Awhile back, I pitched in for the River City Ransom sequel kickstarter.



2008 Often has a nice dry grassy scent. There was a serious Tea Owl discussion on how impressive of a crater was in this puerh cake, and whether the ribbon could be worn.

I’ve been so yolo with my shengs, so I used boiling water. I did quick 5 second steepings to start after a fast rinse of the leaves. The tea steeps up a pretty clear golden orange color with a smokey peach scent.

Early infusions, 2008 Often sips in smooth and sweet. Then I totally spilled an entire cup down myself, not to mention I missed the tea filter while pouring the gaiwan (by like 3 mm) and got leaves in the pitcher.

The flavor is like amber incense – twists of amber perfume, bit of charred smoke (very slight, 1/10 on the Smoke Meter). The texture is super seductively silky, which is a great contrast with the wild, strong and punchy flavor.

With the early infusions, I would of pegged this tea for something more sexy of a puerh wrapper, maybe inspired from this:

This is why I shouldn’t be a tea seller, my puerh will be wrapped with owls and butts on them. I get pretty weird when tea drunk.

The mid steepings of 2008 Often were pretty dry, 5/10 on the Astrigent Meter, so I was sporting some squirrelly dry cheeks. At around the fifth infusion the puerh was starting to chill out. The seventh to thirteeth infusion of 2008 Often were my favorite – smooth, wet leaf, sweet pear, crisp, gentle, amber, mineral and a light floral (kinda jasmine) aftertaste. The final infusions were creamy milky. Fantastic!

2008 Often is button mashing addictive, seductively retro and a great everyday raw puerh for someone that likes something a little floral or for a green/ oolong drinker wanting to try raw puerh. The price point for this sheng is also very nice! I found 200 Often easy to drink and has a great resteep ability. 2008 Often is on the dry side so if you are not used to dry tea it might not be for you.

Comments

White2Teas Club for December was awesome! I can’t wait for January’s offerings, which should be arriving any day now. I’ve been very happy about the first two months of the White2Tea Club so I think I’ll be sticking around for awhile even though I got so much tea! If you are a puerh, oolong and black tea lover and want some awesome quality tea, I highly recommend White2Tea tea of the month club!

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