I recently got a slew of new teas in the mail, and had some comments
and questions about them. For some background, my ordinary drink of
choice is tieguanyin and its cousins in Taiwan. Typically I load up on
these while actually in Taiwan or China, where I usually find myself
once a year. However this year does not look good for travel, and I'm
running a little low, and I felt like I might be missing something, so
I branched out and got some non-tieguanyin oolongs from Silk Road and
Seven Cups.

The lapsang souchong from Seven Cups is great, smoky and delicate, but
then I knew it would be. It's also a great tea for offering to people
who are habitual coffee drinkers and think that drinking tea without
milk in it is weird (like my wife). I would appreciate any other
suggestions for high-grade LS available on the internet.

Silk Road's Fenghuang Dancong has a very distinct taste that I
recognize from Hong Kong restaurants and from off-the-shelf bottled
oolong, both in Taiwan and China. I don't think it's what Ito En uses,
but I'm not sure because I haven't had oolong out of a bottle (except
mixed with Johnnie Walker) in a while. It's got a very oily mouthfeel
and nice roundness, but none of the fragrance or complexity of flavor
that I get from the tieguanyin. I'm inclined to dismiss it completely,
given my across-the-board preference for Fujian over Guangdong.

The Seven Cups Da Hong Pao is very interesting, but I have only had it
three times and so don't want to make any pronouncements. I had a
really hard time adjusting the steeping time etc so that the orange
color would 'pop' but finally hit it by using more leaves and a shorter
(45 second) steeping time. Any guidance on technique would really be
appreciated.

I also ordered Hairy Crab from Silk Road. I suppose I was intrigued by
SR's website's mention of an unusual varietal, and by a long, pleasant
conversation with Ned (the SR guy). Unfortunately - and again, I've
only had it twice, so maybe I just need to apply myself - I just can't
seem to get anything out of this tea. It looks like oolong but tastes
kind of flat and wet. Does anyone have any tips on this? Any Hairy
Crab fans out there?

Thanks, and hope everyone has a nice weekend!