Simple Shou by Crimson Lotus Tea

Hello hello!

Crimson Lotus Tea released two teas called ‘Simple Sheng’ and ‘Simple Shou’. I reviewed Simple Sheng a little over a week ago, and this week, we’ll be going over Simple Shou. Simple Shou is marketed by Crimson Lotus Tea as a ‘fantastic’ first shou puer. While Simple Sheng was great for what it was and consisted of higher quality material, it was also intended as a ‘first sheng puer’. So how does Simple Shou hold up compared to Simple Sheng? Let's find out!

Steeps 1 - 4

For this session, I used 4g of tea in a 60ml gaiwan and used water heated to a temperature of 185ºf. Anyhow, Simple Shou first started off with the base of earthy tasting notes along with tree bark — which left a faint sweetness on the tongue. After a few more steeps, Simple Shou kept opening up and became increasingly smooth.

Steeps 5 - 8

Simple Shou kept opening up to the earthy tasting notes of bark, which got thicker and heavier. The taste of dirt grew more predominant, as the liquor became richer by the steep. Towards the end of the seventh-eighth steep, Simple Shou’s faint sweetness disappeared behind the earthiness.

Steeps 9 - 12

Simple Shou began to settle down as the notes of bark and earth began to mellow out. The faint sweetness that disappeared seemed to reappear as this tea became lighter and smoother. For the rest of this session, Simple shou became lighter and lighter with each steep, which was relaxing and meditative. By steep twelve, this tea was finished and it was time to move on…

Conclusion

Simple Shou is a shou puer released by Crimson Lotus Tea that is marketed as a ‘fantastic’ first shou puer. First off, Simple Shou started off very faint, then became rich and powerful. Second, Simple Shou was really easy to drink and was very forgiving if over steeped. One thing I liked about Simple Shou is that it was easy to break apart and didn’t create much tea dust. Another thing I liked about Simple Shou is that it was easy to relax by. However, this tea still tasted a bit humid from pressing and could benefit from resting for a little bit longer.

Overall, Simple Shou has a very traditional, yet clean, shou taste. Crimson Lotus Tea did exactly what they set out to do, by providing a tea that’s easy to drink, yet tasty at the same time. I would highly recommend this tea to someone who is brand new to shou, because although it had a very traditional shou taste, it wasn’t aggressive and didn’t have any funkiness to it. Hopefully, if you’re thinking about venturing out and trying shou, you will find this is an easy one to start out with…