Little O by White2Tea

Hello hello!

White2Tea released a small selection of shou puer with their 2017 fall productions. Two of these teas are called Little O and Big O - which are both a shou puer mixed with orange peel. This kind of shou puer is a kind of puer called ‘Chenpi’, and comes in two different sizes. The ‘Little O’ is a mini tea coin thats anywhere from 6g-8g, and the ‘Big O’ is a larger tea cake that’s 200g in size. However, for me, I like the convenience of having the coin-sized shape because it easily fits into my vessel, so I ordered twenty of the Little O’s and have been making my way through them. So how exactly does this tea taste? Was it worth buying 20 of them? Lets find out!

Water Temperature - Boil

Dimensions - 6.6 coil for a 100ml vessel

Beeng Price - $1.25/$29.00

Number of Steeps - 12

Steeps 1 - 6

For previous sessions with Little O, the coin took a while to break apart since it’s so compressed, however for this session, I broke it into smaller pieces so it would brew faster. Anyways, at first, Little O gave off the tasting notes of Earth with a light dirt-like aftertaste. After a few more steeps, this tea became increasingly smooth as it began to leave an undertone of citrus zest on the tongue. By the fifth and sixth infusion, this tea turned almost pitch black in color, as its strength went skyrocketed through the roof.

Steeps 7 - 12

By the 7th infusion, this tea’s strength began to lighten up — almost just as fast as it came on. The taste of compost and dirt began to lighten up a bit as a light sweetness came out. By the eighth infusion, the light-zest undertone from earlier began to resemble orange peel very heavily. By the tenth infusion, the shou was nearly running out of fuel, but the taste of orange kept persisting. By the last infusion, any remnants of the the shou were gone except for the taste of sweet orange peel. It was time to put this session away, and have another go another time…

Conclusion

Little O first started out very earthy in taste. However, the longer Little O steeped for, the more it tasted like sweet orange peel. In fact, by the last infusion, the taste of orange peel was still going strong even though the tea leaves we’re spent. One thing I liked about this tea is its complexity, and the fact its taste and texture kept changing throughout the session. Another thing I liked about this tea is its sweet notes of orange peel. Although the notes of sweet orange peel were strong, they were relaxing and gave this tea a wonderful aftertaste.

Overall, I’d recommend this tea to people who like shou or flavored teas in general. This tea is very easy to brew and was tasty, even when over steeped. To recap my earlier question, was I correct to order 20 Little O’s? I think I was correct to purchase 20 Little O’s in my last White2Tea order, and in the future, will continue to add more to my shopping cart…