RARE blind date sample pack

This post will follow my days with blind samples, hidden in this RARE “Blind Date” sample pack.

The numbers I use here simply label the sequence in which I chose the samples on each day—they do not correspond to the actual sample numbers in the pack.

My only advantage is that I know which teas are included in the pack—14 different kinds. Now, all the samples are “blinded” for me. Since I recognize the shape of some leaves, I try to pour them directly from the pack into the pot without looking.

(1)The brew appears dark, and the first sip shows aging tones—perhaps Jinghong storage. A light Qi spreads through the body: smooth, round, and sweet. There is a unique, mineral-like sweetness. The Qi is working nicely today; it’s the new moon, so all the senses feel sharp and perceptive.

There’s a pleasant touch of smokiness, reminding me of rural processing. A hint of liqueur as well. It’s a very good tea, and since I don’t know exactly what it is—I love this game. I even sense some similarities with the Big Green Tree Yiwu 2011, but as I know that tea isn’t in the sample set, it cannot be that. Still, it could well be Yiwu.

What a lovely sweetness in the 4th brew. I tend toward longer brews; this tea isn’t fresh and leans more toward a 10-year storage profile, so 1–2 minutes won’t harm it. A sticky, sweet, oily mouthfeel. The smokiness remains and is still enjoyable—modern puerh teas rarely have this anymore. Some people like it; others miss it.

The tea has a strong, energizing body feel—stronger than what I remember from the tea I think it might be. It reminds me of the day I blind-tasted about ten aged tea samples from Taiwan—the feeling of drinking something “unknown” completely changes the overall perception. This is a very good semi-aged rural Yiwu tea.

I won’t write my guess here—only on the packet—so you won’t be influenced.

(2)A delicate, sweet taste in the first brew. The aromas are overwhelming. This is a fresh tea—this spring, I would say. There are several similar samples in the pack, so it becomes a guessing game for me. Better to continue brewing and let the tea speak. I realized I’ve been focusing more on the name of the tea than on the tea itself, so I’ll try to correct my focus.

Honey sweetness with a floral note—sticky, Yiwu-like—with a very pure mouthfeel. The aftertaste is not extremely strong, yet it lingers for a long time, almost as if the tea had just been swallowed. An energizing effect spreads through the body. So sweet, so good. I would call this a floral sweetness. There is no flaw in this tea. All the taste buds are blasted by this heavenly feeling as the tea soup bathes them.

The tea soup becomes thinner now—perhaps the brew was longer—but the impeccable flavour profile remains. After swallowing and exhaling through the nostrils, the scents are beautiful. The flavours in the “lazy drops” are very intense and unique.

Doing a long brew after six steeps doesn’t harm this tea at all; instead, it reveals its quality and hints at its aging potential.

(3)When you think you know a tea from the first sip—bitter and sour fruity notes—within seconds they turn into sweetness. The bitter–sour sensation transforms into a kind of fruity acidity, so good. There’s a lovely sweet woody note, or rather a breeze of kernel-like nuttiness. Uhhh. Three cups can create such an expanded experience of a single tea. Here, the reference porcelain cup by Wenchiaolin comes first, then Jiri Duchek’s kuan cup, and somehow both of these—and more—are contained within the Ming porcelain cup by Teo.

The more I drink this tea, the more I understand why it is so expensive. You drink it and become speechless. You experience the tea and have no doubts—only pure pleasure. I believe we remember the flavour itself better than the idea of the flavour, the label of the flavour in our mind. Tea is a set of flavours, fragrances, and feelings.

Now the tea moves into pure sweetness—very different from Yiwu sweetness. It is more distinctive, more unique, like eating an entirely different fruit. The Ming porcelain cup is not as “sweet,” and it gives a small “lump” of bitter–sour intensity. Still, the last drops from Wen’s porcelain cup, once the tea soup cools down, are excellent. Drinking tea that is too hot is no good—and too cold isn’t either.

It seems the cups are competing: some brews are won by Wen’s cup, and other times by the other two.

(4)This tea is something. The first long brew—about 90 seconds, with 5.5 grams in 100 ml—produces a very rich tea soup: great depth, strong viscosity, and a powerful mouthfeel, everything you would expect from a rare tea. Is it one? No idea at the moment, but the pure feeling alone is enough.

There is a penetrating bitterness—sharp, precise, a single point—that at its core is sweet. So good. Nutty, minty, herbal. Time stops, and the moment lingers in the air. Oily, thick, and only one tea comes to mind as a possible match. But the tea is so intense, so good, that even recalling my guess feels overshadowed by the present moment. Why is that? It’s like drinking tea with a label: once the name is there, all the associations appear, and the pure sensory feeling falls into second place.

There are unique baked notes with a bitter undertone—minty, perhaps?—and this particular herbal bitterness is very tasty.

(5)Old, aged, fermented—the first brew feels like a “fermentation layer” brew. The tip of my tongue vibrates lightly. With the second brew, true fermentation notes appear, coming directly from the leaves, with an oldish finish as if at least 15 years had passed. There is a sour, slightly bitter edge that leaves a herbal, almost medicinal sensation.

The third brew peels off another layer of age and reveals a true gem of old tea-tree puerh—something pure and full of flavour, almost burning in my mouth with energy, drawing my mind deeper into the present moment. Generally, like most people, I prefer fresh teas, and the older ones enter my focus more slowly. But this autumn morning, with its cloudy sky—dim rather than bright—the tea brings a certain warmth into the room. It takes time to crave old tea, but once again, as I’ve mentioned before, the label is missing. Still, I am quite sure about this tea’s origin. Without a label, the attention naturally returns to the tea itself and the feelings it gives—comfortable, pleasant, soothing, warm.

As the tea soup cools, a good deal of minerality emerges. Around the 6th–7th brew comes “the cream” of the tea. Once cooled to body temperature, it is like eating a diamond, even though I drink it. This is the secret of aging—puerh tea in its higher form of enjoyment.

(6) sweet without bitterness, rather thinner tea soup, just found out that yesterday guess was the same as my first day so I had to correct it, now the real fun beggins when the 14 samples getting less, what a nice fuitiness, not overipe but rather fresh just good enough to eat, a bit of sharp acidity that continues with sourness and fruity finish, the tea leaves open more slowly as I heard rutling the tea leaves once pouring into the teapot. Also the first two brews were thinner due to this. The third steep finally is fuller, thicker and it does not seem so fresh any more. The is this higher grade minerality feel, almost like salty, not many teas has this. A very unique wild forest exotic woods notes don’t get these often even in gushu teas. With these further brews, once the tea leaves are open, more overripe fruits notes come up. In later steep I felt an unique flavour typical for this mountain, let’s see at the end if I was right. 

(7) light first brew, sweetish, freshy, with notes minerality, no bitterness and just tea, a notes of apricot in the aftertaste, second is very similar to the first one with a bit thicker lemonade like drink, it is rather apricot_nade,  this tea has already started its fermentation journey, so it is felt in the further brews, more like sweet baked cakes notes, more bitterness comes up and the soup is thicker,  Yiwu character flavour profile, prevelant sweet notes, the real flavour peak with Yiwu teas around 6,7th brew and then as this one keeps it for several brews, it is interesting the 3rd brew went into fermentation notes as if this tea would be older but from 4th or so brew clearly show fruity freshness, not the haze of new maocha, but rather ‘happy’ notes of fresh fruits,  

(8)“Abundant taste and rich flavour—oily with the first, longer brew; rounded and still not too bitter. A very tasty, full-flavoured soup. The strong tea liquor continues through all the brews relentlessly. Spring-fresh notes from this year’s harvest have transformed into a warm, heavy, juicy feeling, as if following nature’s autumn pattern. The tea leaves are very nutritious.”

(9)A fresh start, a fresh new day. A pleasant acidity and the clear freshness of spring. Sweet mineral flavours and a crystal-pure feeling in the tea soup. The aroma is strong, and even the aftertaste carries this refined, pure quality. The brew is mild and light. Is this the end? No—the last sip from the tall cup, with its massive, instant aftertaste, tells me I drank the earlier cups too mindlessly. Or is the tea playing hide and seek?

The aromatics are beautiful—very interesting, with a perfectly balanced tasting profile. I find myself confused: what is this tea? Why do I want to know? Would it not be better to simply enjoy it? Is the name really so important? Perhaps it doesn’t matter—just put a question mark on the packet and a note: “I want this tea.”

It’s interesting how this tea needs to cool down to body temperature before it becomes… uhh, something amazing. A distinct herbal aftertaste, lightly cooling, with long stamina across the brews. They all seem to have the same intensity. The cooler the cup, the more flavours pop out.

(10)The first two brews were rather rustic, with a village-like processing style, or perhaps the storage felt Jinghong-like. Then the sweetness in the third brew completely changed my view of this tea. Still, when the brew cools down, the earlier roughness remains—or it might simply be the strength of the brew. The body feeling is overpowering, with a mouth-coating bitterness that dominates the other flavours. This tea has a strong energy indeed.

I was wrong about the Jinghong storage; it was just the initial opening of this fresh tea. I suspected all along that the brew seemed too light in colour, not dark enough—it is a spring tea from this year. This is the “black Peter” card in these 14 samples; it is not a Yunnanese tea. The very last sip is full of minerality. I think I’ll brew it once more…

(11) A lightly coloured tea soup in the first brew gives a pure feeling of the tea—fresh or older, hard to say from the first infusion alone. The flavour profile is very unrefined, with a distinct bitter note appearing in the background. It seems to be an unusual tea, remaining rather restrained and light during the first two brews. The third brew is good, though not outstanding, but after drinking it I close my eyes for a short meditation, and the flavours begin to show on my palate in the form of an aftertaste—amazing. This makes it clear that if I don’t pay attention to the aftertaste and simply drink the cup, I miss the main show of this fantastic tea.
I would call this tea noble—one for a noble palate. It feels feminine, suited to a sensitive and meditative person. Melon-seed notes appear in the sixth brew. Indeed, this is probably a Yiwu tea that needs more steeps to truly shine. It becomes so beautiful as the flavours grow more pronounced. I wanted to move on to something else already, but teas like this require more time—at least half an hour.
From the seventh brew onward, the liquor becomes thick, which might prove that these leaves are thick, slow-grown, old-tree material. When brewed stronger, some additional notes appear—slightly urinous, deep-forest, very strong aromas. A strong Qi vibrates at the tip of the tongue. Ohh, this close-to-tenth brew is absolutely delicious, full of sweet notes. What is this tea, then? I already have a guess which one it might be. In any case, it is a great tea, and I am super excited to reach the end of this sample list and finally see the real names of the teas.

(12) Ohh, this tea is very strong right from the start, urine-like, deep forest notes. I was doubting the age of this tea; something told me it wasn’t more than five years old. Still, in the end I couldn’t resist checking the name, and I found out I was wrong. I had already calculated what was missing from the eleven teas I’d tasted, so clearly my analytical thinking isn’t of much use here and only pushes me toward technical conclusions rather than intuition, so my intial guess was at least right.

At the beginning, the tea was so strong that I even switched teapots, from zini to hongni, just to check the influence of the clay. There was some difference, but the tea itself is so dense and thick that it would probably shine more with shorter brews—of course depending on the leaf-to-water ratio.

Later infusions revealed a more refined, detailed picture: flavors more defined, the character more rounded, its once-sharp edges polished by its five years of aging. There’s a great deal of minerality and a long-lasting, tasty aftertaste. Some Qi vibration, too—a good portion of calm energy for this quiet autumn morning.

(13) old tea but not that old after taking a first sip or two, savouring and letting the flavours develop in my mouth, intense flavours or rather notes are coming to live, a sticky aftertaste is a flavour that is almost sticky on your palate with rich ingredients, sweet and savoury, a very good aging I would say, I would call it rather maturing of tea, a very high minerality, so good, the intensity of this tea is also strenghten by the today’s fool moon when all is more amplified, a sweetness with later brews is also sticky, it is like from eating food, it is interesting that I felt storage notes, rather generic good chinesse one in the tea only in about 8-9th brew, a very tasty maturing notes I would say again, 

(14) ohh man, what is this, so sweet, so fragrant, so good, just excalarating the process having the last sample after the previous one at a same day, no bitterness only pure cooling sweetness, almost floral feel with honey notes, so fresh so tasty, I can’t say anything but the last sample the first brew completely overhelms me, I simply give in, this tea is great whatever it is and that is the purpose of this blind tasting, let’s enjoy the teas, soft and caring, just a right amount of sweetness with light freshness of the spring, the aftertaste and its sweetness is like eating a home made Sunday cake, 

YES! I am finished and NO for my guesses. Out of 14 I was right with 2 teas only and it was not Lao Banzhang neither MaoErDuo. It is interesting that LBZ I mistaken for Rare5 ’25 and Rare5 ’25 vice versa for LBZ. 

Lessons learned:

Rare5 ’23 mistaken for MaErDuo ’25, I never thought or sensed this Rare5 so superb, I have to retaste it and correct my mindset for this tea. When drinking MaoErDuo blind date sample I was perplexed and it was the one of the few or maybe only one tea I could not decide what it was. 

Yiwu Gaoshan 2015 I mistaken for Rare5 gaogan ’21. This is for me once again a mystery. I always felt that the Gaoshan (Jinghong stored) was an exceptional tea but this high I would never put it.