(this is a tea review, but it's important to note that am a lumber slut personally as well)
the tea in question: 2019 Lumber Balls, the mini form of their Lumber Slut blend
white2tea's description of this blend:
If you dislike the idea of licking wood and rolling around on the damp forest floor, turn back now.
Lumber Slut is not the most approachable ripe Puer tea. Blended to favor the dense flavors of petrichor, this style of ripe Puer is focused on unfolding as a woody experience with notes of camphor and lower umber toned tastes. Will benefit from further aging, but if you're down for what this tea is offering, we suspect you can drink it straight away without flinching.
This is everything I want from both tea and whisky, so let's go.
From my three cups of tea so far (one of which was brewed with cold water because someone forgot to check if the kettle was on, oops), that description is spot-on. This tea smells/tastes like the inside of a hot cedar sauna, a mossy damp woodpile half-buried in leaves, the spicy scent of split cypress, a handful of coniferous forest duff held up to your nose. Drinking this tea is simultaneously hiking in a drippy Pacific Northwest rainforest in November and warming up afterwards in front of a cast iron wood stove while you listen to the rain on the roof. It is standing on a rocky outcrop with madrones and Douglas firs at your back, watching the waves crash below you while the wind whips your face.
This tea does not have flavors, this tea has experiences. I am head over heels.
