216 Tasting Notes
Harney & Sons, you are letting me down! I had such high hopes of this tea, but so far I have only mediocre results.
The first time I tried brewing this, I used their directions (brew in hot water, remove tea, add cold water) and got a cloudy, weak tea with very little taste either of tea or pomegranate. The second time I cold-brewed it and got a much better tea that had an odd fermented-ish aftertaste that was mostly covered by adding sugar. Normally I go through a jug of iced tea in a day or two, but this one sat through several days of me taking a small glass, going “huh”, and taking another glass of something else.
My second sample from JK Tea Shop!
This one smells fabulous, all toasty and rich, but I have yet to make the taste live up to that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice tea, but it smells like it could be so much better! The first time I definitely used too little leaf — I was expecting it to unroll the way ball oolong does, but the twisty leaves here didn’t expand as dramatically. (They’re lovely, though! Again, sorry for the lack of photos this time.) For my second tasting I used a lot more and got a much bolder taste, but still not quite what I was expecting from the scent. Next time I think I’ll try a longer steeping time. Fortunately this “sampler” is quite generous and I have a lot of tea to experiment with!
Preparation
Mmmm…I love roasted oolongs.
I purchased this sample and I agree w/your comments. Overally, this is a mild tea and I was expecting a bolder flavor. I will experiment again. SoccerMom sent me a sample of DaHong Pao from Silk Roads and it was a more flavorable option..But then again, this could be my steeping parameters…
I really do need to go back and try this one again, don’t I? I have high hopes!
Me too! I also purchased samples of JKTeashop’s yunnan black teas- they were also mild..
With heavily roasted tea, such as wu yi or other rock oolongs, i suggest a pre-wash for 30 sec, drain, rest one minute or more, then start steeping what you will drink. That should help those toughened-up leaves to relax and release their essence a bit sooner. I’m not too keen on the roasted flavor, so sometimes i throw out the first steep, as well. Later steeps develop fruity, nutty flavors which please me more. Happy drinking! :)
My third pu-erh from Angrboda! This one is different in two ways: it’s a green tea in type and it’s a toucha in shape.
The toucha part was really fun, actually, watching it slowly unravel. (Sadly, I didn’t get any pictures.) And it takes the guesswork out of how much tea to add!
Weirdly, this green pu-erh tasted much more like black tea than the regular pu-erh did! It was a nice sort of bracing black tea, like an Assam, maybe. Then I think I oversteeped it and it became dangerously bitter until I added a lump of sugar.
Enjoyable! I think I still like that very first pu-erh best so far, though….
Preparation
Cait, excuse my confusion, but how can a tea be both a pu erh and a green tea at the same time…? Do you mean its a green (also called raw or sheng) pu erh?
I think that’s what I mean! I’m still figuring out the pu-erh (does it have a hyphen?) terminology.
Eh. There are different ways to pronounce it so I’m not surprised there are different ways to spell (or punctuate) it.
cofftea, no clue. thjat’s what the company called it. i don’t really get the dinstinctions between piu-erh types, but from what i gather i think maybe they just made the pu-erhj based on a green tea,
caitm, i’m so glad yoiu liked thjis one. iw wasn’t really a fan so i have ti admit i took yuor pu-erh sampling reqiuest as an opportinuty to get rid of it,.
(argh stupid finger-! i hioe you can bioth decipher this!)
Finished this off as iced tea, mixed with Green Yerba Mate:
http://steepster.com/teas/the-tea-table/11398-green-yerba-mate?post=38365
Cold-brewed for iced tea: two parts of this to one part Georgia Sunshine (http://steepster.com/teas/teasource/8838-georgia-sunshine). It tastes a lot like the straight-up Georgia Sunshine, very peach-y, but with more of a grassiness thrown in. There’s a bit of a bitter aftertaste, though.
