The first impression of the brewed tea is a strong sense that I am wearing spinach perfume. I’m not put off. There’s a company that makes odd perfumes: Demeter Fragrances: http://www.demeterfragrance.com/
They are novelty odors and don’t have much staying power. I consult their web site to see if they have spinach perfume. No, but if you are interested in wafting of celery, dregs, earthworm, tarnish, vinyl, or waffles, that’s the perfume company for you.
The tea is still hot and tastes like really rich spinach water. As it cools, however, more flavors are starting to emerge. It’s as if someone unleashed some fruit and flowers into the spinach brew. And yes, it’s like butter.
Does anyone remember “Coffee Talk with Linda Richman” on SNL? She thought that Barbra Streisand was just like “buttah” and so is this tea. It’s a deep golden brew of buttery spinach with a touch of flower and little slice on honeydew on the side.
I’m liking this and looking forward to the second steep. I hope that nobody is put off by my description of “spinach” tea because I really do think that the taste has got something of ineffable sublimity to it and I have not found the words to describe it adequately.
SECOND STEEPING: What a difference! I steeped this for 2 mins and 30 seconds and should have left it at 2 minutes. It’s slightly oversteeped. The spinach aroma and taste have disappeared almost entirely—just fleeting little returns are present. Aside from the slight overbrewing (a lesson to learn: green teas are more sensitive than the ever vigilant infant who suspects his or her parents have fallen asleep and hence must shout inconsolably) this is a very light floral experience. Orchid? I cannot quite pin it down. I don’t recognize it from any of my perfumes. It’s subtle but excellent.
THIRD STEEPING: The cost of this tea has become eminently reasonable when I consider that I can get three very good cups from it. The third steeping was less rich and deep and tasted more like a generic vegetal green tea that was somehow buttered. I also added a tiny bit of brown sugar and that was nice—the natural sweetness of the tea does not require any additions, but I wanted to experiment. It still felt like a full brew but less distinctively unique. Third cup remains most certainly satisfying and rich; did not have any hint of being “water down” in any way.
