Jillian

Drinking this with skim and honey this morning. You can read my past tasting notes to see what I think of this tea.

The stuff in the mesh pyramid teabag looks interesting; I can see bits of citrus peel in addition to the lemongrass, what looks like some calendula petals, and other bits and pieces – in addtion to the green tea. It smells primarily of green tea and lemongrass and I’m not picking up anything I might identify as cucumber, but what does dried cucumber smell like anyway?

The steeping parameters raised my eyebrows – 4-5 min at 95 ºC – for a tea with (supposedly) sencha in it. So I backed off the temperature a good 10 degrees which might have been a mistake since the resulting tea was disappointingly weak. It mostly tastes like a lemongrass infusion with a few other vague herbally things mixed in. I’ll lay off rating this tea until I give it another go follwing the steeping instructions more closely.

I tried a more traditional approach to brewing my Gyokuro this time – 60ºC water, warmed mug, double the amount normally used, less steeping time, etc. And the funny thing is that I think I liked it better last time. Of course that might be because I went for 1:30 min instead of the 1:00 I maybe should have.

The flavour is distinctly grassier with less sweetness – more matcha tea than gyokuro I’d say. There’s also the faintest touch of a bitter edge to it. The aftertaste is the same, I think I’ve identified as similar (but not quite) to a light genmaicha.

Tsk, you’re a finicky tea, Miss Jade Dew!

The re-steep is a bit better, less grassy, but I think I might have scalded the leaves a tiny bit so I’ll chuck the leaves out and try this again another day.

So my boyfriend apparently found this sitting on the table in the lunch room at work and gave it to me. Err…thanks, I guess.

The tea bag looked pretty generic and it didn’t have much of a smell to it (who knows how old it is). I was pretty cautious with the steeping time and temperature and the result was…surpringly palatable. I was bracing myself for something harsh and horribly bitter, but it’s actually a fairly smooth, quiet tea. I guess that’s the ‘mellow taste’ they mentioned on the packaging. I’m glad I didn’t steep it longer or hotter though because there’s a bit of a tang that tells me that the tea was within a hair’s-breadth of turning bitter.

There’s not a lot of depth or complexity to the flavour of this tea, so it’s really kind of blah. I’d drink it in a Chinese restaurant or something, but otherwise I think I’ll stick to my loose-leaf greens.

My opinion on this tea is pretty much the same. I drank it with milk this time and it did bring out the caramel a tad, but it also brought out the toasty flavour aswell and that seems to dominate the tea. Still, I like that they didn’t go overboard with the caramel to compensate, it tastes very natural this way.

Bleh! -Still nasty IMO, even after knocking down the steeping time. I’m so glad that I didn’t order a tin of this tea, it would have gone to waste otherwise. The rest of my sample is probably going to be put up for grabs I think.

Well I’ve finally got the jasmine down to levels I can handle (I think), but it has an artificial quality to it, rather than smelling like the fresh blosoms. The green tea base has a bit of a harsh, bitter tang to it too, making me think that it wasn’t really that high of a quality.

I think I might throw out the rest of this sample, there’s really not enough left to be worth trading. :(

Now that I added more tea I’m definitely getting a fruity/peachy sort of thing going on with the scent as it’s steeping. The colour of the tea is a delicious-looking dark honey colour.

At first, while the tea was hot, the most prominent flavour was a bakey one that actually reminds me a bit of a Darjeeling tea but with less of an astringent bite. There’s also unfortunately a bit of a dustiness in the taste than I’m picking up that doesn’t exactly do much for this oolong. As the tea cools I start to notice a sweetly fruity flavour particularly at the end of each sip.

The second steeping (@ 4.5min) is more low-key and the fruity notes come through better. I’m also noticing a bit of a smooth, buttery quality to this steeping aswell.

Well that’s the end of the sample, thank you for sharing it with me Ricky. It’s a good dark oolong and I’m bumping it up a few points from last time, but it still doesn’t match up to the Lavender Basics Formosa oolong in my opinion. Damn you, why did you have to go out of business – whyyyyyyyy??! *dramaflail *

Go see my older steeping notes. :)

I forgot to log this tea this morning. My box is getting quite low (nuuuuuuuu!) so I’m rationing it. :D

I forgot to log the two cups of this tea I made this morning. It certainly has a good wake-up kick to it.

I’ve realized what the smell and to some extent the taste of this tea reminds me of – lilac flowers. Now that I think about it the scents are remarkably similar. I upped the steeping tiem and it seems to have made the floral flavours a bit less intense instead of the other way around.

This was the last of the teabags I got from silvermage2000. I’m glad I got to try this tea but I’m not really a huge fan.

*Le Sigh * My quest for the perfect mango tea continues…

I steeped this cup for a bit longer and hotter than I normally do, and I noticed it created a bit of a grassy aftertaste.

This one I know I got from TeaEqualsBliss! :D

It’s an okay tea/tisane but I’m pretty much of the same opinion of it that I was before – too much hibiscus is wrecking what might otherwise be a great-tasting tea. Sometimes I think Celestial Seasonings should be dragged out and shot for crimes against discerning tea lovers. ;)

I got a spoonful of this particular tea from TeaEqualsBliss (I think – I have so many little samples from various people floating around).

There are bits of something green interspered with the black tea – are they green tea leaves or something different? I’m mostly getting cloves and cardamom flavours in the tea with a hint of anise maybe. It’s nice enough, but I tend to like my chais bolder and spicier. This tea is quite smooth, and there’s a hint of a “leafy green” taste to it aswell. Nice but I think I like my Tazo chai better.

I remember eating and really enjoying those honey-sesame snaps so I added a teapsoon of honey to see if I could get this tea to taste in any way similar. It sort of does but there’s a bitter bite that comes through the honey – maybe I just need to add more.

I had this with a bit of honey and 2% milk, and it’s quite tasty. Unlike some chais the additives don’t drown out the flavour if the spices in the tea.

I haven’t had this one in awhile so I had to see if it was still good. ;)

Lena sent me a bag of this in a box with some other stuff and I’m actually glad that she did because I always thought this tea sounded interesting, but I wasn’t brave enough to buy a whole box.

The smell of the dry teabag was kind of…unfortunate. It’s like ginger, licorice, and cayenne pepper all had a huge orgy or something. It was just so many strong scents at once that it was overpowering. Luckily when I added the water it toned down and there was actually a bit of a cocoa scent that creeped in aswell.

I was afraid that the tea would be hideously spicy, but it actually wasn’t bad – certainly not any hotter than a straight gingerroot tea might be. There’s a surprisingly sweet taste at the beginning – probably from the licorice root – and the heat follows behind it, although it’s slow to build up so it almost seems to creep up on you. It’s a very intriguing tea but I’m not sure the various ingredients mesh that well. Glad I got to try it though!

I added a splash of skim milk to the tea this time and interestingly, it seemed to bring out the tanginess of the lemon a little bit. It also meshed well with the honey flavours too.

I didn’t feel like being caffeinated at this hour so I dug this tea out of the depths of my cupboard. I was right in my previous entry – this tea does taste better with honey.

This is such a complex, full-bodied tea. It makes me eager to try other Keemuns to see if they’re anything like this one.

I decided to see how long I could make this tea last – I got four good steepings out of it before there was any significant weakening of the flavour.