My Friend Rashad

I got a free tin of this just for sharing something on Facebook. Free shipping too! Tea in the mail with no credit card required! How fortunate that it’s also quite good. I mean, I will probably pay money to buy more when I’m out. It’s a good looking bai mu dan, flavors go starwberry first, guava second, and ginger on the finish. This is a great tea to serve guests who aren’t tea experts.

It’s been so long since I’ve had the opportunity to just sit down and drink some REAL tea. This is real tea. Last time I drank this I got waterlogged before the leaves ran out of flavor. A fuzzy dian hong is something that just needs to be in the cupboard at all times. It’s so delicious.

Ok, so I just went outside with a flashlight and picked a whole bunch of honeysuckle for use in tea blends. I’m having this amber oolong with honeysuckle and it’s awesome!!

I was given a sample packet of this tea by my local coffee shop. This is the first puerh blend from Rishi that I’ve ever had where I could taste the puerh. What’s funny about that is what it’s blended with is quite strong. The ginger is spicy, but I can taste the leather and earth of the puerh. It even coats my tounge like a real puerh. So I’m drinking puerh and doing ginger shots, I like multi-tasking.

Backlogging (which I don’t normally do). I had this today at World Peace Cafe in Atlanta, GA which is a vegan restaurant run entirely by volunteers. I decided to try the Citron Mate for it’s advertised restorative properties because I had just finished spending four hours in the woods hanging out with beavers, opossums, owls, eagles, and turtles and stuff (Chattahoochee Nature Center), and I was pretty exhausted. It worked, it tasted like lemonade and kept me awake through a late rehearsal.

Every gunpowder tea I’ve ever had has been basically the same thing. Pretty good, kinda smokey, savory. For some reason it reminds me of mushroom broth. Really dark brew for a green tea. Sediment at the bottom of my cup. It’s delicious but I keep getting this visual in my heard of some massive gunpowder factory in china that supplies all the world’s gunpowder with uniformity year-round.

I don’t know what a cactus flower should smell like but this tea reminds me of men’s aftershave. I’ve been mixing it with a green tea mao feng to make it more tea-like.

Days after I suffered the news that my beloved Jasmine Oolong had been discontinued by a certain “Place where tea goes when it dies” I may have found a worthy replacement.

I overlooked this tea a few times because, honestly, dry leaf smell is strong and overly floral. Very very feminine smelling, and I’m a dude I use tools to fix stuff. But on my last trip to ZenTea I decided to just go ahead and grab some. Holy Smokes! I’m glad I did!

The TGY base for this is fantastic. Take away the magnolia scent and it’s easily one of the best oolongs in the store. And contrary to what the dry leaf smell would have you believe it’s not at all over powered by the magnolia scent. The magnolia seems to highlight certain aspects of the TGY, I’m constantly getting a citrus note, and another thing that’s almost coconut but really just reminds me of suntan lotion. I know that sounds gross but I’m really enjoying this. There’s complexity here. I digs.

Stopped by the local tea house and grabbed a few things. This Nilgiri from Tiger Hill is quite nice. It reminds me of a second flush Darjeeling with the fruitiness. It also has a woody, chestnutty character. When it cools it gets a chocolate note. I’m pleased.

I may be sick but I can still taste this one!

I’m trying to make room for some 2013 crop green teas, but I’m still sick and I can’t taste anything. This tea was good last time I had it, but it could be anything today and I wouldn’t know the difference. I’ve barely left my couch in 24 hours. Go Braves!

I’m very sick. Send help. Have the help bring tea.

btw I added fennel to this because 12 things in a tisane is not enough things. Also fennel and peppermint are just the cat’s pajamas together.

It’s 20 year old tea. That’s cool. My tasting notes on this aren’t very concise because I’m also smoking hookah and eating pizza rolls, but lemme tell you, it’s some dark tea. Full bodied, full flavored, earth, and leather. I’ve never really been much of a puerh drinker but I seriously appreciate that there’s no fishyness in this one like I get with some shu puerhs. It’s just very leathery with a sweetness on the finish. It’s probably not the best 20 year old puerh out there but, it’s ok.

EDIT: No, you know what? It’s better than ok. It’s fruity after five steepings. I’m bumping up my rating.

I’ll be up all night transcribing music and charting songs. This tea will be my study buddy! It’s a highly underestimated tea. I find it sitting in my cupboard all unassuming, minding it’s own business. I always forget that it’s actually a pretty good tea. The only thing is, it doesn’t have any real defining characteristics (other than the shape of the leaves). It could be any chinese “red” tea you’ve ever had. Honey and malt. Nonetheless, it’s good tea and good company. Back to work go I.

Why do we have to make this about Valentine’s day? Why can’t I just enjoy this tea year round? Let’s not put such labels on good tea. Tastes like an Andes mint. The red sprinkles leaves a red ring around my mug.

This is… so good. Thank you Stephanie for the sample, I finally got around to it. Second flush > first flush. This is just so fruity! Like strawberry and lychee. There’s a small amount of floral. I have a couple of first flush darjeelings in the cupboard and this blows them all away. More bold, more fruit, mo’ flava.

I don’t have much experience yet with Dancongs, so I can’t compare this to anything, but I do think it’s really quite nice. Tealux has become one of my very favorite suppliers, they have yet to disappoint me. I’ll share with you my notes.

Dry leaf smell much like raisins and maybe sweet potato. While steeping it has a bean-like quality that is very much like a green tea mao feng.

Here’s the best way to describe this tea: Very much like a green tea up front, a malty-grain quality that reminds me of Laoshan Black, and a long smooth sweet honey finish. Yessir.

Forgot I had this. It’s still good even though it’s a couple years old.

Something in this tisane has an unpleasant flavor. I don’t know what it is. But I don’t think this was blended for taste, I’m pretty sure it was blended for results. Well This gets results, it’s like liquid Xanax. I’m having trouble typing.

This is nice. It smells like Al-Fakher apple flavored hookah tobacco. Also has a floral element. I made it kinda weak. Still good.

I’ve been out of town for a few days playing gigs so I haven’t had the opportunity to drink any real tea. I’ll make up for that now. This tea is a tea lover’s tea.

Remember Sonic The Hedgehog? Remember his friend Tails? This tea looks like a bunch of Tails’ tails. Golden and furry! They look like little dried fox tails. Dry leaf smell is kind of like a cross between cocoa powder, cardamom, and turmeric. The same goes for the steeping aroma but with cinnamon as well.

It certainly has some assam flavors, though I don’t know if it actually is an assam. It’s definitely more on the Chinese side of black tea flavor than the Indian side, but the assam aspect is there. It has a medium amount of maltyness, and medium thickness of texture. It’s floral but also caramely.
The flavors are complex but delicate. There’s a lot there but you really have to search for it. I like that in tea.

This is a very good Dian Hong. I am aware that there are some seriously mind blowing Dian-Hongs out there, but this one is nothing to sneeze at. Sticky furry buds ya’ll.

EDIT: Since it’s cooled off a little it’s a much thicker creamy texture.

EDIT #2: It becomes more floral on the 2nd steep and much much more floral on the third.

There is butter… in my tea? How did they do that? I smell real butter. Of course there’s pineapple and cake, yea yea whatever. Butter! It’s wild. Goes well with my cigar. Cheers.

Every time I drink Climber’s high I think about this:
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3ty1jv/

What a nice tea. I don’t feel like I need to write notes on it because there are already so many of them. I will say that the TGY base is awesome! The frankincense and saffron can be hard to detect if you aren’t very familiar with those aromas but they are there. I love floral teas, I love the natural floral aromas of a TGY, I like jasmine, I like incense, but considering how much I like all of those things I don’t like this tea as much as you would imagine I would. It’s weird. Hmm…