290 Tasting Notes

85

Buttery? Yes. Light? Yes. Tasty? Yes. I also thought it smelt and tasted of peaches. I found it light and refreshing and very pleasant to drink. Definitely a good tea and one that I shall happily drink again. It has lasted well through half a dozen infusions and its taste is only improved by it being a free sample I received from Berylleb. Bonus!

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 1 min, 0 sec

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95

Just got this one as a free sample along with my latest order and I am very pleased that I did. Upon opening the packet I was hit by a smell reminiscent of wet, mossy woodland. The leaf is a lovely bluish green colour and is so inviting. I put a tablespoon of leaf into my small glass teapot and added water. The liquor started greenish almost immediately, finally brewing to a yellowish green colour. Upon beginning to pour the tea, I was instantly hit by a grapefruity, honey smell with strong woodland flower elements that knocked me flat. It was gorgeous and intense. Then I tasted the tea. Wow! Grapefruit, honeysuckle, other floral notes that I cannot identify. It’s delicious and I am already regretting that I only have a 10g sample. This one is going straight onto the buying list.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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85
drank Mi Lan Dan Cong by Canton Tea Co
290 tasting notes

Very nice. It’s sweet and I can taste the lychee flavour. The first sip was wonderful and it had an enduring aftertaste that made me want more. My first pot did not re-steep well, so I tried again with more leaf and this time it has worked much better. It does not go on and on like some of my other teas, but I can still get three or four good mugs of tea out of one portion of leaf. I may have to try it in the gaiwan with lots of leaf and short steeps next to see how that works out, but I am very satisfied with this purchase as it is.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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85

Sweet, grassy, creamy, rounded; that just hit the spot nicely. It’s a relaxing drink to sit and contemplate while winding down from a very long day. Just what the doctor ordered! :-)

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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85
drank Anxi Rou Gui by Canton Tea Co
290 tasting notes

I really cannot decide about this one. The first cup always seems to have a little too much astringency, while the rest are easy-drinking enough, but I am not getting a huge wodge of character from it. I have tried it in my small glass teapot and in my yixing pot. Interestingly, my yixing pot seems to really like it and the flavour is improved, but I am still undecided. On the plus side, I absolutely loved the way the leaves unrolled in the glass pot. The visual aesthetic was perfect, but the rest of it … well, I need to work on that.

EDIT:
Further experimentation tells me that a lower brewing temperature and a slightly shorter steeping time may help. Somewhere down around 80-85 degrees and only brew it for two minutes. When I tried that, hints of apple and cinnamon came through, the astringency was not as pronounced and the whole experience was much more pleasant. As a result, I have increased my rating for this tea.

My next experiment will take the temperature in the opposite direction and the steeping time right down. I have noticed that one of the other tasting notes mentions a high temperature and a 30 second steeping time. It will be interesting to see what that does to the tea.

Final Edit:
I tried high temperature, short steeping time and it turned this one into a totally different tea. Not awful, but different. I liked it. Then I finally tried it by heating the water to just before the boil and steeping for a 1m30s. This works really well to make it a very drinkable tea. It’s not stunning, but it makes for a good everyday drink. There, I’m done experimenting. I wonder if the taste is significantly affected by my new celadon tea bowls? Maybe I am not done experimenting after all …

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 1 min, 30 sec
Spoonvonstup

Hm- I wonder if the tea likes a higher-consistant temp during brewing? That may explain why it was happier in the yixing than the glass (where the heat would dissapate most quickly). Don’t know how that would help astringency, though.

Roughage

That’s a good point about the consistent temperature. I plan to try it slightly cooler and slightly hotter to see how things go. I shall also have to try cutting the brew time on the first infusion, and I may well try it in my gaiwan to see how that compares. It’s all a bit of an adventure really! A bit like chemistry classes in school!! :)

Spoonvonstup

Fun! I’m definitely of the school of thought that each tea has it’ own ideal brewing procedure (though that itself can change over time and depending on what you want out of it). It’s always fun to play around with the tea to see what makes it happiest.

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90

I got this tea a few days ago. The first thing I did was stick my nose right into it and the smell knocked my socks off; it was a gorgeous stableyard smell comprising warm, sweet comforting hay and mellow horse manure smells. The aroma was just perfect and had me so excited that I wanted to just dive straight into it then and there. Yes, ok, I’m weird. The horsey smell reminds me of good times and is one I love, and that is what this reminded me of. So, excited as I was, I still took time to carve up the beeng and store it for a few days so that it could sort itself out. When I picked it apart, I found that the leaves came away fairly easily and were quite large. They ranged from dark chocolatey brown to a very pale beige colour, giving the whole beeng a most pleasing visual aesthetic.

I have a cold at the moment so I needed some comfort today. Time to try my new tea. Unfortunately, the state of my nose will probably have affected how I view this tea, and you will need to allow for this in reading the following. I sat down with my trusty 140ml gaiwan, a cup and measured out 4g of tea. The Canton Tea Co website suggests 3-4g in a small teapot, brewed at 95 degrees for 20 seconds. I did what they suggested to get a feel for the tea. The liquor was yellow with a hint of green to it on the first infusion. It became darker with the third and fourth infusions and then became a little paler from infusions eight onwards. I kept the brewing time to 20 seconds for the first half dozen brews and then increased it to 30 seconds for the next few, and so on, increasing it a little every so often.

The brew was sweet with every infusion, ending with a note of astringency and a bittersweet aftertaste. It exuded an aroma of flower meadows in every cup and has turned out to be a fantastic comfort brew. This is one of the few teas where the tasting notes have largely conformed to my own experience of the tea. I shall certainly buy more of this with a view to aging some and drinking the rest.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 0 min, 15 sec
Anthony Bazic

In other words…. magical! Pu-Erh can take up so many flavors ,it even takes up the flavors of other plants around and has been said its roots have interwined with other plants during its time in growth leading to quality taste that no other tea can compare! Often these leaves are picked from a 500year old tree in old tea plantations have the most minerals and flavors packed in then any other plant. Its something special every time you take a sip of it!

Roughage

Yes, magical. It’s brilliant to find that I can still find things to get excited about, and this pu is one of them.

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70

I first had this at my brother’s in Copenhagen, when we visited him last year. We enjoyed it so he sent us some for Christmas and now it is in the regular line-up of teas in our house. The best bit is being able to experiment with how I brew it, instead of relying on my brother’s Philistine ways with tea! ;-) So, I started the pot with two teaspoons of the tea in my 250ml glass pot and brewed it initially for two minutes at 80 degrees. Not enough flavour came through. It was pleasant and a bit bubblegum, but not as nice as I remembered it. After a bit of experimentation, I finally got it right for me. Between 75 and 80 degrees was the right temperature and a 3-4 minute steep brought out the flavours nicely. All the fruit came through, but delicately enough not to be overpowering. I did not notice much of the white tea, except as a background to the rest. Still, it was very nice and perfect for when I want something sweeter to drink. I wonder if it will be sufficient to counter my addiction to jelly snakes and jelly dinosaurs?

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 3 min, 30 sec

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85

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Bio

I am a qualified peripatetic berserkerologist peddling berserkjaknowledge at the University of Nottingham.

My favourite teas are Darjeelings, sheng puerhs and Anji Bai Cha. I return to these every time, after whatever flirtation with other teas I have been involved with.

I no longer rate the teas I drink because keeping ratings consistent proved to be rather hard work while not really giving me anything in return.

Location

Nottingham, England

Website

http://ruarighdale.wordpress....

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