123 Tasting Notes
This is my first summer Darjeeling from Adagio and it has a very nice smoothness and slight tang at the end of each sip. It’s a little mediocre however and doesn’t have the full richness as a first flush Darjeeling with it’s strong muscatel. I noticed a similar pattern in Adagio’s Ooooh Darjeeling tea which is one of my favorites, typically, but this year’s batch is really underwhelming.
Back to this Summer Darjeeling. It’s a nice brisk tea for the morning but I can’t help feeling that at 4min steeping it should pack more of a wallop of flavors.
Preparation
This is a lovely oolong that delicately balances floral and buttery notes. I sometimes find oolongs that are more flowery to be a dangerous gamble and they often can come across as too overpowering or with slight smell of rotting. This oolong however is incredibly fresh and tastes like a freshly plucked meadow, very nice.
Words can’t describe how much I love this tea, I don’t know if I’ve ever loved a black tea this much. I’ve had this tea for awhile and it’s taken me quite awhile to review it because when I drink it I usually forget everything and just enjoy it. It’s smooth and creamy and reminds me of every creme brulee I’ve ever had, but even more vanilla flavor. It’s so light for a black tea and yet it has a wonderful creaminess and heft. 2nd steeping increases the creaminess and I’m totally getting that whipped cream taste, I’m also getting sweet pea flavors as well. This tea is fantastic and I’m glad to see that everyone who has had it is also blown away by it. This will be a constant in my overflowing tea cabinet.
I got this in a generous sample from Nuvola Tea. Now with a name like Taiwan Oolong Black Tea I’m going to be a little confused, is it black or is it oolong? I’m more under the impression that it’s a black tea made from leaves that are normally used for oolong tea, so technically still black. Now to the taste, it has interesting mix of flavors, part malty caramel and part mineral, rocky taste. It’s like someone took a wuyi oolong and mixed it with golden monkey tea. It’s quite interesting and I also happen to like both of those teas so I find the hybrid flavors quite nice. Very dependable black tea.
Another interesting Earl Grey variation. I’ve had the Earl Grey with lavender and the Earl Grey with citrus but I haven’t had Earl Grey with apple, calendula, and caramel. It’s interesting, I like the apple flavor and the caramel but I’m not a fan of the calendula, I think it’s giving it a waxy taste. Also I love Earl Grey and I’m losing the bergamot to these other flavors, it’s pretty much a flavored black tea now. Not bad but not my thing.
Wow, this is unlike any tea I’ve ever had. This is tea from another planet. The smell is grassy and vegetal but not like summer vegetation. You can smell the winter in the buds, there is an unripened quality to it. I did an initial rinse, didn’t know if it needed it and I steeped it for about a minute. The taste is a combination of pine needles and brown sugar, with a hint of wood. As I drink more the woody taste gets stronger and stronger, it’s almost like the taste of an old barn or shed. It also has a nice bite to it like a black tea. This tea seems to combine elements of white, green and black tea into a interesting hybrid of smells and tastes. Very interesting and I hope they produce more, I’d love to see the variations they could make.
First let me talk about the smell, it’s a whollop of marshmallow with a slight hint of almond. I can actually see pieces of almond in the tea which makes me think you could just eat this like granola. Tasting the tea is like drinking a melted almond joy bar. Sadly I do not like almond joy bar’s but this is my own bias and should not mar anyone else’s opinion, especially if they love almond joy. I know there isn’t any coconut in this but I am still getting a phantom taste of it somehow. This came as a generous sample in my kally tea order but I am not a rooibos fan. It’s a pretty unique dessert tea so I’m sure for some it’ll be right up there alley, not my thing though.
This is a very dependable Tie Guan Yin, buttery and floral. It doesn’t have any roasted flavor like some tie guan yin’s and the buttery brothy flavor is more subdued. Like others have said this has a strong grassy taste, it’s not bad it just reminds me more of a green tea at times. Further steepings lost the floral aspect and added a little more buttery taste followed by grassiness. I think I’ve had more tie guan yin’s then any other kind of oolong and I love the myriad variations that can be found among the different companies or even the same company but different times of year. There is something nice in the unevenness of quality among tea from purchase to purchase. It reminds you that tea is produce and not like other dry goods that are replenished without any change.
Let me start by saying Lapsang Souchong was my first experience with loose tea and it quickly became my favorite. I felt like I was drinking the whiskey of tea, it seemed to me the most masculine tea you could possibly drink (my friends would disagree with me). Over the last few years though I’ve been trying every new tea I can get my hands on and I haven’t had a lapsang souchong in about three years, which is a total crime.
First off the leaves are great quality with nice golden tips and there is a wonderful smokey smell that isn’t overpowering. Upon first taste I remember why I drank this tea so much in high school. This particular Lapsang blends the perfect amount of smoke with the high quality black tea, which lends it a slight dark chocolate taste. I’ve had a lot of Lapsang Souchong and most are smoked so heavily you feel like a 6am fireplace at the end of the cup but this tea is different. The smoke plays upon your tongue for a little bit but it doesn’t coat your mouth in a nasty ashy taste. A really wonderful tea and the perfect way to end the day.
Also want to add that this came in my gigantic sampler bag from Teavivre, thanks again!
