__Morgana__

Golden Moon sample No. 9 of 31. I’d picked this out after the Orchid Temple but had to wait until today, when I have stove access during caffeine-safe hours, to put it through its paces.

I used the stovetop method LENA described here: http://steepster.com/discuss/25-chai

I made a slight modification, which is that I didn’t boil five minutes after adding the milk. I just brought it to a boil, removed from heat, covered and steeped for 10 minutes, a la the instructions on the Samovar Masala Chai sample. I did this because my stove must run pretty hot. The water boiled completely away before 10 minutes were up, and fortunately I walked into the kitchen in time to save the project from disaster. So I think my personal recipe is going to have to be “boil 10 minutes or until water evaporates.” Either that or try more of a simmer than a boil.

Anyway about this tea. I calculated that I had enough in the sample for 3/4 of a cup of chai, so I used 3/4 tbsp sweetener, 3/4 cup water and 3/4 cup 1% milk.

When the sample came out of the mylar vest, it smelled deliciously spicy. Cinnamon and cardomom. Just the slightest, earthy pu erh scent. This changed during boiling. The pu erh came out in the aroma. This pu erh smell didn’t strike me as leathery so much as mossy, wet tree bark or maybe leafy soil. It kicked in shortly after the boiling started, then just as quickly resolved and retreated, and back came the spices as the primary aroma.

The chai has a dark aroma owing to the pu erh. It’s gingerbready, but also vaguely chocolatey.

The taste is interesting. It’s chewy, but because of the pu erh it strikes me as a little rough around the edges. Not in a bad way, mind you. It makes this a less sweet, somewhat earthy drink, but with chai’s spicy creaminess. There’s depth and complexity to the flavor — I’m getting some coffee notes and some chocolate notes. I could see being in the mood for this on a cold rainy day. It doesn’t replace my top choice, but it’s a nice sometimes alternative.

I wonder how it would taste using the Samovar method of adding a spoon of black tea to it? Or would it be more appropriate to add a spoon of loose pu erh?

Another sample that came with my order. I’m knocking back a few of the decaf ones given the time it has gotten to be.

The handwritten label on the sample says “Rooibos Chaman” rather than Chammann, which is the name given on the web site. Now, I couldn’t find a translation of Chammann, but Chaman, it turns out, is shaman (or sorceror or mage). I really was joking when I made that crack about The de Druids (Druid’s Tea), something to the effect of “do they have tea of the shaman, mage, warlock [fill in your World of Warcraft class here].” Now I’m thinking, I bet Guillaume Leleu is in a raiding guild in his spare time. It’s just too much of a coinkidink.

Anyway. Vanilla rooibos, indeed. It’s a nice one. There’s a certain intensity to the vanilla that fulfills what has become my primary criterion for acceptable flavored rooibos — that the rooibos flavor be secondary to the flavoring agent. As secondary as possible, without disappearing altogether. It’s the vanilla that stays with when the sip is done, not the rooibos. I like that about this tisane.

And I also like the name. Back in my WoW days my main was a whammy shammy, so I feel like this one’s for moi.

Dor-o-thee, The-o-dor. Cute, isn’t it? Almost like a palindrome but not.

I got this as a sample with an embarrassingly large order I placed with The O Dor that arrived last week. I believe it to be what I wrote in the description, though the envelope containing the sample said “Mel. Dorothee.” I searched the The O Dor site and found no other product with Dorothee in the name.

In my sample, there are a ton of dried cherries. And hibiscus blossoms. And one thing that looks kind of like a dried banana chip. I don’t see any pineapple. I’m finding that samples are iffy things. Often, it seems, it’s just the luck of the scoop that you don’t get all of the ingredients in so small of a container. What I did have was gorgeous, though. Mostly various shades of dark magenta between the flowers and the cherries.

It brews to that same dark magenta color and smells of cherries and hibiscus (not surprising since that is mostly what’s in it). Here’s what I thought was interesting. Though I didn’t do a side by side, its look and smell reminded me pretty strongly of Tazo’s Passion.

It tastes much like Passion as well, even to the point of taking on a no-sugar-added grape juice flavor when sweetened up a bit. It is somewhat less tart than I recall Passion being, which is a plus — maybe that is the influence of the pineapple and banana flavoring agents. But I can’t help but wonder whether it’s really supposed to taste like this, or whether it is supposed to have a more tropical flavor, and whether a different sample, or a scoop from a full tin, would taste differently. I’m going to reserve rating since I can’t retest to verify my results.

I may have to order some just to find out, though given the humongoid nature of my most recent order I suspect it will be a while before I place another.

Had to run to the store for something on the way to work this morning and there was a Starbucks next door, so I decided to try AmazonV’s “no water” suggestion. Yum. The more I have this the more I like it. Nice blend of spices that takes the milk just right. It’s the same comforting feeling as drinking hot cocoa. It isn’t in the same league of chewy and nommy as the Samovar, but on the other hand one can’t just run into the (every) corner Starbucks and get the Samovar Masala Chai. Life is full of such trade offs. Bumping the rating a hair.

Lemon tea, very pretty! Ok, I know it’s an herbal blend but I had Peter, Paul and Mary bouncing against the inside of my brain repeatedly and I had to let them out.

It’s a pretty mixture that smells more than anything else like fresh hay. There’s really not a lemon scent until it steeps, and then it’s a very gentle aroma, neither tart nor sweet, with a bit of a cookie reminder to it. I have had lemon cookies that are a very intense lemon flavors and those that are just a whisper. This is the latter.

The tisane is a peachy color, and its taste is quite different from other lemon blends I’ve had that had a heavier fruit content, and also quite different from the original lemon I’ve been looking to upgrade from, Bigelow’s I Love Lemon.

The H&S is a quiet, subdued, smooth lemon. It tastes refined (not in the processing sense, in the deportment sense). It doesn’t shout about its lemonness. It’s less like lemonade and more like… something else. Liquid lemon whisper cookies.

It’s not soapy, it’s not too tart. It doesn’t require sweetening up. It’s also not really sweet. It actually has something that hints at bitterness around the edges, but dissipates as soon as you start to really think about it.

The thing that keeps it from being my perfect lemon is exactly what makes it so good. The perfect lemon I had in mind isn’t this quiet.

While it may not be perfect, it is definitely a fine alternative. Maybe there isn’t a single perfect lemon after all. Maybe there are a number of almost perfect lemons that can become part of a rotation.

I’m going to work my way through this sample to be sure I don’t change my mind about this one (I’m still a little spooked on the lemon front from my myrtle experience), but if it continues to taste as it did tonight, it’ll become a staple as a quieter alternative to the Teavana Strawberry Lemonade.

I was thinking that the leaves looked a lot different from most oolongs I’ve had and then I read on the description here that this is a mix of oolong, black and green tea. Holy infusion temperature/steeping time confusion, Batman! Out of an abundance of caution I’m going to start with an infusion on the short side.

There’s a shortcakey smell to the dry leaves which must be the “hints of berry jam.” The other scent I’m getting is more spice than floral. Let’s see how it steeps up.

Tawny color, with hues of orange from the black tea and green from the green tea and yellow from the oolong. It smells like berries!

The taste is interesting. It’s got a thicker mouthfeel than I expected, with a moderate amount of astringency. The black tea is pretty prominent in the taste, but I can parse out the oolong as well. It adds a dab of butter, and is no doubt responsible for the softness. The green. Hmm. Yeah, I do think I can detect that too. It’s a fresh, higher note. The berry hops around a bit. It’s not a strong, uniform flavor, but it does pop up in the aftertaste like a little starburst of sweet fruit. The tea didn’t change much through three infusions and the berry flavor was present throughout.

It’s unusual and I appreciate its ambition. I enjoyed drinking it. It isn’t immediately grabbing me by the collar and shouting that I must order it, but it isn’t outside of the realm of possibility. I just want to shop around a bit first, maybe try that raspberry oolong Angrboda likes so much and some others before I commit.

Golden Moon sample No. 8 of 31. I was glad that my random selection today was an oolong. I was in the mood for one. I can already tell I’m not likely to stop at one oolong today.

The dry leaves are very green, ranging from a dark forest color to a much lighter yellow green. Some stems are present. The leaves are tightly curled, almost in little balls. Their fragrance isn’t strong; they smell a little grassy, with a slight bit of toastiness (not nearly as as much as more oxidized oolongs often have). There’s a hint of a floral note, but it isn’t anywhere near as intense, or as beautiful, as that of the Life In Teacup An Xi Tie Guan Yin Grade II modern green style.

Liquor is pale yellow with a green tinge, very like that of many green teas. The aroma is unusual. It is floral, but… it unfortunately reminds me of the floral smell of some dishwashing liquids. It has a soapy undertone.

Thankfully, there is no soap in the taste. I do get a little bit of butter, a little bit of cream, and some floral taste on the first steep.

Second steep: 3:30 min. Color is a deeper yellow, aroma is still a little soapy, but it seems to be less now. Flavor has a more toasty, vegetal quality now. Not as heavy on the butter. There is a mild floral sweetness as well.

Third steep: 4 min. Less toasty, more vegetal, about the same buttery, about the same floral.

Fourth steep: 4:30 min. Not toasty, less vegetal, more buttery, more floral.

Fifth steep: 5:00 min. Sigh. I’m not going to do a fifth steep. I’m just not liking this enough to do another one. :-(

On a positive note, I love how wet oolong leaves look. When they unfurl, they are quite dramatic looking. It’s the same effect as those little gelatin capsules kids drop in water, and as they dissolve animals made of sponge come out that are four or five times the size of the capsule. It makes steeping somewhat unpredictable, though, since you never know whether the leaves are going to outgrow the filter when you start. (Are those oolong leaves in your filter or are you just glad to see me?) These were no exception. Wet, they are grand, majestic things that have expanded to take up about four times as much room in the filter as when they started. Olive green, with interesting serrated edges.

In all, I’m unlikely to order this one. It doesn’t bowl me over. It doesn’t even show enough promise that I want to give it another chance. I don’t find the aroma appealing, it doesn’t do anything special for me in terms of mouth feel. And it isn’t as flavorful as others I’ve had, nor does it have the character of some I’m currently enamored of.

I’m a little sad about it as I was hoping to discover another favorite. C’est la vie.

Another of those confusing black and green blends. What temperature? How long? Wish: that sexy Breville tea maker will have the right setting for something like this and take all the guesswork out of it. Getting to experiment = fun. Having to guess = not so fun.

I chose to go with three minutes and fairly hot water. I’ve mostly been making this tea at work anyway, where I have little control over water temp and less control over steeping time. I get distracted easily by work while at work and tend to oversteep. Which is as it should be (the distraction part, not the oversteeping part). :-)

Before I did, though, I sniffed the bags. I could smell the cucumber and something spicy. It took a minute for it to click, then I realized what spicy cucumbers are… pickles! Yeah. Pickle smell. I like pickles, but I’m not sure how I feel about them in tea. Seems like next year’s 52 Teas April fools joke waiting to happen.

The pickle smell becomes less prominent with steeping, perhaps because the peach fragrance emerges. It isn’t strong, but it seems to snatch whatever was making the bags smell pickley away from the cucumber aroma and renders it fresher smelling as well.

Flavor-wise, this is fairly unremarkable. There is a fresh note to it from the cucumber, and a slight sweetness, but not a lot else going on (not even pickle). It has a moderate amount of astringency.

I am considering two adjustments. 1. Lower water temperature, and 2. Sweetening it up a tad. I wonder what adding honeybush would do?

Looking back on what I said about this a month ago, the main difference is that I can now comment on “the rooibos aspect.”

Tonight, in fact, the rooibos aspect was the main thing I tasted in this tisane. It makes me wonder whether my novice palate at the time confused the rooibos with another flavor. Rooibos can have a fruity note to it, and I may have interpreted this note as apple. But now that I’ve had more rooibos, it’s not apple. And the lion tamer in me wants to reach for my whip and chair and back the rooibos back into its corner, where I like it best. Bumping down a couple of points.

Second of my samples.

What makes this Long Island? (No idea).

I made my wee sample with about half the amount of water I’ve been using for the GM samples.

First surprise, the dry leaves smell nicely fruity. No cough syrup or any such oddness. I had a tiny dried strawberry and two tiny bits of papaya in my sample. Second surprise, the aroma of the steeped tea is vague but sweet and nice. The color is just barely yellow.

Third and last surprise, this is a pretty good flavored green tea. This from someone who has only met 1.5 flavored green teas she’s actually liked well enough to reorder. It is pretty delicate, and not quite as robust a flavor as I’d like, but it’s not what I call thin. I think this is 100% attributable to the strawberry which adds a fruity sweetness to the taste that gives it (shut my mouth) the beginnings of character, something mostly absent in flavored green teas I’ve tasted.

It isn’t quite enough to get me over the hump to ordering it, but I think those who like fruity green teas should give it a whirl.

Golden Moon sample No. 7 of 31. You guessed it — randomly picked.

This is going to be interesting. It’s my first loose leaf gunpowder green tea. I’m enjoying looking at the little rolled up leaves as I haven’t been able to see them before when I’ve had bagged gunpowder. They’re nestled in and among the brighter green, flat mint leaves.

It’s also going to be interesting because of my love affair with Samovar Moorish Mint, the only flavored green tea that has my number so far.

Smells minty (duh) and the dusky smell of the tea adds some depth and darkness. I’m reminded of Girl Scout thin mints. I heart Girl Scout thin mints! This bodes well.

It steeps to a golden yellow with a hint of green. A dark champagne color. The minty aroma has become duskier, greener and lost its thin mint quality. It’s more like a warmed-up mint cordial.

The minty note is fresh and clean, and lands softly on a surprisingly mellow gunpowder base. I expected it to be more pungent than it is. I’d describe it as a cross between wheatgrass and parsley with maybe a little moss thrown in. It’s not quite sweet, but it’s not overpowering or bitter either. The tea feels soft and velvety, and the finish is sweet with a persistent minty freshness.

It’s a nice mint. I’d drink it if I couldn’t get the Samovar and I wanted a mint tea instead of a tisane, but it isn’t a replacement for the Moorish Mint.

Golden Moon sample No. 6 of 31 at random. I’d think it weird and that I seem to be channeling other Steeples today with this pick, but I’m saved from the weirdness because I actually fished it out of the basket two nights ago after the Coconut Pouchong. I just haven’ t had a chance to give it any attention until now.

Dry leaf mix is a nice range of colors across the tea color spectrum from very dark to silver flecks. Their scent is interesting. Vanilla, surely — it smells like cream soda vanilla to me. And jasmine, just as surely. And some darker notes: tree bark, and something that is almost musky.

I always have a dilemma as to how to steep mixed teas and I know I tend to like my greens steeped under two minutes and my black steeped around 3 minutes. It looked like most folks on Steepster who have had this went with longer steeps, so I chose closer to the black parameters.

To extend the cream soda metaphor, the liquor is pretty much the color of one of those old timely, hearty cream sodas — not the wimpy yellowish ones, the tan/amber ones. The aroma is lovely. The jasmine smells very fresh, and the vanilla smells more seasoned, and they come together in a nice, balanced way.

Unfortunately, I’m not feeling the love in the taste. Maybe I should have steeped longer? Or shorter? I taste some flowers, but not much vanilla. And there is an unexpected harshness to the blend. Something about it is making it stick in the back of my throat rather uncomfortably. It isn’t making me gag, it’s just a noticeable, continuing sensation, almost like an afterburn, though I didn’t drink the tea when it was overly hot. I would call it astringency except that it isn’t affecting anywhere else in my mouth, and astringency for me is usually an all over sensation. As the tea cools, I am able to taste more of the flavor of the green tea, the black tea, and the vanilla, all of which are tasty enough but the strange mouth sensation continues even with cooler tea. After the sensation, whatever it is, dissipates, the aftertaste is sweet and flowery, with an interesting, almost tobacco note.

The jasmine and the aftertaste are enough to make me willing to give this tea another chance, but it would have some work to do to change my mind. Mostly it would have to lose the climbing-up-the-uvula thing it’s doing in the back of my throat.

I feel sorry for this tea. Le pauvre.

If I’d tasted it before I tasted the Den’s and the Samovar, it would have gotten a better rating. It’s pleasant enough. Smells of toasty rice, as it should, though not as toasty as some. Tastes of toasty rice and a bucolic, green tea that is both sweet and a tad bitter just around the edges, and even has a silky, thick mouth feel.

But alas, I am fast becoming spoiled and the tea, while it isn’t unidimensional, isn’t as multi-faceted as others I’ve tried. It’s like a singer who is a tiny bit flat, almost not enough to notice except to someone who has spent a lot of time listening to really really good singing.

My samples arrived! This is the first I’m trying since I have water at 175 right now, which frankly may even be a little too hot for this.

I’m making half a cup of tea as the samples are small. Not knocking them, they were free, just ‘splainin’.

Very green leaves, very peachy smell. Very light yellowish liquor. Peach aroma, and some buttery vegetal notes. Having just come off a very intense jasmine experience with the Numi Monkey King Jasmine Green, I’m not getting any floral notes here.

I taste the sencha, and a tiny bit of peach which is most obvious in the finish. The jasmine is MIA. The flavor is pleasant but too thin for my taste. At least it isn’t bitter.

I am really trying to find flavored greens that speak to me and I will keep trying, though I have a feeling it will be an uphill battle. I enjoy greens, but I’ve yet to enjoy a flavored one other than the Samovar Moorish Mint as much as I enjoy them in their unadulterated state.

The flavor of this is what I think of as “Chinese restaurant tea” as it seems to be a staple at the Chinese restaurants in this area, only this version is even more jasminy than the norm. The aroma and flavor are very, very jasminy which is a big plus as I love the smell of jasmine.

The tea base is what keeps this from being spectacular. It’s only just peeping through the flowers, and though it is pleasant and mildly sweet, it could announce itself more. Then I’d be able to tell how good this really is — either it would score points or fall down if the tea wasn’t up to at least par. The downside of the intensity of the jasmine is that it masks the tea, and I feel a little like I’m being asked to judge a photo after it’s been airbrushed to conceal all the flaws.

Lest I mislead, this is better than standard restaurant tea in my view as it is more floral and actually more flavorful (I steep mine pretty strong, and restaurants tend not to), but I’m guessing there are better jasmines with more robust bases out there.

Since my April tea of the month club offerings have arrived, I think it’s time to close out March. This was the last of the three March Teavana Classic Tea of the Month Club teas.

This will be brief, because while there is nothing wrong with this tea, it’s not exceptional either. I have had other Chinese greens that were juicy and had a lot of depth, and that made it fun to play “name the vegetable” when deciding what it most tasted like. This has a mild vegetal taste and aroma and a tiny bit of the buttery flavor that I like so much, but it is lacking in depth.

Others have said that it is a good every day tea. Basically, I think if I was going to have an every day Chinese green tea, which I take it means relatively inexpensive, at this point I’d pick Tazo China Green Tips. The full leaf version of that has far more flavor than the Three Kingdoms does.

Even considering cost, I can see no reason why even an every day tea should be just ok — there are so many extraordinary teas out there at all different price points. And Teavana has a reputation for being overpriced. I haven’t done a comparison to pin this down, but I’d think there are more robust, flavorful green teas for the same price or less.

Golden Moon Sampler No. 5 of 31, selected at random.

Wow, back to back selection of the teas Ewa said she was dreading. [Twilight Zone Music]

I’m also dreading this one, not because I don’t like coconut, but because when I looked up Pouchong I learned that it is between a green tea and an oolong. I’ve only had one flavored oolong which was good, but I’ve never met a flavored green tea that I really really liked, with the exception of the Samovar Moorish Mint. I really wanted to like this one. It seems as though it has many fans, so I was hopeful as I started out.

The dry leaves are medium length, twisty, a dark to medium green with yellow highlights and smell like toasted coconut. It’s like someone put a maccaroon in this tea! (I heart maccaroons, so now I’m even more hopeful.) There is also a pronounced floral note. I looked at the ingredients to make sure there wasn’t a flower scent in there as well, but if there is it isn’t listed.

My first steep didn’t go particularly well. I decided to make this in a small teapot, and I thought I’d use just the amount of water that I’ve been using in my tastings of these samples — but that amount of water wasn’t sufficient to cover the leaves. So I had to add a bit more. I am concerned that it was too much. The liquor was a very pale yellowish color, almost colorless, and the aroma and flavor were buttery with a hint of coconut but not a great deal of depth to the flavor.

For the second steep, I used a Finum filter and steeped in the glass. This definitely made a difference in strength. The color was deeper; still pale, but very definitely yellow. The aroma was milky/buttery, floral and toasty/maccaroony.

The first, too-watery tasting made the buttery note primary, and a little on the weak side. But the second is much more satisfactory. Yes! I can taste coconut! It’s a mild, mellow flavor, but it is there. And now I’m kicking myself for not getting this right on the first steep as I can only imagine it should have been a far more accessible flavor the first time through.

I’m thinking I have to order more of this and keep working at it until I find the steeping sweet spot. If and when I do, I expect this will be extraordinary and deserve additional points.

Another steeping discovery. In addition to the honeybush, which I am now adding as a matter of course, I should abandon all rationality when it comes to measuring this mixture and go way overboard. Tonight I had a slice of lemon come out of the bag that was two inches long and weighed enough for a half cup measurement all by itself. Since I was steeping in a mug that holds enough liquid for two rather large normal-sized cups, I put in enough for five cups according to my scale. The result was a sweeter, more flavorful cup than I’ve had from this previously. More is better in this case!

Golden Moon sample No. 4 of 31, randomly selected. Patience isn’t my strong suit and every drop I have of it goes to my small kids, so it shouldn’t be surprising that I do things like pick the next random sample even if I may not drink it right away, just so I know what it’s going to be. I was lucky tonight, I picked back to back whites — so I can get away with trying another one before I go to bed. (I hope.)

I’m guessing the same white tea is the base for this as was for the Persian Melon. Looks the same in any case — I won’t repeat the visual description here. These do have that anise/fennel smell of licorice, but it is far more mellow and earthy than I’d thought it would be. I’m finding that in flavored teas, the smell of the dry mixture is often much more intense and concentrated than the smell of the steeped tea, which I suppose makes total sense. I am visualizing a textbook style diagram showing little bubbles of aroma-containing particles wafting upward as the tea evaporates and having more and more space coming between them the farther away from the liquid they go. Here, I’m wondering how much flavor there will be in the steeped tea since the licorice fragrance in the dry leaves doesn’t seem strong enough to sustain infusion, but then, licorice is a pretty strong flavor and I should give GM the benefit of the doubt for knowing what they’re doing.

Color-wise, the liquor is very similar to the Persian Melon as well, pale golden yellow. The licorice component of the steeped tea’s aroma is mild and mellow.

Taste-wise, it is as well. It’s definitely licorice, but soft, smooth, gentle. Which is great, because if it were stronger it could get scary and become Tazo Cinnamon Spice minus the cinnamon. Where in the Persion Melon the white tea seemed to add a fermented note, here it lends more of a earthy note. Together with the anise, the earthy note brings to mind tarragon. And now all of a sudden I’m thinking of Samuel Beckett. I wish that hadn’t happened right before bed. I enjoy thinking about Samuel Beckett, so now I’ll probably want to stay up and read.

But back to this tea. As a licorice tea, this is v. nice, but do I want/need licorice tea? It’s not my favorite flavor, I never crave it. I enjoy it if I’m in the mood and it’s presented to me but I wouldn’t ordinarily seek it out. I think that sums up how I feel about this tea. Unlikely to crave it, unlikely to seek it out, but if it was presented to me most likely I’d drink it and enjoy it.

Unfortunately there isn’t tea-on-demand capability, where you can open your magic beam me up Scotty fax machine and pull out just the right amount of leaves so that you don’t have to order a #*^!load of something you’ll want only once in a while. If I had one of those, I could see requesting small samples of this from time to time.

So who is going to invent that, please?

Golden Moon Sample No. 3 of 31. Another random pick.

There was an amusing, crazy, humongous open leaf among the dry leaves, that looked something like a bay leaf. Never seen that before in the teas I’ve tried. Other than that they looked greenish grey with flecks of white. Not sure what kind they are, maybe white peony? They smell sweet and, I guess, melony, but it’s really too pungent to be just melon. The smell reminds me of something I can’t place. Maybe jelly beans? Candy corn? Cotton candy? A tiny bit like caramel? This worried me a little at first. I was afraid this would be gag-me-with-a-spoon sweet. But it turns out I didn’t have to worry.

When steeped, the melon scent becomes evident, and the candy smell recedes greatly. Sometimes the aroma smells a bit like honeydew, sometimes like cantaloupe, sometimes like a mix. It’s a juicy and mildy fermented smell, with a high white wine-like note. The liquor is a clear, pale golden-yellow.

Wow. I’m tasting this as I type and it does taste just like a melon! It’s like drinking a slightly watered-down version of the juice left on the empty plate where the honeydew was at a breakfast buffet, but there’s more to it than that. It’s mildly sweet, but with that same slightly fermented note to it, which must be the underlying tea. Winey. Almost yeasty. It’s very nice indeed. It is the best flavored white tea I have tried so far, not that I’ve tried that many.

I’m giving it a provisional rating that puts it above the other flavored whites I’ve had but isn’t out the roof as I don’t yet have enough of a comparison base in flavored whites to feel comfortable saying this is the best of the best. It may change as my experience changes, but for now I’m calling it a smashing success as a white melon tea.

I thought it would be interesting to try this side by side with the Numi Chinese Breakfast. And it was.

I like black tea, this much I know. But I haven’t yet spent a lot of time analyzing whether I like some black teas better than others. I do like the malty, sugary flavor of some blacks but I’m still too early in my journey toward (what I hope will be) eventual sophistication to be able to tell a Yunnan from an Assam from a Ceylon from a Keemun without reading what I’m drinking on the container it came in. I can sort of tell Darjeeling most of the time, but found it interesting when I was reading about Darjeelings that they’re sort of in their own category as they generally aren’t fully oxidized though they are considered blacks. Hmm.

Anyway, this is a blend of Assam, Ceylon, Keemun and Darjeeling, while the Chinese Breakfast is pure Yunnan. The Chinese Breakfast steeps up the more aromatic of the two, with a sweet, brown sugary smell. The Breakfast Blend has some sweetness too, but it is a paler, and less sweet aroma.

Compared to the Chinese Breakfast, this has a less robust flavor, which wasn’t at all what I expected. I was expecting that between the Assam and the Darjeeling, the Morning Rise would be more intense. Morning Rise is pretty ordinary and so there’s not a lot to say about it. It doesn’t stand out, even among other bagged black teas. I didn’t love Awake, but it had more flavor than this even though it wasn’t as smooth and well-blended. I’d pick Chinese Breakfast over this given the choice.

Lap three. The self-talk, or more like self-prattle, that is going on right now is along the lines of “you can do it, do another one! Do Lupicia! Do American Tea Room!” While this may be appropriate while running actual laps, it seems clearly obsessive and possibly gastro-intestinal suicide when talking about a comparison tasting of a tea with this flavor profile.

The Samovar offering looks much like the Life in Teacup in color and leaf size. The dry leaves smell of smoke (quelle surprise!), more smoke than ash, but also have a salty meaty tang. Beef jerky more than bacon. It gives the impression of heartiness.

It steeps deep, dark and clear. Brandy, or maybe single malt scotch in color. It’s been so long since I had either that I can’t remember which is darker. :-P It’s the darker one.

The aroma is where it starts to get really interesting for comparison purposes. Underneath the smoke is the signature Samovar malty sweetness, with the beef jerky note roller skating figure eights through the rest of the aroma.

What an interesting flavor this is. It’s literally beefy. It’s smoky bouillon. It’s smooth smoky boullion with a sweet, almost wine-like, sugary undertone. I’m thinking of beef bourguignon now for some reason, though it really doesn’t taste that grapey. It has a very nice aftertaste. Sweet, smoky, and cooling to the mouth. It is, I’d say, full-bodied.

So now I have a dilemma. I don’t know where to rate this, comparatively. I like it quite a bit. But I also like the GM and I may have used too much water there. I’m not sure which I like better and maybe I’d like the GM better if I’d steeped it better. I have a feeling the Life in Teacup version is closer to the accepted lapsang souchong standard, just from what I’ve read about it in books. But these others are nice, too, and who says there isn’t room for interpretation. And I’ve only tasted three. I’m starting to work myself up into anxiety over this. Takes deep breath and exhales smoke. Maybe I should have a cup of tea and relax.

Final result, I’m calling it a tie with the LIT.

Second lap of the day. My earlier note gives the detail of my impression of this tea, and I won’t repeat the basics here, but I will note a couple of things for comparison’s sake with the Golden Moon version. First, even with the reduced amount of leaf available for this tasting (which made this somewhat difficult to steep as the amount of water in the cup barely covered the top of the leaves) the liquor is brandy-colored, deeper than the GM’s color. And there is much more smoke. Smoke through and through. Smoke, smoke and more smoke. And some pine resin as well. There’s also an interesting grabbing sensation on the first third of the tongue in the moments after swallowing. Camphor?

This is what I’d call full-bodied. It tastes like it can’t possibly be good for you, and it also seems like the sort of thing one could become addicted to quite easily. I may revisit the rating after trying the last in the lapsang sampling, but for now it’s getting high praise.

Golden Moon Sampler No. 2 of 31. Eyes wide shut random drawing.

I’m gonna run a few laps today, I think. Maybe three. This one, the remaining bit of my Life in Teacup sample, and the Samovar sample.

As I think about it, this may end up being a mistake. I may not be able to get the smell of smoke out of my pores and nose hairs for a few days. (So I’m going to stop thinking about that for fear I might chicken out.)

Before I begin, a disclaimer about sample size. My Samovar is the biggest (about 1.8 cups worth) and its steeping instructions call for a cup of water. According to my scale, this is too much water for this sample. Of course, according to my scale, the GM sample is enough for 1.4 cups. So I’m going to steep the GM and the Samovar in the same amount of water in my 12 or so ounce cup and hope that evens things out a bit, even though there will have been more water in the GM than the Samovar (as the GM had no instructions as to the amount of water). The Life in Teacup sample is the last little bit, about enough for .4 cups. So I’ll adjust water volume accordingly, but the memory of its taste is still quite fresh from my last tasting so that ought to balance things out a bit as well.

On to this one. The dry leaves are dark, brown/green. Greener than, and slightly shorter than the others, but not shorter by much. Their dominant scent is ash, but there’s an interesting chocolate note in there. It’s the smell of the air in a calm residential neighborhood on a fall evening when many houses have lit up their fireplaces for the first fire of the season.

The steeped aroma is gently smoky. There is pine, and a tobacco note as well. The liquor color is medium amber. I expected darker, but it’s a very appealing color.

Now here’s where I scratch my head a bit and wonder if I used too much water (though I think I used the right amount). Full-bodied, this is not. At least not in my view of full-bodied. I would call this medium-bodied. It has a high coffee note, and of course, it’s smoky. But unlike my last lapsang experience, it’s not entirely about the smoke. There’s a strong woody flavor; it’s almost as woody as it is smoky. And by woody, I don’t mean woodsy/piney/sap/evergreen/conifer stuff. I mean it evokes an unfinished furniture store or a lumberyard. (Not to be confused with sawdust. It’s far deeper and more appealing than that.) It’s a pleasant taste and endearing to me, as it reminds me of my long dead grandfather whose trade in the old country was cabinetmaker.

It’s only my second lapsang souchong, and I’m looking forward to exploring more. I may change my mind as I sample more but for now I’d definitely drink this again as an alternative to the deep, almost tarry, pervasive smokiness of a more full-bodied lapsang.