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Sipdown no. 64 of 2016 (no. 275 total).

Used the last bit in a cold brew with the Tavalon Darjeeling 1st making up the difference.
Very nice while it lasted. Nothing to add to previous note.

Sipdown no. 63 of 2016 (no. 274 total).

Used the last bit in a cold brew with the Kusmi Darjeeling Makaibari making up the difference. Very enjoyable while it lasted. Can’t improve upon my earlier notes.

Sipdown no. 62 of 2016 (no. 273 total). A sample.

I’ve been extremely busy at work, so much so that I am feeling it physically. My body feels beat up.

Meanwhile, both kids have playoff games today (two different teams).

Drinking the last bit of this one as first tea of the morning, without any fish accompaniment despite my discovery that darjeeling and fish work well together. I also forgot to use a lower temp which had worked well. But it is hitting the spot anyway. The muscatel notes aren’t as sharp as some others, but still give a grape-flavor that I’m enjoying this a.m.

Sipdown no. 61 of 2016 (no. 272 total). A sample tin.

The leaves are gorgeous and look like a cross between silver needles and dragonwell leaves.

I had two servings left of this and took one to work last week. Taking the last bit with me today. My original note on this is still my opinion. I’m interested in trying other yellow teas for comparison.

I seem to have two sample packets of this, and I’m trying to open up some alternatives for my green teas to take to work so cracked open one of the samples today.

This is a surprisingly complex sencha. Often they seem to me to have a single note of grass or hay, but this one smells like rice and edamame in the packet and like all sorts of things after steeping. There’s a salt note that’s interesting, a salty flavor but without actual salt. It’s more vegetal than most senchas I’ve had, and a bit more astringent. There’s definitely a drying to the mouth in the aftersip.

It’s light yellow in color in the cup.

A very enjoyable tea. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be available from Todd & Holland anymore.

Not quite to the bottom of this sample yet, and really enjoying this cup.

It follows the Tea Gmumblmublecan’teverspellitwithoutlookingitup Marzipan and a tuna sandwich. One or the other or both, or perhaps making this at a slightly lower temperature (200F) has brought out a really lovely second flush flavor.

We’re heading into the very hot months in my neck of the woods, when traditionally my tea consumption drops off and so does my note posting. In fact, I often disappear for months at a time right around now. The draw of cold brew may keep that from happening this year. We shall see. It will be a busy summer. The kids aren’t quite out of school yet and both kids’ baseball teams are still in the running during the little league playoffs. Plus, no. 1 got on a summer tournament team (great honor for him, lots of schlepping for us) so it’s gonna be a busy few months.

I think I’ve concluded that darjeeling goes well with fish.

I have an embarrassingly large collection of chai, so much so that I think it’s probably impossible for me to drink it all hot in this lifetime. Plus, the few LeafSpa teas I have left are leaving the realm of ancient and entering the realm of prehistoric, so I am trying to find ways to sip them down quickly.

That led me to wonder what a chai blend would be like in an iced tea. So I cold brewed some.

I am not sure what I was expecting. Part of me expected it to suck, and part of me was hoping to be pleasantly surprised. The reality is somewhere in between.

If I didn’t have a ton of this to get rid of, it wouldn’t be an experiment I’d repeat. But it’s not awful, so I’m repeating it. It tastes a lot like cold water laced with pepper and cardamom.

An as yet untested sample, and what a really wonderful surprise.

Orange is a flavor I love, but find iffy in so many foods and teas that aren’t in and of themselves made of oranges. Since I’m a huge fan of ATR fruity teas, it should perhaps not be surprising that I thought this one was well done. But it isn’t just well done, it’s one of the most pleasant orange flavored teas I’ve tried. So of course, I can no longer find it on the ATR web site. Such luck I have.

Yes, orange is the dominant aroma and flavor, from a really succulent and juicy smell in the sample packet to a mellower and more spread out aroma in the steeped tea, to a somewhat tart, somewhat sweet, flavor with a tinge of peel-like bitterness; just enough to give the flavor a fruity authenticity without undermining the pleasing non-fakey character of the tea. The tea base is a truly a bass note here, a low rumble of accompaniment to the higher orange notes. I think it is a Ceylon but I’m not sure. In any case, it does its job exceptionally well.

I would buy this again if it were available.

I love the fine leaves of shinchas, like green, fragrant iron filings. They make a chartreuse colored liquor with a sweet, vegetal fragrance like sweet peas. The flavor is similar, though it’s not just a single note, and it dances back and forth a bit between sweet and something just short of bitter but not enough to be unpleasant, with some marine, seaweed notes and some grassy green ones.

Not my favorite of those I’ve had, but still quite good.

Sipdown no. 60 of the year 2016 (no. 271 total). A sample. Only two Samovar samples left after this one. Both white teas.

I don’t know whether its the preparation or that it’s Samovar, but I am getting more flavor from this than I usually do from white teas. I definitely get the honeysuckle note, which is predominant in the taste and the smell. There’s also a rather intense high, sweet, nectary note that is most noticeable in the aroma. It reminds me of spun sugar.

The tea has a clear, amber liquor, and the flavor is actually pretty complex. The word tiers used in the description is a good one. It has a depth to it that I can’t say I’ve found in other white teas. While I mostly get a sweet nectar flavor, there’s also a fruitiness and a tawny undercurrent as though someone took an eyedropper and dropped a few drops of yunnan into this.

If I were to get a straight white tea again, this would be a major contender for that spot. I’ll likely not be in the market for quite a while, but fortunately this seems to still be on Samovar’s site at least for now.