2036 Tasting Notes
The first weekend in a while where I didn’t have to be at something early (never thought I’d be so happy for Little League games to be rained out!) so I get to try a tea I haven’t tried before. Yay!
I definitely bought this as part of my great Simpson & Vail sample-fest, and I’m pretty sure I got this one because I liked the name. It’s a pretty florally tea, with little blue petals in it. In the tin, it smells pretty much like all the other Simpson & Vail “well done florals” but after steeping the aroma is more distinctive. There’s definitely pepper in those flowers! It has a medium brown, reddish liquor.
It has much more “tea” flavor that many of the other S&V’s I have had, which makes it an enjoyable breakfast blend. I can taste the berry undercurrent. It’s sort of dark to me, like blackberry-ish with perhaps a bit of blue, but I can’t get more specific. It just doesn’t come across as red berry to me. I’m not sure I would have identified the berry note, frankly, if I hadn’t read about it, but that may be a lingering effect of the evil grippe that I had two weeks ago, that still has my ears a bit clogged and makes me cough once in a while. Definitely the Simpson & Vail floral thing going on. The pepper, I’m guessing, is what is giving me a very fresh and cool mouthfeel on the tongue, which is interesting.
Not the most robust S&V blend but what it lacks in oomph and intricacy it makes up for in pleasant unusualness.
Flavors: Berry, Floral, Pepper
Preparation
Sipdown no. 49 of 2016 (no. 260 total).
This became my “take it to work” tea and lived in my Timolino for the past couple of weeks.
Sadly, I just don’t really appreciate white teas the way they were meant to be appreciated. This was rather like warm jasmine spa water to me. The jasmine flavor was nice, but there wasn’t much else to it.
I have a lot more white tea in my stash so I’ll have more tries to find one I can discern flavor in, but I think it may be one of those things where I really want to like white tea but just don’t see the point.
In other news, one of our kitties has been quite sick. Thyroid problems, kidney problems, and earlier this week she had a stroke and some seizures that left her blind and unable to walk. We thought Tuesday would be her last day with us, but she made it through and is actually recovering slowly. She is walking a little, but we can’t tell whether she is still blind. Such a sad time in our house. She’s pretty much everyone’s favorite kitty.
Sorry to hear about your cat. My dear little old lady Flame Point/Turkish Van mix, LeeLee, died the end of January. She was in her 20s but a scrappy little soul. I miss her a great deal. She was my favorite. I’ll light a candle for your feline friend.
Thank you, Whitantlers!
I mean Whiteantlers. :-)
You’re very welcome. I think sometimes petless folks underestimate the close bonds we forge with our domestic animal companions. My cats are not surrogate kids; they are my mute friends who still like me even on a bad hair day. They are always happy to sit quietly in the sun with me when I’m drinking tea.
Sipdown no. 48 of 2016 (no. 259 total).
The second to last of the Numi bagged pu-erhs in my stash. I made this my go-to work tea for the afternoon after the magnolia pu-erh.
My parting reaction, on the occasion of this sipdown, is largely the same as the reaction I had to the magnolia. Which is to say, it was pleasant while it lasted, but I don’t see myself buying it again. It was fun to experiment with when I was starting out, but I’m ready to get more serious about pu-erh.
Have you tried the basil-mint? It’s refreshing; that “freshly plucked basil and mint” flavor.
Numi puerh was my gateway to the more costly stuff and I always have a few bags in my cupboard. A brother and sister started the company in Oakland when I lived there and I almost wound up working for them.
The Numi Chocolate Pu-Erh was my official introduction. My unknown introduction was the Mint-Nilla Chai-Nilla blend from The Spice and Tea Exchange. Liquid Proust and Steepster made sure to expand my horizons on it, though I’m honestly picky about my Pu-Erh and like the more delicate ones.
I didn’t like the Numi Mint Puerh but I liked the Emperor’s Puerh a lot.
I still love Numi’s Emperor and Chocolate Pu-Erhs.
Basil mint? No, I haven’t tried that one. Sounds wild. For those of you who mentioned the chocolate, that is the one I’m “working on” at work now. About half a box left at this point. I like that one the best of them all. It reminds me of gingerbread more than chocolate.
I could see drinking any of these again, actually. I just probably won’t because I have so many more teas to explore and I want to try some of the more exotic pu erhs.
If you want to try a few packs, PM me! It’s quite exotic.
Thanks so much RF, but I am totally tea-overloaded. I do have a lemon basil oolong in my stash so I’ll give that a try when I am in the mood for something… exotic. ;-)
Ha-ha. Fair enough!
Sipdown no. 47 of 2016 (no. 258 total).
I made a mistake with this one.
I was looking for a plain black tea to make into cold brew and was having a hard time finding ones I either hadn’t yet tried as cold brew or knew I liked too much to use that much tea at a time. I hadn’t ever tried this one so I pulled it out of the stash.
I didn’t read about it before starting to spoon it into the container and it wasn’t until I was five scoops in, I realized that the cold brew container was going to require all of this that I had.
Around the same time, I realized I was smelling smokiness in the tea. Doh. If I’d read the description I would have known this was “the original lapsang.”
So I used all I had off this for cold brew, and I don’t really like smoky teas in cold brew.
Bah.
It’s not horrible, it’s just that I’m sure I would have liked it a lot more if I had made it hot.
Not rating it.
Sipdown no. 46 of 2016 (no. 257 total).
The thing the BF and no. 1 have has made its way to me. I had wanted to break open some new teas this weekend but since I couldn’t taste them at this point I decided against it.
This is good, it’s just more mint than ginger or tea by a lot so not overly interesting.
Sipdown no. 45 of 2016 (no. 256 total).
The BF and No. 1 both have some respiratory thing. No. 1’s involves a fever, sore throat and cough. The BF’s doesn’t seem to have fever, just everything else.
Knowing that the BF likes this one, when he asked for tea this morning I took the opportunity to record a sipdown.
Drink this for the strawberry, not the pu-erh. It’s pleasant.
Sipdown no. 44 of 2016 (no. 255 total).
I still find this quite wonderful. Though I’ve now had this for a while (and it has been opened for a while) the chamomile still tastes fresh and creamy and not like dry straw as chamomile sometimes can. The fruity flavor is sweet, and the hibiscus plays well here, taking the edge off the fruit which might otherwise be too candy-like.
This is something I will buy again. And now I’m one step closer to being out of herbal lockdown. I haven’t counted how many are left but I think it is just a few, not counting the Refresh and I Love Lemon that I stocked up on in the grocery store.
P.S. Bad day here. Kitty no. 1 is in the hospital. She’s 14 and they think it’s a kidney problem. I’ve been through this a couple of times before and it isn’t fun.
Sipdown no. 42 of 2016 (no. 253 total).
Not the most elegant exit for this tea. I made it, then didn’t have time to drink it before I had to run off to no. 1’s baseball game (he pitched two innings and gave up 0 runs!). I drank it upon my return. It’s better hot, but was ok cold. The spice note came out more strongly in the cold.
Not my favorite among the S&V well done florals. Unlikely to buy it again, but I wouldn’t refuse it if someone wanted to serve it to me.
Sipdown no. 41 of 2016 (no. 252 total).
Downed the last two bags at work today. Pleasant, greenish floral aroma and flavor. I steeped on the short side, so not a lot of heft from the puerh, but I could tell it was there.
I like this better than I rated it. Bumping a few points.
Still, not likely to revisit it as there are too many other teas to try and though pleasant, this wasn’t a standout.
This was one of the teas I drank when I first started on the tea road more than four years ago. I liked it back then. I don’t think I would now. I have higher standards for shou.
I didn’t think it was much of a shou. More like a floral green with an undercurrent of shou.
I remember the tea being very dark brown. It could be the magnolia being the dominant flavor.
does it have actual magnolia flowers in it?
Couldn’t tell, Kirk, as it was in a teabag. :-)
figures :)
