alaudacorax

The instructions are for ‘2 – 5 mins’ so I split the difference and brewed for three and a half minutes with boiling water. This is one of those awkward-to-spoon, long-stranded teas, but I used a near-as-I-could-judge heaped teaspoon. Actually, as this is quite light in weight, I’m now wondering if I should have used two.

It made a quite dark, slightly orange, brown brew, clear, but intense enough in colour to be almost opaque.

In the nose: there is a very subtle, but rich, fragrance which is difficult to pin down – it seems to differ with different sniffs. I get a good, clean, basic tea, a roast beef or Oxo note, uncooked pastry dough and, sometimes, just a hint of flowers or perfume. As it cools and the level falls, I’m noting a ‘herby’ hint – possibly somewhere between thyme and sage, but just a hint.

In the mouth I get the good, clean basic tea (I should explain that: when I used cheap teabags, as far as I remember I got a single, basic tea note but it had a rather diffuse or ‘muddy’ taste which contrasted with the ‘cleaner’ or more ‘pure’ flavour of the best of the loose tea we used to have when I was a youngster, before teabags were so widespread – I taste the teas I have now as varying between these two extremes). The roast beef or Oxo note of the smell is not so noticeable. I’m getting a good, smooth butteriness rather than the dough thing. There’s a note that is somewhere between cut grass and the thyme-sage thing I noted for the aroma.

I made a second infusion, same way.

In appearance, the colour didn’t look any less intense than the first time, but there were oily spots on the surface.

There was less aroma: I think I could detect a very faint and fleeting butteriness and an equally faint grassy-metallic element.

In the mouth it was definitely less interesting than the first infusion – I didn’t get much apart from a faint, doughy butteriness and a little basic tea flavour.

This is a pretty good brew – the first infusion, at least; but I think that when I make a fresh one I’ll try two heaped teaspoons.

I made a brew with all that was left in the tin – probably a well-heaped teaspoon, perhaps a fraction more. I brewed for three minutes with water several minutes off the boil.

It made a very densely-coloured, dark-brown infusion, slightly tinged with yellow.

There’s a faint and very difficult-to-place aroma – possibly a combination of grass and liquorice and basic tea or possibly a combination of grass and beef gravy and basic tea – I really can’t make up my mind.

In the mouth, there’s a hard, firm edge to this; something I think I’ve described in some other tea as what liquorice would be like if you could imagine it without any trace of sweetness. I think I’m getting a hint of cut grass – again as it would be without any hint of sweetness. I may be getting a tiny hint of an undefinable ‘fruitiness’ – or it may be just the comination of the previous two notes. There’s another note that I can’t quite pin down that is somewhere between butter and chocolate, giving a bit of smoothness and body to it.

It occurrs to me that this is probably quite a good tea; but just happens to be one that is not to my taste. Having said that, I still get a strong impression that I’m actually steeping a black tea at too low a temperature.

I made a second infusion (I went a little bit over on the time – about forty of fifty seconds or so – absentmindedness).

I thought this a better cup of tea. The colour was less intense, and so was the hard, firm edge, and I think this gave the tea a better balance – the other elements not seeming to have decreased with it.

I made a third infusion. With this one, it’s possible I brewed it a bit hotter than instructions – 90˚, say – because when I took the first sip it was too hot to take a sizeable one.

I wasn’t getting much in the nose, but this one had better flavours, I think, which, had they only been a bit stronger, would have made it more enjoyable than the first two infusions. I was getting hints of mixed dried fruit and butter; the grass was a little less noticeable. Unfortunately, it was also a little ‘watery’ – if that makes sense (it sounds a bit daft to say that I could taste the water, especially as I use a filter jug, but it was ‘watery’).

Oh well, that’s the last of it and I don’t think it’s interesting enough to buy any more.

I made a brew with a heaped teaspoon, water left several minutes to go off the boil, steeped for three minutes.

In the mug it’s a clear, medium-intensity orange-brown.

I’m getting very little aroma. Sometimes I get a hint of freshly turned-over soil, sometimes a fruity hint, but they’re very fleeting, hardly anything.

In the mouth it’s the same story. I’m getting hints of turned-over soil, fruitiness (I really can’t define that any more accurately), possibly chocolate, there’s also a hint of bitterness; but they’re all very, very faint – even the basic tea.

I made a second infusion, three minutes again. It was’t any different but may have been the tiniest fraction stronger in aroma and flavour. Or my taste-buds may have learned what to look for.

Having written that, I’m feeling a bit guilty about giving it a rating in case its lack of flavour is due to it having been lying around too long – it’s from a 10g sample that got forgotten about, and it’s been here almost a year; So I’m not going to rate it – I’ll get another sample with my next order.

I made a brew with a well-heaped teaspoon, water several minutes off the boil, steeped for two minutes forty seconds – I’d meant two and a half, but …

In the mug it’s a quite dense colour – dark brown, opaque in its intensity and with a touch of brown-yellow round the surface circumference. Which is quite different to yesterday’s brew.

In the nose I get a rusty, ‘brown’ aroma, perhaps a touch of raw dough. As I get to the last inch or so in the mug and it’s quite cool, I get a hint of toffee.

In the mouth I’m not getting a lot, perhaps a hint of freshly-turned soil, perhaps a hint of ripped cardboard, and I get a hint of chocolate when I swallow (sometimes). As with the aroma, when I get towards the bottom of the mug and it’s quite cool, there might be the tiniest hint of toffee. I’m having to ‘search’ for all this – it really doesn’t have much flavour. That’s a disappointment: going on the colour and aroma I was expecting a little more flavour than yesterday; instead, there seems a little less.

I decided to scrap that one and made a fresh brew with two well-heaped teaspoons; steeped for two and a half minutes with water several minutes off the boil.

The colour is similar to last time but even more opaque.

The aroma is great: I’m strongly getting good basic tea with touches of rust and dough. There’s possibly a hint of chocolate.

Damn! Again, the flavour doesn’t live up to the smell. The basic tea is there – it’s actually the tiny-tiniest touch harsh – and there’s a tiny hint of chocolate. And that’s about it. It might be a better cup of tea than for the single-teaspoonful brews, but it’s very much ‘supermarket teabag’

One last point: I forgot about the last third of this and it got cold. I drank it anyway and was suprised to get a distinct, ‘herby’ note in the mouth, giving an invigorating bite. I’ve just been sniffing the dried basil, rosemary and thyme in the kitchen. It isn’t any of them but it’s similar, possibly similar to what a mixture of the three would be like. If I could add that note to the warm tea I’d consider it reasonably good stuff.

I made a second infusion: water off the boil for several minutes, three minutes steeping (forgot I was doing two and a half – my mind doesn’t seem to be on the job, today).

It’s still the intense colour.

In the nose and the mouth I’m getting garden soil and ripped cardboard. What I’m searching for but not getting is that herby note. I’m not even getting that hint of chocolate.

I deliberately let the last inch or so go cold, to see if that herby note came back. There may be just a hint of it, and of grass. It all adds to the feeling that there are potential flavour notes in there that I’m somehow not getting out.

I made a brew with a heaped teaspoon steeped for three minutes.

The aroma is quite changeable, with different elements showing in different sniffs.

In the mouth there is that ‘smell of shredded hedge clippings’ thing I mentioned in the earlier note, good basic tea (quite a generous note of this) and mixed dried fruit notes; with tiny hints of chocolate and butter. Actually, I started to notice a quite chocolatey aftertaste a significant time after I’d finished the mug (I was thirsty and it went down rather fast) – I’d put the mug down after finishing it, wrote a line or so of the next paragraph, and then became aware of it.

This is an excellent cup of tea and I’m sure it’s a little superior to the brew I made exactly the same way on the 23/04/2012. I’m sure it’s more intensely flavoured. Thinking back, I remember that, perhaps feeling a little flamboyant, I poured in the hot water from significantly higher than normal – from about six inches above rather than carefully with the kettle almost touching the infuser (I was whistling at the time, too – one of those mornings). Could this make a significant difference to the brew? After all, the leaves are going to be given more of a stirring-up. Also, the water’s going to be a little aerated.

Now, this has given me something to think about – especially with those Darjeelings that I’ve been finding so changeable from brew to brew.

I made a second infusion the same way – even down to the height of pouring (forgot to whistle, though).

Again the aroma is quite changeable. On times, I’m noticing a note similar to some chocolate and coconut-flavoured sweet I’ve eaten at some time or other – can’t remember exact details, but may be something from a box of chocolates.

In the mouth, the vegetation thing is less noticeable and there is more chocolate. The dried fruit thing is not so prominent, but is now giving almost a ‘tingle’ to the flavour. There’s still quite a generous element of good basic tea – I don’t have to ‘look for it’, as it were; it’s quite prominent in the flavour and aroma.

I made a third infusion and – wouldn’t you know it – I forgot about pouring the water from a height. I remembered and lifted the kettle at the last moment, hardly enough to put any bubbles into it.

It’s still quite a pleasant brew, though nothing special this time – nowhere near the standard of the first two. I’m getting good basic tea still, plus chocolate, and just the tiniest, fleeting hint of the dried fruit.

On the strength of today’s infusions I’m going to give this quite a high rating.

Also, I’m quite intrigued with this height of pouring business and I’m looking forward to experimenting with other teas. I’m now wondering whether I’ve not had the best out of some quite expensive tea samples about which I’ve given a low opinion. Or is the whole thing just in my imagination?

I made a brew of this about a month ago and was a little disappointed, having previously been entranced by the same garden’s second flush Moonlight Delight. I’ve had another go today, and still found it disappointing. However, I’m not rating it yet as I suspect that, as so often with me and Darjeelings, I’ve yet to properly get to grips with brewing it. Anyway, here’s a write-up of my two sets of notes.

04/04/2012:

I brewed a mug with a heaped teaspoonful brewed for two minutes, boiling water.

In the mug it was a clear, light-orange brew with a faint, clean smell, somewhere between eau-de-cologne and cut grass.

In the mouth there’s a lingering smoothness, difficult to define, perhaps like a very, very mild butter. I get good basic tea with hints of cut grass and, perhaps, vanilla. Oddly, the vanilla and basic tea seem to fade as the level in the cup lowers and the tea cools.

It’s only the first mug, and I’ve previously found Darjeelings quite variable, but this doesn’t strike me as anything like as good as the second flush, Tumsong’s ‘Moonlight Delight’.

It says you can make one or two infusions, so I tried a second one, made the same way.

To my surprise, I’m tasting this as a fraction stronger. In the nose and mouth I’m not really getting the eau-de-cologne and vanilla elements now, but in both I’m getting a hint of the smell of fresh, sweet hay. Having said I thought it a fraction stronger, this time I don’t seem to be getting the flavour ‘fading’ as the level in the cup is falling.

03/05/12:

I brewed a mug with a well-heaped teaspoonful brewed for two and a half mintues, boiling water.

In the mug i’s a clear, pale yellow-orange; but I really can’t make anything much of the smell. I’m not getting it as the description in the last note.

In the mouth it’s quite bland: there are tiny hints of basic tea (perhaps just a fraction stale), nettles, toffee and something like the smell of ripped-up cardboard – but I do mean ‘tiny’, in each case. On that thing of the flavour fading, as it cools and the level falls I seem to have lost the hints of nettles and butter. This is disappointing, even compared to the last note.

I made a second infusion, exactly the same way.

The brew looks just the same as the first, but, this time, I’m getting a fruity smell – possibly a faint smell of packet, dried, mixed fruit.

I’m getting quite fleeting flavours in the mouth. I picked the mug up and took a sip and got the mixed, dried fruit with an immediate aftertaste of toffee; and a second sip gave ‘smell of nettles’ and grass – rather different to the first. Then I put the mug down and thought about it for a few moments, thinking what to write, picked it up for another sip before writing, and got different again; this time the sweetness had gone and I got quite a firm element – like the smell of grass or green vegetation, but without any sweetness to it.

These are all quite faint elements, though. I don’t think the experiment of two and a half minutes instead of the recommended two has made any noticeable improvement – perhaps I should try two teaspoonfuls?

I brewed this with a well-heaped teaspoon steeped for four minutes, boiling water.

The colour is so intense a dark brown as to be opaque and almost black, with a yellowish cast round the edge of the surface circumference.

In the nose there’s a doughy element and there’s a meaty element reminiscent of Oxo or Bovril or some such thing.

In the mouth … I’m actually struggling for words, this is a bit different. First of all, as you’d expect from the seller’s notes, there’s absolutely no Lapsang Souchong taste of pine, nor is there any smokiness. It has that smoothness and body I usually link to a ‘butter’ element, but this time it’s definitely not a butter taste; perhaps I could call it toffee, but it’s not sweet – not that it’s at all harsh or bitter. It’s almost as if it ‘thickens’ the tea and it definitely gives a richness of flavour. There’s that Bovril or Oxo element – just a hint of beefiness. There’s just enough good basic tea there, but, oddly, I’m getting a rather stronger basic tea element in the aftertaste, from a second or so after swallowing, onwards. There’s the faintest hint of liquorice in there. These things blend together to give a quite savoury, meaty whole.

I could characterise this as a very ‘satisfying’, ‘soothing’, ‘comforting’ tea, but if that makes it sound like the traditional British cuppa it’s the wrong impression. This is a bit different – something out on it’s own. It’s a really excellent cup of tea.

This doesn’t seem like the kind of stuff that would bear a second infusion, but the instructions say one or two, so I’m trying a second – four minutes, again.

Surprisingly, this is still quite an intense colour. It may be a fraction less intense but I still can’t see to the bottom.

It smells almost the same, but with, perhaps, the very faintest metallic hint.

In the mouth it strikes me as a slightly lighter cup of tea than the first. That thing I was hesitant about calling toffee is now definitely a toffee element. The meaty thing is, perhaps, reined back a little. That tiny metallic hint is there, too, but I’m not sure if it’s right to call it ‘metallic’; it’s not grassy, perhaps it’s something between grassy and metallic. It’s very, very faint though, just enough to put a slightest ‘edge’ in the flavour. There’s something in the aftertaste – now, this sounds horrible, but I’m really not describing something horrible – that is reminiscent of that ‘smell of sick’ note you get in good champagne (I’ve actually seen it described as such by wine professionals, so it’s not just me being fanciful).

This is an excellent cup of tea, again, but not quite the same thing as the first one.

At £30 per 100g ($48 plus or €39 plus at the time of writing), this stuff causes some soul-searching, though. I only have a sample and I’d love to get in a stock of it; but it’s not as if it’s the only expensive tea in this batch that I’m thinking the same thing about – I can think of at least three without looking at my notes. If I gave in to the temptation, bankruptcy would loom, I think.

As an experiment, I’m trying this with two-minute infusions, like the Buddha’s Hand: a heaped teaspoon, boiling water.

It’s a quite intense red-brown in the mug. It doesn’t look at all weak; but I can see to the bottom of the mug.

In the nose I’m getting good tea and a smell of green, lush undergrowth.

Tasting it, I’m thinking the two minutes might be a mistake. It’s noticeably blander than previous brews. It’s quite grassy to taste and I suppose the steeping time was enough for that element to come out, but not enough to properly allow the others, so that it’s unbalanced. There’s good basic tea there, though.

It’s right on the border between ‘okay’ and ‘not very nice’

Second infusion: I made it the same way.

The appearance and aroma are the same.

The flavour is pretty much the same as for the first infusion, but the grassy element is a fraction more bitter.

I made a third infusion, same way. This is rather blander, an infusion too many.

In view of the dealer info above, I possibly brewed my first mug of this too long. The above contains detailed brewing info, as opposed to the ‘Tea Brewing Info’ tab which simply says ‘3 – 6 mins’. I went on the latter, split the difference, and brewed for four and a half minutes. I used a well-heaped teaspoon (this is the correct amount as I actually weighed it at 3g, the instructions give 1g per 100ml, and I’m using a half-pint mug which is 284ml). I used boiling water.

In the mug it’s an intense, dark brown, quite opaque in its intensity.

It smells at least of cut grass and good basic tea and I think there’s something else in there, something darker and firmer, which I can’t quite pin down. I could possibly call it liquorice but it’s not quite that. I should note, as well, that you get whiffs of good, clean basic tea from this without bending down to the cup.

In the mouth it’s quite elusive – I think I’m getting different flavours with different sips and I think the flavour changes as the tea cools. I got basic tea and cut grass, possibly a hint of liquorice, butter, possibly vanilla or something similar – some sweet-smelling flower, perhaps.

Though it’s complex with good basic tea flavour, I wouldn’t describe this as a robust tea but as more delicate and refined – more like an expensive Darjeeling, but different.

Second infusion: as I’ve already probably overdone it with the first one, I’m giving this another four and a half minutes.

It’s not opaque like the first, but still an intense, dark brown and almost opaque in its intensity.

In the nose it was similar but I thought I was having hay rather than cut grass. There may be a yeasty or doughy hint, too.

In the mouth it’s just as complex and elusive. I don’t know what to think of it. There’s a hard edge in there, difficult to describe but perhaps somewhere between grass and metal polish; but then that’s balanced by a toffee- or butter-like softness. But I get little, fleeting ‘glimpses’ of flavour, both when drinking and as after-taste, which are really difficult to pin down.

This is one of three small samples of these expensive, Taiwanese, black teas I had from Imperial Teas and was actually the first I opened (I believe they’re called ‘Oriental Beauty’ teas but I’m ready to be corrected on that – wrong – I’ve just looked up the Oriental Beauty teas and they’re oolongs). The notes for this entry were made some time ago, but I forgot to post here. Since then I’ve opened the second, the ‘Buddha’s Hand’ Fo Shou Hon Cha, and I’ve been having so many adventures with that one (see my notes on it) that I’m not going to rate this until I’ve made at least two more tasting notes to experiment with quantities used.

Following on from my previous three tasting notes for this (I can’t figure out why they’re not in chronological order), this time I made a mug with about 1.5g of dry tea.

It’s a good, strong colour, but clear enough to be transparent to the bottom of the mug.

In the nose I’m getting fleeting hints of pizza base and flowers.

In the mouth it’s quite complex. There’s just enough basic tea and the flowers, again. There are hints of liquorice and cut grass, giving a little touch of firmness to the flavour. There’s a little touch of butter or toffee, giving a body and smoothness to it. Again, I think I’m aware of the flavour slightly intensifying as the tea cools.

I made a second infusion, the same way (two minutes with boiling water).

It’s slightly less intense in colour with hints of pizza base, cut grass and straw in the nose. Now, the straw is new.

In the mouth I think it’s a fraction less sweet. The straw is there, again, and the other flavours are just slightly subdued compared to the first infusion.

As it is cooling and the level in mug going down, the flavours are intensifying again and the straw element is drifting slightly towards packet mixed dried fruit. It’s different to the first infusion – a fraction more ‘bite’ because of the straw slash dry fruit thing – but still a pretty excellent brew.

This is equivalent in enjoyment to the really excellent infusions I made in the first tasting note, but it’s less full-on and more ‘genteel’ – less Theda Bara and more Audrey Hepburn. I have to believe that the amount of dry tea used is really critical with this stuff. I’m also starting to wonder if the flavour isn’t going to be subtly different with each new brew – I seem to remember reading something to that effect about some Chinese or Taiwanese tea on a seller’s website.

Whatever, this is so good when I get it right that I’m going to give it my highest rating. This is something really special.

No notes yet.

No notes yet.

Following on from the last two notes, where I, first, made a really excellent brew with less than half the recommended amount of tea and, second, made an indifferent brew with the correct amount, I made a mug of this with 1g of tea, carefully weighed and steeped for two and a quarter minutes – I’d intended two, but my attention momentarily wandered.

I’m struggling for words, here. Like in the first note, it made an excellent cup of tea. This was probably to be expected as I’m making it the same way. The trouble is it’s a different cup of tea.

It actually tastes of basic tea and Turkish Delight!

I made a second infusion, the same way. This time the Turkish Delight is reined back a bit and there is hint of butter or toffee and the tiniest hint of chocolate.

Thinking on it, I may have used a fraction less tea than in my first note. That time I roughly weighed out a gramme whereas this time I very carefully weighed it out – so it was just the bare gramme. Whether that explains the difference I don’t know. Next time, I’ll weigh out a gramme, add a few strands and see what happens. Or perhaps I’m cracking up.

In my last tasting note for this, I noted that I absent-mindedly used less than half the recommended amount of dry tea. This time I used the correct amount, about two and a half times what I used last time. I brewed it for two minutes, again – boiling water.

It made a dark brown, very slightly yellowish infusion, intense enough in colour to be pretty much opaque.

This is seriously weird. I’m not getting anything much in the way of aroma and little more in the way of variety of flavour: in the mouth there’s the basic tea element, which is now very slightly bitter – I think I’ve brewed it too strong – and just the tiniest hint of chocolate. And that’s it – a real disappointment after last time’s absolutely heavenly brew of this stuff.

I’m just baffled by this – I’ve even gone to the length of going outside to breath fresh air deeply through the nose for a minute or so, to make sure my head is quite clear, but it makes no difference.

I’m making a second infusion, two minutes again.

It’s a little less intense in colour and I get a faint metallic hint and touch of the pizza dough in the nose.

In the mouth there’s now possibly a little grass and a little butter, and that bitterness is no longer noticeable. As the tea is cooling, there may be the tiniest hint of vanilla coming in. It’s pleasant enough, but nothing special, still.

I’m quite bemused about this – how can 1g of tea taste so much better than 2.5g? The dry tea is so distinctive in appearance that it’s quite impossible for me to have got the wrong tea today or last time – they’re definitely both the same tea.

Well, I’m even less ready to rate this. I now, of course, have to make another brew with the lesser amount; to be sure that it’s the tea and not, somehow, me. I shall do that later – I’m tea-full at the moment.

I actually got it a bit wrong with this.

The instructions are for 1g per 100ml, which is, for my mugs, normally a well-heaped teaspoon, which is about 2.5g. The trouble is, this is so coarse and long and straggly in the dry that I couldn’t handle it with the spoon. So I used my fingers and weighed it on the kitchen scales. The trouble was that I absent-mindedly weighed out 1g instead of 2.5g.

Here’s the strange thing: it made an excellent cup of tea – I mean really, really excellent.

It made a quite intense clear-brown infusion and didn’t look at all too weak for a black tea.

The aroma is a little odd – it seems to change. I sniff it and get that pastry dough or pizza base aroma; but another sniff will get a beautiful, grassy, perfumey, flowery aroma.

In the mouth, there is what immediately struck me as a ‘garden’ element. I mean the ‘lawns and flower beds type’ garden. It’s that warm evening perfume of damp lawns and mixed flowers, especially if there are a few lilies in the garden. There’s just enough good basic tea to it, and there’s a toffee or butter element adding body and smoothness.

Is it over the top to describe a tea as ‘sensuous’? I’ve got into a habit of describing teas as either ‘delicate’, as with Darjeelings, or ‘robust’ as with a Lapsang Souchong; but neither seems to fit, here. It seems on the delicate side, but it’s full-on and seductive, rather than delicate and refined. I’m now sorry that I used that ‘Theda Bara of teas’ crack about the Turzum ‘Muscatel Dream’ because it would fit much better here.

I made a second infusion – same way.

It was a little lighter in colour and I thought the aroma was now more grass than flower.

The flavour is still pretty good, but different. The basic tea element has developed a little toastiness, bringing it more to the fore; the floweriness is reined back a bit and it’s a little more grassy. Having mentioned the Turzum ‘Muscatel Dream’, above, it strikes me that this second infusion could very easily be the first infusion of a good Darjeeling – it’s that sort of flavour.

I made a third infusion – same way. This was too many and the tea was much less intense in colour and rather lacking in flavour.

I’m not going to rate this at the moment. I’ll wait till another day when I’ve used the correct amount of dry tea. Having said that, it was so excellent as it was that it hardly seems worth the bother of trying a larger amount.

These are my notes for the day before yesterday:

I used a well-heaped teaspoon steeped for two minutes, boiling water. The tea hadn’t completely waterlogged and sunk at the end: the instructions are for one infusion; but, I suspect there’s another one there.

In the mug it’s a moderately intense brown, with a slightly yellowish tinge.

In the nose I get a faint combination of the smells of nettles and of straw, plus a little basic tea and a slight hint of uncooked pastry-dough.

In the mouth I get good basic tea and the straw and nettles smells elements again. It hasn’t got that grass or hay sweetness, but it’s not particularly bitter or astringent – it’s clean and firm without being that. There’s something else in there that’s difficult to pin down: it’s a hint of a bite, but not so much a peppery bite as nearer to dried raisins or currants – it’s just a tiny hint in the background, noticeable as the tea cools.

Bearing in mind what I said about thinking there was another infusion in there, I made one – steeping for two and three-quarter minutes. The tea was surprisingly good and not noticeably weaker, similar to the last cup but with the addition, perhaps, of the tiniest hint of vanilla. I’m now thinking that, if the sellers are only recommending one infusion, I might have given the original infusion a bit longer than their recommended two minutes.

Just for an experiment, I tried another infusion. It’s still good. It’s less intense in colour and in flavour, but it’s a little more buttery, and, I think, a little more grassy.

These are yesterday’s notes:

I made a mug today with a well-heaped teaspoon, boiling water, and this time, bearing in mind all the infusions I was able to get yesterday, I brewed for three minutes.

It was the same intense but clear brown in the mug.

I’m not sure I get the same straw and nettles in the nose; there’s the pastry dough – or, perhaps, pizza base – and, now, a metallic touch.

In the mouth it’s harder and firmer and less sweet and I think three minutes was probably too long. This surprises me a little after all yesterday’s infusions without that happening. I must try two and a half minutes for next time’s first infusion. I’m sort of getting the straw and grass thing but it’s varied a little towards something like the flavour of digestive biscuits but without the sweetness.. As the level is falling and the tea cooling, I think the flavour is getting a little more intense and a little less firm and hard – or, perhaps, my taste buds are just getting used to it.

I made a second infusion but forgot it and let it steep for twenty-four minutes. It wasn’t anything like as bad as one might suspect, but not really to be recommended.

I made a fresh mug with a well-heaped teaspoon, this time brewing for two and a half minutes.

I think I hit this one spot on.

It has a good, noticeable aroma to it, the straw and nettles and pizza base, plus, perhaps, the tiniest touch of grassiness.

In the mouth it has the straw and nettles and the digestive biscuits, plus the tiniest hint of cut grass and that tiny bite – I described it above as ‘not so much a peppery bite as nearer to dried raisins or currants’, but now I’m thinking there’s a hint of sage to it.

The whole thing adds up to a refreshing and characterful tea, nearer to the ‘delicate’ side than the ‘robust’, but a little more robust than the typical tea of this type, I think.

I made a second infusion, two and a half minutes again, and I really can’t spot much difference – it’s the equal to the first, I think.

These are today’s notes:

I made a brew today with a well-heaped teaspoon and steeped for three minutes – I’d intended two and a half, but let it run over while I was checking through my (mostly junk) mail.

So it should have been a little too ‘hard’, like yesterday. It wasn’t; it was pretty good – but different to yesterday.

It has a doughy aroma with a hint of grass.

In the mouth it has good basic tea and, this time, has more than a hint of butter – it’s a definite element, giving a mellow smoothness and I’m not sure if it hasn’t the tiniest hint of chocolate to it – I mean a smooth milk chocolate, not one with any bitterness. There’s the tiniest hint of sage and thyme underneath. The flavour definitely gets a little stronger as the tea cools.

I’ve made a second infusion, this time managing to hit the two and a half minutes. It’s no weaker but slightly different in that, this time, there’s the addition of that ‘smell of nettles’ hint, both in the nose and the mouth.

This business of a tea altering from day to day makes me wonder if it’s my taste buds are altering; but it’s only with Darjeelings that I’m really aware of it happening – don’t know what to make of that. I’m fairly sure it’s the teas that are altering, not me, but I wouldn’t want to swear to it.

Anyway, as is evident from all the woffle above, I’m finding this a fascinating tea. It’s quite seductive – you start off being cool and objective, then you’ve fallen under the spell and find yourself cajoled and forced into giving a high rating – a Theda Bara of teas.

ETA – Since I posted the level in the cup has got half-way down and the tea cooled noticeably, and the aroma and flavour have most definitely got more intense – it’s well-worth having the patience to let it cool a little.

ETA, again – I made a third infusion – it may have been fraction weaker but it was still a delightful cup of tea. This one will definitely stand a second and third infusion.

I made a mug of this with a heaped teaspoon, brewed for two and a half minutes, with the water allowed to go off the boil for several minutes.

In the mug it’s a dark brown brew, fairly opaque, but from intensity of colour, not cloudiness.

In the nose, I get a faint hint of pizza base and faint basic tea.

In the mouth, it doesn’t seem to have the sweetness of so many oolongs. There’s basic tea and something between butter and toffee, but neither very strong.

I’d describe this as quite an ordinary tea – nothing special about it. If I was given the cup without knowing what it was, I’d assume it was a black tea and, in fact, preparing it at such a low temperature feels ‘wrong’ to me.

The seller info doesn’t actually mention multiple infusions, but as it’s an oolong …

… I brewed a second infusion, same time and temperature.

In the mug it’s a little less intense in colour: a clear, slightly orange, dark brown.

In the nose it’s a little ‘cleaner’, having a slightly metallic addition to the pizza base.

In the mouth it’s, if anything, even more astringent – I’m, perhaps, using the wrong word here; I don’t mean mouth-puckering astringency, but something that really counters sweetness. Yet the basic tea and the butter-stroke-toffee elements are weaker; though there may be just the slightest hint of good, sweet hay (though ‘sweet’ doesn’t seem the right adjective in the context). That all sounds as if the brew is more complex and satisfying but, really, it’s blander. I’m still getting that impression of ‘wrongness’ – it just doesn’t ‘feel’ correct to be brewing this at a lower than boiling point temperature.

I brewed a third infusion, same way. The tea didn’t actually seem any weaker. The only difference to the last infusion was that the hint of hay had been replaced by a more grassy hint.

I brewed a fourth infusion, same way. This is weaker, plus paler in colour and I think I’ve gone one infusion further than the tea will take.

Bearing in mind what I said above about this not feeling right at the lower temperature, I brewed a fresh mug with boiling water, using a well-heaped teaspoon and steeping for three minutes.

In the mug it is an intense, dark brown, quite opaque in its intensity of colour with patches of oily film on the surface.

In the nose I’m getting touches of hay, pizza base and, perhaps, the tiniest hint of liquorice.

In the mouth there is good basic tea with touches of butter and an ‘unsweet’ hay or grass and perhaps the tiniest hint of liquorice.

I’d describe this as a reasonable, reasonably robust, black tea – though not one particularly to my taste – but not as an oolong. This strikes me as a tea to be drunk by the mug with your bacon and eggs for breakfast rather than one to be reverently sipped after brewing up in a gaiwan or yixing teapot.

I’ve just had a fresh batch of this, after being without it for some time, and I’m just drinking my first mug – a well-heaped teaspoon brewed for four minutes, boiling water.

It isn’t really much different to my last tasting notes except that, where I wrote of the taste of warm butter, I now think that element is better described as a touch of toffee.

It’s just as excellent as the last batch and really is one of my three, possibly four, all-time favourites.

Incidentally, I’ve edited the dealer information above but I don’t know how to edit the name of tea – it should be ‘Natela’ with an ‘e’.

This is one of a Pu Erh sample collection I had from the dealer. I’m not sure if the dried chips in it are orange or orange peel or both; but it smells strongly of orange.

I used a moderately-heaped teaspoonful and brewed for five and a half minutes; the instructions are for ‘up to five’ but I lost track of the time – it doesn’t seem to have done any harm. This resulted in an intensely dark, black-brown brew, quite opaque but because of the density of colour, not from cloudiness, with a slight oiliness on the surface.

Surprisingly, given the smell of the dry tea, it does not smell strongly of orange: I’m getting a faint smell of orange and a little stronger than faint earthiness (in the garden soil sense).

Similarly, in the mouth, there’s an earthy taste, not very strong, and just a hint of something between orange and orange peel. It may be simply just the combination of these two flavours, but I’m possibly getting the tiniest hint of liquorice. There’s a slight firmness in the flavour, possibly the result of the bitterness of orange peel – just the tiniest hint and the overall flavour is not bitter. Although it’s what I would characterise as a quite robust brew, I’m not getting that much in the way of the basic tea flavour and the result of that is that I’m not getting that ‘satisfying’ feel from drinking it.

For me, it’s an ‘okay’ sort of brew – pleasant enough, but not one I’m going to buy again.

I made a mug of this with a heaped teaspoon brewed for three minutes – boiling water.

It was a medium intensity red-brown colour in the mug. I didn’t get a lot of aroma – a hint of rust.

I struggled a bit to describe the flavour, though I found it very pleasant. There was some of the proper, generic, tea flavour; there was butter, giving a pleasant smoothness to it; there was also a fruity, ‘bright’ element in there that I found difficult to place – the dealer’s description mentions an “almost ‘Muscatel’ fragrance and aftertaste” so perhaps it was a hint of that I was detecting – it could well have been a hint of grape juice.

I found this a very enjoyable tea.

I made this first with a moderately-heaped teaspoon steeped for two and a half minutes, the instructions being for two to three. I wasn’t too impressed so I made the next with a well-heaped teaspoon brewed for three minutes.

I got a little hint of rust or metal in the aroma.

There was a tiny hint of that rust/metal in the flavour, as well. Otherwise the flavour was just basic tea – good basic tea, though. I didn’t get any complexity to the flavour, though.

I’d describe this as a simple, old-fashioned cup of tea – a good cup of tea but nothing at all special.

I made a mug of this with a heaped teaspoon brewed for three minutes – boiling water. This one was not on the instruction sheet and I made it first thing in the morning before I had the computer up and running, so I hadn’t realised that the tasting notes on the website give a steeping time of six minutes. However, there were still a few strands of tea not sunk when I removed the filter.

This brew was not very noteworthy. There was basic tea flavour, not very strong, and a slight hint of something giving a very little smooth richness, difficult to describe, not chocolate – if one could imagine a flavour somewhere between chocolate and a good beef or lamb gravy, but definitely one flavour, not two elements. There was also the tiniest ‘bite’, again difficult to describe, perhaps the ghost of a hint of white pepper.

It was a very attractive colour, though: an intense, clear red-brown leaning very much to the red side.

So I made the next mug of this brewed for six minutes, but this turned out to be slightly stale-tasting – steeped too long.

Then I tried four and a half minutes and this was okay but not really much of an improvement on three minutes.

So I’d describe this as an ‘okay’ sort of tea but nothing really special.

I tried a mug of this with a heaped teaspoon – it’s fine-grained so doesn’t heap very high – steeped for three and a half minutes – instructions say three to four.

It made a red-brown brew – not cloudy but so intensely coloured as to be almost, but not quite, opaque.

It had a good basic tea flavour with a metallic hint. There was a slightly ‘hard’ edge to it that I found unpleasant – rather like staleness but not quite that. It made me think that -possibly three and a half minutes was too long.

So I brewed another mug for just three minutes, but used an extra half-teaspoon of tea.

It had a slight aroma with elements of straw and sweat. Nothing special in the mouth: it had good basic tea but that hint of ‘staleness’ again.

Not one I’m going to buy again.

I made a bit of a cock-up of this.

At the time or writing, there are no instructions for this on the website or the advice sheet but, as an oolong, I let the water go off the boil for several minutes, used a heaped teaspoon and gave it two minutes’ steeping.

It’s a coarsely granular tea in the dry, giving a dark, reddish-brown, but transparent infusion. Any aroma was vanishingly little and I really couldn’t offer a description.

In the mouth there were basic tea and a firm, though not quite bitter, element a little reminiscent of the smell of a freshly-mown lawn but without that smell’s sweetness. That was it, really. I couldn’t detect anything else so, no real complexity of flavour.

This was an ‘okay’ tea – nothing wrong with it – and the basic tea element gave it that ‘satisfying’ thing I look for, but it was really nothing special.

So, I got that far and realised I may have been making a mistake with these oolongs. I noticed that, for the Nothing But Tea Black Dragon Oolong I’ve previously written up, the advice sheet gives one teaspoon while the website calls for two. In this case, my sample only had about enough for two of my version of a heaped teaspoon and I used half of it in this mug, which made things problematic. The site also gave three to four minutes’ brewing, not two, for the Black Dragon.

So, to try to retrieve the situation, for what was intended to be my second infusion of the original teaspoon, I added a second heaped teaspoon to the original tea. So this second mug, half of which is in front of me now, is brewed from a heaped teaspoon that’s been steeped once, plus a fresh teaspoon. It’s been brewed for three and a half minutes.

This resulted in a darker brown, more intensely-coloured brew with a slight aroma of uncooked pastry-dough with, perhaps, a hint of cut grass.

In the mouth, basic tea, of course, but the new-mown lawn element has now strengthened into something between cut grass and liquorice, but still quite a firm element, without the sweetness I’d associate with those two things.

It’s a little more satisfying and enjoyable than the previous mug, a more robust brew, but I’d still characterise it as lacking in complexity and not that special. However, I think I’ll give it ten or fifteen extra points on what I had in mind with the first mug. It’s quite a reasonable mug of tea.

By the way, ‘cock-up’ is not rude. The original ‘cock-up’ was an old English breakfast of fried-up leftovers – something like ‘bubble and squeak’, I imagine.