3238 Tasting Notes
What a great tea! This is a favorite of my youngest daughter. It is smoky like the most wonderful pipe tobacco you can imagine, full of flavor but smooth and naturally sweet, bold without being brash. A masterpiece of tea blending IMO.
Youngest gave me the set of four teas from Thinkgeek for Christmas.
I steeped for about 2 1/2 minutes at 175 degrees. The liquor is pretty dark for a green, a nice, light orange. The jasmine is very subtle. The green base is pretty smooth with grassy/hay notes. It is only the slightest bit drying, though that may change as it cools. An enjoyable tea!
I am so glad that I have this on order and it is on its way. I still have enough of my sample to make it one or two more times, but I do NOT want to run out!
I made this in glass for the first time because I wanted to watch the pretty pearls open up. The container was very large, though, and I think I underestimated how much water I was pouring in. The tea looked very pale, but it was still delicious. I resteeped right away with a lot less water and combined the two steeps. I am getting the glass teapot from purepuer.com especially for this tea and Teavivre’s flowering teas.
This has been a perfect tea for today. It is sunny and about seventy degrees outside, the windows are open, and the girls and I have a tea tray in the middle of the bed on my big fluffy down comforter so we can sit in the cross breeze to do our afternoon reading and have tea and cookies. Feeling very blessed.This is a sample from AmyOh! Thank you, Amy!
I don’t recall if I have ever had a flavored oolong. This one has a lot of fruity aroma in the dry leaf. The silken bag is big, giving the leaves a lot of room to expand, but I knew I was going to want to drink a lot of this, so I snipped a corner of the bag and poured the leaves into my tiny teapot. Steeped 3 1/2 minutes in 195 degree water. The leaves have expanded but not to the degree some oolongs do. This is just as well if you are using the bag.
The tea is fragrant, but I don’t feel like I am drinking a mainstream flavored beverage. The character of the oolong is strong and the flavors are dancing with the tea. (Thank you, GGMathis for first putting that image in my mind.) The tea base is lightly drying and the coconut really adds a creamy, sweet character to this.
I have resteeped with the same temp water and added 30 seconds. Color is still light orange. Flavor is still good. I knew this little bag was going to resteep for me!
Thank you, Amy!
This is another lovely sample from Teavivre. I have reviewed it before, so I will keep this short and just say that it is a mild white tea. Later steeps becoming a tiny bit drying, cleansing the palate. The wet leaves smell like the first freshly cut grass of springtime.
Do you ever fantasize about drinking tea and then have trouble finding something that makes you feel the way you wanted to feel? I do. But tonight I wanted some tea and this one has far exceeded my tea fantasies.
I decided to do a ittle gong fu brewing with hubby joining in. Oh my! The leaves smelled amazingly good when I opened the pouch. I did rinse the leaves quickly, maybe ten seconds. I don’t think that is really necessary with this one. The first steep was light yellow and lightly buttery with vegetal tones. I resteeped, and resteeped, and resteeped. The third steep was darker than the first two.
Now on the sixth some amazing things are happening in this tea. There is a mineral quality coming out, and a lingering cool finish rather like the feeling I get when I drink something with licorice root in. It caresses and coats the throat. There is that same quality that made me fall for Wild Forest Oolong, though this is lighter.I am so glad I ordered their Tie Guan Yin with organic honey. If it is anything like this one, I am in for some highly satisfying tea times.
