ashmanra

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Wow. We just had a one hour tech support call with a very sweet and patient young man. I could not make it through this computer snafu without tea, so I had youngest brew a pot of this up for me.

Not long ago I would not have liked this tea. I would have called it somewhat biting and astringent.

Now I still find the beginning of the sip rough, a little drying, and maybe a little…sour? But then magic happens. A vegetal flavor fills your mouth and throat and for a long time after you swallow there is a lingering sweetness that is positively addicting. I mean, really, REALLY sweet. I am so glad that I am finally learning to appreciate greens, and it is mostly thanks to Teavivre inviting me to try these. I let them choose the teas they sent so that I would be trying things I would not normally pick myself.

Delightful!

I finished my tin of sachets of this tea today. My son and I made two steeps of the last three sachets in the big tetsubin.

When I first started drinking tea I couldn’t taste anything cherry flavored about this. Then I started to appreciate it. Now I notice that the light, natural tasting cherry flavor comes out most as the tea begins to cool, and that is when I enjoy this most.

I only own this because it came in a special gift set I wanted a couple of years ago. I am considering repurchasing it in loose leaf, but I think to replace this green I may go with Silky Green from Bird Pick Tea and Herb that Quiltguppy sent to me. It was exquisite.

This tea came from AmyOh and is definitely the chrysanthemum one this time! I think last time I had gotten a rose tuo cha mixed in with the ones Amy sent, but there is no doubt I am looking at a chrysanthemum now.

I did a quick rinse, then made two steeps in rapid succession and poured both into my fairness cup. (During the rinse I left the lid off the pot. The sepals of the chrysanthemum started to unfurl and wave and it was truly creepy and looked like a scene from a horror movie. I guess I have been watching too much Doctor Who.)

I immediately resteeped again and carried it all to the tea table, so the different steeps were mixed together.

This was a good puerh. I did not expect to find it very different from the other two from Teavivre, but I do believe it may be just a touch milder. The third steep was especially dark, very inky. We continued steeping to about six I think, and by the end it was getting lighter. The flavor brings to mind earth and leather horse tack, my favorite.

This was very good, and I look forward to drinking them all, but I think I will order the plain Ripened Aged Tuo Cha puerh rather than one of the florals. I really don’t taste the flower and I think the plain puerh is just a bit stronger.

As usually happens, I had probably only had one or two ounces of this tea when my stomach started sounding like the singing of whales, apparently whales with questions, as the musical phrases usually ended with an upward lilt. Puerh makes my tummy feel better when I have been bad, and I was bad twice today – lunch pizza with youngest, and Five Guys with hubby for supper. Oof. But now all is well and tummy will not keep me up tonight!

Thank you, AmyOh, for gifting these to me! I will most likely be drinking this again with my son tomorrow. He liked Teavivre’s puerh well enough to have me order seven ounces for him.

It has been a long time since I have had this one, and I understand it a bit better now. I have had a few puerhs, maybe six. Five of those were shu puerh, and I liked them very much. When I first had this one I didn’t understand the difference very well and expected it to be more like a shu. Now that I know better, I can enjoy this more.

I think it was KS who said to remember that sheng sounds like green and shu sounds like cook, and that would help the puerh newbie (me) distinguish the two. I didn’t realize until KS pointed it out that this IS a sheng and it HAS been aged, though just a little. And I can enjoy it more now that I have the gong fu set to prepare it.

What I called minty before, I know now is really a sort of camphor/mineral flavor. There is also a warm earthiness to it, not as deep and dark as shu puerhs, but I am reminded of what it smells like when you turn over a rotting log on damp ground to look for bugs…something we do rather often. This is a far cry from black tea with cucumber sandwiches and pinkies waving, but it is its own kind of relaxation.

Thank you, KS, for reminding me that this is a sheng! Now I need to try some more and see if they are radically different. I am also looking forward to seeing how longer aging affects the tea.

I have had a vast amount of tea today, but I needed just a little more before hitting the hay. That is what the aroma of this one reminded me of tonight, hay! Sweet, dried hay. There is also a nice snowmelt flavor and a very little nuttiness. Very good, very soothing.

Oh yes! I loved clicking Add to Cupboard for this one!

Three steeps shared with oldest daughter today. Magnificent! The base is so smooth, the jasmine so soothing, and even on the third steep it still had lots of color and body. We were making 16 ounce pots, not using the gong fu set, so I feel pretty good about the amount of tea we coaxed out of those pearls.

We enjoyed this one at tea party today. I have to cut the temp and time to drink this, otherwise it is too harsh for me. I used 195 degree water for 3 1/2 minutes. It paired wonderfully with our eclairs and cookies. It is not a super smooth tea like Coquelicot Gourmand, but has a bit of kick to it, which I like as long as I cut the time down!

I fell in love with Teavivre’s dragon pearls so when I placed a Harney tea order for my daughter I bought a couple of jasmine samples. I tried their plain jasmine first, which is also a pouchong base, and I liked it very much. It was getting bitter as it cooled but for some reason reheating it made everything nice again.

This one…not so great. I prefer the other one, and it is less than half the price. I was very careful about time and temperature because I noticed that the two jasmine teas had very different instructions even though both had a pouchong base. This has a lower steep temp and time which I followed, but it still has a bit of bitterness and a sour taste, and I think the jasmine is less prominent. Jasmine is really what I was after today since the puppies have had me up since four-thirty a.m. and now I have to iron.

I did read one review of another jasmine pouchong that said it helps to steep it for even less time than recommended. I may try that with the bit remaining. Supposedly this is a higher grade of pouchong than the other, and supposedly, the higher the grade the less jasmine they scent it with so as not to cover the base.

Well, sometimes it is progress to get a tea struck off the list, yes? LOL! And I know that I like the cheaper one even more, so that’s a win, too. But neither one beats Teavivre’s dragon pearls!

Yesterday when I drank this pouchong I loved it, until it started to cool. Then it got a little bite and was not as pleasant. I had about half a pot of tea left and just left it on the table. I decided to reheat it and see what happened. Surprisingly, it is nice and smooth again. One of these jasmines will be going on my next order. I still have be more to try before I decide!

This is a gift from K S. Thank you!

The aroma of the dry leaf was a nice bergamot and….pepper! What? Then I steeped it and sniffed. Bergamot and….pepper? Hmmm, that is what i thought about Imperial Earl Grey from Harney, so it must be a characteristic of some bergamot.

This is a nice green, not super smooth and mellow like a DragonWell, but not biting like some greens. This has good body and lots of character. It carries weight. I can see why KS says he sometimes drinks only this for days at a time. There is a sort of spicy/peppery quality to it, like in a really good chai, but different…lighter. I am having a hard time describing it, as you can see! The bergamot is not too strong and not perfumey, just a nice citrus/floral/spice note.

Lots of greens I sip with food so the pairing makes them more palatable to me. A few I really look forward to, and drink them with abandon. I can tell you I am guzzling this mug of tea!

Thank you, KS and Mrs. KS for the tea and the card!

I recently placed my first official order with Teavivre. I got free shipping but it arrived quickly. Of the teas I ordered, this was the only I had never tried, and I was especially excited about it. Of course, I could just add a bit of honey to my tea. One of my former music students became an organic farmer and sells honey as well, but I never add it to my tea, though I used to add it to herbals.

There was something special about hearing that this tea is SOAKED in honey produced by bees kept around this tea plantation. Wow! And wow, again!

I made this gong fu style. First steep – very good. Nice TGY and the honey really doesn’t mask the flavor. In fact, if I didn’t already know it was there I might not know it was there, you know? :)

Second steep – darker, more flavor. The leaves have really unfurled now and are quite large. What started as a thin layer of pellets on the bottom of the pot is now a pot bursting with leaves. I am now eating my salad for lunch, and I must say this tea is an amazing pairing for it: baby spring mix, tomatoes, celery, Swiss cheese, and Sweet Vidalia Onion dressing. The TGY just turned my salad into a feast.

Third and fourth steeps – the tea is a little tiny bit astringent now and doing just what the Chinese like for it to do…cleanse the palate after the meal. Perfect timing since my salad is now gone!

Delicious, and oh yes, I would definitely order this again.

First, I think this is my first pouchong. Second, autocorrect really wants to change that to “poaching”. Not going to happen.

I should have paid more attention to the directions I guess, but I was doing a lot of cooking. The “kids”, meaning my son and his GF and my godson were all visiting from college and godson’s dad joined us for the Super Bowl. Plus of corse the two daughters who still live here and hubby. Lots and lots of cooking.

Jasmine relaxes me, so I thought I would give this one a try today. I had it with my lunch of Hunters Pie made with lamb. While it was still hot and I was eating, it was really truly delicious. I came back to it later when I had finished a bit of dish washing and found it to have grown a bit bitter as it cooled. It still smelled nice but it had a bit of bite to it.

I notice that most people seem to give it a shorter steep than my instructions called for. If I have enough left in my sample pack I will try that. I bought a different H&S sample at the same time and it is also a jasmine pouchong but has radically different directions for steeping. Maybe I should go by those for both teas.

So it was a good experience overall and I thought it was fantastic at first, just disappointing after it cooled. It may improve with a lower temp and shorter steep.

Edit: reheating took away the bitter taste. Hooray! I am loving this one.

We drank this on the heels of Teavivre’s Ripened Rose Puerh Tuo Cha. I must confess it. Rishi fell flat. This tea is just…meh. Uninteresting. Slightly astringent. One dimensional. Nothing like Teavivre’s that had us resteeping and drinking cup after cup. I have made two steeps of this and I am DONE. I will try to give this away to my friend who loves puerh if she likes it. I gave my last Rishi tea to her since I didn’t like it either. I guess I should stop trying Rishi tea now. I love the double lidded tin, and will reuse that!

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This is a gift from AmyOh! Thank you, Amy! I saved this for drinking with my son and his girlfriend.

This is a really great puerh. We used my gong fu set and made about five or six infusions. This has great, rich flavor. We had Rishi Pu-erh Classic afterwards and NO ONE was impressed. They preferred the Teavivre puerh.

Thank you, Amy! I shall enjoy this with my family very much!

This was initially a nice cuppa, very chocolate-y and great with our food. A while later I reheated the remaining tea and found it had gone quite bitter. Bleh. Which is much worse than meh.

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This mostly tastes of vanilla to me, though if you give it a good swish or let it cool a little you get a nice taste of the lemon. This is a really lovely tea.

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.

This was the first tea of tea party today. Smooth, mild without being wimpy, very satisfying. Even the guest who loves black tea most liked this green. So glad there is an order of it on its way to me now!

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!