ashmanra

This tea intrigues me most out of the new samples sent by Nuvola Tea for review.

I have never heard of a black oolong. I read their description that it is black tea made from oolong tea but I am still a bit in the dark. Is it black tea produced from a varietal that is normally used for oolong? Were the leaves first subjected to the processing for oolong tea, then for black tea?

I decided to go middle of the road with this one, using 194F water and giving it a little less than four minutes to steep.

The aroma is very fruity, the tea a medium orange color. The taste is a bit befuddling, but good. It mixes the flavor of a light black tea having fruity notes with the flavor of a dark roasted oolong. The sides of the tongue really sense that roasted oolong aspect. There is a nice sweet aftertaste.

I decided to see how it goes with food – snack, actually, and specifically pumpkin roll. I am pleased to say it went well, and now I notice that there is a smoky bottom to this tea, the roasted aspect becoming more obvious when pitted against the sweetness of my dessert. Nice pairing! Thank you, Nuvola Tea, for the opportunity to taste this!

My tin is getting dangerously low, and I bought the one pound bag! It is almost gone…

It is finally a really cold morning here. I needed some warmth to look forward to after breakfast. Tea is almost always after, rather than with. This one is especially yummy today.

There is a taste and texture I get from some Keemuns and from Teavivre’s Fengqing Black Dragon Pearls. It is almost as if a dark cocoa powder is being dragged across your tongue, and that is a good thing! I guess it doesn’t sound that way, but it is, because it is a chocolate-y but dry but not an astringent feel that is going on. It catches your attention if you are distracted by other things and says, “Hey, appreciate me here!”

This is really hitting the spot this morning.

Today for lunch I made turkey panini with sautéed onions, lettuce, Raspberry Enlightenment from Penzey’s, and mozzarella cheese. As a side dish I had rotini noodles with Double Devon Cream, Parmesan, and mozzarella cheese. To me, that meal screams for a good, stout Chinese black tea, like Keemun Hao Ya or Fengqing Dragon Pearls. But hubby doesn’t go for many black teas…yet. His favorite black tea is Ceylon, and even then only certain Ceylons will do.

He liked this one very well, and drank three cups to my one. I really wanted some tea after lunch so I tried resteeping the leaves, something I don’t do with just any black tea because so many come out weak. This was definitely weaker, but still very enjoyable.

Side note: the puppy we are fostering because she was hit by a car is doing well and should be ready to go up for adoption in a month or less. The puppy I keep on Tuesdays is staying with us indefinitely now since his owner is in the hospital having tests run. So every bite I eat, every sip I drink, is watched by three pairs of eager eyes…

No notes yet.

I had a matcha marathon! This was one of the flavors in my latest order that I had never tried. (Two were refills of old loves!)

I like cheesecake but I don’t love it unless it is the kind I make myself. I don’t want it dry and dense, or heavy. I actually prefer the easy, super creamy kind that has a sour cream, sugar, and vanilla topping on it.

One of the main aromas that hit me when I opened the pouch was vanilla. That is great, because I love vanilla!

(By the way, I haven’t seen anyone address the best way to open these pouches to prevent the loss of any precious matcha powder. These pouches are vacuum sealed so tapping it lightly on the counter is not going to jiggle the powder down lower. If you start cutting or tearing the pouch from the side a little poof of your matcha might escape, or even more.

There is a little half circle notch on top of the pouch. Make a tiny cut right there with scissors, just big enough to allow air to enter the package. Now the matcha powder will obey the call of gravity and go to the bottom of the pouch so you can safely cut a larger opening and pour it into your container without losing any!)

So on to the tea! We made hot matcha lattes and they were excellent! I think this would be awesome for mixing with MOST other flavors, too, to lend its creamy vanilla goodness. I really want to try this as a cold latte tomorrow. Almond matcha is still my favorite of all (right now!) but this is running a close second, maybe tied with butterscotch!

You can buy it here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/cheesecake-matcha.html

I chose four puerh teas for Christmas from my hubby. Three were shu puerh, and one was a sheng.
Furthermore, this is a very young sheng. I chose it because I thought it would have tons of potential for aging based on its origins, and I confess also because the paper wrapper is beautiful and I love that a friend of Garret lent her talents and designed it!

I think the papers wrapped around puerh are beautiful. Perhaps they also look exotic to me because the language is completely mystifying! There are no letters we can pick out similar to ours, so no hope of finding a word or two similar to English or other languages we may speak. The message on the wrapper is a complete mystery to me! I save my wrappers because I hope to one day cover a tea chest in them.

Concerning wrappers, I also will probably never qualify to be a puerh con artist. You know, those people who buy expensive puerh, keep it, and wrap the nice wrapper around a cheap puerh and sell it for a lot of money? Well, I wouldn’t, but I also couldn’t, because I can never get the wrapper back on the cake with the beautiful tight pleats that it had to begin with! Deft and nimble hands wrapped these cakes! Maybe with practice….

I took Garret’s suggestion and poured some boiling water into my little pot. After the pot had warmed a moment, I poured out the water and added the leaf to the empty pot. I put the lid on for a few seconds and then lifted it and sniffed. Root vegetables! Rutabagas, I think! I am going to try this with a lot of my teas.

I gave the leaves a thirty second steep. There is still the root vegetable aroma, but it is milder and it isn’t “biting” at all. The liquor is a pale golden yellow. The flavor matches the aroma rather well. I am drinking the third steep now and there has been no diminishing of flavor. I think this would also be great with food.

I am really excited to be moving forward in my puerh journey. I hope to live a long time so I can try this tea over many years and see how it matures. I must say it is a well-behaved child, though. :)

Thank you, Garret and mrmopar, for helping me choose my Christmas tea!

I debated long and hard about getting the almond matcha. I love almond scent in hand lotions and such, but my mother never ever used almond extract and I never had anything flavored with it until I was grown. I have never had marzipan that I can recall though I had a marzipan chocolate bar that was quite good that my daughter picked up in Budapest or somewhere.

When I was young, I became friends with a man who owned a Chinese restaurant. He served a dessert drink called Toasted Almond. If I remember correctly, it contained Amaretto, Creme de Cacao, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a bit of milk, and ice shavings tossed in a blender. There was possibly a bit of sugar added. Bottom line – it was intoxicatingly delicious. Literally. Because there was alcohol in it but it was so good you wanted to have three in a row, which fortunately I did not do.

Yesterday, my bestie and I had a matcha marathon! I got a bamboo whisk and an aerolatte for Christmas so we were experimenting. We made an almond matcha latte – just cold milk, a spoon of Turbinado sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of matcha. Yummy!

Then my son and his girlfriend came. I amped it up for them. This is how I made two servings at once: Two scoops Breyer’s Lactose Free Vanilla Ice Cream (because it tastes sweeter due to the lactose being broken down), milk, a tablespoon of sugar,
and a teaspoon of almond matcha.

One second their glasses were full, the next – empty! They said it reminded them of an expensive dessert drink they had at a fancy Italian restaurant near where my son lives.

I think I have found my favorite matcha flavor! I am so glad I bought the large as I have a feeling this drink is going to be much in demand throughout the holidays! I chose Robust flavor level, as always! Here is where to get it:

http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/almond-matcha.html

Another Christmas tea! Yay!

I started this one last night. I used Granny Stella’s tomato knife to work a chunk about the size of a teaspoon off of the brick. I notice this is called an iron cake. I haven’t heard that term before, so perhaps Garret and/or mrmopar will enlighten us?

My husband and son joined me drinking this one. They would have bailed on me if there had been any fishy odor. This tea has none.

I steeped this for forty seconds at first, increasing to sixty seconds for the fourth and fifth steeps, which is where I am right now.

The color was deep at first but not inky black. This is a medium strength flavor, not knock you down powerful but not subtle either. It has the horsey profile I like.

I am such a newbie at puerh that I have trouble distinguishing between the good ones. I can tell a bad one easily enough! I am trying very hard to learn to distinguish between cedar, mushroom, earth, leaves, and wood.

The main thing that came to my mind as I drank this was “nature.” Not wilderness nature but perhaps a large farm bordered by woods with fields of grazing horses. There is the horse farm scent to this, but added to it are leaves crunching underfoot as you walk, breathing in fresh, clean air. Sometimes I get a hint of caramel in this one. Steep four had a little cedar oil richness coating my mouth. Steep number five is still going strong so I will probably continue working with this teaspoon of leaves, and soon I will try it with more leaf and shorter steeps.

Of the three teas I have tried from the Mandala order, they are all very good and I would not be able at this point in my puerh education to tell them apart if I were drinking them “blind.” But I can say with certainty that I enjoy drinking every one of them and look forward to sharing many cups of these teas with family and friends.

I had a late supper of Asian buffet leftovers. I made a pot of this just for me because it is excellent with food, especially Asian food, and so smooth and wonderful. One of my “if you can only have ten teas” list winners.

Another Christmas present!

I want some tea before driving up to Raleigh to pick up my daughter at the airport. She has been in a bit of a white tea kick, so I guess that is why this one was on my mind.

I checked out the recommended steeping instructions on the tin. Thank you, thank you, Hugo Tea, for putting those on there. It gives us a starting place to find our own favorite way. It calls for one tablespoon of leaf to eight ounces of water and when I open the tin I see why. These are big leaves! They don’t look like typical tea, but more like what you pick out of your socks after raking the yard. All that fluffy means you need more leaf! It reminds me in appearance of a Shou Mei (SooMe) white tea I had a while back.

Oh my gosh! This is fantastic! Reading their description of the tea made me think I was going to have to hunt for flavor unless I wanted to pretend I was having a nice cuppa hot water, but this is so flavorful and good. It is sweet and smooth, a little bit creamy, a little mineral, a little tiny bit buttery, a bit floral, a lot good.

Hubby downed his cup before I could sip mine once and he asked for another, so I immediately went in and made a second steep.

Home run, Hugo Tea. Home run.

This is one of my Christmas present cakes from hubby! We drank it tonight while playing Star Trek Settlers of Catan with my son and godson.

First of all, I have had loose puerh and mini Tuocha in the past. I liked puerh right from the first time I tried it, even though the first ones I bought at A Southern Season were really fishy smelling. (Not fishy tasting, though.)

Tuocha are easy! Just drop it in! Getting the amount you need detached from the cake is a challenge and I don’t have a puerh pick or knife. I had read that a butter knife would do and that is what I used last night but it didn’t work so well.

Tonight I tried Granny Stella’s tomato knife, a cheap little white knife my husband got when his granny died. It has a serrated edge and a very pointy tip for piercing.

Now I don’t know if this cake is not as compact and hard as the other one, but that knife worked a treat and in no time I had pried off what I needed for steeping.

I am not an experienced and learned puerh drinker, though I hope to be some day, but I can give my impression of this. It was not fishy at all. It was rather mild and the liquor lighter than others I have tried. I used only a little leaf in an eight ounce pot and we got about six steeps that were pretty good strength from it. I was keeping it around thirty seconds per steep. A final steep was really pale but still tasted nice.

This is very good, and I think it would be a great unflavored puerh to start the fearful on the path.

Many thanks to mrmopar and Garret for their help in choosing my Christmas teas!

This is one of the teas I received for Christmas from my eldest daughter. She must have heard us throwing around the words Lapsang Souchong back when her youngest sibling was having withdrawals from it when we briefly ran out and the Steepster community pitched in and sent her lots of samples so she could choose a favorite to order!

Well, with “Crocodile” in the name, I was a leetle bit scared! I looked it up to see if there was some special reason for the name and the only explanation I found was that Crocodile usually comes from Taiwan instead of China, is the most heavily smoked, and that explorers and adventurers found it tasty. I guess they must be the sort of people most likely to run into a crocodile?

I never considered myself an explorer or an adventurer but I guess would fit right in with them because this is great stuff! I do not find it significantly smokier than Black Dragon. The tea base is nice, the tea overall is smooth, and there is a fresh, clean taste.

The smoke is…tarry? There are a couple of teas that I will drink but truthfully they smell like ashtray to me. Not this one. This smells like you have been grilling food that is marinated with a sweet sauce, like ham glaze and brown sugar, and part of it got overdone. This is that blackened edge – a little crispy but oh so good and still sweet to the taste, with chargrilled flavor mixed with the blackened, thick sugar sauce.

Doulton would love this. I miss her! Hey, maybe Hesper June should try it!

My first puerh cake! I have been really excited about getting these for Christmas. I knew in advance because hubby had me pick the tea I wanted and he did offer to let me try it early, but I waited!

I wasn’t sure how good this first try would be because I took the wrapper and shook off the loose leaf. Then I struggled to pry off a bit of leaf but was really bad at it! I did manage to get about a teaspoon loose and started steeping in my smallest pot.

I was going to rinse but I tasted the rinse and it was good, so I drank it! I did thirty second steeps at first and then increased by just a little for number four. The first steeps are fresh, clean, bright, and horsey, just how I like it. Steep four had chocolate notes! Steep five…oops. I was cooking and doing other things and there is no telling how long it steeped. Several minutes at the very least. But it is still drinkable, and not just drinkable but good!

I am really looking forward to drinking all these puerhs with friends and family for a long time.

Merry Christmas, everyone! It has been a very tea-full Christmas for me! One of my gifts from hubby was this tea, so among the many new teas I thought I should choose this one, just because of the name, as the first. I will continue to take tea journeys throughout the day.

On opening the tin I gave the leaves a good sniff. The aroma wasn’t powerful, but it was the kind that makes you growl jus’ a lil’ bit. Kind of like when you see George Clooney in a tux. Niiiice.

I thought I detected Assam in this, and sometimes Assam doesn’t like me. I kept a close eye on the steeping and checked it at 3 minutes. Nope. Needs more time. I gave it a minute and a half more.

Aaaahh. This is a bright cup of tea. It is really hard to describe. It isn’t strong like the Assams that give me tummy ache, those sharp teas that make my tongue curl up and try to hide. It is fresh and clean, there is a nice pure metallic taste – that melting frost taste I usually may find in green or white tea. And malt. And…muscat grape?

I don’t pick up any puerh taste like Azzrian. The fruitiness makes me wonder if there is some Darjeeling in here?

This is a great wake up cup, civilized, smooth, and the drying effect on the tongue builds gradually as you drink instead of assaulting you. (I guess you can tell I have been traumatized by Yorkshire Gold and the like.) It did not need milk and sugar for me. I did try it that way just so I could report the effect but I preferred it plain. A little milk was fine, but sugar did nothing to add to it for me. I generally don’t put sugar in my tea so those who do might prefer it that way. This is sweet enough for me as is!

A very nice offering, Hugo Tea!

I bought these to use for special occasions. There isn’t a lot that is more special than Christmas Eve in this house! I had hoped to entice some of the kids into trying it since it is so unusual, but the diehard puerh drinkers didn’t budge. They DID watch it bloom and appreciate it. No one else wanted tea.

So I ended up drinking three steeps of this myself! This is my favorite blooming tea so far. The flavor is light and smooth and the flowers add a delicate touch, but not so much flavor that you would dislike it if you are averse to floral teas.

I am going to have to label this as a favorite of hubby soon. We had it with Asian buffet take out again last night and he emptied the pot before I hardly had any! Then he….yes, HE….resteeped. I don’t know if he has ever made loose leaf tea by himself, but he went in the kitchen and made another pot. He was being sweet to me so I could have seem more, and of course he sat down and had more as well.

It is hard to describe how good this is with food. I am surprised I like it so well with food because it is a mild tea that you would think would get lost under the flavors, but instead it swirls across your palate and tastes so fresh and sweet, like sweet well water. I think this would have to go on the “if I could only have ten teas” list!

Peachy fresh light green tea, smooth with no bitterness. Great stuff! If you cant buy frkm Tin Roof Teas, this is the same as Madame Butterfly, which is sold by many vendors though I like buying it from Gurman’s of Ireland since we have had great customer service from them!

Last night I asked my son who is here for the holidays if he would like some tea. He said sure! I asked what kind and he replied that he would like the usual. The usual means Teavivre Puerh, usually ripened Tuocha.

This is the final Tuocha that was sent by AmyOh. Thank you, Amy!

This Tuocha is larger than the ones I bought at A Southern Season. I out it in an eight ounce g,ass pot and gave it a thirty second rinse because I couldn’t remember how well this one breaks up. The rinse was fine, because the next steep, also thirty seconds, was inky black. I made three steeps in rapid succession and combined them in one larger pot.

Great as always. I confess I still do not detect much if any rose flavor, though the pink bud is very pretty in the Tuocha and in the pot! This is a stronger puerh than Mengku Palace. It is not fishy but strongly horsey. Very good, and very soothing for tummies. That is a good thing with all the holiday cooking.

I invited a friend over today for soup and goodies. He is fairly new to tea drinking, having only had Lipton with milk and sugar until a couple of months ago when I started serving tea when he came over.

Today I made my bracing, fortifying standby. All hail the Queen! He loved it and said he could drink this all day long. I had to make a second pot. Hubby even drank it without milk and sugar and that never happens with a black tea!

This is a smooth blend of Chinese teas, strong enough to withstand additions but sweet and smooth enough not to need them unless you just enjoy them. It is almost time to order another pound because I am getting low!

I bought this because I loved the way it looked! These leaves are twisted and soft and fluffy, but they have great staying power for resteeping. I have reviewed this a few times before so this time I will just say that I still mostly taste oats, specifically plain Cheerios. This is not a contemplative, meditative cup for me, but rather a tea I make either to go with Asian food or when I want green tea but I want a tea that will get me going and keep me going. For some reason, this tea makes me want to attack my to do list! That is exactly what I have GOT to do today!

I needed a firm foot to the butt tea today. We are cleaning and cooking and cooking and cleaning for Christmas soup night. I need to go shopping at two groceries to finish but I have to get the first soup on. The second one cooks faster so it can wait a little while.

Here is my firm foot! I made a whole pot and put it on my beautiful new vintage cast iron warmer that was given me yesterday by the puppy I keep on Tuesdays! I love it!

Here is something you almost never see in my tasting notes…this one gets milk and sugar, almost always. But when you drink this, you KNOW you have had a cup of tea.

This was the final tea of tea party. By the time we get to our third tea, we have usually finished snacking or we are just nibbling the occasional cookie. It is unusual for us to have all black teas but this was an unusual tea day since we had soup and cake as well.

Since the final stands alone, I chose a flavored tea. I chose this one because A. It tastes great B. it is new and my guest had never had it and C. almond flavor reminds me of Christmas.

The aroma does not disappoint on this tea and the flavor does not let you down. We took it plain and enjoyed it but for those who like a dessert tea with milk and/or sugar, this would almost certainly be excellent that way. The tea base is prominent enough to hold up to additions. The aroma smells like Christmas to me, without smelling like a standard Christmas tea of cinnamon, clove, and orange.

After having Loaded Baked Potato Soup, I served Italian Cream Cake. I didn’t make it! A friend sent it to me and it came from Sam’s club and was delicious! The frosting tastes a lot like the Bavarian Cream matcha from Red Leaf, but there is also coconut and that adds a lot to this cake.

It is extremely rich, however, too rich for me unless I scrape off a lot of the frosting. I felt that it required a black tea with a lot of presence to pair with it.

I love this tea! I don’t know how to describe it accurately because there is an unusual texture or something that I only know how to describe as…cocoa powdery, and I don’t mean just the flavor of cocoa powder but even a dryness at the same time it was wet. It is not, however, the dryness associated with astringency. I do not find this tea to be astringent at all!

When I drink it, it FEELS dark and rich. Imagine if you put a tiny bit of cocoa powder on your tongue, unsweetened, and it wasn’t bitter at all. It is not a heavy bodied tea, but rather it seems to hang on to my tongue for a moment before I swallow. This is what made me feel it would go well with that rich cake. Again, it needs no milk or sugar, which was critical since this cake is so rich and sweet.

I think it paired very nicely, but it is also wonderful on its own and is great for gong fu sessions, too.

This has become a “go to” black tea for me. Whether I am pairing it with food or just want something that I think anyone will like, even non-tea drinkers, it is a safe bet. It is sweet and honeyed and smooth, so it really needs no additions.

This was the first tea of tea party. I am going to ask for your input today about how I sometimes serve tea and choose the pairings. If anyone has any helpful tips or advice, I welcome it.

Since this was the “tea party before Christmas” and our gift exchange day, I served loaded baked potato soup. We seldom do “real” food. I chose this tea to go with it because I felt it had enough presence to still be enjoyed but no flavors that would compete with or overshadow the food.

I thought it went with the soup very well. I knew I had to step up the strength of the next black tea served so it could compete with dessert so this was a great starting place.