Auggy

After a 10.5 hour drive, I needed a little tea to decompress. I shared with the husband and his father but didn’t know what size the cups were or the teapot was so I really just sort of guesstimated everything about this tea experience and did it a little more Western-style than I normally do. It was all guess-work so it wasn’t the best cup of this I’ve ever had but it was pretty darn good and enjoyable. Got 3 nice steeps out of it and it hit the spot.

Backlogging this morning’s tea.
I didn’t have quiet enough to make as much as I needed so I topped it off with ROT’s Vanilla Almond. Just a tiny amount, but it really made a difference. I didn’t like the Vanilla Almond straight but just a little really sweetened up the British Breakfast. Otherwise, it wasn’t an overly exciting tea. I think that I liked this more before when I first had this because I hadn’t really experienced many British or Irish breakfast blends. Now that I’ve had better, I probably won’t get this one again.

The husband caught a whiff of this while we were in the bulk teas section of the grocery store so I picked up a little bit to sample. This stuff is selling for $199.99 a pound! Goodness. I hope this is good but I’ve never had much luck with enjoying gyokuro. But eh, that’s the joy of bulk food buying – I can try just a little.

I’m going to up late tonight so I’m not too concerned with caffeine so I went ahead and did the suggested 4g of leaf in 6oz of water. I’m really surprised at how nice the leaf looks considering where I got it. Dark green, clear, somewhat silky (not silky enough to be super-fresh but fresh enough, I think). Dry it smells both clean and buttery.

And now I remember one reason I rarely drink gyokuro. I’m impatient for the water to cool. Sigh. But finally, the water is ready and in 45s I’ll have some gyokuro.

Mmm, okay, this is good. Very clean tasting but still sweet. Makes me think of honeydew melon. There’s also a thicker taste that gets mixed in there. What I assume they are calling butter but the husband says reminds him of Le Sueur very young sweet peas (a household favorite). I can see both butter and pea-like but waffle between the two. Ultimately, it is more a feeling of creaminess than an actual taste for me.

I can see why this is supposedly award-winning. This is good. The husband thought so too as he tried to drink about half my cup. Depending on how subsequent steeps go, this tea might get my elusive 5 star rating.

ETA:
Steep 2 – pour started at 5s. OMG, it’s buttered grass. So awesome.
Steep 3 – pour started at 1min. This steep isn’t as intense as the first two. Should have done 1:15 – 1:30. Still nice (if light). Tastes like thin honey.

Yet another tea I had forgotten I had. Actually, thought I was out of it. Nope, I’m not! I have almost half a tin left. Yay!

Because it has been a while since I’ve had it and it is possible my tastes have changed some since the last time I had it (in July), I’m going to treat this like a new tea.

First off, the sprinkles are fun. I’m easily distracted by shiny and sprinkles are close enough to bring me great joy. As it is brewing, I get a big time vanilla icing smell. Mmm. Icing. Normally I’d add a sugar and a splash of milk to my flavored/dessert teas (seems to me to help the flavors show up and be, you know, dessert-y) but I am milk-less today. Boo.

Mmm, this is good though. Sweet (yay sprinkles!) and tastes pretty similar to how it smells. It’s not exactly a well developed tea or anything. No peppery notes or sweet hay tail or hints of raisins. It’s a vanilla cupcake tea. Correction: it’s a GOOD vanilla cupcake tea. But dessert teas have their place in my pantry and I think this is probably in my top 5.

This teabag came as a sampler with my new teapot. It says it’s fully biodegradable and made of corn resin. Well, they weren’t 100% clear if it was the packaging or the teabag (or both) that was made out of corn resin and since I’m allergic to corn, I cut the teabag open and dumped the leaves into the pot just to be safe. It was a pyramid bag so the leaves are pretty good quality. Maybe a little small (especially the lemongrass) but not a big deal.

When I stick my nose in the cup, I get mostly mint but when I’m farther away I get little whiffs of what I think is the licorice. No hint of the lemongrass or tangerine. Taste-wise I feel the mint more than I taste it but it is still the first and dominate flavor. The next flavor is the lemongrass but it seems to blend well with the mint making a sweetish light taste. The licorice is pretty faint (which is good because I’m typically not a fan). I think it give the mint and lemongrass flavors a little support. The tangerine is pretty much not evident to me except maybe in a little tiny citrus taste that seems almost like part of the hint of licorice? And even that hint I don’t get consistently.

Of course, saying all this, if I didn’t know what was in it, I doubt I’d be able to pick anything else out beside the mint. It’s evident that SOMETHING else is there as it is not super-minty plus there is more depth of flavor than you get from a straight mint tea. But the different flavors really blend one into another so no single one stands out. Or at least not so much that I can identify them.

I’m not a big herbal fan but if they had sent a larger sampler I would drink it. Don’t think I’d go out and intentionally buy it though (maybe if the tangerine was more obvious). I would, however, choose this over a plain mint tea.

The dry leaves smell faintly sweet. The smell isn’t strong so I can’t really tell what kind of sweet. But it is pleasant. After a quick rinse, the leaves smelled like sweet tobacco. No fish though so we’re good.

I love the color of tea juice pu-ehr seems to make. Such a delightful dark ruby. I want to like this type of tea simply for that reason. Still no fish so that’s good. Not as fragrant as the last (and only other) pu-ehr I’ve tried but sweet… I can see raisin and maybe fresh cut hay?

Taste wise, this is remarkably inoffensive. I had always heard things about pu-ehr’s taste and my try of the fish pu-ehr (okay, not REALLY fish) pretty much confirmed the horror stories. (Well, not about the nails and bird feathers and cigarette butts because it was loose). So I was preparing for something I’d have to learn to like or look at with a different mindset to enjoy. I was all prepared to tell myself “No no, dirt is a GOOD flavor”. But I find I don’t have to. This is good without having to add qualifiers or adjust my thinking.

Smooth, sweet (but not so much like there is sugar in it though there is maybe a hint of that on the tail), a little dark/wild tasting at the end… maybe hay, maybe fresh, healthy dirt (you know, the rich dark kind with earthworms – and I need to stop that train of thought before this becomes the earthworm tea to me… and it might be too late), maybe some kind of fruit glaze – rum raisin glaze or something. Can’t quite peg it.

I can see the similarities between this one and the fish one I had previous. The sweetness is very similar as is the general expansion of flavors as I sip on it. But this one is much milder and the flavors blend together a bit better without any fish taste so unlike the last one, I don’t have to have multiple steeps before I figure out if I like this. I do. It’s good. I’m not sure if I’m going to be driven to ordering it when I finally place my Samovar order, but I will enjoy this sample.

Thanks to takgoti for showing me pu-ehr doesn’t have to equal fish!

This was the inaugural run of my new teapot today. It was wonderful! I think I am in love. And I’m already thinking that when I break this teapot, it’s not too expensive to just order another one. Though hopefully I will have a bit before that happens.

I rarely get to drink Darjeelings and Keemuns – they aren’t the best teas to take to work in my travel tumbler and the husband doesn’t like them as much so I rarely fix them on my stay-at-home days. But it’s been quite a while since I had this so I thought I’d bust it out. Hubby chose to partake so I made some for him, too.

It seems especially nutty as it cools with a tart sweetness like white grapes. The tail puts a bit of astringency at the back of my throat, almost like orange juice can. Brisk and fairly bright in taste, I enjoy it a bit more as it goes from hot to pretty warm.

Going to go make a second steep. In my new teapot! WOO!

ETA: The second steep is lovely. Much softer and sweeter than the original steep. Totally different in character. The majority of the aftertaste hits the middle of my tongue instead of the back of my throat like steep one. The nutty flavor is lighter and the tart sweet of grape has moved into something faintly more floral. No dryness or bitterness is evident and there is a mere hint of the previous tartness.

Ah ha! I did not know I still had some of this! I thought that using up the last of my Silk Oolong Formosa meant I was silk oolong-less. I am so happy to find that I am not – and even happier to find that I have a decent amount of this tea left. Not a ton but enough for 3, maybe 4 more sessions. Yay!

Oh, this is sooo good. Sweet and creamy and sweet and wonderful. Almost like a lightly fruit-flavored butter. Or maybe like sweet cream. Hmm, that one is probably more accurate. Creamy but not quite rich… Or at least not rich like chocolate fudge is rich. Creamy and almost rich like… preserves as compared to jelly. But not as sweet as that.

Mmm. Preserves. I think I need some buttered toast with strawberry preserves in between steeps. Which is right now because my cup is done. And I have no idea if this review makes any sense. Drinking this made me a too bit euphoric to worry about logic.

So good.

Whee! Fun updates! Looks great, Steepster Overlords! (Now if we could just edit the comments we make….)

I spent my drive to work this morning pretty much doing three things: listening to OK Go, trying to ignore that I need to get gas (it’s literally freezing outside… I am not mentally prepared to stand out in that to pump gas) and trying to figure out what it is that this tea lacks.

I’m not saying this is a bad tea. Far from it. I quite enjoy it. I even caught a whiff of cinnamon today from the dry leaves. I tried to find that taste while drinking it, too and decided that maybe there is a hint of it on the tail end. Maybe. But anyway, I like this tea. Stout, wakes me up, but isn’t mean about it. It’s a 4/5 star for me. It’s just missing… something. Something that would give it just that little extra depth of flavor to push it into a 5/5 star tea (I am horribly stingy with 5 star ratings – out of the literally hundreds of teas I’ve tried, maybe 25 have gotten a 5).

Also this morning, I think I’ve fully figured out what malt tastes like. Others have done a great job describing it but going from acknowledging what it should taste like and really understanding what it tastes like took a few tries for me. Anyway, to me it is what comes across as a combo of bake-y and cardboard. Today I got more cardboard from this tea, but not bad cardboard. Gourmet cardboard. Not the licking-the-dirty-and-already-used-cardboard-shipping-box in-your-face-ness that I get from ROT’s Lucky Irish. This was good, clean, nice quality cardboard.

I promise, it’s not a bad thing.

But yeah. I like this tea but can’t quite love it (though it will definitely be a go-to tea for me until I find a 5-star Irish Breakfast). Now that I’ve had a chance to get to know this tea, I think I enjoy Assam Harmony more so I’ve dropped the rating just a hair to reflect that.

Can’t really smell much from the dry leaf, but about 10 seconds after the water hits them, there’s this lovely whoosh of scent. I can’t peg the smell though. Sweet, a little floral but there’s something else. The company gives the the options of stone fruit and hay. Well, I have no clue what a stone fruit is, much less what it smells like. Can’t really see the hay much either. Smells more like apricots to me.

Oooh, the taste. It sweet but not sugary sweet. Fruit sweet. Like apricot nectar. Not that I’ve had apricot nectar. But I think if I did, it would taste like this. The flavor is delicate yet strong. Does that make sense? It’s not a weak flavor by any means. But it tastes very soft-breeze-on-a-summer-day.

Two thumbs up! This is going on the list of “Things to buy on my first Samovar order”.

I gotta remember to back off the steep time just a hair with this one. The savory taste of the sesame doesn’t need a super-bold tea taste behind it. It can make it a bit overwhelming.

I usually pick a certain type of tea in the mornings before work. Stout enough that it helps me wake up but gentle enough that it isn’t a mean wake up since my stomach usually wakes up about 2 – 3 hours after I do. Anyway, I wasn’t 100% sure about having this as a morning, take-to-work-in-my-tumbler tea. But I figured what the heck, right? I added a little bit of sugar (1/2 teaspoon for my 12oz) and off I went.

Okay, I haven’t tried this with milk yet but I think I’m going to the next time I decide to start my work day off with this. The savoriness was a bit abrupt for me this morning. It was good and I liked it, but the first few sips were a bit shocking. Not a gentle wake up tea. Of course, I miiiiiiight have made it a wee bit strong (when I’m tired in the morning (aka ALWAYS) I tend to be a bit heavy handed with the leaf weight). But I think in a few hours I could have handled the tea much better. I still had some left when I got to work (unusual for me but again, it took a bit to gear me up for this) and by that time, all of me was fully awake and thought this tea was a fantastic idea.

Taste-wise, still as yummy as my first experience with this. Hello toasted sesame! I’m not craving unadon from it though, but that could be because unadon just isn’t a morning dish. Mmm, unadon. Anyway. The mouth-feel on this puppy is… AMAZING. My fukamushi from last night had less savory mouth-feel that this one (though I blame part of that on my decision to use a metal strainer, not my kyusu with the sasame filter – and how big of a dork does that sentence make me?). Post-tea I’m kind of left with the feeling that I need to brush my teeth. Not so much for the taste because I’m kind of grooving on that but for the mouth-feel-created-fuzz-factor-feeling. It rivals the tooth sweater feeling first thing in the morning. Kind of fantastic that it can be that thick tasting but weird in a black.

Randomly, I think if I were to add yak butter to any tea, I’d want the tea to be like this. The tea is strong enough and bold enough in flavor that I don’t imagine butter – even yak butter (which I equate to having a taste similar to goat cheese because, you know, it’s a YAK) – would be able to overtake the tea. Of course, I don’t imagine ANY tea could overtake yak butter but at least a tea like this would have a fighting chance of not being overpowered and, in my mind, balance out the tea/yak taste experience.

Not that I plan on adding yak butter to any of my teas. But you know, if I had to.

Why do I keep forgetting about this tea?? WHY? Because it wasn’t old enough 2 months ago when I last had it, I had to let it get even older? Ugh. But it still tastes so yummy. Not as fresh, but it is still good tea.

I used a little over 5g for 6oz. Probably could have used a bit more. But it is sweet and butter and grassy and good. I really really need to get a different kyusu for use with some of senchas. They are so fine the clog my sasame filter making a second pour sooooo much slower. Keeping that in mind, I used my (now lidless) teapot which has an in-spout mesh filter (replacement pot coming soon). Much easier but there is just a little bit of flavor that seems to be lost with getting almost no leaf in my cup. But I know the second cup will be better this way so I’ll deal. And put a larger-filter kyusu on my wishlist. Which means I get to look at Artistic Nippon again. Bonus.

DH loves mango. Like, a lot. Like, he gets it in bulk from Costco. So I’ve met a lot of mangoes. Fortunately, I like them too (not the buy-in-bulk level but still well enough). Anyway, this tea does taste like mango. Not quite like the super-ripe, making-a-little-puddle-of-sticky-syrup-in-the-fridge mango. More like the mostly-ripe-but-a-lighter-yellow-color-and-a-little-fibrous-towards-the-center mango. These types of mangoes are still good mangoes, they just have a slightly different flavor. And that flavor is pretty much exactly how this tea tastes.

I think I’m getting sick. Any time I tilt my head the slightest bit, the room starts spinning. So I’m either getting sick or have been hitting the bottle quite heavily and forgetting about it. Option two is not as unlikely as one might think as I’m forgetting all sorts of things today. Such as how long I steeped this for. 4 minutes? 5? I don’t recall and the timer went off less than a minute ago.

Anyway, whatever I did to it worked out well. I still thinks this taste like a mild Chinese green. It’s got the honey taste that seems fairly standard but only a tiny little hint of the brine that I seem to always get. I’m drinking it from the same cup as my earlier steeps of Ryokucha, but I rinsed and wiped the cup out good so the sweet, grassy green hints I’m getting are from this tea, not leftover from the Ryokucha.

The world was a cruel, cruel place this morning… and so far this afternoon is shaping up to be only marginally better. I figured green tea would be a good selection since I could use a yunomi to warm my hands (the cold makes me grumpy(ier)).

Wow. Lots of flavors going on here… Roasty, popcorn, creamy, a little sweet but sweet like wakame seaweed is sweet not sugar sweet. Okay, and now I’m tasting something like warmed milk. Absolutely zero bitterness or astringency. Leaves me with a thick, wet feeling in my mouth. Yeah, I know, I know. It’s a liquid, it is wet. But some teas leave a dry feeling. Not this. It really is like drinking roasted popcorn and warmed milk with a little dash of seaweed in it.

Rating-wise the jury is still out on this. I have to decide if I love it or just like it. Ultimately it will depend on how much I get into the warmed milk flavor of it. Depending on how that goes this tea will either end up being a ‘good but not for me’ or an ‘awesome-ness in tea form’. I will say this – the only other genmaicha + matcha that I’ve had was from Den’s and this one is much better. The Den’s one definitely fell into the the ‘good but not for me’ category as does genmaicha plain typically. I’ll drink it and enjoy it but never felt the urge to stock some in my pantry. This one…. might break out of that box.

DH isn’t feeling well – his sinuses are attempting to secede – and I wanted tea, so I thought I’d combine tea-ness with being the good wifey. Takgoti sent me some of this and it is currently the only mint I have and mint is friendly to sinuses so I thought this would be a perfect time to try this out.

The dry leaf smells a bit like a chai so I was nervous I was about to fry DH’s sinuses instead of help them, but I went ahead. While I was pouring, I got a fantastic whiff of mint. But not plain ole mint. Refreshing mint. Mint with that fantastic feeling of cold whoosh.

Now, because this is ultimately being made for DH, I did add about a quarter teaspoon of sugar in there. Because, unless it is TheraFlu, I feel that any drink taken for medicinal purposes must be sweetened at least a little bit. I blame Mary Poppins. Normally, I would add honey but I’m really to lazy to do that right now.

Oh the taste! Minty and refreshing and wonderful. But better than plain mint. The spices give it a great full flavor without making me feel like I’m drinking a chai. I can’t pick out the individuals spices – they aren’t as strong tasting as the dry tea smells like they will be – but they combine with the mint to give this wonderful fresh feeling/taste without being obnoxious.

This is by far the best mint tea I’ve ever had. I rarely drink mint (I’m anti-peppermint as a general rule) but I definitely think I’m going to have to get some of this to have on hand because it is quite awesome. DH actually finished his cup before I did which is pretty much unheard of in this house. He did request I brew it a little stronger next time. I think that will be no problem. Initially I was hesitant to brew too long because of the spices involved, but after seeing how the flavors combine, I think a longer brew time will be happy-making.

So I intended to take takgoti’s suggestion and brew this at 180, but I was too impatient for the water to cool and gave up at 190. But I can totally see how boiling would be too much for this tea. There is a hint of something at the end that I think would develop into overwhelming bitterness if brewed at boiling. But at 190, it’s totally okay. I imagine that at 180 it might be pretty much gone.

I was actually really excited to try this one because of the great reviews but I’m feeling a little deflated. It tastes… normal. It’s nice – has a good flavor, a little fruity, a little malty, a little smoky. It’s kind of a combo of all the good things that I appreciate in different types of teas, but they are all rolled into one tea. Which you would think is a good thing (and I think most people would agree) but it leaves me feeling that the tea is a bit confused.

It’s a well-done blend, I think. You get all the good out of the teas and none of the bad – no rough edges or harsh tastes. DH gives it a 4/5 star rating, so I think the sadness I’m getting from it is a personal taste thing. The tea itself is good. Just not my speed.

My first contact with this tea was successful and I wanted to see how it would do if I did the full 5 minute steep.

It’s good – and I’m saying that without having added sugar or milk to it. The bake-y flavor from before has become a malty flavor and there is a little bit of dryness/tannin in the aftertaste. The tea has no bitterness and a nice, full flavor.

This makes me think of the time a tasting specialist from Starbucks spoke at a meeting I went to and gave us coffee samples to highlight the different qualities to different types coffee beans. I wasn’t a big coffee fan but there was one he gave us – a pretty expensive, high-quality one – that was surprisingly smooth and rich without being acidic (a taste/feel I always associate with coffee). That’s what this tea reminds me of.

The smoothness of this makes me happy, but I could easily see people who prefer a more in-your-face Assam thinking this is too smooth or mild. But I think that someone who likes drinking a rougher Assam with sugar and milk would enjoy this one straight.

Too much food. I needed tea but felt too full to have anything with caffeine (it makes sense in my head – work with me). I had some of this thanks to takgoti and thought this sounded fun and pretty interesting for tonight. I’ve never head buckwheat tea, so this should be an experience. Whee!

Brewing, it smells like puffed wheat cereal. Sugar Puffs or something but without the sugar. After pouring, the tea keeps the smell of a puffed wheat cereal but the buckwheat bits in the pot smell a bit liked burned popcorn.

This brews up insanely light colored. Pretty much like when you get hot water out of a pipe that hasn’t been used in a while – the water from the spout seems clear but when it pools in the sink it has a bit of a brown tint. That’s what this tea looks like. But the smell is strong so I don’t think the light color of the liquor indicates faint flavor.

Oh wow. This tastes sweet which is totally surprising because I can’t smell any sweetness, just puffed wheat. The sweetness that comes across in the taste makes it actually taste like Sugar Puffs… or maybe the milk after you eat the cereal (but without the creamy milk texture).

Made hubby try some because, ultimately, he is my guinea pig. He said it reminded him a bit of popcorn and that he liked it because it was unique. He gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

I’m with him in that I don’t think this is something that I could have every day because it is very unique and different. But, I think it would be something I’d like to have on hand all the time just in case. Because this would totally fill any cereal snacking desire I had. Frankly, I find this tea fascinating. Weird but wonderful. Sadly, Maeda-en is out of stock (I just checked).

Okay, my nose is stuffy. I’m having trouble smelling pretty much everything. So dry, these leaves smelled like nothing. But after a quick rinse? Kapow! I can smell that! I’m horrible, however, at saying what things smell like when 1) I have a stuffy nose and, especially 2) when it is a dark oolong. I just don’t have much experience with them. But this smelled a lot like Adagio’s Wuyi Ensemble – if pressed I’d say it smells like a pleasant smoke smell plus a dark honey (plum or something) but I feel like I’ve been saying that about everything (either that or ‘bake-y’) so don’t push me to actually say what it smells like other than Adagio’s WE, k?

I’ve overfilled the glass so I’m going to have to wait a bit for it to cool a little so I don’t pour freakishly hot liquid down my front. On the plus side, it gives me the chance to notice the pretty color. Like apple juice. Or clear cider. Very pretty in my Bodum cup.

Okay, it’s cool enough now… Oooh, this is good. Sweeter than Adagio’s Wuyi Ensemble and a little more complex. Not quite as dark. Smoky at the front then a fruity taste (peach? DH mentioned apple… maybe pear? it’s not very strong and mostly comes across as sweet) then the finish gives hints of what this would taste like as a less oxidized oolong. Very sweet. Very smooth.

So yeah, this one kind of flies in the face of my belief that I’m not a fan of smoky or darker oolongs.

I’m singing ‘Cup of Brown Joy’ today. When I say Assam you say lovely. Assam! Lovely! Assam! Lovely!

Anyway… Yesterday was a good tea day. I drank 3 cups shy of 4L of tea – and it was all delish. So today’s quandary was: do I take a risk with a new tea and possibly upset the good tea karma from yesterday or do I go with tried and true to keep the wonderness flowing?

I decided to be a little daring and try this one. (I could have been more daring – I still have one Adagio custom blend to try…) And it’s official – I like Assams. I wasn’t sure because in the past I had only had some not so great ones and didn’t know if my dislike of them was related to the fact that they were Assams or the fact that they weren’t high quality. Totally option two.

This was very smooth – absolutely zero hint of bitterness so I definitely could have brewed it the full 5 minutes I think (but brewing unknown blacks that long scares me). I got a very bake-y quality from it. Like a nice bread. It took me a while to place it and I might be off (my mouthwash from last night has a disturbing amount of staying power – I can STILL feel it on my tongue so it’s dulled my sense of taste a bit – boo!) but ultimately I came up with that it tastes like the cookie part of a chocolate chip cookie. I didn’t get a chocolate taste from it, but you know how there are some cookies that skimp on the chocolate chips so you just end up with a bite of cookie, no chocolate? But it doesn’t taste like a sugar cookie (unless it’s a brown sugar cookie)? That’s the taste I was getting from this.

Right now I’m intentionally tying this one with Adagio’s Irish Breakfast for the rating but I’m going to have to see which one truly reigns supreme (once the mouthwash taste goes away and I can have a fair taste-off or something). But yeah, two thumbs up.

Now, must go watch the Brown Joy video again.

I had been planning on having some Jasmine Silver Needle this afternoon, but then I got this DEEEEElightful package from takgoti. I had an extended brain freeze moment trying to decide which tea to try first and then I decided to make it easy on myself and pick this one – replacing my planned jasmine with this jasmine.

I love jasmine teas but prior to the Jasmine Silver Needle, my last two jasmine teas were… not great. I was ready to avoid jasmine for a while. Then I got the JSN in a swap and I was reminded how well jasmine can be when it is done right.

This is jasmine done right. The smell is gorgeous. Light but rich, not perfumy/fake. But the taste is where this one really shines. Because even badly done jasmine teas can SMELL okay. But taste? That’s harder.

This one is surprisingly deep of flavor. Samovar says it has hints of cocoa and a baked, almost cookie-like flavor. Not sure if I would go THAT far (I taste no chocolate chip) but there is a richer taste that is totally unexpected but very welcome. It makes the taste less one-dimensional jasmine and more like an overall taste of jasmine with a note of something almost bready underneath it. In a weird way, it reminds me a bit of King Hawaiian dinner rolls.

And since I feel totally insane saying THAT on a jasmine tea review, I will leave it there. Oh wait, one more thing: this? is sooooo good.

Drinking a second steep from this weekend iced.

Yeah, not thrilling. At first I didn’t remember what tea it was. Sipping on it didn’t help. So I poured it into a glass so I could see it. Ah, it’s a black tea. That’s a bit surprising. Must be the sesame tea then.

No sugar but iced it only has a bit of bitter at the end that really mostly comes out as astringency/dryness. Oops, I say that but as it warms up that astringency is getting more and more bitter. So okay, iced even, this one needs a little sugar for me.

The big disappointment is that there is zero sesame flavor to it. I suppose all of the added flavor went away in the first steep so it looks like this tea won’t be a good resteeper. As a non-flavored tea, the 2nd steep isn’t bad (though again, needs a little sugar – or maybe a shorter steep time though I don’t recall what I did when I made this).

This doesn’t change my rating for this tea though. How a tea tastes in its natural habitat (hot) is what I tend to really care about when picking/judging teas. Icing later steeps is just a bonus. I am a bit curious how a fully-flavored first steep of this tea would taste iced but eh, I’m probably not going to find out. (Well, unless someone tells me – that’d be cool).

3 balls for 8oz… I pretty much can’t smell it today because my nose is so stuffy. Then I brilliantly decided to have a cup of Odwalla’s Strawberry C Monster, which I love but is by NO means flavorless. So sipping on a more delicate tea afterward (because almost any beverage has a more delicate flavor than Strawberry C Monster) made me think, “Wait, is this water?”

Thankfully, I’ve washed the Monster out of my mouth and can actually taste again. Mmm, this tea is good. Makes me think of baking cocoa, the stuff that any chocolate lover has tried eating straight just once, thinking that it will actually taste like chocolate.

It doesn’t.

This doesn’t taste exactly like that. There is so spitting or face-making involved when I drink this. But this isn’t chocolaty either because it isn’t sweet enough. I kind of feel like I’m having a grown up version of hot chocolate. So glad I got a tin of this with my last Adagio order!