Autumn Hearth

Feels like I haven’t logged a tea in forever, I really haven’t been trying much new, being on a buying hiatus. But I have been drinking, drinking the seasons of Verdant’s non-roasted Tieguanyins and Laoshan Greens. Drinking them simply to drink them and for this reason: http://verdanttea.com/how-to-store-tea/ not for any special occasion, person, comparison or log, simply because they need to be enjoyed. And you know what? That is so much more fulfilling right now than trying to cram in three different kinds of tea to review.

I also probably won’t be posting as frequently here for awhile, our basement flooded last night/this morning, we’ve got guys taking care of it as I type this, nothing majorly damaged as far as I can tell, except the carpet which we wanted to replace anyway, so will probably spending some time outside the house as well as sorting things out to throw away, give away or donate. Gosh I started that note like six hours ago, before everyone descended upon the house, was much more relaxed then, guess I need to make another cup.

Many thanks to Pekko Teas to their very generously sized sample and offer!* It’s been awhile since I’ve had Bai Mu Dan/White Peony straight, back when I was exploring as many different grades and varieties of white tea mostly from Upton. It’s not something I would have picked out for myself now, but I’m glad for the opportunity all the same. I am always struck by the diversity of color, size and full/brokeness of the leaf. There are a few vibrant unfurled green leaves, many silver buds and lots of brown, olive and grey withered chopped up leaves.

I find White Peony to be both ugly and beautiful and am admittedly spoiled by whole leaf tea most of the time. This being said I do enjoy the herbaceous and woody personality Bai Mu Dan has compared to delicate Silver Needle. They remind me a bit of Darjeeling (and that’s the exact same reaction my friend had with this, her first White Peony) which also has a wonderful mix of color, but I find the company’s comparison to Keemun interesting, I’ve only had one unblended Keemun before so I can’t really speak to that, but I do get jammy.

I’m going to hold off on rating this one until I’ve had it a second time. I just guess I have a hard time seeing peony as a “luxury” tea and have a hard time justifying the price. but I don’t want to give it a low rating based on my bias. Still nice tea all the same!

This is my first Pouchong and what a wonderful introduction this one is! I notice the second I open the pouch and smell the dried leaf that I am going to be in for a treat! The smell is so light and floral and airy, white and green tea come to mind before oolong and while I smell orchid it feels truer to its flower form than the notes in oolong. And they are beautiful leaves, long dark green and slightly twisted, like an unrolled green oolong but different. Wet these leaves come alive with a pure rich green dark and cool aroma, I just want to let the steam bathe my face. And the taste, so unique yet still familar.

This tea feels like a cool spring morning, dew still on the flowers in the meadow, just starting to warm up. I feel like a monarch butteryfly sipping milkweed (I’ve never tasted milkweed mind you and perhaps to a human it might seem bitter and this tea is anything but bitter, but that is what this tea evokes to me). More practically, it reminds me a bit of Li Shan, as well as Milk Oolong and Ancient Lily, more floral but still creamy, light, cool and sweet.

I can see why Coconut Pouchong is so highly rated here on Steepster, though I have never tried it myself, it’s not hard to imagine that this kind of tea would lend itself well to rich creamy sweet coconut. I keep on getting lunar images as well, inspired by the coconut tea packaging I’m sure and again I’m back in a meadow, this time a rabbit eating clover, definitely something to the clover.

This may seem silly and fanciful to some, but this tea takes you places, steep after steep. I’m on my third and feeling cool tingles on the center of my tongue which truly feels like it’s been coated in velvet. I shall continue this journey, but knew I had to write in the moment, as if in trance, lest I forget all the imagery. Thank you Nuvola Teas for this wonderful offering!

My friend Michelle and I tried this flavored version again compliments of Michelle on here, after a few steeps of the unimpresive non-flavored version. This tea smells like peaches! And tastes like peaches & cream! It’s kinda intense and unfortunately a wee bit cloying but still tasty. I have more of this to play around with so we’ll see. But neither were as good as Fong Mong’s Milk Oolong, even though I do think highly of Teavivre.

I apologize for the abbreviated tasting note on this one, but it was two days ago and I wasn’t terribly impressed. It’s a good green oolong mind you, slightly floral (my friend had a hard time placing it, not orchid, not jasmine, oramanthus, I doubt she’s had oramanthus but I have once), a slight cooling note at the end but creamy? no. buttery? no. I’ve had two other unflavored milk oolongs from Taiwan and this I’m afraid just didn’t measure up, which is unfortunate as I had high hopes for this. Now I suppose there could have been brewing factors or that the sample I got passed on from Michelle, was older or something, but it simply didn’t resemble the other milk oolongs in anyway. ::shrug:: Thanks for letting me try it Michelle

So I swung by the mall on Wednesday when I was out and about to get a cup of this iced. I’m not much of a rooibos fan no matter how heavily flavored, but when I heard about the juniper berries I had to try it. I decided to let Michelle put in a teaspoon of sugar because one it’s going to be tart and two it’s supposed to be a cocktail. At first I’m unimpressed, tart, hibiscus, but then I close my eyes, breath in and picture the cocktail, yeah okay, I get it. I talk to Michelle about the different notes in it, I say gum, she says a candy from her childhood, I think old fashioned candy. I let her get back to work and muse about it on the way home. Cranberry, yes, orange yes, gin yes, some sort of spice? cinammon? maybe. licorice? not quite clove? perhaps. The word horehound keeps popping up, I’ve seen the old fashioned candies, but I don’t believe I’ve ever tasted them. Horehound is apparently in the mint family and bittersweet, again not sure if I’ve had it, but it reminds me of something. There is cherry, vanilla and carob pieces as well as cinnamon flavoring and “lemon crispies”… okay and I’m sure the roobios comes into play as well, though they don’t say if it is red or green and I didn’t get at the tea but the base seems dark. So anywho, interesting tea, want it to be fizzy iced, probably won’t try it hot. Now I want a gin tea.

Special thank you to Nuvola Tea for sending me this surprise sample! Really it was quite a wonderful surprise. My first order from Nuvola came with two free samples, then a second two were sent promptly after they had heard of a simple mislabeling and then this one arrives unbidden in my mail box Tuesday morning! What a wonderful generous surprise!

I feel a tinge of guilt as I still haven’t reviewed the Pouchong they sent last time, but yesterday I was in the mood, nay in need of a good black tea. See I’m on a week long staycation, husband and son are in Indiana, I should be spending most of my time cleaning an organizing, but my sister gave me three books on Sunday, the Hunger Games trilogy and I have devoured them. I started reading Monday evening and stayed up until 4am finishing the first book, I never stay up that late and when I do I’m usually sick. I survived though had a tea date at Clementines with my friend Michelle the. Had her over for Milk Oolong (oh my goodness another thing to review). When she left I started the second book, then went to the local brewery with my sister for a very late dinner and a flight of beer, got home and continued reading, I willed muself to go to bed an hour earlier leaving a few chapters for the morning. That was the morning I needed this tea.

This tea, this tea is lovely! I’ve only ever had two other black teas from Taiwan and only one other “black oolong”. The leaves on this one are gorgeous both dry and especially when wet, the stems and edges have a redness to them though the centers are most definitely black, they are full, slightly twisted, not huge but a good size. The smell is dark, rich, intoxicating, it reminds me of cocoa but not quite the way other black teas do, this one is unique. It’s not quite chocolately and not quite bready, it is sweet and rich in ways I’m not used to describing in tea. It reminds me a bit of brandy. But first I should mention the first sip had a sea air taste to it, again not fishy, though maybe the slightest bit salty, I could taste some of the vegetal qualities of the oolong, then it got darker and sweeter like currants or plums. I reinfused it several time, coming back to it after a car appointment and toward the end it took on a lighter more floral quality like Darjeeling, no more like Oriental Beauty. Very lovely!

It kept me company reading yesterday and I got to bed at a much reasonable hour half way through the final book that I finished a couple hours ago. Been a long time since I’ve indulged in a good fiction novel and I’m grateful to Nuvola for sending me such a wonderful reading partner in this lonely house.

Forgot to log this from this weekend. Thank you to Michelle for this sample, it was on my shopping list so yay! Been awhile since I’ve had Lapsang Souchong but tis the season, happy first day of October! I only had a few sips of the first three infusions, as I poured this as an offering during a healing rite Saturday night. Between the peat moss incense and this the house was filled with lovely smokey smells.

After the ritual I indulged in a few mugs of this and it was perfect, still smokey but in a lighter, cooler, sweeter way, which is how I like it. Actually I’m not surprised this is a Wuyi. Will be coming back to this soon and will log the first infusions as I burnt my tongue on this in the kitchen trying to sneak a taste.

The last of the samples from allisontsui and unfortunately this one’s crushed too :( There are maybe a dozen discernible rolled leaves, stems and the rest dust. After rinsing and discarding some of the thin mush I wasn’t left with much material to brew with so I did a slightly longer steep than usual (for me) though not long enough to allow the fine bits of leaf to turn bitter.

It’s actually a very nice oolong. It feels very cool and marine like, not fishy or salty mind you, but like cool ocean air making its way through a dark evergreen forest. And theres a nice lingering cool and creamy aftertaste. Very pleasant indeed.

Hmm no love for this one on Steepster. Between “flavorless” and “disgusting” with a slight fishy smell and no earthy notes. Well, I guess I can be grateful I followed my natural instincts and steeped it between 30 secs and a min instead of the recommended 5 mins because honestly I’m getting a nice sweet shu flavor here with chocolate and caramel notes. Bonbon indeed.

I’m sure some may consider these notes light, but I’m very used to picking up on the subtleties of shu, since I am a whimp or a gongfu master, you pick (kidding about the master bit, mean no disrespect to those who have earned that title, I’m a total novice) and I usually only steep them for a few seconds.

So thanks Michelle I actually do enjoy this! DAVIDs or any large tea chain would not be my go to source for pu’er but I am glad I got try these for free! I will hold off on rating it to see if it resteeps well and whatnot, because right now I want to give it an 80 and everyone else is 50s and under.

Ohhhh yeah delicious chocolate hazelnut blend from using up Adagio’s Hazelnut, Zen Tea’s Bossa Nova and Teavirve’s Bailin Gongfu Black Organic cold brewed overnight (and most of yesterday). Soooo good, have to save some for the husband. Not exactly sure how I taste mint but there is definitely a mint chocolate chip and caramel and hazelnut feel to this. Also toffee which I realize is what I expected out of the hazelnut teas, not terribly fair of me, but there it is. And Nuttella this time in the taste as well as the smell. Well that was fun, but I think my adventure in hazelnut blends is over, for now.

Umm so this one is pretty similar tasting to the Tea Merchant’s Darjeeling I just logged. Right now I feel like just writing “yeah what she said”. But thinking on it actually I do feel this one starts off nicer, like the cooled off version of the second steep I liked. It has some cooler, smoother, sweeter notes from the get go and I like that. It may not have all the specific floral, muscatel, peppery and astringent notes Darjeeling connoisseurs may or may not be looking for but, I astringency is a personal turn off for me and this one suits me just fine. Will update if I observe more in subsequent steeps. Thank you Michelle!

Cheers to Michelle for sending me this and the next Darjeeling I’ll be logging! I feel Darjeeling is a natural follow up to Oriental Beauty and often want to compare them. They both have a the muscatel thing going on, the darjeeling more so, as well as floral and woodsy notes but darjeeling feels more airy and has more high notes, it’s more flowery and peppery where as the formosa has smoother, warmer, lower notes of leather and camphor.

I don’t have a whole lot of experience with Darjeelings compared to some folks on here. I’ve had two from Teavana and one straight from Upton, plus a few in their blends and lovely white one and I got to taste a Darjeeling Oolong at Adagio. Most have been first or second flushes and while I’m sure I could look up their estates in some cases, I don’t recall them off the top up my head.

At first I feel in love with them, then I really disliked them, them I tolerated them and it seems today I am appreciating them more than I have in a long time. And this is quite nice. It starts off tasting like grape leaves and vine, woody and nice balance of green, sweet and salty. But this tea really shines when it’s cooled down, which I think is a testament to its quality, many teas turn bitter when they cool but this one only gets sweeter.

I infused this one three times, the second was my favorite and it had some nice fruity and honey notes. I felt the third tasted a bit watered down despite being steeped for 5 minutes (I actually followed recommended brewing parameter on this one somewhat, though it looks like it might have been Michelle’s recommendation rather than the merchant’s though my first infusion was close to their’s temp wise) but it did develop some interesting pepper notes and then once again sweetened when cooled. Thanks Michelle!

After some fun experimenting with hazelnut this morning I was in the mood for a straight tea, though nothing too light so I opted for this over Ali Shan. Unfortunately like the Dong Ding this one was crushed in the mail, this one possibly in both it’s journey from Canada and from Taiwan as Allison mentioned something about the Oriental Beauty when I asked about the leaves in the Dong Ding. Makes me sad to see tea bag sized shreds in a loose leaf sample pouch, but it is what it is.

That being said I didn’t have high hopes, but this one surprised me, it was pretty pleasant cup and I was able to get a good second steep out of it. It had nice cool camphor notes in addition to the champagne and leather notes. It actually reminded me of what I first came to love about Oriental Beauty, was only missing butteryness. My only issue was all the floaty bits that weren’t caught by my mesh strainer that got astringent. But overall it was actually less dry and sour than some lose leaf Oriental Beauties I’ve had. I’m sure this is amazing when in whole leaf form. Thank you allisontsui for your generosity.

Okay I’m moving my tasting note over to the page Mercuryhime created to be more concise and deleting my old tasting note from 12 days ago. So sorry for the repost on your feed.

First a huge thank you to allisontsui for her generosity and hospitality in sharing three teas from Taiwan with several Formosa lovers on Steepster! This package arrived a couple days after I had gotten my samples from Nuvola and I had already brewed their delicious Dong Ding (review coming soon) so I opened this one first. Unfortunately I could tell just from feeling the 5 gram packet that the leaves were crushed. There were maybe half a dozen whole to partial pearls and quite a bit of dust, so sad it seems to have suffered the damage on its journey.

Still I treated the leaves with respect and brewed them gongfu being sure to put a fine mesh strainer over my cup, but even this let quite a bit of sediment through. Still the first cup was quite nice, it had somewhere between a woody to floral aroma, it was less charcoal and mineral than the orchid oolong I had been drinking earlier that day, but still had a nice light roast to it with some greener notes. Floral is what stood out to me the most, thought it wasn’t like a scented or intentionally floral blend, just very pleasant and soothing.

Unfortunately this first infusion was the only one worth drinking. It pains me to write this since the tea was given so generously, but try as I could to reinfuse this, no amount of temperature lowering or time adjusting could save these leaves from turning astringent. By the third infusion it was unpalatable and I had to pour it out :( Dong Ding/Tung Ting is a tea that in my limited experience (recent order from Nuvola, sample from Fong Mong and a wonderful yixing session at Essencha Tea House) has been a very unique, generous and forgiving tea.

I cannot speak to the quality of this tea before it was shipped, but I would urge everyone who swaps tea to package in a padded envelope or box where applicable as this one was rendered to bag quality. I will be trying the other samples this week and sending Allison some of my Dong Ding from Nuvola as well. I am glad I got one good cup out of this though.

Now this is actually a very nice green tea, greener and creamier than the pricier Huang Shan Mao Feng it replaced and different than the Emerald Mao Feng I suspected they would use as a replacement, of course these thing could vary from harvest to harvest and it is possible they still got it from the same plantation, ahem, garden. I did not read the description before trying this at the mall with my friend Michelle today (it was one of the ones she hadn’t gotten to) but I could smell the umami notes from the liquor, I know, I know umami is a taste but seriously, it smelled all green and savory and soybean like. The the taste was fresh and umami and felt very creamy, the new girl was raving about it as well. Good find, $5 bucks cheaper, not sure how it will reinfuse, but I probably won’t pay money to find out, I’m sure one of the current employees on here can let us know though.

Had this iced with half a teaspoon of sugar, it’s alright. Reminds me of watermelon gum, probably because of the zing from the hibiscus, the mint and the rock sugar. Mint isn’t too heavy, wish I knew what eucalyptus tasted like so I could find it in here, but I am amused that the photo pictures sage, which isn’t an ingredient. Oh hey look they have videos for each of the featured six teas online: http://www.teavana.com/tea-info/watermelon-mint-chiller Also watermelon isn’t an ingredient, not even in flavoring. There is cantaloupe, pineapple, forest berry, blackberry, raspberry, tangerine, peppermint, lime flavoring and their are candied cantaloupe, honeydew and many other fruit pieces. But I guess they have been working on getting this flavor for five years and watermelon and I’m sure watermelon is a very hard flavor to capture without tasting artificial so kudos for that. Saved some for the husband, I’m sure he’ll like it better than me.

Hmm this has the same issue that many of these blends do, you can only taste hibiscus when its hot. However as it cools the mint and other berries come through. This is greatly enhanced by the rock sugar, no doubt about it. It’s very clean and fresh tasting and I actually forgot it was a rooibos. The vanilla doesn’t stand out strong but I think it smoothed things over. Would probably be good iced.

Me thinks this should be called Elderberry (Chocolate) Truffle Oolong as elderberry is clearly the dominant note here and WonderBerry… Really? So funny story on how I came to try this the day after the release. I had planned to visit Teavana later in the week to try some teas when Michelle was working (I knew she had Mon-Wed off), she could brew a few and we could both sample. I thought about texting Barista Boy to ask if he was working, but didn’t want to seem desperate. It was the toddler that came up with the idea of going to Teavana today, all on his own. I hadn’t mentioned anything to him, we hadn’t talked about Teavana in a long time (he used to love going there a year ago). I asked him why and told him we had lots of tea here at home, but he was insistent about it. Okay, then.

I was nervous driving there, funny how the mind can have such a reaction on the body. Not sure what about really, not like I’ve been banned from the store and there are only three people left working there that I knew, none of them management (our manager quit a few weeks ago, supposedly before they could fire or demote her). So I was going to either see one of two people I like and get a free beverage or someone I didn’t know and just order a drink. Well turns out it was the former and he showed me everything new, all of it I had seen online, but I humored him. Then I got to smell some of the new teas and settled on trying this one.

I actually had a craving for cherries and chocolates yesterday that I satisfied at first with a cold cup of Sakura Allure and then with dried cherries the husband brought home. I’m glad I did not run out for this as it probably wouldn’t have satisfied that craving. This is very elderberry as Barista Boy noted, he apparently has elderberry trees in his backyard and they freeze them and put them on top of ice cream, yum! I tried it unsweetened, against his recommendations but knew I could ask for some melted rock sugar later, however the toddler was dragging me out to the escalator which we rode down, then rode the elevator, the ordered him a ho dog from Dairy Queen at which point he told me he really had to pee.

So with my hands I led him to the “Family Lounge” and after we had both washed our hands we sat down at the small kids table and I sipped on my tea in the glorified restroom while Rowan watched old black & white cartoons. Sigh. It was pretty weak hot and only rounded its self out a bit as it cooled, tart elderberry and hibiscus, yep tasted like a Teavana blend, but truffle? Rowan gave up on his hotdog and was ready to leave the lounge. We stopped by Teavana on the way out to get my splash of rock sugar. Barista Boy said I knew it or he knew me so well or something. The sugar did bring forward the chocolate, but it was still subtle, nothing decadent, which is fine, but I feel like their were more chocolate notes in the Aged Tieguanyin I tried earlier.

I saved some of the cup for the husband who pulled into the driveway right behind me. He said it tasted like chocolate and wasn’t bad. I had my last few sips in a bone china cup, which improved things slightly, but I’m drinking the Aged Tieguanyin right now and it is just so much more satisfying and naturally sweet. No these two teas cannot be compared even remotely, but I do think it says a lot about how far I’ve come.

Many thanks to David and the folks at Verdant Tea for including this as a complimentary sample with the Dragonwell pre-order. This smells amazing, there is no mistake that this was charcoal roasted but it smells so much more appetizing than the few I’ve had recently. Also the taste on this one is immediately sweet, like the leaves have been caramelized. This cup evokes chocolate covered raisins (though not the texture) and spinach pies, the good kind with the thin pastry layers and creme brûlée and scotch and smoke and everything that is good in this world!

This is a connoisseur’s tea and blows everything that I’ve recently been drinking out of the water. By all that is holy if Verdant gets a hold of more of this tea, buy it! I wish I had more of this to share and yet I am taking a break in my brewing right now. Do you know how sometimes when you get a new tea you cannot rush to the kettle to reinfuse it fast enough, either because it is so amazing you must have another steep or because it isn’t quite what you expected and you are hoping the next infusion give you something more I’m having the opposite problem with this tea, it is amazing and is giving me exactly what I want but I find myself super satiated by it’s decadentness. I will have to come back to it later this evening as I do want to get to the middle and late steepings to discover more. But oh my goodness so full and satisfied!

Thank you to Zen Tea for this sample! This and the Monkey Picked I drank last night are like night and day! This is a green, floral oolong like I’m used to, nice and smooth (though not quite creamy) and very spring like. None of the dark cloying charcoal. In fact if it was up to me I would switch the names, the dark roast has more “iron” conotations to me. And yet, this one still created a slight buzzing sensation on my tongue like I’ve been experiencing with the medium roasts… hmm perhaps it’s just something I’m starting to tune into. Personally I would prefer something in between the two and will continue to seek the light and medium roasted traditional style tieguanyins.

Edit: Enjoying the second half of the sample today, following the company’s brewing parameters rather than gongfu style. I didn’t care for the first infusion so I tossed it but the second was very nice, I actually got the vanilla and gardenia notes. The third starts off with a bit of umami then turns… fruity. That’s interesting.

Steepster gobbled up my tasting note on this last night. Many thanks to Zen Tea for their generously sized complimentary samples! This one is definitely darker than the light and medium roasted oolongs I have been drinking. I normally only discard the first short steep (rinse) on pu’er’s, as the are often the sweetest most sparkling infusions and I really enjoy them, but this one smelled, odd.. and was light purplish hue, one taste told me I best treat it as a rinse.

The next infusion and the leaves had a similar smell. It wasn’t fishy like bad pu-er, though perhaps it was a bit metallic, but really I think it was just charcoally from the dark roast, which I suppose I’m just not used to. The third and fourth infusion were quite nice and left a very satisfying cool and filling feeling between the back of my mouth and my throat.

Next time I would like to do a longer rinse and a longer steep, basically follow the western instructions provided on the packet, instead of the gonfu I did. Thankfully the samples provided allow for several sessions. I will update with my observations then.

First off, many thanks to Nuvola Tea who have proven themselves to be most responsive and generous with their customer service. I had a minor labeling error with my last order and graciously offered to send two more complimentary samples to me, which arrived in under a week. Their outstanding customer service and top quality make them a company I feel good giving my business to and can highly recommend to others!

So I have admittedly been curious about Taiwanese “Ti Kuan Yin”. Since I hadn’t selected this round of samples I didn’t know what to expect and was pleasantly surprised when I opened the packet to find dark brown toasty smelling balls of oolong. I’m glad that I had two traditionally roasted tieguanyins recently under my belt before trying this as prior to that I only had tried the green versions. In fact I have three other roasted tieguanyins to try that all arrived around the same time, some lighter and some darker. Very exciting!

This reminds me both of the medium roasted China tieguanyins as well as some specifically Taiwanese oolongs, especially Dong Ding. It has both a warm and cooling quality. It is sweet as well as charcoally. Nutty with a hint of floral. The sensations on the tongue are a bit more subtle than orchid and ginseng oolong, but still present.

A wonderfully comforting tea. It is very evocative of the fall and I got lost in the vapors. It stood up well to multiple infusions, boiling water and short steeps. So glad for the opportunity to try it! Thank you Nuvola Tea!

Tea of the morning (my that seems so long ago) shared with the husband, thanks to Michelle! A decent black tea, not astringent, nothing offensive, held up to three infusions but no shining qualities either, except perhaps the cute comma shaped leaves. Husband said it mostly tasted like tea, but he could tell it was a Yunnan, that may be progress, or he might have just been saying that. It didn’t have strong sunshine and buttery toast qualities that I associate with the better Yunnan blacks, but then again I was drinking it with toast and butter so perhaps it got lost ;)