Autumn Hearth

Halt all the things! The Traveling Tea Box just arrived at Baker Street! (I know you’re jealous and I’m sorry) Put down that paint brush, don’t even think about cleaning that kitchen or doing laundry today (okay so I might still do laundry) must try all the teas! Also I’m sorry to the folks who sent me tea in these last two weeks, I’m going to have to put them on hold for two days. I totally wasn’t expecting this when the postman rang the bell, I thought it was my gaiwan, then I thought its a bit odd that my gaiwan is coming from a girl with such lovely handwriting, but my last one came from a person and not a company address. But no when I opened the box there was tea! Dozens of packets of tea! Do I have a surprise admirer on Steepster? I was not expecting a swap, oh and they included a notebook! Oh, duh! Ohh, oh, oh,oh! Traveling Tea Box!

So initially I sorted the teas into two piles, interested and not so interested. The interested pile consisted mostly of oolongs, a tea called December and a tea from Whispering Pines, must try! Tea immediately cast into the pass pile were rooibos, chocolate blends, fruity blends and well everything else. But once sorted was completed I picked up the teas from the pass pile and started to open them up. This was the first one I grabbed and well apparently once I smell something I must try it.

However I knew this would now probably be the case for all of them and with the exception of a couple of the teas in the must have pile that were of a low quantity I really just wanted to try a tiny bit and save the rest for everyone else. So how to brew such a small amount? I looked at my tea ware, grabbed my brew basket, remembered it wouldn’t fit down into my narrow 8oz mugs but it does fit into my little 4 oz tasting cups which meant I could brew with less than a teaspoon of tea, not get overwhelmed with so much liquid in the next two days and still have plenty for everyone to try! Win!

So into the basket went just over half a teaspoon of dark minty goodness. I set my variable temp kettle for 200 (after which it immediately drops a few degrees) and steeped it for just around a min. I wasn’t expecting to love it but did find it quite enjoyable. I have only tried two similar teas, Teavana’s Cacao Mint Black and their Slimful Chocolate Decadence. I also meant to take home some of the mint black to my dad as it reminded me a bit of thin mints, his favorite. This reminds me a bit more of a York Peppermint Patty smushed with a Chips Ahoy cookie, only smoother and less abbrasive than the York tends to be. It is a creamy and well balanced dessert cup (though I had it before breakfast) and I did contemplate taking it and brewing it for my dad, but we’ll see. I tried a second infusion, but it was thinner, less creamy and more minty, closer to the ice cream perhaps, so it probably could have benefited from a longer infusion.

Now of course this opened up the floodgates to try all the other chocolate teas so next up David’s Choco Rocket! Many thanks to Amanda for starting and coordinating the tea box and for including this particular tea and to Sare for contributing, the next one (that I am already drinking as I write this) is one of her’s. I probably won’t be rating most of these as I’m not spending enough time with them and they are not my normal cuppa. Also amused that this is the LochTea ;)

First a huge thank you to allisontsui for her generosity and hospitality in sharing three teas from Taiwan with several Formosa lover 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.

One of several teas I shared with my friend Michelle at our tea date today, thank you to the other Michelle for the sample! We had this after Verdant’s Taiwanese Orchid Oolong. They are a bit similar though this was a bit mellower and less smokey/charcoaly and the sensations in the mouth were less intense. Still this is very very nice, it starts out subtler but in a later steep this evening it left a cool coating on the sides of my tongue and roof of my mouth. I have been wanting to try this one for awhile and it is actually my first ginseng oolong and it is already a favorite. I’m glad I only used half the sample so I can enjoy this another day when it is not following the intense orchid oolong, that many describe as being ginseng-like.

I love it when tea arrives! Especially when I have to sign for a package from Taiwan or China! Thank you to Nuvola Tea for this sample! I had forgotten at first that I had ordered 40 grams of tea in addition to the two free samples as it seemed silly to charge PayPal for just $1.25 for shipping so I chose the least expensive of the teas I was eyeing, an Oramanthus scented Taiwan Dong Ding then requested the 5g of this Oriental Beauty and Shan Lin Xi. I was surprised to find the non-sample in a sturdy box with slip cover and a lovely one at that and then confused as this packaging said Oriental Beauty Tea at the bottom.

I was a bit worried, but decided to open both packages to compare. The small sample was just as it should be, Oriental Beauty and a striking one at that, now for the moment of truth. I opened the 40g package and my eyes were met with the beautiful sight of dark green hand rolled oolong with a light dusting of, breath in, oramanthus! My Dong Ding! All was right, just a simple mislabel. Sigh of relief now I can relax and drink the Oriental Beauty!

And it is a lovely one at that so much more vibrant and fresh and not te least bit sour like a couple I’ve tried. The silver tips are the most striking I’ve seen yet! And the taste? Fall leaves, grape vines and light honey. Very nice! There is a velvety ness present that I have experienced before in Oriental Beauty it’s like this cool powdery feeling on te tip of the tongue, like moss, no lichen growing on the bark of a tree, I dig it. Mmm “withered in mist” yes I can taste that, breathe it in. There is also a faint plum note I’m tasting in this third infusion, I shall come back to update, but right now I need lunch and I’m actually changing the filter on the Britta so will have to wait to brew more and rate it then. However I am impressed, now if I only I had the brandy that they mention ;)

This tea stood up well to many infusions, I brewed gonfu and used all 5 grams so I did raise my time to get an idea of what western might taste like. It stood up well to both short and long brews as well as just under boiling water. My last cup yesterday I brewed while I was painting and when my husband came home we went out and half the mug was forgotten, until this morning. I sat down for breakfast and saw the tea and thought, why not give it a sip? I was pleasantly surprised by the cool fruit and honey notes that greeted me. This was delicious cooled off! Often teas get bitter when they sit exposed to air so long. However this is a most quality tea that never turns bitter nor sour, I am most impressed. Because I did not start with a long infusion I cannot fully testify to its strength but I would still guess that this is a more delicate oolong, but full of wonderful soft flavors and aromas. Pristine quality, very fresh, I highly recommend!

So of course I get a sore throat when I have a swap box full of new samples to try ::rolls eyes:: I have been drinking throat coat today and yesterday, however I had this with pancakes on Sunday. I could not convince the husband to make the pancakes with the tea however he was willing to have a cuppa. “Easily bitter” he read from the packet. I used half the leaf, intent to have my caramel pancakes another day and steeped it for a min. I sipped my cup before eating and continued during. Quite nice, balance of sweet and salty and wee bit malty. Husband pronounce after his first sip “wow they weren’t kidding when they said easily bitter” says the man who let it sit in his cup for at least 15 mins. Sigh, I used to be like that, except I did it with herbals. Now I have a much higher tolerance for heat, or use a tiny sipping cup. I did not get around to resteeping that day as I found out my dad had taken my mom to the hospital with chest pains, she’s perfectly fine, excellent heart health, probably either heart burn or anxiety. Throat is starting to feel better this afternoon, though now I am sneezey, perhaps I shall get to try a new tea today after all! Thanks to Michelle for this!

Oooo no wonder I’m loving this!!! I didn’t realize this was a) from Teavirve or b) from Taiwan. My taste associations make much more sense now, though I’m kinda glad it just said the name on it and I didn’t look it up prior to drinking, kinda like a blind taste test! This sample is courtesy of Michelle thank you so much!

This is bringing up all sorts of tea memories for me, Verdant’s Taiwanese Orchid Oolong, Twig Tea, Bancha, and the fabulous roasted Tung Ting I had at my first tea house. I love the cool sweet bakey roastedness of this. It’s a bit woodsy and also reminds me of ginseng, though I haven’t had a ginseng oolong yet, something that will change very soon thanks to Michelle’s magic box which is suited so well to my tastes and teas I need to experience!

Started off with short steeps and have increased it to a min and still going strong. My stomach hurts a bit, but I’m attributing that to food and not tea. It is a type of tea I would seek out again in the future, win!

Many many thanks to Michelle for this and many other samples I’m about to make my way through! I do believe that this is my first Anxi oolong that is medium roasted, I have been meaning to try one and Michelle included two! It smelled dark and appealing, though I think all of the packets smell kinda similarly delicious, due to there being bags of caramel, hazelnut, bon bon and lapsang that left me salivating when I opened the box, this girl is certainly not complaining!

I’m glad I brewed this gonfu, though I hadn’t read any tasting notes yesterday. It is nice and woodsy and nutty and actually stood up well to the seasame honey almond I was snacking on last night. It does have a little bit of orchid and green notes as well. My one complaint is how quickly this turns bitter when it cools.

I did revive it this morning and brewed western at the recommended 3 mins, it tolerated the time well, perhaps because I started with shorter steeps last night. In the afternoon I switched to a roasted Tie Guan Yin which I’m reviewing next and I think I find I’m preferring it, though this was a very nice introduction. Thanks Michelle!

First off I huge thanks to David for sending such an extraordinarily generous “sample” of this. There was a rush of orders when I requested this as my free sample and after it got shipped David realized he might have forgotten in it, surely enough when it arrived there was a sample of Yabao, which I will never turn down and he said he would send extra with my next order, which came sooner than I had planned. There was actually more of this than the teas I paid for! It had actually sold out during that time and I’m guessing he included the last of it, wonderful customer service that and the amazing quality tea offerings keep me coming back to Verdant time and again.

Unfortunately sheng and I are still at odds with one another. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great sheng and there many notes in here that I appreciate, the cedar and rosemary especially are wonderful! I generally get a those tastes either a few seconds in or in the aftertaste which lingers and keeps me coming back for steep after steep. It’s just the astringency as it first hits my tongue and the dryness in the finish. I’ve never had sake, a sad fact I need to remedy, but I get the dry white wine reference. I started this last night and have continued it this morning in a quest for the buttery notes and cinnamon at the end.

I wonder what I could do besides lowering the water temp to lessen my perceived astringency. I keep my steeps short at the beginning but tend to want to draw them out if I lower the temp. Perhaps less leaf? Cold brewing a sheng seems a bit odd to me. Aging takes awhile and the right kind of storage though I’m not opposed to it, I would actually like to try some older shengs perhaps from the nineties to see if I like them any better. I can always find something to appreciate in Verdant’s shengs as they are wonderfully complex, it’s just getting over that dryness.

So I’ve been wanting to try this since my husband mentioned he had some and it reminded him of a Renn Faire. He picked up two bottles today for fifty cents a piece, pretty good deal if you ask me. This tastes like pie to me. Blackberry and rhubarb pie, not that I have had that particular combination, but I’ve had strawberry rhubarb. There is no rhubarb in the tea but I think the hibiscus might be coming off that way to me and cinnamon is what is giving me that pie feeling. I shared my observations with the husband and then he reported that now all he can taste is pie (not sure how he could taste a Renn Faire before). So pie-tea win! Mind you its not really tea, its a hibiscus infusion with fruit juice and sugar cane juice, but its pretty delicious.

Hmm it seems I did not log this months ago when I received and drunk half of the complementary sample, as I thought I had, though I did comment on Verdant’s Facebook page that it was amazing as I was drinking it, so that must be where my memory got confused. No matter, I was so moved by my experience drinking it today that I was going to write a second note and bump up whatever rating I had assigned to it then.

Now me, I love my shu, I haven’t found a Verdant Shu I didn’t love, but this and Yaxin’s Reserve ‘04 Shu Nuggets (the angel food cake) are very different from the other shu’s. They are so sparkling and light on the tongue whereas say the Peacock Village or Elephant Tea Trail are dark and rich and nearly syrupy in their sweet earthiness, which I love, but this is just so fine!

It tastes of parchment but doesn’t feel that way mind you, no it feels like slippery silk especially in the second infusion, its downright scandalous! There is plenty of sweetness in its sparklingness and there is a lovely natural vanilla note. I’d love to wax poetically about ancient books and libraries but we are watching Pirates Band of Misfits and the husband is complaining I am not really watching.

September is tomorrow and I get one order of tea for the month. I’m going to pick up some samples of the new teas and order an ounce of this, I wish I could get more, maybe for the birthday or holidays. But I cannot not have this. Thank you David or sharing such a fine tea with us!

Smells like nail polish remover (but then again so does Teavana’s Joie de Vivre) tastes pretty much like honeydew, smell is distracting though. I was only given a few sips of this by the husband, he says its a bit off.

Picked this up in the grocery store as it was a brand I hadn’t heard of, I’ve never tried a honeysuckle tea and it was unsweetened. It’s pretty nice actually though I think it would be better cold (I’m sipping on it at room temp from a tiny glass). It’s mildly floral and delicately nectary. No idea what kind of white tea but I would guess White Peony. Husband got the honeydew which is sweetened but he has not opened it yet and might not tonight. May rate when I try this cold, putting it in the fridge as I’ve honestly had enough liquids this evening.

I finally opened this one today, I have been saving it for some precious uninterrupted time alone or for guests. Well the guests came first ;) I finally had a tea date with one of my former co-workers Michelle, we’ve been meaning to get together for forever and I’m so glad we made the time for it! I had selected a number of teas for her to chose from for after lunch, we went with Peacock Village Shu for after the cous-cous then after five or six infusions, she suggested we try the one I hadn’t had, just the motivation I needed!. I decided against a rinse, feeling all the infusions on this would be very special and I didn’t want to waste a drop.

Oh my this was incredibly silky, like mushroom or eggdrop soup minus the spice and bits of things. Very delicate and airy and so unlike any black tea I’ve ever had. The second and third infusions brought new mouth feel, tingling at the sides then the tip of the tongue and toward the bottom of the cup a cool sensation at the center, reminding me of powdered sugar or camphor, the ghosts of cinnamon and honey came to visit as well. We found our selves oooing and ahhing after sips, mid-conversation as new sensations occurred in our mouths.

We enjoyed five infusions before she had to leave for an appointment and I have started reinfusing again. I think I could have used a bit more leaf but it is lovely. I sent her off with a toucha each of Cornfields Shu and Chicago Tea Garden’s Sticky Rice Pu’erh as well as my last single serving packet of Teavirve’s Bailin Gongfu to enjoy at home. Next tea date we shall get to the Taiwanese Orchid Oolong and perhaps some Yabao.

No notes yet.

Ooo interesting. This is chocolate and chai in a very different way than I have experienced from Verdant, the natural notes usually coming from Laoshan Black, Big Red Robe or Zhu Rong Black. This is a very complex and unique. It’s stoney and savory, fruity and honey sweet and that’s not to mention the spice and cocoa which are lovely and present but my mind or perhaps my tongue is interesting in picking out the Dan Cong notes dancing around. Very nice, going to do one or two more hot infusions before cold brewing the leaves as I just picked up a sample size. It tastes like there is already milk in here, probably the vanilla, so I’m not going to do any additives. Really glad I got to try this. Well done Verdant!

Grr Steepster gobbled up my tasting note. So this was a sip down for this tea that I’ve had on three or four other occasions since I purchased it in a gift set that was 50% off at the Heavenly Tea Sale in January. It reminds me more of a tieguanyin in scent and taste though the leaves are not balled up. They are small, greyish green slightly twisted leaves that turn deep green once brewed and have nice little serrated edges.

It lacks roasted, mineral and honey notes though does pick up some subtle nuances of peach pits in the second infusion. The first is mostly orchid and vegetal, while the second turns a bit savory. The third is my least favorite, feeling dull and grey. I may try to resteep a couple more times, but mostly this reminded me of Teavana’s Monkey Picked Oolong. Much preferred the Oriental Beauty in this set, but alas it is no more.

No notes yet.

Sip down! So lovely and complex for a green. At times creamy, sparkling, brothy, sweet, vegetal, and nutty with hints of vanilla, mint and even cinnamon. Some steeps feel like soup and others are sheer dessert, rice pudding specifically. I know I must eventually drink through all of last year’s Autumn Harvests and then early Spring, making room for the harvests ahead, but I shall take my time.

Oh my… So for awhile I have been saying how shengs aren’t really for me and I haven’t really developed a palate for them. But this sheng, oh my goodness, this sheng is so delightful to drink! It is immediately sweet and sparkling and woodsy with a touch of spice and just zero astringency, zero! I did a quick rinse and two quick steeps and they are just so unbelievably good. Love the cedar, love the stone, love the fruit (no idea what kinda fruit but the sweet with the juice and all the richness reads as fruit rather than rock sugar or honey) and cinnamon and its just so pristine and complex and I uh guh! And and and! There is a buttery note in the second and third infusion, unbelievable! Best sheng I’ve tried hands down! Now to spend the day with it. Must order at least 4oz, not sure if I’m ready to properly store a cake, but this is the sheng I want to impress guests with.

Was writing a note when my laptop shut down, then had a hard time logging on to steepster and by that time I had moved on to the wonderful sheng I am drinking now. But earlier I brewed two blends. One an Upton Assam with chai. It was okay, I enjoyed tasting the Assam but the chai was a bit thin. I ended up using the liquor to make pancakes and they were quite nice, smelled like pumpkin when they hit the griddle but were very mild, enhancing the pancake taste just a bit.

Second combination was a blend of Upton’s East Frisian Sunday Tea with Vanilla, Sacher Blend Scented Darjeeling and a smidge of Extra Bergamot Earl Grey. Twas rich and smooth and charming. Now just as I finished brewing, Rowan asked for “tiny pancakes” (the first batch was small and I was still hungry as well". So I used up the rest of the pancake mix and poured some of this tea in for the liquid. The result was pretty awesome and the toddler agreed, we enjoyed it without butter or syrup. Would definitely remake both the tea and the pancakes!

Ha! I just made a Teavana blend out of two other Teavana teas. Just got home from Dairy Queen, where we didn’t get ice cream because the toddler wasn’t behaving, so I was jonesing for some desert tea, ideally an oolong based one but really my choices were chai or Gardens of Anxi and while the later is amazing, it’s not what I was craving.

Earlier today I had thoughts of using up an Upton Assam with a Teavana chai. I have a handful of little tins of various chai from errors at work, be they people over filling a canister or accidentally mixing two teas, the chai was always given to me. Anywho in one of the little tins was not-a-chai, it was Teavana’s one straight pu-erh from the Forbidden Kingdom collection. Low quality straight pu-erh with overly powdered spice oolong? Sure why not?

So what I ended up with essentially is Teavana’s French Spice Pu-erh. I was one of the few people who actually liked blend, it reminded me of Aveda, not Aveda’s tea mind you, but of there shampoo and such. It also gave me a nice warm buzz. Sure this is missing some subtle nuances, the clove and black pepper aren’t as pronounced yet I still can taste mint and even vanilla even though there may be none in here.

It’s not bad, actually. It would be a nice winter warmer and will probably be how I use up the rest of the Nan Nou Shan Pu-erh and Maharaja Chai Oolong. Also today I used up the rest of Upton’s Ceylon Select Earl Grey and brewed it with a teaspoon of their Extra Bergamot Earl Grey, twas nice.

Tea of the late morning shared with the husband, first sip was a bit dry, then it turned sweet in my mouth. Lovely notes of caramel in this cup, no smoke. Much more enjoyable than the sample six months ago (this one was actually ordered a few months ago by the husband). I brewed at a lower temp and shorter time, probably around 3 mins, I went by smell which was divine. Me thinks this one is a shape shifter.

Oh these Laoshan harvests keep getting better and better! This is the milkiest, mintiest most decadent and refreshing incarnation of this tea I’ve tried. Though I think last year’s Autumn Harvest was more buttery, this one seriously rivals milk oolong. Whenever I feel ambivalent about green tea, Laoshan restores my faith. I’m learning to appreciate it more and more and so enjoy reading the tasting and background notes David provides. It makes drinking this all the more rewarding. I have enjoyed three infusions of this today taking breaks to cook and entertain the toddler. Also though I have never had the pleasure of trying green bean ice cream, I can totally see that in this. Yum!

Holy sweet buttery corn! This is exactly what I need right now! More later swoon! Mmm and its a really nice shu to boot! On my sixth infusion and it still has the lovely sweet corn notes but its becoming more rounded.

For anyone unfamiliar with this tea, it is not “flavored” rather it has picked up the essence of the cornfields the tea grows next to. Another reason pu’erh is awesome!

Ooo vanilla is making an appearance in this seventh infusion with some tart berry notes, these later steeps are reminding me of some of my favorite shu, squee! On nine and this is like a whole other delicious tea (reminds me most of Peacock Village Shu), two amazing teas in one!

Presented the husband with a tiny cup of the first infusion, he sniffed it “Smells like the sticky rice”. He took a sip and said “Hmm not bad. How much do you have of this?” Five more tuochas… “I might actually drink this, like in the fall”. This may seem small, but the amount of dismissing my husband does, especially for a 3 second steep like this, its pretty big :)