1271 Tasting Notes
I got a sample of this tea along with another decaf. I’m not too experienced in decaf’d blacks and thought I’d take a spin for an evening tea. This one sips in watery with a light chai spice with cinnamon, clove and ginger finish.
I wasn’t too keen on the watery start as I was expecting something a bit more richer and thicker texture, however my sample was also pretty smashed in transit.
Preparation
I was feeling lazy this afternoon, so I cracked into my jar of Lupica samples. Yume has lots of rose notes without being chemical or perfumey. The rose is on the sweet side too. Mid sip a tart strawberry flavor shows up – all over a smooth black tea base that isn’t dry or bitter. The tea finishes up with the tart and sweet strawberry taste. The rose is very well done here – very good floral black!
I like to have the odd rose black tea, something I drank a lot growing up as loose black rose tea is a common find in Asian grocery stores, I could see myself making Yume my rose black. Oh man, this would be great for afternoon tea too!
Preparation
A very pretty, big perfect full leafed oolong! Tsui Yu gong fu steeped dances in between notes of savory, buttery, sweet, steamed vegetal (green bean) and floral (butter cup, orchid) with a lovely silky body. Each sip tastes super clean and fresh.
Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/tsui-yu-jade-oolong/
In the end, I quite liked this jade oolong, however it tasted more of a tea I’d enjoy in the Spring.
Preparation
Yum, a tea for nut lovers and I love macadamia nuts in tea blends! We need more macadamia nut teas!
This one is pretty sweet, kind of like nut brittle with maca nuts. The nutty flavors go well with the toasty rice of the genmaicha, with this tea having a savory finish. I get some cashew aftertaste, but is pretty light. Genmacashew resteeps pretty well, but the green gets a little bitter so don’t over do it.
Since this tea is pretty heavy with the nuts, there’s only a couple servings in the 0.5oz package.
Full review on my blog The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/genmacashew-genmaicha/
Preparation
Agreed! More cashew and macadamia teas plz :)
Nuts should rule the world. Oh, wait… they do rule the world we just call them politicians! :(
But the good nuts (almonds, macadamias, pecan, walnut… etc) should be in more teas.
Now I really want to open my package of this…
Thanks for reviewing this, as it sounds quite fantastic. Adding another to the shopping list.
I love the pictures you take for your blog. They always look awesome. I wish I could do that.
TEA DRUNK PARTAY TIME YEAH
I bought this ripe pu’er for a fantastic price – $20 for 500 grams at Yunnan Sourcing. I was hoping this would be a great daily pu’er. Turns out, first infusion are really rich – tobacco, bitter cocoa and nut shelly. Middle infusions lighten to a pine, fruity sweet and sap – getting sweeter and sweeter with each infusion – very delicious. The texture is my favorite part of this pu’er as it’s slick and creamy, so feels amazing to drink!
Around the 9th infusion – MEGA TEA DRUNK. Woweee – this tea packs a punch – that deep breath, heart tightening, manic, I feel fantastic tea drunk feeling.
In the end, not a daily tea – the tea drunk is too strong in this one.
Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2010-haiwan-peerless-ripe-puer/
Preparation
One day soon I will have to brew this tea nine times and see if I can replicate your experience. I never got tea drunk off of this. Did you drink it with or without sugar? Its my opinion that that effects the effect.
No sugar, just gong fu brewing – 2 rinses, 10 seconds to start, adding 10 seconds to each infusion. Next time I’m going to try 5 seconds as it’s pretty rough to start.
I thought this tea pretty good too. I picked up a tong about a year and a half ago when it was still $18 a cake or so.
Very interesting report on your blog about this. I thought Yunnan Sourcing had raised the price on the China site as well as the US, maybe not.
I bought the cake in late September and the pricing is the same, though appears to be sold out on the US site. I’d like to say they could charge more for this one, but I won’t as the price is nice, haha!
A bang up shou for shoure…tea pun intended!
I love it. It makes me sleepy Allan. 1rinse/Short steeps and no sugar. I have it instead of Sleepytime.
O.o tea drunk time yay! I think mine just wore off.
Holy moly! This tea got me real messed up! I did a gong fu session in my gaiwan which is about 4 oz with 6.5 grams. I did 18 steeps and like I said boy was a feeling it for a while. I did two rinses of 10 seconds each and then my steeps were 15, 15, 20, 20, 25, 25, 30, 30 and so on. You can see my pattern. So the 5 seconds might only work if you know when to quit. Lol, I didn’t. In conclusion, awesome tea!
Yum, delicious! This black tea is quite complex with yam, cherry wood, malt, cocoa, burnt caramel and plum notes, with a finish of bread crust and more caramel. The Jabberywocky is really smooth with a thick custard like body.
The resteep is really good too – very sweet with all notes, missing the woodsy ones. Admittedly, while drinking this I wished I was drinking Whispering Pines’s Ailaoshan instead. Jabberywocky is good, but I prefer the richer flavor of Ailaoshan straight up, rather being mixed in with 2 other blacks in Jabberywocky.
Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/jabberwocky-tea/
This is a really gorgeous autumn tea, that is indeed pretty big and leafy! I was pretty surprised that I had a couple leaves there were as long as my palm!
The colour steeps up a vibrant clear orange, with lots of forest floor, earth, moss and amber notes. Mid and later steepings the flavor has camphor notes, which seem to hold on for a long time. A very refreshing tea that is also relaxing – not a party time pu’er.
The big thing to note with this tea is the price is really nice for something that has a decade on it. I quite enjoyed this one and would probably snag another oz or two when I order again.
Full review (and lots of photos) on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2004-big-leaf-yiwu-gushu-raw-puer/
Preparation
I bought this tea off the early kickstarter for SBT. I served it at my Thanksgiving party and it was a HUGE hit!
The rainbow sherbet flavor is dead on – it has that lime/orange/red taste is just like in the ice cream and is quite strong, with a classic southern black ice tea base. You don’t even need to add sugar to get the flavors to pop as they are already popping. I was surprised, as the group I was serving to aren’t big into teas, but loved this tea and didn’t take any sweetener when offered.
I would buy this again, maybe snag the loose leaf Rainbow sherbet 52 Teas if it’s around.
Preparation
I love Yunnan blacks – this one was interesting for its really woodsy flavor kind of a mix of cedar/pine with honey notes. The texture is silky smooth with no dry or bitterness – just as I like my black teas!
Full review on my blog The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/simple-loose-leaf-selection-club-october/
This hojicha is on the medium roast level. Very clean and clear cup of tea! Notes of toasty nuts, hay with a bit a caramel sweet. A good cup of easy to drink hojicha, perfect for fall! I personally prefer a stronger roast, but this one does the job.
Full review on my blog The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/simple-loose-leaf-selection-club-october/
