Life In Teacup

Thank you LiberTEAS for this sample!

There is some nice tanginess going on in this cup of tea. At first you taste what you expect, grassy – more of a raw cabbage flavor, then it turns sharper, more acidic in tone. This tartness develops into something much sweeter, peachy even. I thought I was mistaken, but yep, its there again – like homemade peach preserves!

Need I say any more? There was a lot of enjoyment in this cup! I’m very new to yellow teas, however this one is nice no matter the process phase. Can’t wait to continue steeping this one, there’s bound to be more goodness waiting!

Lynne-tea – is this what you sent me? It was in a little red package, so I’m not entirely sure.

Anyways, when I opened up the little vacuum-sealed package of this tea, I was surprised to see that the leaves looked somewhat crushed! I had been hoping to use my little glass teapot, but its strainer would let the leaf pieces through easily, so I had to use an infuser instead. I don’t know if this was a consequence of mailing or not, but oh well! Still smelled deliciously green/vegetal.

I haven’t had a TGY in a while for whatever reason, and I definitely have missed them, as I just sniffed this one and nearly swooned! Hahaha. Buttery/vegetal/delicious. The first sip unfortunately screams ‘under-infused’, so it’s a little weaker than it could have been. I was worried about oversteeping because of the broken leaf, but apparently that was unnecessary. The flavour is smooth, a bit buttery, and “green”, but not too strong on the latter element. It isn’t really particularly floral to me, although I could see someone saying it is. Just a tasty cup of tea. I do think I like Verdant’s more, but this one is quite tasty as well. Looking forward to more infusions tomorrow!

ETA: Second infusion, accidently for 4.5 minutes, is still quite tasty and pleasant. Less bitterness than the second infusion from my sticky rice tuocha, and a lovely oolong aftertaste. Almost a touch too “green” for me right now though, but still good.

I’d love to try steeping this tea gong-fu style one of these days but since I don’t have a scale sensitive enough to weight out 5 grams nor an appropriate teapot/gaiwan, this time I had to do my usual method of 1 teaspoon in my strainer mug. I did follow the directions that recommended a quick initial rinse and short, high temperature infusions.

I have a soft spot for Tie Guan Yins and in my opinion when they’re good they’re really good.

This is a really good oolong.

It starts off sweet and floral before changing into a richer roasted or baked flavour with some nice fruity notes. I’m not tasting the smoke that other people seem to be, or maybe I’m just interpreting it differently, but given how good this tea is I’m not fussed. It has good staying power too – I did three infusions and could have done more if it wasn’t getting so late. It’s quite good at keep its flavour, though I noticed that the second steep was a bit more floral and the third one was a bit more fruity.

A+ for this one.

I’ve tried this one before and thought I would revisit it. Roasted Green Tea and Veggies from my previous experience still apply but I’m enjoying it much more than a 73 as I rated it before so I’m increasing rating. This is dandy! Especially while eating my lunch – today I have Vegan Thai Lime Rice. Great pairing!

Revisiting this one. Here is my full-length review of it: http://sororiteasisters.com/2011/07/12/dong-ding-cui-yu-oolong-competition-grade-iv-from-life-in-teacup/

A really delightful Oolong: sweet, nutty, slightly toasty with hints of charcoal. Lovely floral notes, hints toward fruity flavors.

Semi-Nutty and Semi-Charcoally-sweet! It’s even a bit juicy! This is tasty! Another winner from Life In Teacup! YUMMO!

Channeling my inner-hippie (which seems to be a daily occurrence…but anyways…)

This has an earthy-dusty wood type aroma to it but also has a hint of that pu-erh type smell, too…moreso on the pleasant side, tho.

This is a cross between a pu-erh and and oolong, I suppose…it has characteristics of both that I am personally picking up, that is.

It’s slightly sweet but slightly earthy. It’s a bit ‘dusty’ but in a good way. It’s a little nutty and has that nice roasted flavor, too!

I want to burn incense now.
Groovy Man…

Prior to infusing this smelled like a cross between a green and oolong but with a little extra something! It was like smelling a Citronella Candle while in the woods! A very unique aroma that I enjoyed!

The flavor is out of this world! It’s sweet and floral but has natural lemon hints as well as a little bit of toasty-business happening, too!

This is pretty special!

I’m so grateful today a local bakery did a VEGAN Falafel, Hummus, and Veggies in their very own Pita Bread. It’s FAB! I’m sipping on this white tea while eating my lunch and it goes REALLY well with it!

I Agree with Gingko this is reminiscent of Bai Hao (Oriental Beauty). It’s a little different, still, tho, but I sure can taste the similarities

It’s lightweight, gentle, juicy, sweet, and smooth! It’s Crisp and clean! A real winner!

What a tea. Upon opening my newly shipped bag I whiff fresh jasmine and a clear fine quality tea. I followed the instructions here on steepster where I covered most of the bottom of my pre-heated mug (had to be my clear glass one) with leaves and added close to rolling boiled filterd water. Must’ve been between 1 1/2 cups of water.
How pretty this tea is. The Chinese clearly know what they’re doing when it comes to names. I really enjoyed watching the snowflake-like petals “dance” throughout and the soft little buds open up making a lake bed.
Such as the scent is most pleasing! I can never go back to typical shelf jasmine green teas now that I know what I’m playing at here. The smell is very true and relaxing, not headache inducing that most overpowering jasmine teas give me.
The taste is sweet and gentle with floral notes. Very clean, and very fresh….I even ate one of the petals and found it added to the effect. I was worried that by leaving the leaves in my mug that it would get bitter from oversteeping like most greens I’ve delt with, but no! I expect good quality leaves allow this.
I’m only on my first steep, buuuut….I think I’ll stay up longer into the night just so I can try more infusions. I’m sure they’ll be wonderful c:

I guess this is the tea I’m about to drink now.

Looks like it’s made out of 3 kinds of various leaves. They smell like the smell of what they sell in stores as indian black tea. You know filtered not very good kind. There’s also an additional smell that i cant define.

I steeped it rather short as it says up here. Looks too bright. Yeah I’m putting the tea back in. After like 2 min it’s still quite yellow and light for an oolong. But I guess it’s how it is.
Idk this one isn’t very tasteful. It’s not bad either. It’s just very mild and undefinable to me.

Wouldn’t get this one again.

I have had this tea for a while and have been sharing it with friends.. mostly a friend from shanghai who really enjoys it.
The smell of the leaves remind me of sweet peas. I did a rinse of the leaves to open them up a touch before proceeding with a 3sec steep. The results you ask?
A very faint golden green liquor that smells of sweet peas and honeysuckle. Taste? Honeysuckle and sweet peas. With a mineral velvety edge. My taste buds keep yelling for more and I completely agree! This tea is scrumptious!
What does the second steep (6sec) taste like?
….my gosh it tastes like rock sugar and honeysuckle. There is a drying on my tongue, almost like honey has when it covers your tongue and kind of tingles in sweetness and thickness. The taste lingers in my mouth for a while too.. and when breathing through my mouth, its like my mouth is coated in something warm and thick. A sensation that lingers.

For the third terrific steep (of 10 seconds)… there is a lovely vegetal edge that is creeping into the tea ever so subtly. It tastes like a slow transition between sweet floral to vegetal butteriness. I will have to see what the future steepings bring to me.

This is a truly lovely tea. I hope anyone who likes TGY’s gets to try this one!

Leaves didn’t stink as much as usual :)

I rinsed a few times and then steeped for 10 seconds. Color is red, Smells like pu-erh but not too strong.
It’s very yummy and gentle for a pu-erh. Leaves a lasting nice scent in my mouth. It’s hard tho for me to compare this to anything other than other pu-ehrs.
Anyways nice one. I like it a lot!

Another from the sample pack.

Dry leaves are long and twisted with some white ones mixed in and smell of spinach and something floral. Wet leaves turn a nice bright green and smell slightly floral with a grassy-spinach note. The infusion is golden and smells a hint floral.

Taste is notes of orchid and grassy-spinach. There is also a slight creamy texture that I presume goes along with the orchid notes. There isn’t really a distinctive note of grass, but the spinach isn’t quite like you’d get from the store. It’s almost like it’s wild spinach that picked up scents of the grasses that grow around it.

Another from the sample pack.

The leaves look like bright green spears, not bright vivid green as matcha is, just bright green like grass is. The smell of the dry leaves is very light, I get only hints of something that isn’t quite smokey, roasted perhaps. It’s so light I can’t quite put my finger on it.

The wet leaves have a little stronger smell, not much, allowing me to get hints of something floral and green. The infusion is very pale and has a very light scent that just smells like tea, nothing more specific.

Taste is so very light. I tried brewing this in my 12oz mug and also in my 5oz cup. I did the 5oz cup second and with more leaves to try to coax out some more flavor. The smaller cup with more leaves did get a little more flavor but this tea is just so so light, not to be confused with weak.

Actual notes I got were floral notes in the front and a very light crispness throughout. Not much in the way of mouthfeel or aftertaste. It reminded me of an early morning with soft rays of light breaking through the clouds and warming up the dew on the grass. Bringing up one of the blades of grass and putting the little sun-warmed droplet on your tongue. So very light, so very soft.

Backlogging from yesterday.

From a sample pack, makes me glad I ordered it when I did since there were four different green tea sample packs and I believe there is one left, maybe two.

The dry leaves are green and twisted with some white leaves mixed in and smell very fresh, crisp and grassy. I even said yum out loud! The wet leaves smell buttery and grassy with the slightest hint of a roasted note hiding in there.

The taste is not quite like I’ve experienced before. It was grassy and brothy, like a miso soup, it was so good! Very umami, very yum! There was a silky-creamy texture with a nice mouthfeel. I couldn’t get over the brothiness of the tea, I’ve never experienced it quite like that, it was sooo good! I kept writing yum in my tasting notes!

This was a tea that I had been eyeballing since I saw SimpliciTEA’s review. I will definitely be getting more!

Today I thought it would be good to dig around in the sample box and try a new tea. This one caught my eye as I have been experimenting with some green tea lately and would like to try what there is to offer (slowly of course – I still have so much to try).
Dry: The leaves are very small, smooth little black rolled leaves that smell strongly of jasmine. Delightful and interesting. I have never come across a tea like this.
1st, 1.5min: Very delightful jasmine flavours coming through.. possibly a touch of the green peaking in under the jasmine. There is something strong that pops at the back sides of my tongue if I take a large sip and let it mull around. Surprising, as the tea seems so well behaved almost. Nice sweet lingering to the aftertaste too. Mmmm mellow.
2nd, 1.45min: Tastes the same as the first steep. No change what so ever in the intensity of flavours either. I can definitely get a lot more steeps out of the leaves.

Really nice jasmine tea… though I do enjoy more complex flavours, this tea satisfies the times when I just want a cup of tea and not have to think about what I’m tasting really. I probably will purchase some when LIT is back up and running (and when my tea stash diminishes a little)

Edit, 4th steep: This tea is actually really nice. I am pleased that it is changing a bit… not as strong of jasmine (not that that is bad to me), but more vegetal and ‘green’ buttery layers are present. Really nice.

_{Preliminary review}

Experience buying from Life in Teacup http://steepster.com/places/2861-life-in-a-teacup-online-easthampton-massachusetts

I bought an ounce of this from Life in Teacup in the spring of 2012 and brewed it up days later on 6/22/2012.

Nothing stands out about the appearance of the leaf: to me the dry leaf looks like Chun Mee, and while brewing it (no in-depth analysis yet) I can see that the wet leaf has a number of torn pieces in it; still it’s relatively uniform-looking with an army green color and a number of whole leaves (looking at it while sitting in my strainer/sieve after I did the third). The aroma while steeping on the third was kind of sour (I did the third steeping pretty short after ‘sniffing’ a sour aroma), and not really very pleasant (at least to me it’s wasn’t).

Still, after having three steepings of this tea this morning, my wife and I both like the flavor of it: no smokiness, no astringency or bittterness, with a mild but good, vegetal flavor (and solid flavor even on the third). Tentatively speaking (based on this initial steeping session), this one is a possible re-buy the next time I buy tea from Life in Teacup (at $4 / OZ).

I hope to update this (and assign a numerical rating) the next time I do another steepings session on it.

Leaves smell weird. I guess the roast mart makes it like that. I never had roast tea other than black. This one could be interesting.
Tea smells less roast than the leaves. Like a typical oolong. Color is slightly darker – bit on the red side.
Tastes interesting. Like roasting killed all the green tea sourness. It’s smooth but not really sweet. Slightly nutty. It’s really really yummy.

_{Backlogging and based entirely on my notes}

Experience buying from Life in Teacup http://steepster.com/places/2861-life-in-a-teacup-online-easthampton-massachusetts

I got this as a free sample from Life in Teacup in the fall of 2011 and brewed it up on 12/14/2011.

This tea had long, dark-brown twisted leaves that reminded me of a darker roasted oolong; it had a gunpowder-y aroma similar to the Wuyi oolongs I have had, but more uplifting, rather than earthy.

I used my standard oolong steeping times and temperatures (I found this to be surprising, but I think I treated this as an oolong). There were seven grams of dry tea to three cups of water. The the liquor had a light caramel color, with a mild aroma (malty?). The flavor was good, similar to a Wuyi oolong. It had some mild flavor on the forth steeping. The wet leaf looked like any quality oolong I have seen: large, whole leaves ranging in color from dark green to dark brown.

Overall, my understanding is that this is technically a red tea (so fully oxidized), and yet it was best Wuyi-like tea I have ever tasted: it was sweeter and not as roasted as most Wuyi oolongs tend to be. I enjoyed watching the leaves slowly unfurl with each steeping. Although I stopped at four steepings, it may have had more to give. I enjoyed everything about this tea (although I’m not a big Wuyi oolong fan this one was sweeter).

The leaves don’t smell as fresh as other oolongs did these days. So I guess that this one should be quite different. But the charm of it is that you never know…
This one smells like a really hot sunny day. The kind of day thats outside right now.

First of all I steeped it on lower temperature (lazyness). Color is light green-yellowish. Smells like green tea :) It’s super smooth. Sweet and floral. I’m really surprised with the fullness of taste in my mouth. I’m loving this one!
Very delicate yummy oolong…

Experience buying from Life in Teacup http://steepster.com/places/2861-life-in-a-teacup-online-easthampton-massachusetts

_{I wasn’t originally going to do a review for this until I brewed it up next, but, why not do a preliminary review now?}

I bought an ounce this tea and received it just last weekend from Life in Teacup, brewing it up this this morning. I tried a sample of the 2011 harvest last fall, and found it good enough to warrant buying and trying an ounce of the fresh stuff this year. It looks, smells and tastes a lot like Verdant Tea’s Early Summer Laoshan green tea, except that this one doesn’t hold up on the flavor through multiple steepings as well, and the wet leaf has lots of broken leaves (making me realize this is an exception to a note I made in a review of Teavivre’s tea, stating that LiT’s green Teas never have broken pieces in them. Ooops!).

I brewed it as I do the Early Summer Laoshan, starting at 180F for two minutes. It has pretty good flavor, but not quite as good as Teavivre’s Organic Tian Mu Mao Feng we had yesterday, and not as good as I remember the Early Summer Laoshan tasting (I hope to brew that one up tomorrow to compare). It had decent flavor up through three steepings and a bit of flavor on the forth. For a decent tasting fresh green tea it’s a good value ($2.50 / OZ).

First I gotta say that my sample didn’t have this Yongchun word on the package so it was packed in red package and called Fo Shou (Bergamot) Oolong. But i’m logging it under this one…

Dry leaves smell great. Very fresh grassy. And sweet. I know weird. But it smells sweet to me :D Must be the bergamot…

Wasn’t sure how log to steep this one so I did 1 minute. Looks bright. Should have steeped it longer :) Putting the infusion back in… Two more minutes on lower temperature.
Looks green-yellow. Smells gentle. Grassy.

It’s very gentle. Smooth. Quite watery but not in a bad way. Refreshing. I can’t taste the bergamot. It’s like a very very subtle oolong. And I like this one too.

Experience buying from Life in Teacup http://steepster.com/places/2861-life-in-a-teacup-online-easthampton-massachusetts

I just got finished brewing up four good pots of this. I added some peach schnapps to the forth, and the peach flavor mixed surprisingly well with the floral notes and gave the tea an unusual body provided by the schnapps syrupy consistency. I liked this tea (both with and without the schnapps).