Nothing But Tea

The boyfriend and I went to the rainforest yesterday (http://www.regnskoven.dk/en/frontpage/) and I’m still all exhausted. It did inspire my choice of tea, though, because I’ve discovered that I associate the idea of Yunnans with that sort of climate and nature. I have no idea what that area of China looks like, but in my head it just makes that connection. This was a pretty new discovery for me, so don’t bother asking me what my associations with the Fujian teas or Keemun would be because I haven’t the foggiest idea yet. I only discovered it about Yunnans this morning when I thought it seemed appropriate for a post-rainforest visit cup.

Unfortunately I’ve managed to make it a bit of a weakling cup this morning, which frankly doesn’t suit it very well. A large part of the body of the flavour seems to be missing and has just gone watery instead.

The spicy pepper note is intact, though, and it has a sort of hay-ish tint to it as well. The sweet note that it often has also seems to be missing along with the rest of the body, though, and that really is a shame.

It’s a good tea, this one. This is just not the most succesful cup I’ve ever made of it. That’s all.

Om nom nom jelly beans! Steepsterites, green tea flavoured jelly beans are odd! Not bad, just… odd. And to me they’re rather more like a green oolong than an actual green. But then again there are so many jelly beans that are odd flavoured. I fully admit that I chose some of them because of the flavour striking me as bizarre and american. Butter, for example, has no business being anywhere near popcorn. In Denmark popcorn has salt on them. Just salt. And always salt. (And then the english boyfriend said something about toffee which made me go O.o) Just. Salt. Please.

That said the cappucino flavoured ones and the pink grapefruit flavoured ones are to die for.

I’ve put the bowl away now, though. I’ve had quite enough jelly beans now for one day. The great thing about jelly beans is that they’re so forcefully flavoured I usually can’t eat that many.

I rather need something with a more wholesome flavour in my mouth now and tonight’s cup has been chosen specifically for that purpose. I shall enjoy it while wasting some time on silly Facebook games and tv.

Half the day is gone already! How did this happen?! (Might it have something to do with it turning 11 before I managed to get out of bed?)

So I’m Yunnan-ing today. It’s one of those days where I look at all the tins and unable to make a decision just grabs one at random. It was the first one of the lot that I looked at twice so I figured it was selection.

Hopefully this will provide some energy and give me a kick in the rear about NaNoWriMo. I’m currently about 7500 words behind my personal daily goal system which is rather annoying. But before you bring out the pep-talk and the cheerleading and the encouragement, I’ll just tell you all something, because you might not want to do the pep and cheer afterwards. I may be behind on the personal goal, but I’m still 12K ahead of the minimum to NaNo goal for this day, and set to reach 50K at record (for me) speed. Still want to cheer? Go ahead. :) smug

So is this an inspiring tea, then? Does it smell and taste like the tea that can zoom me through at least 5K today?

I’m surprised at how sweet it turned out today. It’s very much as if there’s sugar in it, which, as anybody who knows me just a little bit will know, is not the case, and certainly not on a first sip. Ever. It’s not the honey of an Assam and it’s not the caramel of a Keemun (which I have only nearly been able to find). This is more like just plain sugar, but a little smoother than refined sugar. It’s like, if you can imagine the sweetness of refined sugar but without the stickyness of it. I want to say it’s something more fruit-like than plain sugar, but I can’t seem to think of a fruit that comes close in flavour. I’m leaning a bit towards ripe pears here, but without it actually tasting like pear. It’s that kind of sweet.

It’s very difficult to identify it anyway, because on top of all that there’s a prickly layer of spicyness and if you focus really hard on the flavour to try and figure out where that sweetness comes from you end up with a mouthful of pepper prickly and not much else.

It’s funny, though, that a tea can be so pepper prickly on the tongue and at the same time as smooth as velvet. The two things just don’t seem to get along in the head, do they? But the thing is the prickly stays mainly on the tongue and isn’t noticed when swallowing, so combined with the lack of astringency to speak of, we have in fact at arrived something that is smooth in a prickly way. How fun is that! I think that’s awesome.

I used to consider golden yunnans to be of the smoky spectrum, and I was surprised when others consistently identified that note as pepper. The more I’m tasting it however the more I find myself moving into the pepper camp. I remember the first golden Yunnan I ever had. It was from Chaplon and I had not yet discovered the awesome appeal of smokies. I thought it tasted very smoky and I didn’t much like it at the time. Right now though I would dearly like to go back in time and try that one again because I really think that it would have been a hugely different experience for me today.

But is this inspiring? Yes, you know what, I think it is. I shall go get some words out now, and hope that my characters will behave themselves.

T – 5h 45min on NaNoWriMo starting. If there are any other wrimos out there, feel free to add me as buddy. I’m Angrboda there too, but if you use a different name there be sure to let me know who you are.

I’m on holiday this coming week, planned so that again this year I could get a midnight start. However due to some social circumstances I slept rather badly last night and woke up a lot, so I’m beginning to feel rather used at the moment.

Caffeine is required, and why not warm up for the writing month by writing a tea post.

I had a sample of this one before and on a whim, inspired by the Yunnan Auggy shared with me recently, decided to throw in a bag of it. I can see now why it stuck in my mind. 95 points, I gave the sample! That’s a lot of points. Now I just hope it’ll still live up to that score.

I’m struck by how floral the aroma is. Kind of rosy. Just flowers to begin with and then deeper down when taking a better sniff the pepper-y spicyness comes through. (My mouse just died. Again. Lovely.)

Very spicy on the first sip. I was slurping a lot and I got a mouthful of wet smoke and pepper out of it. Without slurping, it’s more spicy and pepper-y with a hint of smoke than actually smoky. There’s a hint of something sort of citrus-y too at the back of the mouth.

It’s a relatively strong cup of tea, and it certainly has a lot of flavour, but it’s not really all that complicated. I’m not sure I still think it’s with 95 points but with my mouse currently being dead as a dodo, I can’t do anything about the rating until I’ve rebooted the computer.

I do hope I’ll be able to hold on until midnight and get a good midnight start. I’m totally excited about NaNo starting.

(And the mouse is back! Ha! New score.)

I made a random grab in the sample box and got a Nuwara Eliya. I kid you not. ANOTHER Ceylon. I just couldn’t face another Ceylon right now and I just don’t think I’m a Ceylon-person much at all, so I put it back and made another grab. And as I did that, I suddenly knew what I wanted and rummaged until I found one of the three chinese samples.

I didn’t bother about leaf smelling and what not. I was desperate, okay. But I can tell you that they were the prettiest golden brown colour that you ever saw.

After steeping, it actually has pretty close to that same colour. Perhaps with a slightly more reddish tint, but more or less the same colour. And the aroma is just wonderful. Not too strong, but with a very clear note of… of… of… of China! I’ve never been to China so I haven’t a clue what China likely smells of. Chinese food, I’d wager. And of all the chinese teas I seem to be leaning strongly towards those from the Fujian area and the ones with that lovely cocoa note. This doesn’t have the cocoa note (and it doesn’t smell of chinese food either, in case you were wondering (Ricky!) )

But smoke. Or pepper, if that’s the way you interpret that note. Under a lot of sugar-y sweetness. Really, I suspect I might end up having a love affair with this tea, and I haven’t even tasted it yet.

Oh my word!

It’s Smoooooth, with a capital SMOO!

It’s even got a little cocoa note in it! But no hint of smoky, though. It’s not pepper either. It’s something but it’s not one of those. Not really. What’s a middle thing between smoky and pepper-y?

Love affair? Oh yes. You are going on the shopping list, Tippy Yunnan!

It’s the Ceylon Sensation Day! :D Everybody’s having Ceylon today. This is my third. The first one was a random pick. The second one was on purpose. And now a third one that I SWEAR was a random pick!

I’ve had a tea from an Uva Highlands Estate once before and back then I thought it was absolutely mind-blowingly awesomesauce of fantasticness. Interesting, then, to see if it still is.

I’m not impressed with the leaves. They had a similar aroma (Oh whoever you are with a toot-horn out there, kindly stop tooting, you bastard! It sounds like an ocean liner has got lost and ended up in the city center.) to the Kenilworth, but they were teensy tiny. One grade up, it seems, from tea bag stuffing. I knocked a minute off the steep time on that account and I’ve still got a very dark cup.

Nothing really noteworthy about the aroma after steeping either. Somewhat malty, but otherwise, it’s just tea.

Gosh! Taking off a third of the steep time was definitely not overkill. I could easily have knocked off another 30 seconds. There is a fair bit of astringency to this and it has that irritating coffee note again, only it’s a little more subdued here. Like it sunk to the bottom. And then it just tastes like… tea. A bit dark and wood-y, but just… tea.

And again, that’s really all there is to it. Another pirate tea. Rogue, rough and ready. ;)

If I had to choose between this one and the Kenilworth, I would say this one had the slightly better flavour, but I would still buy the Kenilworth because of the leaf grade. I’m really not a fan of these itteh bitteh leaves.

Fair warning. This post is going to have a really long intro, so I’ll sum it up quickly for those who can’t be bothered to read all that and want to skip straight to the actual tea: I aten’t ded! Husband once again employed. Been stocking up on a favourite. Project Ceylon and the thought behind it. Was that short enough?

Steepsterites, I have neglected you. It’s been more than twenty days since last I posted anything, so here I am. I aten’t ded.

What I AM is extraordinarily pleased with Husband who has achieved gainful employment, starting in a couple of weeks, and has thereby put an end to the Age of Frugality. This, ladies and gentlemen, is now NOT the Age of Frivolity, but rather the Age of Controlled Frivolity because… Yeah, we’ve been trying to minimise all non-essential spending for nearly half a year now, and it would be far too easy to go overboard. (The Age of Frugality will probably resume in a year or so, though, although for rather different reasons. Next item on the agenda, saving up!)

Suddenly free to once again stock up on old and missed favourites, I have acquired a 250g bag of the orange flavoured pu erh from Nothing But Tea. We luuuuurve that one. That was the only item on the shopping list from that company so I allowed myself some samples, and these are what I’m going to tell you about. I got a sample of every one of their Ceylon blacks, except Uva Highlands because I’ve already got some of that.

Steepsterites, I present to you Project Ceylon!

My thought process went as follows.
1. I have never truly explored this region. I’ve had plenty of different Ceylon teas, but I’ve never really bothered to learn the region.
2. Ceylon tea in general is something that frequently seems to be Just Tea for me. Default tea flavour. I suspect I lot of sub-standard teabags and flavoured teas are to blame for this sort of thinking, and I refuse to believe that there isn’t more to it than meets the eye. Or tongue. I suppose.
3. Having two vastly different Ceylon teas in my possession at the moment, one which is GREAT and the other which is meh, confirms this.
4. Ceylon teas are often named only for the estate, making it a rather more difficult to know which end of the spectrum I’ve got without a bit of investigation. And even those that are named for the district aren’t much better due to my complete lack of a grasp on Sri Lankan geography.
5. Also, Sri Lanka produces tea in just about all varieties of altitude, which therefore means that when learning the region, one must pay close attention to whether something is high-grown, low-grown or mid-elevation.
6. Behold! The Map! https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=211803378882467968316.0004d6ff92c6d663176b9 All markers are placed at what I think is sort of the general area. I can’t sit here and chase down the precise addresses for every single estate. They are also not fully annotated yet, but it’s a work in progress, really.

My hypothesis is this. Angrboda enjoys low grown Ceylon teas more than high grown ditto.

Having made all the preparations that I can think of here, I think there’s only left for me to actually drink some tea. I have had most of these before a few years ago, so it will be interesting to see if my opinion (and rating) has changed in the meantime.

THIS IS WHERE I ACTUALLY MADE THE TEA!

I started with Kenilworth for no other reason than it had the lowest product number. I figure one place is as good a place to begin as another, yes? It’s one of the most famous Sri Lankan estates and located at mid-elevation, about 900-1200 m.

The dry leaf smells mostly of leather and wood. Very male. There is a bit of spice as well, but mostly the two others. It reminds me rather of some sort of old fashioned posh male study, with dark wood furniture and library shelves and what have you. A box of cigars in the desk drawer and a crystal decanter of whisky on a side table. Where rich businessmen go to talk shop and their wives occasionally join them for cocktails and a smidge of intrigue.

After steeping, the aroma is more or less unchanged, although it is now considerably richer and smells smoother. There is a dark sort of creamy and slightly caramel-y note to it.

This tea reminds me a great deal of Keemun. It has notes of wood, grain (although not thick-feeling like Keemun) and malt. I’m reminded that we’re not actually having a Chinese black here by a slightly astringent, although with a surprising amount of something that I can only describe as pseudo-smoky. That takes my brain straight back to the Keemun comparison.

At first there is a big hole in the flavour though. I think it’s that grain that is merely hinted at, as well as the malt element which could have been stronger. While there is plenty of flavour in this, I still feel it could have been fuller. I’ve got the lower notes (wood and leather) and the higher notes (pseudo-smoke), but there isn’t really enough of the middle notes (grain and malt) to fill the gap between them. Oh it tries! It does. But it’s just not quite there.

As it cools a bit, the flavour develops further, and now we’re talking! The lower notes become far more subtle and the grainy, malty middle notes really unfold. As if they somehow exhaled and relaxed and freely flowed into all those thin-tasting gaps from before. This keeps the low and high notes from being quite so prominent and that really suits the cup.

Cooling a little further, it develops a grassy sort of note that reminds me of Darjeeling and the impression I have so far gained of the high-grown Ceylons. It is on the higher end of the mid-elevation, so that fits with my impression so far. Seems like a useful characteristic to have noticed.

Having written all this, I went and looked at what I wrote about it three years ago. I gave it 80 points then, and I have decided to let this rating stand. Analysis-wide, I don’t really agree with myself, but I don’t actually disagree with myself either. Mostly, I think I can just say that I’ve learned a lot in the last three years.

Threewhales posted about a Kenilworth Estate Ceylon and judging from the amount of points, it’s a favourite in those quarters. I remembered that I have a Kenilworth in the black sampler box, so after a great deal of dithering I finally decided to go and dig it out of the box. I’m still not entirely up to my usual energy levels (which admittedly aren’t that high to begin with) but I’m feeling more hydrated and a bit less headache-y. And even more importantly, I was inspired! So why not?

The leaves at first didn’t really have any particular scent to speak of. Again, they were leaves and they smelled of tea. That’s it. I tried breathing on them first and that helped a lot. I got some good notes of leather and perhaps even something tobacco-y. After steeping I’m getting a note that rather reminds me of horses, I have to say. Not in the same way that pu-erh should preferably have some aroma of cow-stable-y-ness, this is more like the animal itself smells. Or perhaps a little more abstract, it smells like the idea of a horse.

It’s a little rough and scratchy in flavour. Like a piece of rough wood. At the same times there is that thickness to the flavour that tastes a bit like milk has been added. So it’s a funny mix of rough and smooth at the same time which weirdly enough doesn’t seem at odds with each other.

If this tea was a man, it would be an unshaven rogue with a heart of gold and a weakness for the fairer sex. A muscular fellow wearing tight black trousers and a loose-fitting white shirt buttoned only half way up. Maybe he’s even a pirate. Straight out of a bodice-ripper at any rate.

ETA: Dear Steepster.
WHY are you refusing to separate those last two paragraphs properly?!
Much frustration,
-Ang.

Project Ceylon

This one is a high grown tea, from about 1500-1800 meters in elevation. It’s not quite as high as the Nuwara Eliya, though, so I’m expecting there to be some difference.

The aroma of the leaves (have you noticed how good I’ve been at remembering this?) is mostly fruit-y and raisin-y but with a great deal of wood-y, slightly spicy notes in as well. Once brewed, the tea retains this fruity note, although it is now the least prominent one. The wood-y, spicy aspects have taken over here, along with a note that very nearly, but not quite come across as caramel. It’s the shadow of caramel, but not the real deal by any definition of the word.

At first when I sip, I get the sensation of hot water. It has a bit of a fruity tinge to it, akin to the apple and pear mixture from before, but it’s faint. Then, after a short moment, a somewhat astringent but rather grain-y and wood-y note shows up underneath, followed immediately by something that strikes me most of all as floral. This is peculiar because floral notes are almost always top notes for me, so it’s funny to find one that somehow manages to sit near the bottom.

As the tea cools and develops a bit, the whole thing gains some maltyness which sort of covers every layer and becomes the primary note. I believe that this would be the grain-y note from before taking over.

There is still a moderate astringency here, though, a little bit too much for me to find it totally enjoyable. I should have liked it better had it been a bit smoother.

This strikes me as rather different from the other high-grown tea I’ve tried so far. The Nuwara Eliya seemed much more fresh and spring-y and somehow green-ish, where this one leans more towards the mid-elevation tea I’ve had, which was the Ratnapura grown at 900-1200 meters. Flavourwise the Dimbula seems to fall right in the middle between the two, but bizarrely I find I enjoy it less than either of those. I believe it’s the far more pronounced astringency at play here, which is really detracting for me.

I had this one three years ago as well, but I wasn’t apparently in much of a frame of mind to really try to analyse it at the time. I agree with myself about a fruity aspect, although Then-Me thought it was more berry-ish. I wasn’t super impressed with it at the time, though, and thought it best for those times when tea is needed but exquisite flavour and complexity is not necessary. I gave it 73 points then, and have decided to take that down a few notches.

Reference map: https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=6.657388,80.60078&spn=2.013212,2.892151&t=h&z=9

Good morning Steepsterites.

I’ve ‘won’ another Ceylon in my random pick of randomness. It’s a little annoying but I’ve changed my steeping pattern back to the old pattern of steeping, sort of, so that the sample sizes fit my pots. Oh well.

We were doing family things yesterday which means that I didn’t get a proper cup of tea all day. Which also means that I didn’t get as much fluid to drink in total as I normally do. Consequently a small headache is niggling at me at the moment and I haven’t been able to bother to smell the dry leaves all that much.

They are leaves. They smelled of tea. And when steeped, it smells of tea.

The flavour is a little more easy to break down. A touch of astringency at first and then something berry-y sweet. (Yes, it has a certain sweetness) A little sugary-y and not hugely fruity but definitely a bit of sweetness.

It’s one of those thick sticky-y flavours though. I’m not sure how to describe that, the way a small sip will swell in contact with mouth membranes and fill the entire mouth instantly.

Or maybe I’m just not entirely awake yet. I’ve been having strange dreams of strangeness lately. Who knows, maybe I’m still sleeping.

Having to assume I’m awake though, I’d say this was a nice tea, but not really something mindboggleingly awesome. It’s tea. It’s fairly straight forward. It would be one suitable for mornings in the travel cup or to drink while at work and I might even buy it for the latter purpose.

I really just wanted something to sit with while reading or writing or some such. And by writing I don’t mean writing a tea post. I wanted something I knew, something I didn’t have to pay attention to so I could get some other stuff done.

But that black sampler box! Oh how she beckons!

So I took a random one out of the box. Or… a semi-random one. I first a second flush Darjeeling, but I thought I’d save that for later and have it in connection with the first flush from the same estate and see how much difference I could tell. Then I got one from Guatemala but since that’s such a special place to get tea from, I wanted to save that one. (Then I got the same second flush Darjeeling again) And then I finally got this one. It was so randomly chosen that it took four attempts to choose it. Randomly. Yes.

I haven’t got the faintest idea how to pronounce Sewpur. But it sounds like ‘Super’ in my head, so that’s a good sign, I think.

I tried smelling the dry leaves before steeping but they didn’t really have much aroma to speak of. If I breathed on them first there was fleeting note of something warm and spicy-ish and maybe a little pine-y. But otherwise nothing really.

It was the same aroma that I get from the steeped tea. Very dry and wooden, it smells. It doesn’t actually smell like something that is wet at all, and that honey-y note? Completely missing. Gorgeous red colour though. This cup is glass, so I can really see it here. Absolutely lovely.

It has a certain dryness too. It tastes… dusty. Like I made it way too strong, but I used a larger pot, so I actually made it weaker! O.o It’s not wildly astringent, or even all out astringent at all, but it’s borderline. It’s very woodsy in flavour. Nothing at all sweet here. Not even a hint.

I don’t think it’s so ‘Super’ after all. It’s like it’s missing something. The foundation is there, but there’s nothing on it.

Oh well.

I have NOTHING to DRINK!

I was looking at the tins and nothing really struck me. Eventually I picked one at random. I haven’t had this one in a while and I was a little surprised to see that the tin is only a third full now. I bought 100g! Where did it all go? I mean I like it but I didn’t really think I liked it so much that it would disappear behind my back like that. (Maybe I gave some of it away… I forget.)

I can’t decide if I want to reorder. The aroma that smells of strawberries and sugar says yes. But the flavour that doesn’t have any strawberry or sugar in it says awwww… :( But then again all this is only when I ignore the fact that next to the strawberry and sugar aroma there is also the unmistakable note of old yoghurt.

I’m curious about the concept though. I may not reorder this particular one, but I might try some other ones from other places. Explore the concept a bit.

It’s smoooooooth and a bit heavy for a green type oolong. But it’s summerly, I guess because of the strawberry-y aroma aspect, and summerly on a very windy day following some very windy and rainy days at the end of august is definitely a good idea.

Today it was a craving for something a bit fresher than the blacks of the sampler box. Something with a little more perky to it.

So therefore I pick the tea that smells of warm strawberry yoghurt. No my mind doesn’t make sense to me either.

Still. It’s fresher than Indian blacks.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take my tea and find my book. I had to get off the train this afternoon just at a really exciting spot! O.o

This is a debut for me. I’ve never had a milky oolong before and I rather wish I could have got just a sample of it. Alas, since this is one of NBTs Tea Buff teas (I iz a tea buff! Hee!) and therefore only available to account holders, it was only available in 100g bags.

I was curious enough to get it anyway. Only one other person has posted about it here and since he a) was the person to tell me NBT existed in the first place and b) really liked it, I thought I’d go out on a limb.

I’m sure if I hate it there is someone out there in the Steepsterverse who won’t mind drinking it for me.

So. Milk vapours, eh? I have to say it sounds really odd! How did the first person to come up with this come up with it? “Let’s take some otherwise perfectly good oolong and give it an aroma of old milk. That would be awesome, yes?” Or maybe it was more like the way Lapsang Souchong was invented, when a merchant sold some smoke-damaged leaves to a dutch merchant, thinking the silly Europeans wouldn’t notice the difference anyway, and then it turned out that not only did they notice the difference, it was also hugely popular?

Whichever way it happened, we cannot get around the fact that these leaves smell like a warm yoghurt. Strawberry yoghurt even, which is a little odd, but it’s very very strawberry-y. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was flavoured.

After steeping it doesn’t smell so much of yoghurt and not at all strawberry yoghurt. It just smells kinda like your average green type oolong. With milk in it. And that, I have to say, is not a smell that is supposed to work on any level at all. It does have a certain sweetness though (I feel like I say that in all my posts) although it’s no longer recognisable as a particular type of fruit.

It’s extremely smooth to drink. It’s got a lot of oolong-y qualities and doesn’t taste at all of dairy. Thank Ceiling Cat for that! It just tastes a little thicker than normal. Like it would be something that might be able to stave off a craving for something creamy and unhealthy.

I’m not blown away by it, but I like it. It’s delicious. Just not in an OMGSOAWESOME way. I reacted differently to this one than I did to others that I gave this amount of points. But I still think it deserves this rating.

Project Ceylon!
(Or ‘erotic cider’ as Husband was sure I said earlier this morning. O.o)

Now here we have a low-grown. I’ve been quite looking forward to this one, based almost entirely on the name. It’s a good name! It’s fun to say. :D

The leaves smell quite sweet and fruity, reminding me of raisins along with some slight notes of wood and leather. The aroma after brewing is surprisingly sweet and reminds me of honey with a little malty notes underneath. There is a touch of leather-y undertones to it, but not much. It really smells very thich and smooth this.

At first there is a flavour of honey and especially caramel, then a bit of grain and a smooth and slightly creamy finish. Unlike the other two Ceylons, this one doesn’t seem to have any astringency at all. Not even a little bit. I would have liked for the grain element to have been a little larger, to give it a little more volume because as it is, it’s coming over as quite delicate.

After it has cooled and developed a bit the aftertaste turns rather grassy, which feels a bit like the tea gets a second wind. It wasn’t there in the beginning. There was only the impression of the ‘something smooth and slightly creamy’, but now I’m getting a distinctly grassy note.

The leather-y, wood-y flavours that the two previous Ceylons exhibited seem to be completely missing in this one. There is a little bit of it in the aroma, but nothing in the flavour that I can find. This makes it feel almost like it’s from a completely different region. It’s very different from the two others.

I’m having a tough time rating this one because I’m primarily comparing it mentally with the Kenilworth which I gave 80 points. I like Ratnapura better because of the sweet, caramelly qualities, but I like Kenilworth better because it’s a fuller, more voluminous flavour all over.

According to my hypothesis, I would prefer Ratnapura over Kenilworth because Ratnapura is a low grown tea where Kenilworth is mid-elevation. This is the dangers of having a hypothesis in the first place. It’s trying very hard to influence my here, so in order to be as honest as possible about my rating, I’m forced to think very hard about it, and I believe I’ve arrived at the right choice. Even if it does go ever so slightly against my hypothesis. (On the other hand, my statistical base is very very small here. Way too small to say anything final.)

Now, this is one that I had before three years ago, and back then I seem to have made an extraordinarily strong cup. Must have overdone it rather on the leaf, I think. I am, however, very pleased with how much I’m agreeing with myself. Right down to the EXACT number of points I had decided on! That’s just… uncanny! (Note, I don’t look at previous posts or ratings of these before after having written about the current cup. I don’t write the post directly in Steepster for these, so I don’t even look the tea up until I’m ready to write this paragraph. Doing so would be cheating.)

Reference map: https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=211803378882467968316.0004d6ff92c6d663176b9

Oh my gosh, ginormous order from Nothing But Tea arrived this morning. That was quick, I only just got the email that it had shipped day before yesterday. It was quite a O.o moment when the postman rang my doorbell because I wasn’t expecting it for another week.

So yes, I have orange pu-erh and lemon oolong and milky oolong which I unfortunately couldn’t get in sample-size. So now I’m hoping I’ll like it, or I’ve got some 100g of tea to get rid of. Oh yes, and then there were the samples… Three I picked myself and their black sampler box. So that’s a total of 30 samples. Yes. Thankfully the black sampler box was only their unflavoured black. If flavoured black had been included also… Oh dear. I dare not think too much about that.

So I’ve spent an hour or so cupboarding. At least I didn’t have to add more than three of them to the database, but I did have correct the majority of them. NBTs labels on their sample bags do not bear exactly the same names as they do on their website! The person who added them to the database used the names as they appear on the website, which is propably also more correct because they’re more detailed and contain leaf grade and such. But they didn’t include the reference number in the name, which meant that I had some small doubts and confusion on some of them and had to look them up on NBTs site to see if they were the same ones or not. So I added the reference number to the lot of them, which should take care of that problem. I totally worked out their reference number system though! First letter is the type; B for black, second letter is country of origin; S for Sri Lanka. And then they’re just numbered consecutively. HA! I’m a genious, me.

The Chinese selection is woefully small, but there are a couple of South American ones and other asian countries. Oh yes, and a lot of Ceylon and a whole lot of Indian.

Didn’t know what to try first, so I took this one by luck of the draw. I just cupboarded it, now I can decupboard it again. One wonders why I bothered. ;)

I can’t say I have much experience with Ceylons. (Why do we stubbornly cling to Ceylon when it comes to tea? The island’s name is Sri Lanka. It has been for more years than I have been alive. What’s so special about tea that we don’t say ‘a Sri Lankan tea’?) I’ve found a nugget of gold here and there, but mostly it hasn’t really been something that gave all that many bleeps on my radar.

They’re a stupid size for my pot, these 10g bags. Not enough for two properly brewed pots, so saving some wouldn’t do any good, and kinda too much for one pot. I have plenty of pots to choose from, just not one of a suitable size. Big pots and small pots, but not really any in-between size pots. Made it a shorter steep than I normally would and crossed my fingers.

And OH HALP!!! This is very dark to look at. Oh no, I think I messed it up after all. I’m afraid to try it! O.O My tongue is going “noooo don’t WANNA!” But there’s nothing to be done about it, is there?

I quite like the aroma of it. It’s very sweet, but not honey-y sweet. More sweet berry-y. Strawberries with milk and a sprinkle of sugar on them. Ice cream-y, bizarrely enough. Perhaps even borderline caramel-y. What a very awesome smell! At least 50 points for the aroma alone.

It’s not that overdone, actually. It’s extremely smooth and tastes as if there must certainly be milk in it. It has that thick dairy-y note at the bottom of the flavour. A good foundation for something this strong, I think. And it is strong. But it’s not ruined. It doesn’t taste like ‘oh I wish I hadn’t used so much leaf’ or ‘oh I wish I’d shaved another minute off the steeping time’. It’s just strong. It has a certain astringency and a touch of bitterness that honestly probably shouldn’t have been there, but they don’t really mess it up. They just add a little character to the cup.

So apart from the dairy note what else have we got? There is definitely the sweetness that I picked up in the aroma too, but it’s more dark here. Like slighly burnt sugar. It wasn’t in the aroma at all. If I had to asign some sort of fruit to it, to go with how the aroma seemed fruity sweet I’d probably be looking at something like sweet oranges. Yes, sweet citrus and burnt sugar.

It’s a strong tea. One that will get you up and about in the morning. I like it.

This is the last dark type oolong I own, I think. The Bai Hao is sorta dark but not really. I feel that’s more an inbetween thing as it doesn’t look completely jade-y but it has a lot of taste qualities like a green one. I also have another one from Teaspring, and would you believe, at the moment the name of it completely escapes me… But it’s a properly dark one and I took it with me to work. I expect that my boss will have used it all when I come back. (Note, I don’t mind this. If I take tea with me to work, it’s not so that I can have it to myself. If that was the case I’d let it stay at home. She has free reign over my work tin at any time. (Note to self, figure out what to have at work when I come back in a week)) But anyway that one had cocoa-y notes and when it cooled down it was a bit like getting a mouthful of watered down chocolate milk.

Anyway, no matter what it’s called, I can look that up afterwards. It’s what I will invariably be comparing this one with.

The leaves looked very much the same. Long and straight and nicely brown. They didn’t have the same cocoa-y notes to the aroma though. After steeping for an indeterminded amount of time and pouring I’ve got a very strong cocoa aroma that makes me wonder if maybe this and the work tin are perhaps the same oolong type. This one seems more cocoa-y though. There’s also something sort of vaguely fruity. No clue what kind of fruit it is, it’s just a sweet undertone.

Okay. Ahem. A bit oversteeped here. Ah. Uhm. Ack. Eh. That gives it a slightly bitter and somewhat sour flavour that makes it rather difficult to discern what else might be there. A little sugar took care of that. Of course it taints the flavour but it’s as good as it gets and let’s face it, it’s oversteeped, it’s already tainted.

For a proper post about what the tea is like when brewed properly, we’ll have to turn to the second steep. And I hope I don’t butcher that one as well.

Still rather cocoa-y aroma, but the fruit-y-ness is much more pronounced. It seems a little watered on this steep which is kind of ironic considering how the first steep turned out. I think maybe the leaves are a little… overworked.

I’m trying to imagine a middle road here, and failing. What I actually do get in my head is that this is okay, but the one from Teaspring is better.

Four more samples to go before this round of Lockdown is done! Then there shall be a Nothing But Tea order, I think. (And after that, likely Lockdown Round 3. I quite like this. I feel more justified in my purchases because it’s like I earned them by finishing other stuff off)

To my knowledge I’ve never had a vietnamese tea before. It’s a green type oolong and the picture on the description here is definitely messed up, because that’s not a picture of a green type oolong. It definitely looks nothing like the leaves that I had. Unless I got a wrong sample which frankly I don’t really think is all that likely. I’ll look into that.

It has a very light colour. It’s not really the same sort of radioactive glow-in-the-dark colour of sencha but it’s something along those lines. A little paler, but something in that general direction.

This makes me wonder if I’m going to have another one of those green oolongs that taste more like a green tea and not really very oolong-y. (It also occurs to me that I seriously need to do some teapot maintanance, I just noticed what the spout’s beginning to look like. Gosh…)

Now this actually taste of oolong. How nice! It’s got a touch of green, but it’s not completely without that slightly earth-y oolong flavour like the Dong Ding was. It’s got a sweet note, sort of fruity, but all in all I’ve managed to get this first cup a bit on the weak side so I can’t be entirely sure.

It’s smooth though and definitely pleasant.

The second cup on the other hand has become a bit overdone due to me not drinking the first one quick enough so there’s a goodly amount of bitterness there.

All in all though, if you imagine the mix between the first and the second cup, I feel I can come to a conclusion. It’s a fairly straight forward green type oolong. Very pleasant to drink and probably pretty easy to forget about again, having had other similar teas in the past. Should you be coming to green oolongs and trying this one for the first time however, it might very well end ud being one (provided you liked the type of course) that you would remember fondly and maybe even prefer to most other similar teas.

Reminded of the lovely Lemon Oolong from this company, I tried a second steep of this one and added a little lime juice to the cup. Just a squeeze, enough to cover the bottom of the cup, but no more.

I have to say the aroma has turned a little dishwasher liquid-y with the citrus, and even though I didn’t feel like I added very mouch I was still a bit too generous with the lime for my taste.

Apart from that though, it seems like an addition that suits the tea, and it has taken care of that aftertaste I mentioned earlier just nicely.

I miss you, Steepsterites. I’m just finding it really difficult to keep up with the following list these days. Most of the time it seems like an enormous undertaking and I give up before I get started. But it’s not just you, it’s most things. I’m feeling old and tired these days and not really up for anything at all. Just your average hermit-moods, that’s all. No biggie.

I wanted an oolong, and since I didn’t have any specific preference as to type or flavour, I took a random untried Nothing But Tea sample. I think I’ve had this particular type before, because the name seems awfully familiar and I knew that it was a green end one. I just don’t know what I thought of it.

Previously with these samples I’ve used half for my small pot and my ‘regular’ steeping time and it’s given me some pretty good results. I’m impatient to get rid of some of all these samples though so I can get out of Lockdown and have the collection a little more under control, so I decided to just use the whole thing, as per my newer steeping pattern, and shorten the time instead.

The aroma is a little floral and quite butter-y. There is a hint of newly cut grass in there. Maybe a little hay too, but mostly what I get here is a sencha-ish butter aroma.

It’s pretty much the same with the flavour. I feel a bit like I might as well be drinking some green tea, one with a fairly good asparagus note. There isn’t really a lot of oolong-y-ness going on. It tastes very very green. And it’s making me contemplate that difference between green end oolongs and green teas. There isn’t really all that great a difference, is there? It’s so subtle.

Smooth. Very smooth. Almost velvet-y and it feels thick and viscous on the tongue.

It’s good. It’s tasty. It’s refreshing. It has, I’m just noticing now as I type, a funky aftertaste.

There went that conclusion. You totally thought I was rounding it off there, didn’t you? So did I, to be honest.

But I really want to touch on this aftertaste, because it kind of ruins the refreshing-ness of the initial flavour for me. It’s sort of sour and clinging to the edges of the tongue a little like the taste of milk that’s gone just slightly off.

If you can ignore it, it’s a very nice tea. For me, I’ll have to say that it’s a very nice tea that has to be docked a few points for unsatisfactory finish. If it hadn’t been for that after taste I would definitely have liked it better, and possibly lined it up for a purchase.

I might change my mind about a purchase. But right now I don’t really feel like it. I’ve already got the TGY and I think that’s a superior tea. Not counting the lemon oolong on account of it being flavoured, I don’t really need more than one oolong this green.

The Drama-Llama has been turned loose in my work place. Like, in a big way! My boss gave me a description of the latest development today, so when I came home I felt rather in need of a good solid cup of tea.

I felt oolong-y, but not in favour of any particular oolong, so I just picked one of the ones from Nothing But Tea that I hadn’t tried yet.

This one is a bit… I mean come on, just look at the name! China Oolong. Not very specific, is it? China is a big country. It has a lot of different tea districts with a lot of different teas with a lot of different characteristics.

So what to expect? I couldn’t even guess if it would be from the blacker or the greener end of the scale!

Turns out it was the blacker. My immediate guess would be Fujian-y because it reminded me rather of the Dawn only without the strong cocoa note. Of course Dawn isn’t a Fujian tea, heck it’s not even a chinese tea! But the Dawn is quite similar to the fabled Tan Yang Te Ji which was a Fujian tea. This didn’t have the Assam-y quality of the smoky note at all, but it had a certain earth-y dustyness that felt similar to me.

I think that’s the same note that I’ve seen described as mushroom-y. I’m not sure I agree on the mushrooms, but I can totally see where it’s coming from.

This is not a bad oolong. It’s not an outstanding one either. It’s very nice indeed and functional. Hit the spot just right for me today for example, but it’s still somewhat anonymous. Just like its name. Come to think of it, what I originally thought was a pretty generic and non-descriptive name has turned out to actually be surprisingly accurate.

No grand gestures here, but that’s okay, because sometimes you just want a simple, honest cup of tea.

My third pu-erh from Angrboda! This one is different in two ways: it’s a green tea in type and it’s a toucha in shape.

The toucha part was really fun, actually, watching it slowly unravel. (Sadly, I didn’t get any pictures.) And it takes the guesswork out of how much tea to add!

Weirdly, this green pu-erh tasted much more like black tea than the regular pu-erh did! It was a nice sort of bracing black tea, like an Assam, maybe. Then I think I oversteeped it and it became dangerously bitter until I added a lump of sugar.

Enjoyable! I think I still like that very first pu-erh best so far, though….

Hmm. I don’t think that I like this pu-erh as much as yesterday’s plain one. The dried leaves smelled exactly like the citrus meringue cookies I’ve been snacking on this week, so I had high hopes! But the citrus flavor overwhelmed all of the tea flavor without giving anything in replacement except a lingering sourness.

(Still, thank you, Angrboda, for the sample! I would have thought that this one would be more to my liking, so you have saved me from this mistake!)

Let’s try some new oolong now. Well, new and new, it’s from the same sample box that I’ve had for a few months now. I’ve had Darjeeling oolong before, and I remember I found it somewhat boring and ended up giving it away. That turned out to be a good decision because the recipient really liked it. I seem to recall the phrase ‘a cure for the common cold’ being involved.

So I’m not really getting my hopes up for this one, you understand.

The sample I got was enormous! Seriously big. I think they must have put more in there than they had in the others, because I swear it’s not just all leaf size. The leaves are large, but they’re not that large.

The aroma is oolong-y and darjeeling-y, so no surprises there. There is a grassy sweetness to it and something that promises that almost-mint-y cool sour aftertaste.

There’s a distinctly roasted flavour here, and around it some sour-y grass-y notes ending up in that cool-ish aftertaste I mentioned before. And that’s really it. That’s all there is to it. Try as I might I can’t come up with anything else to say about it.

Once again darjeeling oolong as a type has failed to wow me. It’s not a bad tea at all. There’s nothing wrong with the flavour. It’s just not very interesting.