Rishi Tea

This is a bit too minty for my liking, but that could be a good thing for people who like teas with a whole lot of mint. I can hardly taste the flowers at all; it honestly just tastes like my peppermint tea from Adagio. It will be good for an evening tea, I suppose, but I won’t be drinking this too often.

I keep coming back to this one simply because it is such a light, refreshing, and rewarding drink. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorites and I’m almost all out of it, shame. I’ve also noticed that I keep upping my rating, which is another good sign.

This really does taste like the warm nectar of a honeydew melon. If it’s possible for something to taste slightly sour in a good way, then this is it. It’s sour and sweet and just barely grassy from the white tea, which is complemented perfectly by the melon. I’m just itching to try Golden Moon’s White Persian Melon, which is supposedly similar to this (according to Ricky). One of these days I’ll get the GM sampler!

My second cup of tea for the day.

Lightly sweet, muscatel taste. Not much of an aftertaste. Tastes exactly like Honeydew. When the weather warms up I’ll try this iced, but today it’s cold and rainy.

I love mornings on Steepster because I love reading everybody’s new tasting notes. This was the 2nd tea out of 3 that came in my order from Rishi yesterday.

The dry leaves actually smelled like beer, so initially I wasn’t too excited. However, upon steeping, the smell became sweet and just ever so lightly fruity. The tea itself is a golden, light orange color. It’s very pretty when the light shines through it.

This is probably the tea that tastes the most like what the package says it should. I really taste honeydew melon in this. It compliments the white tea perfectly, since they’re both such light tastes. After the initial smell, I’m surprised I like this so much. It’s really good!

An extremely robust, malty tea with a muted caramel finish. You’ll almost need to do a doubletake when you take a sip of this tea because it’s so strong. The directions tell you to use a full tablespoon but I suggest using a teaspoon and brewing it for 3 minutes or less. We made the mistake of following the directions and the tea was somewhat bitter. It does get sweeter, or at least more muted, as it cools, and I love that these leaves hold up to a rebrewing. Ultimately, a high quality, wonderfully dark and strongly caffeeinated tea. I can see why so many people drink this as the morning tea (or as a very concentrated shot of teapresso). Personally, I prefer lighter, naturally sweet teas so I’d drink this tea as a morning jolt only. Still, really great, strong flavor.

Very tart, great aroma, not so great after taste.

Backlogging from this morning:

Really oversteeped this one this morning. The taste is more sour and I don’t really taste the plum anymore. This one is really good when brewed properly, so I’m not going to change the rating.

This could have ruined my day, but luckily all my tea orders started arriving today. It was my birthday last week, so I used my birthday money to try out different tea companies that I’ve been wanting to check out. Boxes from 3 different companies were sitting on my doorstep when I got back from class. What a glorious day!

I have to keep telling myself that it is okay to indulge in my tea obsession, as long as it is birthday money. At least my obsession is with something healthy, right?

This came in the mail today, on one of the few times a year (or decade) that it snows in Texas. The UPS man was thoughtful enough to prop my doormat on top of the box to shield it from the falling snow. Southerners really are more friendly! I’ve been here for 6 months, but the little things like this continue to amaze me on a daily basis. Granted, I grew up in New Jersey, king of assholes, so the fact that people don’t flip other people off for no reason really blows my mind.

Anyway, about the tea. It steeps to a very pretty color that’s hard to describe. It’s kind of like pink mixed with orange mixed with yellow. If you want to know what it really looks like, check it out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47736372@N04/4382845180/

The smell is actually like wine. It’s intoxicating and fruity, inviting you to take a sip. I couldn’t help but oblige. It tastes exactly like it smells. It’s mostly floral with a hint of plum. Upon tasting, it’s obvious that this is a plum tea. It really does taste like plums. And I love plums. For just tasting floral and fruity, it’s surprisingly complicated. This is going to require many cups to get a full idea of what I’m tasting. I’ll let you know!

Wonderful earthly flavor with a hint of flowers. I can drink this all the time – at least three or four steepings.

Juicy and delectable.

Yum. I LOVED this tea. I am a big mint and vanilla person so it exactly my tastes. I was a bit scared of the licorice but the flavors are really well balanced.

Whoo, I’m breaking in my Finum Basket with one of the two teas that I picked up from Rishi, and let me tell you, this was super-exciting to try! And I’m feeling much better now. Thank you to everyone for the well wishes!

Purple Bamboo is one of the most unusual tasting teas that I have ever tasted. The Finum Basket is ingenious. But let’s talk about the tea first, shall we?

I opened my bag, and I don’t know what I was expecting, but boy, is this oolong gorgeous! All of the leaves are unbroken, partially fluffy, and silver tipped mixed with a purple-ish and brown leaf. Some of the leaves were over an inch long! Seriously beautiful. The smell coming off them was very unusual as well. Like a Darjeeling, with that grape-wine smell, mixed with the smell of fresh-cut lumber. Really interesting. I’ve never smelled an oolong like this!

So I put two tablespoons into my mug, and poured six ounces of water over the very large and wiry leaves. And I let them steep. The leaves themselves didn’t expand too much; they did drink a lot of the water though. I think I might have ended up with five ounces after it was all said and done. But the Finum really is a doll. The lid fits on perfectly, there was not a single speck of tea leaf in my infusion, and the whole thing was really just perfect.

The resulting tea was a gorgeous yellow in color, buttery almost in hue. Similar to the color of a green oolong when steeped, or a very dark white, like a bai mu dan. And the smell coming off the leaves… buttery with a hint of muscatel-likeness. So strange!

And it gets even stranger with the taste, because I don’t think I can describe it. But we shall try, Steepster, we shall try! On my first sip, I very nearly said aloud, “WAT.” Because I wasn’t expecting this!

The upfront of the flavor is very definitely nutty. Like a walnut nutty. It’s very pronounced, and it blends into an almost Chinese green tasting veggie-flavor, which then slides into a very Darjeeling-esque taste. On some sips I’m getting really floral notes, similar to a rose. On other sips, there’s hints of buttery goodness. Then at the end there’s a sweet aftertaste, similar to the juicy feeling after eating cherries, or green grapes. Sometimes that note is a bit softer and more flowery in nature.

It’s all so wonderfully strange and bizarre that I probably finished this cup in a good five minutes. There’s just SO much going on here. Really, really intriguing stuff.

This was the perfect cap to a really annoying week, devoid of any tea, and healthy feelings. I’m really so happy that I purchased this one – so awesome! So many different flavors and feelings and sensations that combines into a rich and intriguing cup. I’ll be updating with the second steep information soon, because I’m definitely not done with this bad boy!

EDIT: Okay, so let’s talk about the Second Steep (3:00, 170 degrees) of this baby. I think this is the first time ever, for me, that the second steep has really rivaled the first, and managed to bring something new to the table, while being absolutely delicious and wonderful in its own right. The tea this time around is smells stronger of grape than it does of butter, and the taste… mmmmmmm! The wine-like Darjeeling flavors have trumped the nutty flavors, and mixed wonderfully with the more flowery components to produce an almost soft Darjeeling. There’s still hints of butter and nuts, but they’re much fainter. As if cools, there’s a fruity-tart-sugary-sweetness that’s pleasantly addicting. Yes. Mmmm. More. The tea isn’t weaker in the slightest, and it’s a bit sweet-tarter than the first cup. Yeah, this is serious love going on right here.

I’ve never had a tea that morphed in a good way on the second steep. 90% of the time I’ve been really disappointed with second steeps, and the other times, the first cup has tasted much like the second. This one is perfectly awesome on the second cup. LOVE.

Makes me crave some spicy Thai Food to have this tea wash down nicely with!

Drinking this again today because I really like it! Although I should probably stick to teas today that don’t have caffeine because I am jittery enough as it is. My sister-in-law is going to have a baby today or tomorrow and sadly they are in Texas which I hate. And I leave tomorrow for Michigan to meet my boyfriend’s family. So, yeah. I have a lot of nervous energy running through me. Definitely gonna be packing this in my suitcase for my trip!

Wow, I am quite impressed with this tea! Has a wonderful smooth taste that is malty and has a dark sweetness to it. No astringency or bitterness and has a small hint of earthy pepper. To top it off, I was able to get 3 infusions out of 1 tsp and probably could get another one or two but have to head off to a rehearsal. I am really glad I picked this up!