Shantou Tea

Trying this again at home. The smell is stewed spinach, and really isn’t all that appetizing. The colour is much lighter, a sort of pale gold.

To reiterate, last time there was a horrible gas aftertaste (yes, GASOLINE). I think I smell it again, but it mixes well with that vegetable smell, so I can’t know for sure. I’m really rather afraid of trying this again. I think the smell is giving me a headache.

Hold on, give me a few moments. I can do this.

The taste isn’t anywhere near as strong, luckily. Tastes like vegetables.

I think… I don’t know. I THINK I can still taste something akin to the smell of gasoline when I breath out, but not much. Getting a weird taste on the tip of my tongue.

There’s somewhat of a baked, bread/yeast taste to it as well. Almost.

Still getting a headache, though.

It’s ALMOST enjoyable… I don’t know what to think. It’s a HEARTY tea. It doesn’t taste faintly of steamed vegetables, it’s like vegetables fresh from the pot, broccoli and asparagus and then with spinach. And I didn’t INTENTIONALLY make it strong, I made it with a good amount of water (in my huge beer mug, again).

Hrm.

Drank this on-campus, away from computers, but I carry a little notebook exactly for this reason.

The teabag had a sort of dusty, maybe… fishy? Smell, with that greenoolongblack smell. Wet, it smelt… spinagy green. As did the tea, a bit. In an ‘oversteeped green’ way, maybe. Steeped to a dark greybrown with a green layer over top. Smells fairly vegetably, green, though darker.

I almost didn’t want to drink it because it DID smell a bit… off on top of the very strong green smell. Took a sip when it was still quite hot and got a very green taste. I returned to work, and after a minute or so got this HORRIBLE gas after taste. What.

Let it cool, and tasted it again—this weird vegetable taste. Just sort of off. But also oolong in that it reminds me a bit of the oolong I got from Murchie’s. Just stronger. Gas aftertaste again. Disgusting. I don’t know if it’s the water I used (free water on-campus put in a mug then microwaved until it started boiling). Around this point I didn’t want to finish it.

Continued to sip it though, and the gas aftertaste lessened, and it reminded me more of the magnolia oolong. Just stronger, and the tea was darker. I steeped at the recommended three minutes on the package, but I think this would need a shorter steep time than that.

The strength and the weird aftertaste was enough to make me toss the cup (or rather, go outside and dump), and I did use more water from the campus (boiled in the microwave) to make other teas, and there was no gas aftertaste, so maybe it WAS the tea. It was cheap though (1.20). But I’ll try different steep times in the future or something. Yick until then, though.