深蒸し茶

I happened on Ambrosia from the Tea Zone quite by accident, and it’s become a favorite. It is a fragrant but not overpowering black tea with notes of caramel, vanilla, and complexity reminiscent of the style (but not the price) of Mariage Frere’s Marco Polo or Harney & Sons’ Paris. With a little milk, it’s the perfect tea for reading on a rainy afternoon; no wonder it’s from Portland!

I have been so sick this week. I was supposed to be tackling a huge reading assignment for a project I’m starting Spring semester, but I can hardly keep my thoughts straight. I’m very stuffy so this is the only tea that I can even taste today.
Today’s steep was at the same time, ratios, etc. as usual, but yielded a much lighter brew than other cups I’ve had. It tasted distinctly salty to me today. The hay notes were more evident with lots of honey too. I am glad this more brash tea is making me feel better.

This tag seems to work for my toucha for now. I’ve had this tea for some time now and I love it so, so much! It was my very first pu’erh purchase and I could not have picked a better one. The toucha was only $3 at a local Chinese shop that I love.
I always do 1 quick rinse and then 2 steeps. Today I used just a bit less leaf than usual and slightly cooler water. This tea is so amazingly sweet. I am really struck by how honey like and fruity it is. At longer steeps it tends to be more leathery and thick. But today’s cuppa was very juicy and almost left my mouth with that feeling you get after eating/drinking mint. It is pretty interesting as I haven’t noticed this before with other teas. This was a really great find and I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase it again.

No notes yet.

I’ve tried this one a few times now, and I just don’t like it very much. This latest steeping is the best, and it’s still not great. The problem is that there’s a very strong perfumy scent to the tea, and it comes out quite strongly in the tea.

I normally like my tea quite strong, but I’ve been slowly cutting back on this one, making it weaker and weaker in the hopes it’ll improve – but it still isn’t something I really like.

This tea smells fantastically fruity, and the flavour mostly lives up to that. It’s doesn’t have quite as much of the traditional ‘white tea’ flavour as perhaps I’d like, but it’s still a very pleasant drink.