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I typed in “matcha unknown” into the search box to see if it would get any hits—and what do you know, this is already there!
So anyway, I was walking by Minamoto Kitchoan (a Japanese confectionary shop) and saw that they were offering samples and matcha green tea. The tea was being prepared with a whisk in-store, and I think this is really the first time I’ve tried matcha with the traditional preparation. And it’s really good. It was served in a small cup, very dark green and frothy, and was deliciously creamy and smooth. Umami and sweet, rich…and somehow very different from the flavor of other teas or foods that have had matcha added to them. This was a whole other level, and I would love to get all the utensils and learn to prepare matcha at home now. But maybe that’s a project for another time :)
No idea what this is, as it’s all in Chinese characters except “Yunnan Tuocha Thé”. I’d expected a bunch of mini tuocha’s (which is what I’ve only come across so far) but instead it’s one mondo tuocha, and hard as a rock. Fellow lovely Steepsterites suggested cutting off a chunk with a dull knife, so this is what I did. Well, more like sawed it off, as it was ridiculously dry and hard.
I knew just before I took the first sip that I should have rinsed it first, because it was FISHY. Oh my goodness, like drinking straight fish sauce fishy. FISHY. I can still smell it hours later. Once it mellowed a bit though and cooled down, this was a really elegant, full-bodied, rich puer that I savoured. Nothing WOW about it, but really nice way to spend my afternoon, nursing this one and re-steeping it.
Preparation
Someone had this tea on Steepster so might as well use it.
My mom bought me some cheap Jasmine tea from the Asian market so I figured I’d use this tea for all my cold brews :) Good tea, but it does get bitter quickly from when I had it a couple weeks back hot.
But now it has been deemed my cold brew tea!
Got this tea as part of a teapot + 4 tea collection that I received for Christmas. The teapot is nice – a cast iron look-alike pot, though I don’t think I’ll use it overly often (I just don’t drink that much of one tea at a time. Ever.) Anyhow, brewed this tea up in a travel mug for today. Nice raspberry flavour, and when it cooled, the coconut was a bit more apparent, translating both as a creaminess and a coconutty flavour. Similar to DavidsTea’s Fantasy Island, but better because it was fruitier and less drying. Overall not too shabby. I am definitely curious as to the blender of these teas though.
Preparation
So, I got some loose leaf tea as a Christmas present from a student before Christmas. I reviewed it the first time I drank it, but since they are from China and bought it when they were there, I could not read the label.
So, I put a pic up on the Facebooks and got a few answers. It’s a Tie Guan Yin, but the brand is unknown.
But, it’s damn good. Like, one of the better I have had. It came in a small wooden box, with several wrpped, vacuum sealed bags inside.
Brewing two bags, (about 3 tablespoons total) in 32 ounces of water at 200 degrees in my Bodum Assam teapot, I get a nice dark golden, almost wet straw colored brew.
The smell is amazing. Rich, robust, with hints of roasted nuts, wet straw, and toffee.
The taste is equally impressive. Full of flavor, but still so well balanced and smooth.
It’s rare you can find a tea so full of flavor, so big and in your face, so bold and beautiful, but still so well balanced and drinkable. No bitter tea face here!
Flavors: Roasted Nuts, Straw, Sweet, Toffee, Wet Earth
Preparation
Boyfriend has several coworkers and managers from the UK at his job, and one of them gave him these Earl Grey teabags from England. I wish I knew the brand—- they’re square and unmarked white filterbags, like the Celestial Seasonings teabags.
Holy God, is it amazing tea though. The base is nice and robust, with hints of cocoa and Assam-like astringency. The bergamot tastes both citrusy and spicy.
Oh yeah, this is the genuine article. He’s had the loose version of it, too, and says that it’s even better.
Long story short:
I play and teach music for a living, and often my students give me gifts around the holidays. I have one student in particular who is from China, and his family knows I love tea. Last year they gave me a great green tea.
This year they gave me a black tea. I didn’t ask them about it, and the label and container has only Chinese Characters on it. They did tell me it was a black tea, so I know that much for certain. I’ll find out more about it later, but I wanted to get some words down first.
This tea came in small freeze dried bags, each one containing just under 2 tablespoons of loose leaves. I used two of these bags, so probably 3-4 tablespoons in total, in my 32 ounce Bodum Assam teapot.
I followed the loose brewing guidelines for black tea, rinsing the leaves before adding water that had just reached nearly a full boil and letting the steep for 2:30.
The result was a liqueur with a dark golden, see through color More of an Oolong than a black. It smells and tastes like a Tung Ting, with my limited knowledge of tea.
The aroma is what gave it away. It has that bite, that sweetness that is familiar in teas harvested from higher elevations. I’ve had a couple of Tung Tings from Red Blossom Tea Company, and this was very similar. Sweet, full bodied, hints of sugar and caramel.
I hope to find out more about this tea, I really like it!
-E
Preparation
If you open a discussion and post pictures of the packaging someone may be able to help you I’d it. As well sometimes the tea factories name is on the packaging in English which can help find a web page or if you’re really lucky there is a website listed. I’ve used all of these to help I’d types of teas and their makers before. Good luck. Often the gift teas are some sort of Lapsang Souchong ( the ones for the Chinese market are rarely that smokey and I have had one that tasted like a caramel chocolate oolong before. It was fabulous).
I’m making Kombucha for the first time!
My jug isn’t nearly as big as it should be so we’ll see how things work out. I cut the recipe by two thirds so I’m a little worried that the the ratio may be off in some way. (do you need a minimum amount of anything to get the party started? I don’t know…)
Bah. I guess I have to wait and see. This is the not so fun part. I’ll have to rely on other teas to keep me entertained!
It should! Oolong makes the BEST booch!
I need to find some nice big non metal jars and get mine going again..
Bear With Me, I used an oolong that isn’t the best quality but is great for mixing and experiments, cooking etc. So hopefully I added enough! or I brewed it for long enough. Different recipes I saw called for various lengths of time… so many factors to look at! LOL
This morning’s pick is a golden monkey tea from the local tea store in our mall. I might have to ask next time I go in there which company’s tea this is, so I can better log it. I get a bit of a caramel note that fades into just a nicely balanced, smooth tea. It’s a really nice way to start the day.
My friend (who obviously has exquisite taste and is generous at gifting quality stuff) picked this tea out for me when she found the new store in the first place, and when I first went back, I immediately bought more.
Sipdown! I presumably had some of this previously, but am unsure of where I logged it, since I have no idea which company this is from – it’s just a sample I received from Azzrian a couple years back. Anyhow, it’s pretty old, and probably has lost flavour, but it’s not too bad. It tastes more like a green, unripened peach than a juicy, fresh one, but that’s actually reasonably tasty – the base is somewhat astringent, but not unbearably so. Maybe a tea I would have been interested in trying fresh, but since I haven’t a clue where it’s from… farewell, mystery tea!
Tis a splendid tea
My DM was given this tea as a free sample when he bought part of my bday present a few weeks ago – some 1970s Menghai Sheng (aka my favorite sheng). The owner of the store solely wrote “Green” on the package and told him that it was a green tea. To him, someone who knows only a small amount of tea, he thought that she meant it was a regular, ol’ green tea. Nope. Definitely a raw pu-erh… which some people just call a green pu-erh. Smelling the dry leaves indicated that it was younger than the 1970s, however, it seemed to have some age to it. The throat was a mix between a potent 2014 sheng, the 1970s Menghai, and a ZSXZ. I immediately knew that I was in for a treat with this one. The taste was strong yet smooth. It had everything that I enjoy about raw pu’erh – strength, hay, camphor, bark, a bit of roasting campfire, and a pleasant bite. My DM tried a sip from the sixth infusion and complained about it being bitter. I laughed pretty hard at that one. It’s so amazing and unfortunate that people’s palettes are so different. The tea had no hint of bitterness for me. Hopefully, I will be able to pick up some more… and hopefully Lorna will know what tea it was that she gave us!! XD I’m looking forward to a few more infusions with it today.
Sipdown (119)!
Thank you VariaTEA for the sample. Unfortunately, the packaging is super nondescript and doesn’t have anything on it to indicate a company (and when I stalked your cupboard I didn’t see anything to indicate where this is from/who this is by) so I feel like I’m really going in blind.
This comes in a teabag (a kinda bigger one though), but despite that I made it in my timolino for work this morning, with some added milk since my milk is gonna expire soon and I don’t want to see it go to waste. I actually didn’t drink this until I got home though; it just wound up being too busy during the day to drink it at work.
Taste wise I mostly just tasted the milk I had added; but maybe a little extra sweet/creamy? I guess I could say there were honey notes and feel confidant about that; but not sure how else to describe this one. It was good overall, though.
And somewhat tea related (just not this tea); I placed my very first Adagio order today! I’m gonna be restocking on three fandom blends that I know I like (one I stock already, just need a top up) but most excitingly I’m getting my very first fandom sampler! The one I picked out for myself is the Hobbit sampler! I have no clue whether I’ll like the teas (looks like many have lots of Spices in ‘em) but the tins are adorable and I’m sure will make the whole order feel justified!
Woot!
Flavors: Honey
I got some of this tea at my local health food store in bulk. I can’t say I expected much, but this is delightful. I’ve infused this semi-grandpa style. I add three ice cubes to my mug, then slightly cooled boiled water. This tastes like flowers, peaches, and grapes to me. Perhaps I am imagining the grapes because I know this tea is indian and I would assume near Darjeeling, but either way, this is delicious and refreshing.
Flavors: Flowers, Grapes, Nectar, Peach
Cheri gave me a generous 9g sample when we swapped. Thank you!! My first Tai Ping Hou Kui, hence no rating.
Brewed grandpa-style in a glass tumbler.
The color of the dry leaf – on which there are dark criss-cross indentations – ranges from army green to olive green. Each leaf super duper long, some reaching more than two inches. The nose has notes of beans, corn, and peas.
The liquor is full-bodied, smooth, and rich in flavor. Let me tell you, this is greenest of the green teas. It just tastes to green. A good green. At first I get crispy kale and asparagus, and then, as the leaf continues to steep, freshly mowed green grass with a creamy sweetness. The aftertaste evokes lightly-steamed sencha.
This is also a visual pleasure. Three grams is A LOT. The leaves crowd the surface of the water so that there is hardly any open space. Now, there’s no space in the bottom of the glass. The lengthier leaves reach for the top as if they were vines in dire need of air.
Preparation
A friend brought this back for me as a gift from China. It’s from Taiwan, though.
I’m having it grandpa style, and I think it works really well that way. I just put a bunch in my carry mug, did a quick rinse, and then add more water as I want. I keep the water cooler, in the 160-170°F range. I find that works better for me when doing grandpa so I can actually drink it right away. (Plus, it doesn’t cool off in the carry mug, even though I’ve got the top off. I’m just using the carry mug for the screen.)
A little mineral, which I sometimes like in an oolong, and sweet and creamy. This is a nice tea, especially when I have it this way.
Will do! It’s a good tea to add, although it’s hard because I don’t know where to get more of it, you know?
Well, I meant it’s hard because no one else can get it. If you want to try it, I’ll include a sample for you.
Wow, there’s already a tea page for Keemun by unknown. Nice! I was going to use random steepings, but this works.
Went to a local cafe to relax and read today, and they have quite the list of teas. Probably 50 different ones to choose from! I chose the Keemun, due to my recent love of that tea. They scooped it out of a large canister. Who knows where they source their teas. I did see a few small Kusmi tins on a shelf, but they probably buy bulk teas from somewhere and stash them in the humongous black canisters. Anyhoo, I got a cup of hot water and some loose leaf in a strainer. :)
This Keemun was more prominently smokey, and less chocolate-y than the other ones I’ve had. It was nice to sip on while reading though. I’m in the middle of The Brothers Sisters…pretty entertaining so far.