Various Artists

Well, the teas went over swimmingly at the work tea party! Honey Black by Green Terrace Teas was practically an empty pot – which rarely happens! Strawberry Green by Kusmi was much praised for being able to actually identify strawberry in the flavor. Hawaiian Paradise by Zen Zeu was remarked upon for the lovely deep pink color but thought it might benefit from being chilled. Least popular was Earl Grey Baroness by Annabelle’s – a random tea brought back to me by a friend.

Pictures: http://tinyurl.com/q8bnfv8

So. Full. Of. Tea.

I have been drinking tea all day long today. I got two tiny little double wall glass tea cups from Teavivre last week. I have never been a huge fan of glass for tea cups without handles, but these were just too cute to resist. And I’m so pleased that they don’t get hot at all. Great double wall insulation I guess!

I started the day with Bi Luo Chun Black (or Golden Snail Yunnan) from Whispering Pines then moved on to Golden Fleece from Verdant – both were delish though I think I’m somewhat over Golden Fleece for now. I’ll still never turn it down, but my palate is trending towards heavier teas lately. Next was Ailaoshan Black from Whispering Pines, Yunnan Gold Tips from A&D, No. 9 Yunnan from Steven Smith – all reliable and good, though the Ailaoshan was by far my favorite of the group. Finished up with Golden Tippy Yunnan from Tealeaves, which unfortunately didn’t really improve much with the short multiple steeping style sessions I was using.

Almost all of the steeps were done with 1 teaspoon of tea, spring water cooled from boiling, rinse leaves, 20 seconds for 1/2 of a little cup, 45 seconds to top off the cup, then 1 1/2 minutes for second cup and leaving the tea in the pot until I was ready for the 3rd & 4th cups.

While that sounds like a lot of tea, I guess in retrospect it isn’t that much since they were all done in 6+ ounce tiny gongfu (not sure this is really gongfu) short steep sessions. I did resteep the Golden Snail so that’s…um… 42+ ounces?

Sipdown 3 of 2016. Sample. Received 11/2015 – Finished 1/2016

This was a gold wrapped sample package from LP. My tasters tell me it is a Keemun, but I do not read Chinese so I have know idea for sure.

I love these little packages. There were several in the awesome package of tea LP sent me. I like opening them up and not knowing exactly what you are getting. The keemun was good. It had the deep notes in keemun that I enjoy. A great morning cup that I throughly enjoyed.

This is a red wrapped TGY that I received from LP Thank you!

I haven’t had TGY in a long time. This particular session is wonderful. Slightly creamy, slightly roasted? No bitterness that I sometimes get. I will be working on this all night. Working late in and effort to make some progress while people aren’t around to interrupt.

I have recently become the owner of 5, yes 5 different keemuns. For a girl who barely knew what keemuns were a month ago this astounds me how they have gravitated to me. So here is a quick summary of how my taste buds viewed all of them in comparison. I will start by saying I actually loved all of them. There are a few I would pick over others to re-buy, but all were worth drinking again and again and again.

Teavivre – Ha Ya Black Keemun
– fruity, complex flavors, smooth, rich,

Teavivre – Grade 1 Keemun
– less fruity than Ha Ya Black, middle of the road as far as the taste profile went, not fruity, not smokey. well rounded and smooth.
– most like the Pine Peak

Teavivre – Grade 2 Keenum
– tad bit of smoke, woody rich flavor
– most like China Keenum from Zen Tea Life

Zen Tea Life – China Keemun
– tad bit of smoke, less body than the Grade 2 from Teavivre
– most like Grade 2 from Teavivre

Whispering Pines – Pine Peak Keemun
– less fruity, no smoke, good body, smooth
– most like Grade 1 from Teavivre

All teas were steeped per recommended instructions. They were all great and I can see lots of keemun drinking in my future. Thanks to those that contributed to my ability to do this comparison!

At the end of this comparison i dumped all 5 together and drank the cup. The resulting brew was also amazing! I can definitely say I am a keemun convert!

I finally finished tasting and reviewing the red leaf matcha samples. Now I’m heavily caffeinated! Hopefully this gets me through cleaning my place today :)

Junpana Organic, from goldenteatips (I believe they’ve since changed the company name)
first spring flush 2015, SFTGFOP1

I’m still going through these little packets! I awkwardly signed up for their annual teabox subscription wayy back when, and early in the process discovered that I was not the greatest fan of assam or pekoe.

This one is labeled as an oolong, from darjeeling, but it tastes like a lightly green black tea, isn’t that weird. It wasn’t my favorite, but maybe I just brewed it too long? I followed the directions, but I think I used to do darjeelings for 1-2 mins rather than 4-5. This probably deserves another try, but I’m in no rush.

If anyone actually wants these little packets, I’ll gladly sell them to you, most of them are sealed and I’m not doing anything with them except letting them get older.

grandpa steeped some 2005 puer in a 30oz tumbler. nom. a nice mild brew to get me through a work day. Refilled at 1/2way point like 4 times? :)

Verdant Tian di Ren 2005 Shu Pu’er

This shall be my Christmas tea this year. I’m using an easy gaiwan with a cupping set (? the one with a long sniffing cup and a stout drinking cup)

It tastes like earth and mushrooms. It’s not at all heavy or too overwhelming. =) Just smooth and easy.

Merry Christmas/Happy holidays!

One of my friends brought me some of the tea her parents brought her from China. Little jasmine green tea pearls, they’re quite adorable. I don’t have a vendor name or anything though. They’re quite tiny actually, and unfurl into little strands. The taste is not as jasminey as what I would have assumed from the scent, but it’s not that bad. This type of tea makes be want to drag out my big ceramic teapot though.

Hot Kumquat Honey tea from Quickly’s

I’m still sick, but a different sick from last week. Tis the season I suppose. Any artificial citrus today has tasted/smelt distinctly perfumey. For example I had lemon pepper on something today, and it was not pleasant, lol. I thought I was safe with this as I’ve had it before (and I actually ordered it before the lemon pepper incident), and it is usually more honey than kumquat, but alas I was not. So it tastes of honey, Kumquat and Perfume. It’s not as bad though if I dilute it down some more, like 1 part to 2 parts water… Note though that this tea is still normally very nice and if you’re near a Quickly’s location and don’t want milk tea, this is what I usually get.

I may be a bit crazy. I mixed some cold Strawberry Oolong and some SunnyD. Yup. That happened. It wasn’t bad.

In other news I found the TeaRen store in my city. But they are cash only and I didn’t have ANY cash on me, not even enough for a cup of milk tea. Boo. Another day.

I THINK that this is Golden Snail. But I honestly have no idea. It might be Golden Fleece. Either way it’s gold. Looking at it the shape is probably more like Fleece than Snails. LOL. I found an unlabeled packet. It wasn’t properly sealed either and I think this tea has been exposed to moisture, so I thought ‘why not’.

Gabriel’s Oboe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ny_q8e9-Qo
That should be enough to say.
Other than that: malty, sweet, honey notes, nutty notes, but very light and not heavy. It had all these different notes, but didn’t have a distinctive characteristic to it so I could identify it as black or oolong or some such. More Honey than Nuts as the steeps went by, this is what I imagine honey castella in tea form would taste like. By the way this was done Gong Fu style, which I haven’t done in FOREVER. It was very nice. If only I knew what it was.

I’ve been so bad at doing notes lately, which seems to be a running theme. These days though, it’s honestly because I’ve been trying to clean up after myself after I make tea in the morning, so by the time I’m home in the evening and have some internet time I have completely forgotten what it is. For example I know that today I had TeaLyra’s something jasmine pearls, and some sort of hojicha, and some sort of darjeeling. Not very helpful. It doesn’t help that ants have invaded my usual tea area (where the kettle lives) because I forgot a piece of candy out. I can’t even disturb the trail because I’m waiting for the ant people to come bait this trail…

Anyway, I’ve just been having a very bad luck, sucky kind of day. My house alarm went off, so I had to drive home from work and deal with that for a few hours. Then I started my chemical reaction late because I was in later…. and that didn’t pass spec so I had to start it all over again. By the time I had a pause for breakfast/lunch it was 5pm and I was super grumpy. But I got out by 8pm! at least there’s that… Then I came home and my sister yelled at me for not letting her know in my nonexistant extra time that the alarm had gone off.

Oh well, now I’m off to the airport to pick up a friend. The ant man comes tomorrow morning to treat the ant trail so hopefully I’ll be back to brewing tons of tea by Friday? lol. Tea gets me through the day, otherwise I’m sure I would have done some PMS style yelling by now.

https://instagram.com/p/0jP7R9RNI-/

My very first pu erh cake! (I have no idea what the label says… I’m not even going to try.) Admittedly, I also stabbed myself with the fork trying to pry pieces off (I didn’t break skin, so it’s OK!). It was super inexpensive, I think about $4 for the 250g cake. I’m grandpa brewing it and enjoying it with a donut. Happy day. I honestly probably didn’t use enough leaf. But that could be because it’s inexpensive (my usual pu’s are loose leaf from Mandala), or because of the sweetness of the donut. Oh well. There’s still plenty left!

It’s really hard to try and write notes when some things are just labeled like ‘puerh’, ‘darjeeling 1st’, ‘darjeeling 2nd’…. the latter two I’m assuming they meant 1st&2nd flushes, but who knows. I don’t.

Mostly I’m just checking in because I know I’ve been bad about tasting notes lately, but I’m alive and still drinking (tea)! Haha.

I’ve been really bad at doing tasting notes lately. Like really really sporadic. =(

Anyways. This is a random Darjeeling 1st flush that I got in a stash sale, the seller didn’t even remember where it came from. I wasn’t too bothered with that then or now even because it does brew up decently, even though I hope that I know a little bit more know about darjeeling tea now than I did then. Although that is admitted not much more.

Compared to the other darjeelings I’ve tried this one is definitely more of a younger taste. Which I feel like I’m saying younger, but that might mean something different to you. It’s more mellow, yet lively. It doesn’t have a whole ton of depth, but there’s an interesting roundness and surface taste. That probably doesn’t really help all that much, but I had fun trying. How’s this: It’s good, not the best, but nice.

Rice Pudding from World Flavors, via the Cooking TTB

Well I wouldn’t have named it rice pudding, but maybe to someone?

The base tea is black, but is neither mellow nor robust. Just a kind of inbetween unremarkable black tea. The dry leaf has little white bits in it, which added to the appeal and held the faint scent of vanilla.

When I think of rice pudding I’m expecting something cremey, decadent, and comforting. With a touch of vanilla and maybe a bit of cinnamon? That’s how I would blend a rice pudding tea at least.

This tea though, is very faintly vanilla and not much else. It’s not even vanilla enough to be creamy, which I feel alot of vanilla teas do without much effort. Oh well.

I should have been tasting teas from the TTB today, but I didn’t. This morning was a trusty, well-loved jasmine tea. Lunch included Twinning’s Breakfast tea. This evening I decided to try my hand at Morrocan Mint tea, which has been bouncing around my brain since I heard about it.

Yesterday I was in the 99ranch to pick up some stuff and I wandered over to the tea area, I always do. I was looking for Gunpowder green tea. You know, despite stories of it being very popular, I had a heck of a time trying to find it, most of the teas available were sencha or long ling or some other green. No Gunpowder to be found. I actually drove over to SF market (another Asian supermarket) to go through the tea selection there. I finally settled on a ‘China Green Tea’ whose characters seemed closest to the ones Wikipedia showed me for Gunpowder. Eh, it was cheap. $4 for about 8oz? Does it remind me of gunpowder tea? Hmm, I’m not sure. I’ve only had it Gunpowder a few times, but at this point I’m just going to finish off what I started even if it’s not completely right.

My mom planted some mint in a pot in on my patio and it really really likes the weather here. The mint is thriving! (I wish I could say the same of my sad little Basil plant) I grabbed a bunch of mint and did my best approximation of Morrocan Mint tea. You know, for not knowing if I have the actual right tea, and lacking the beautiful tea pot, settling for a pot on the stove.

Well, it tastes nice. I would probably try it again.

So many years ago now, as a gift I received a big tin of a variety of teabags from Lifted Cup Tea containing 120 teabags of six different teas. The set so old now, the tasting note so late, the tin is no longer available, but here it is:  https://www.walmart.com/ip/Lifted-Cup-120-Ct-Tea-Collection-Tins/339220520.  Here are notes on the six flavors in the tin (5 black teas, one plain green tea):

Raspberry:  Surprisingly great raspberry flavor!  It’s very good and lasts for two steeps.  Probably the best raspberry TEABAG I’ve ever tried.

Orange Spice:  more orange than spice, and more like the fluoride flavored orange from those school days.  

Earl Grey:  I wouldn’t call this a traditional bergamot, it really tastes more like grapefruit but it isn’t anything too unpleasant.  I don’t think it hits the craving for bergamot though.  But it’s a change for the tastebuds – Earl adjacent maybe. 

Elevated Green: luckily the only green tea of the bunch because it is…not good.  Really I felt as though I were merely tasting the teabag itself, it was like paper flavor…maybe with a hint of matcha.

Peach: A decent peach black!  Not the worst peach flavor and not the best.  In the mid-range between candy peach and authentic peach. 

English Breakfast: Ending on a high note, as I did NOT expect this to be this delicious!  I thought it would be an unflavored version of their Just Okay flavored base for their black teas, but this is definitely a stronger black tea with more depth and nuance than the flavored teas.  Honestly, any other English Breakfast I have is not usually this tasty.  I’m sad I threw out the teabag after one steep (but have like 20 more). 

Overall, I would say the only tea that I DID NOT like in this set was their “Elevated” Green.  The next least favorite was Orange Spice.  But the Raspberry, Earl Grey, Peach and English Breakfast are very good, considering my low expectations (and low amount of leaf in the teabags). Favorites: Raspberry + English Breakfast. Also, A+ for this flavoring on lasting so many years later. If anything, I’m grateful to this tin that will forever be a nice filing system for random teabags.  Once I ever get through the 120 teabags…honestly it’s already FULL of other teas.

This was from a LONG AGO teabox.  The only English on the packaging says “Fuding White Tea” but the packaging is so lovely — I never wanted to cut the package open until now!  The packaging is  royal blue, with a teapot on the front and a clear cutout of a maple leaf on the back.  Anyone come across this particular tea/ know what the brand might be? The packaging is the size of a teabag, and in fact the tea itself is pressed into the size/shape of what a teabag might be. Very flat shape!  It takes some unraveling over the steeps.  The flavor is a typical white tea – with maybe a sweetness and actual leaf flavor reminiscent of that maple leaf on the back of the package.  Four solid steeps. Seemed to be a high quality white tea — the leaves were huge when they unraveled — I can’t imagine the leaves being squashed into teabag size.  I’m saving the packaging anyway…
2020 Sipdowns: 41

This will sound ridiculous but there was a flavor profile I was craving. I had this random unlabeled tea from StarFevre that I just happened to brew up, never tried it before. And the flavor profile was EXACTLY the flavor that I had been craving. I wasn’t even sure if the mystery tea was a black or oolong. But I guess that was what I was craving anyway. It could be a light black or an oolong. The flavor is a bit roasty, very sweet, hints of lychee, honey, almost like a lapsang souchong like Teavivre has, where the better lapsang souchongs don’t have a smoky flavor. I know it was a Chinese tea anyway, based on the packaging. It’s just too weird this happened today.
Edited to add: The second steep the next day is definitely telling me this is a black tea (the brew is quite dark at boiling) with plenty of those lovely flavors from yesterday. It’s also starchy yet stays sweet. I’ll certainly have this mysterious tea around when these flavor cravings hit.