Dinosara

For some reason I really wanted this one this afternoon. Blame it on looking at the sweets on the Fauchon website too long and dreaming of Paris. This time I brewed this one cooler and shorter time to attempt to combat the bitterness of the CTC part of the base.

It seems to have worked pretty well, but there is still a lingering oh so light bitterness. It kind of grows as the cup cools and I drink more of it. I think it is just a character of CTC teas and is unavoidable.

I know companies sometimes use CTC teas in a blend for a specific flavor it imparts, but to me it is never tasty, and I never want it. This would be awesome if it was on a different base. I like the flavoring on this so much that I will certainly enjoy it with milk and sugar at home, but I wish I didn’t have to mask the base like that. The only other calisson tea here on the database is one of Mariage Frères’ Heritage Gourmand collection, but it looks like it is on a rooibos base, which is a no-go for me.

Ah well, now I’ve spent a bunch of time looking at confectionaries and pastries online in Paris shops. How will I have the time to visit them all! :)

Sipdown, 161. Yum.

The power of suggestion worked today. I saw someone else’s note about a coconut oolong and decided to have the rest of my sample of this one. I would be fascinated to learn about the source of all of these coconut baozhongs, which seem to be pretty much the same everywhere (with perceived differences possibly based on freshness I would guess). And they are so prevalent! But at least they are all delicious. Yummy creamy, toasted coconut and even a bit of cookie to it. Eventually I’ll have a permanent tin of coconut baozhong in my stash, but more of that stash has to go, first. :)

Sipdown, 162. I used the rest of my sample of this one as a cold brew.

Unsurprisingly, this one was quite good as a cold brew. At the specs I used (about 3tsp, 12oz water, 8 hour steep), it was very light and refreshing, with enough flavor to make for a tasty drink. I found the cold steep with way less vanilla and more florals, but all the notes were there, just subtly interacting. I realized once I was most of the way through my bottle of it that it reminded me strongly of some of the gewurtztraminer white wines I’ve had… rose and jasmine notes, with light citrus and goji berry, which is almost standing in for the grape here. In particular I had a dry gewurtztraminer once and this is very similar, but without any alcohol, obviously. Quite lovely, and definitely an iced tea I’d like to have again. Maybe I’ll eventually pick more of this one up!

Last night I had a beer that was called “golden monkey,” which made me want a golden monkey tea this morning. Unfortunately, I have not a lick of golden monkey in my stash, so a somewhat generic “Fujian congou” will have to do.

This is a solid Fujian black tea, and could possibly be a good everyday tea (if you’re into having the same tea every day; I am not). It’s very malty and grainy, slightly honeyed, with a touch of raisin to it and a hint of cocoa. Very pleasant and a nice morning tea.

I bought a sample of this with my last Verdant order because the mix of flavors intrigued me. The dry leaf is certainly gorgeous, with the mix of colors and shapes of everything in this blend. I smell the jasmine and the vanilla most strongly from the dry leaf. Somehow I managed to not realize that this contains jasmine and vanilla together, which historically have not worked in combination for me (for some unknown reason), so let’s hope there’s enough other stuff in here to balance them.

The steeped tea smells jasmine-y and vanilla-y, but also a tiny bit fruity and perhaps a hint of rose. The flavors are thankfully blending quite well together. The main impression I get is one of creaminess, followed by a lovely floral amalgamation (jasmine, rose and some orchid notes together). There’s a sort of light herbiness to the florals, which I’m guessing is mostly yabao making itself known, though I don’t get any specific cedar notes. All in all it makes for a very pleasant and relaxing cup… though perhaps I need something to wake me up now! But anyway, I found this quite tasty, even though it contains a flavor combo that doesn’t often work for me. Yay Verdant, once again.

Sipdown, 163. Cold brew.

I apparently thought this was a different tea when I put it in to cold steep last night… for some reason I thought it was the des Songes blend, with oolong, but nope, it’s des Sables. I probably would have steeped it with less leaf if I had realized that. Unfortunately this didn’t come out very tasty and I stopped drinking it about halfway through. Too strong, too grassy, to over-flavored. Just too much, really. Meh.

Another older tea, and one that I was curious about given my recent distaste for flavored greens. But! This isn’t a flavored green, really… it’s a flavored white with jasmine pearls in it. So no yucky (to me) sencha, maybe it will suit me better?

Indeed it does. I’m not totally in love with white tea, but it’s lightly honeyed, hayish notes go well with the bergamot and jasmine in this blend. This is a nice light green/white blend that I enjoy hot, which is pleasant to have in my stash now.

I am feeling a little less pressured by my stash lately, and I don’t feel the need to totally concentrate on sipdowns like I have been. This morning I was kinda sorta in the mood for an unflavored black tea, or at least a non-fruity black. Most of my teas are in boxes for an eventual move into a real office, so I poked through the boxes a bit and came out with this one. Yeah, it’s not unflavored, but it’s got a high enough quality base that it doesn’t matter.

Many, I forgot just how delicious this tea is. So much rich, creamy chocolate… it’s the only chocolate tea I’ve ever been really satisfied with. A lot of teas hint at chocolate, or are somewhat chocolatey, but this is just chocolate. Mmm. I’ve probably said this a million times about this tea, but the base really makes it. There’s just no excuse for a poor tea base!

I have not made this tea since I came home with it from California, but today I wanted to try it. I mean, I just decided that I don’t like flavored greens all that much anymore, but this is different. For one, purely scented florals don’t count, really, as they are not “flavored” like so many fruity green teas are flavored. Secondly, I know this isn’t some crappy sencha base but rather a delicious dragonwell.

And delicious it was. This tea is like a revelation after drinking scores of mediocre flavored greens. The rose is so lovely, and almost fruity. I’ve never had rose go fruity on me before, but it’s funny because cteresa just commented this morning that rose can be fruity for her. Interesting! This is one of those teas I want to have forever and ever because it’s just so so good.

I went poking around in my stash of teas that I haven’t drank in forever, and plucked this one out. I quite enjoyed this tea at one point, and only after I chose it did I realize it would also be a good test of my recent dislike of flavored green teas.

Turns out, yeah, there is something about flavored greens that is really not doing it for me. I mean, this was pretty tasty. It was definitely better than many of the other flavored greens I’ve had lately. I mean, it’s fruity and floral and those flavors are all nice, but they just don’t come together for me. I think its the base tea that is probably a lower quality chinese sencha and I just don’t like that flavor much anymore. This is partly saved by the fact that it also includes jasmine pearls, and they are always tasty.

Maybe (hopefully) this is just some taste-swing and I will come around to enjoying flavored greens again, but right now I will likely avoid them!

Sipdown, 164. Cold brew.

The cold brew of this unfortunately did not taste like much. I did use a little less leaf than normal because I’ve been having green teas “oversteep” when cold brewing, but this still turned a deep yellow so I’m not sure it was the leaf amount. As it warmed up a bit it tasted more like grass, and finally at the end I got a hit of bergamot. It was perfectly drinkable merely because it was very inoffensive, but still, it wasn’t very tasty anyway.

I made a cup of this tea to reassure myself that bergamot and (some) keemun and I are all still good friends. Sometimes I dislike keemun but not this keemun, which I love. Hopefully.

Yay! I do still love it. Honestly going into it the bergamot (of all things!) was kind of smelling not good to me, and I love bergamot! But upon first sip I was reminded of how delicious a good Earl can be. I love the base, I love the bergamot, I love everything about this tea. It really is my perfect Earl Grey.

Car wouldn’t start this morning. Ugh. And I just had it in the shop! I’m not sure how much longer I can keep pouring money into it, it’s getting quite old. Sigh. I spent this morning looking at new cars and daydreaming about how nice it would be.

I decided to go ahead and try the rest of my Kusmi teas from my sample tin set (the Russian sampler), most of which I haven’t tried even though I’ve had it for a while now. This one smells like bergamot and orange, with a floral orange blossom note. It also smells strongly of what I believe is one of the base tea, and it isn’t a pleasant smell for me.

At first I was not feeling this tea, but it’s perhaps getting better as it cools. One of the teas in the base blend really isn’t my favorite, but it’s smoothing out a bit I think. Still, I am not finding this tea to be all that tasty overall. All the flavors are there that mean that I should like it, but then I just don’t. It’s not pleasurable. I dunno, I just hope that this dislike of my Kusmi teas is temporary or doesn’t extend to all of them because I have a huge tin of Petrushka that’s not going to drink itself!

Hmmm not sure what happened with this one. I had a sample of this before that I definitely enjoyed, and now I have a small sample tin again. I made a cup of this tea this afternoon and it wasn’t really tasty at all. I can’t even put my finger on it, but I didn’t enjoy really enjoy it and I even felt a bit nauseous with a headache after drinking it. I dunno, I am going to try it cold brew, and maybe I’ll give it another shot hot since I did like it once, but otherwise it’ll be swap fodder. :/

I can never say no to one of Verdant’s bergamot-based blends, nor can I say no to one of their tieguanyin blends. So this? Had to happen, I was just waiting for the right time to order it. And the right time came last month, when I went a little tieguanyin crazy.

Steeped, this bears the familiar aroma of buttery tieguanyin combined with jasmine, orange and saffron. Hmmm, Gardens of Anxi reborn, with more ingredients? I don’t think I noticed that before. There is an added spiciness, to be sure, which must be a bit of the frankincense, and the brightness of bergamot as well. But definitely a comforting familiarity with one of my favorite tea blends of all time (now retired forever).

The flavors are lovely. Saffron always seems to bring out the rich butteriness in tieguanyins, and this is no exception. Sweet and citrusy, with a darker, slightly spiced background, and over all a high floral orange-blossomy note. I will very much enjoy this blend, although it may suffer a tiny bit from “too many ingredients”… at least for me. It’s a very very tasty tea, but there is so much going on, and they compete a bit. But if I weren’t mentally comparing it to a simpler, beloved blend I might be more entranced I suppose.

Sipdown, 165. Cold brew.

Let me tell you, this tea was freaking awesome cold brewed. Like, I want to buy a tin and keep it around just for cold brewing. Except that probably wouldn’t be very financially sound. It was so deliciously almondy, creamy, with light, juicy fruitiness. Here, it tasted like a macaron, delicious and sweet. If I was just rating the cold brew I would rate this into the 90s for sure.

I had an anxiety-filled morning during which I had to write an email to my advisors requesting to delay my dissertation defense, which was emotionally draining. Everything worked out, but at the time I was very stressed. I wanted something in the morning that would be comforting, and I grabbed this one out of the box it is currently residing in.

I am all out of sachets of this tea (that I had bought in Mongolia), which is a shame, because it is a tea I love to take with me while traveling. It is delicious and comforting, with a yummy black tea base and citrusy notes that complement it so well. A delicious tea that is comforting but also that I can just drink without thinking about it too much.

Added the teas from my Verdant order and I’m only back up to 166 in my cuboard! Yay.

Still have kind of a headache (and I don’t really want to take any painkillers), and I don’t quite feel like going gongfu at the moment. At first I was going to brew up one of the random teas I have around here with additions, but then I remembered I had just gotten this one in the mail!

I had the pleasure of trying the unofficial first draft of this tea, and it was delicious. So I was super excited to try this one! The steeped tea smells toasty but not too chocolatey, more like toasty rice cereal. The chocolate comes out more in the flavor, although I think I probably could have added more leaf to this pot because the flavor is a bit thinner than I’d like. In any case it definitely has a toasted rice/toasted grain flavor to it, almost like honey smacks cereal (which I have been eating in the morning, lol). It’s kind of lightly sweet, and I can also detect the wuyi oolong in this as well, giving it some slight rocky, minerally notes. All in all I am very much enjoying this pot of tea.

I enjoyed the first draft blend slightly more than this particular blend, but that could be in part due to my slightly weak steeping of it, and also likely due to the inclusion of the wuyi oolong, since those are not really among my favorite teas. Still, I’m happy to have my ounce of this and I think I may go through it moderately quickly! I only got an ounce because some people have said that the autumn Laoshan Black (which this batch is made with) is roastier and less chocolatey than the previous spring batch (which is the one I have and love). It is of course impossible to really tell with this blend, but if I do drink this one down quickly and decide I need more I might go for more of the spring blend.

Sipdown, 159.

I brought the rest of this one home with me to have it with milk and sugar; I had just enough for my tea pot at home but too much for my cup at work, plus I decided I would negate any further bitterness in this one by taking it with additions. I have to say, it was comforting and delicious. I woke up this morning with a headache and this tea has done some good in relieving it. It went well with my waffles for breakfast as well. Vanilla, caramel, and a robust black tea. I quite enjoyed it.

So I’ve become pickier and picker about my flavored tea bases over the last year or so, to the point where I only really trust certain tea companies to deliver. However, just recently I have come to very much enjoy a nice pot of flavored black with additions, which cover all manner of sins. I guess it’s good for my potential of getting through some of the older flavored teas in my stash!

Sipdown, 160. Somewhere along the way I drank the rest of the other sample I had of this but didn’t log it. Ah well.

I went home early today (but still doing work, unfortunately), so I am doing this gongfu while I write. I definitely think I prefer this one western style. The gongfu brewing really brought out the vegetal notes. The first steep was probably 15-20 seconds (no rinse) and tasted like vegetables and sugar, which is kind of an odd combo. Later steeps brought out more of the florals and became increasingly vegetal and less sweet. It was a pretty tasty TGY, but I am getting pickier and pickier lol. If I had to have certified organic (which I don’t really care about), this would be a good pick.

Sipdown, 161.

Ugh, ate too much at lunch today and now I am stuffed. I wanted something light, so I decided a green or a white tea, and this only had a serving left so I decided to go ahead and sipdown.

This does remind me a bit of a white tea… I think it’s all the fuzz and the hay-ish, alfalfa-y flavor that accompanies the vegetal notes. Quite tasty, though it does give me a bit of tickle in the back of my throat.

Sipdown, 162.

This is a lovely floral green oolong. It is similar in feel to a magnolia oolong, but the florals are lighter and less thick. Reading the description again, I think this is actually not a scented oolong but just one that has natural osmanthus-like florals to it, and that’s exactly what it seems like. The florals are very “oolongy” which is to say that they seem inherant, not added after picking through a scenting process. It just has so many natural floral notes that it seems like it could have been scented.

It reads as very spring/summer to me, which is appropriate given the weather (warm, rainy). Fresh, green, vegetal, with a hint of butteriness and lingering sweet floral flavor. A very lovely tea.

Sipdown, 163. Cold brewed, took two sips, and then dumped. Don’t know what happened with this one… when I tasted it this morning it was just nasty. I was trying to come up with what it tasted like but all I could get was cucumbers and bitter buttery beans. Sometimes I like buttery beans as a flavor in green teas, but in a cold brew, just no. Yuck.

Yay, another surprise sample from Shmiracles from our last swap. Thanks!

I have been drinking more unflavored puerhs (mostly shengs) as part of the Verdant Reserve club, but it’s been a while since I’ve had a flavored shu. I didn’t rinse this one, because I didn’t think about it.

The brewed tea is dark as the night and it smells very woody and earthy, overlain by a definite blood orange aroma. The flavor is quite nice! The main part of the sip really is the blood orange, both sweet and a hint tart, and then it is supported by this woody background. It’s a pretty simple flavored tea, but sometimes simple is great.