Dinosara

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French Vanilla Orchid from Storehouse Tea

Dinosara drank French Vanilla Orchid by Storehouse Tea

I’m a bit disappointed that even with a low temp and short steep this one is still a little bitter… it’s kind of just a character of the black tea base, I guess, which is unfortunate. The florals are so powerful on this one it’s crazy, and I can definitely see people thinking it tastes perfumey, but it’s not quite there for me yet. It’s almost rosey, but not quite… orchidy, I guess. :) Fortunately this is really great cold steeped, so I will definitely enjoy it that way even if I can’t quite get the hot steep right. I did drop my rating since the hot steep is tainted by a bitterness I can’t seem to fix.

2011-11-29 14:44:20 -0500

200 °F / 93 °C

2 min 0 sec

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Spoonvonstup 2011-11-29 15:26:36 -0500

That’s a shame about the bitterness. Why aren’t tea blenders as negatively affected by bitterness as we are? But it’s always nice to find good coldpress teas.

Dinosara 2011-11-29 16:35:46 -0500

I think I’m extra affected by bitterness because sometimes I seem to taste it when no one else does, but I agree that it’s amazing that someone didn’t the taste the bitterness in some teas! And then sometimes I think some people actually like the bitterness. Oh well!

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Bio

I am tea obsessed, with the stash to match. I tend to really enjoy green oolongs, Chinese blacks, and flavored teas with high quality bases, especially florals, bergamot-based teas, and chocolate teas.

I’m a grad student and in my free time I am a birder, baker, and music/movie/tv addict.

I have an Adagio Teas UtiliTEA kettle and a Tea Forté Kati cup for brewing. I also have a Chinese Ru Kiln tea set for gongfu brewing.

Here are my rating categories, FYI:
100-90: These teas are mind-blowingly good to me.
89-80: I really really like these teas and will keep most of them in the permanent collection, but they’re not quite as spectacular as the top category
79-70: Tasty teas that I enjoy, but definitely won’t rebuy when I run out.
69-65: Teas that I would probably drink again, but wouldn’t seek out. They don’t quite do it for me in one aspect or another; often just not quite my style
64-60: Teas that I don’t really enjoy all that much and wouldn’t drink another cup of.
59-50: Bleh. I usually choose not to finish the cup because life’s too short to drink tea I dislike.
49 and below: Mega yuck. This tea is just disgusting to me.