Dinosara

Sipdown, 190. Why yes, I am drinking the rest of my sample of this tea today. I was going to sipdown a different tea but then read my tasting note in which I said that I should cold brew the rest of it, so I stopped. This was actually the only thing left in my sipdown box with only one serving left in it, and I thought, what the heck, I really liked it, I’ll be happy to drink it again.

And that I am! This will likely be an eventual restock for me because it is really quite delicious. Nutty, honeyed, yum.

Sipdown, 191. Even though I had this one recently I am having it again because there was only one serving left. Stash-busting!

This really does remind me of a white tea, especially with those hay notes, but also of a woody, slightly earthy puerh. This time I also get almost a jasmine-like floral in the aftertaste, and slight notes of honeysuckle. Glad I got to try this one.

Sipdown, 192. My trial with the oriental beauty was so successful that I decided to go ahead and brew up this Yunnan Beauty that Azzrian also sent me. Thanks!

Same method as before; quick rinse, just about a 1 minute steep (this time it might have been closer to 45 seconds). This tea also smells very fruity, but in a slightly darker, more concentrated way. In that, it smells more like dried apricots and prunes than fresh apricots and plums. Including the corresponding extra hit of sweetness that dried fruits have over fresh. This tea is also very delicious and challenging my expectations of dark oolongs. Fruity, sweet and very smooth. I don’t detect any minerally notes in this one, and it almost has a creaminess to it that is quite lovely. I like the darker notes of this in comparison to the traditional oriental beauty I tried earlier. This is a variety of tea that I could see exploring further. Thanks so much for the introduction, Azzrian!

Sipdown, 193. Thanks to Azzrian for this sample!

I decided to use the whole sample in one go, and then realized that I would have a pretty similar water:tea ratio as in their steeping instructions. So I then I thought, why not. I did a 10 second rinse, as instructed, and then meant to do a 30 second steep, but it turned into a minute. Ah well. The tea is definitely not oversteeped. It smells incredibly fruity, like apricots or plums.

Well color me surprised. I have tried a smattering of oriental beauty teas over the years and have never been all that in love with them. Dark oolongs just don’t do it for me so much. But this! This one I am most definitely enjoying. Fruity, sweet, with a hint of minerals but not too much. No roasted/toasted flavor (yay), not too woody or rocky. I’m not in love enough to order more, but I will be less skeptical of oriental beauty oolongs in the future for sure.

PS: I really wish there was a search-your-own-tasting notes function. I would love to search for oriental beauty and see my previous notes, since there are probably some in there that I don’t even remember. 1010 is a lot of tasting notes!

Ugh, it’s mornings like this where I want a gingery black tea. Something I ate last night did not agree with me and now I have a headache and a serious feeling of blah. I decided to go hearty black this morning and hope that it takes care of at least one of the two.

This is certainly robust this morning; perhaps I overleafed it a tad, but it is a little rougher around the edges than I remember. That’s actually working in my favor right now… its not only helping with the headache, but also cutting through the leftover garlic taste in my mouth (yeah, the chimichurri salad dressing I ate was so garlicy it stayed around through two tooth brushings and mouthwash. Delicious, but perhaps not worth it :P). Anyway, this malty, grainy tea has helped. But now I need another because I’m still not awake!

Sipdown, 194. I wasn’t too interested in sipping this one down because I didn’t have great experiences with it, but then I decided to just go for it anyway. It had one serving left, it’s a sipdown, whcih feels good no matter what. I threw in a pinch of Harney’s Rose Scented because I figured that would make everything better. :)

Just like last time, I read my previous tasting notes just in time. Last time it was still bitter after dropping the steep temp a bit, so this time I saw that just in time to pull the leaves a minute earlier than I was intending. It worked pretty well. No bitterness, just black tea. Also, Rose Scented is potent! The little pinch I put in there was enough to make this quite a rosey cup. Now I know what to add to any tea if I want to pump up the rose flavor.

And just like that, my cupboard is back up to 195. A swap, some samples from Steep City, and there are more swaps on the way. Now it becomes how fast can I sip things down before the rest come so I can stay under 200.

The good reviews for Steep City’s teas, along with their unique blends, made me really curious about trying them out, but not quite enough to put in an order (I am trying to cut back, after all). But then David at Steep City offered a few free samples deep within a discussion thread, and I jumped on it. I was disappointed that they couldn’t ship any white tea samples (the packaging would apparently crush the tea) because I really wanted to try Coconut Grove, but I am pleased to get the samples that I did, this being one of them!

I like the look of these tea leaves, which are fairly long and wirely. No chopped up base here. The dry leaf smelled delicious, like candied almonds with a hint of floral rose. Steeped, it still smells mouth-wateringly like candied nuts, and I can totally see the baklava resemblance that Alphakitty noted. There is a sweetness here from the apple pieces, but they manage to not make the tea taste appley or fruity at all. No it’s just nutty, honeyed, pastry, and the barest hint of floral rose. Normally I might want more rose, but all these flavors blend so well together, this time I don’t. I can’t definitively make out any notes that are just coming from the base tea, but it works so well and is so integrated I am sure that it is adding to these pastry-like flavors. It’s full and rich and not just a boring background note, even if it isn’t completely distinct on its own. Impressive first showing from this company.

I picked up a tin of this tea last month but am just getting around to trying it this month. I will likely only log this once, but I wanted to do a note for the taste of this. Raspberry leaf is pretty much the only herb I use medicinally, but it’s one thing that I am so glad I heard of. Thanks to Steepster of course!

This has got to be the fluffiest leaf I have ever seen. It also has some “heavy bits” too, hibiscus and some stalky thing that doesn’t look like anything on the ingredients list, but the main part of this tea is as fluffy as cotton tufts. I guess raspberry leaf must have some inherent sweetness to it, because this has a similar sweet note to my Birt&Tang raspberry leaf tea bags, though less extreme. The hibiscus is well deployed; tart but not sour, making this taste more raspberryish. The sage leaf adds an herbiness that is very pleasant. I am quite enjoying this blend. It’s nice to have something this pleasant that is also medicinal.

I apparently forgot that I brewed this one western style the first time I tried it. Oh well, western style again! I will still have enough for a good gongfu session as well, thankfully. The last time I had this I was operating under the mistaken idea that I preferred the autumn picking of Verdant’s usual Tieguanyin over the spring picking, when in fact I actually preferred the spring. So I cam in to this thinking that I would inherantly like this better as a a spring picking. Just goes to show you what preconceptions can do to your tasting experiences.

This is really an astounding tea, now that I really taste it. So floral, so creamy, so honeyed, it is the essence of spring in a cup, pretty much. This tea is everything about why I love the fresh, green tieguanyins so much.

Also, apparently I blew past my 1000th tasting note this weekend. I remembered that it was coming but then completely forgot about it once it came. So here’s to 1005!

Western-style brewing this one to see at from all angles. This is such an interesting tea. When steeped western style, it smells much like a lightly-roasted Dong Ding oolong. But the flavor is so different! There aren’t really any roasted notes in the flavor. It is sweet and juicy and lightly floral. My first steep was so tasty that I drank it down pretty quickly! The second steep (6 minutes) is pretty similar to the first but brighter and juicier. I still haven’t decided whether I want to buy more of this one or not, but it is really quite delicious.

I picked this one to try next because I am intrigued by Verdant’s Eight Treasures Yabao blend, but I’ve never had a Yabao before. Then I thought, wait, I do have a yabao, from the club. But then I found out that this is pretty different from the silver buds yabao that is used in the blend. Nonetheless this will be a learning experience!

The dry leaf smells sweet and a bit smoky when warmed. I did a quick rinse, then a 4-second first steep, which is quickly becoming my default for gongfu almost regardless of the tea. The resulting liquor is light tan in color and smells like pine wood and a hint of smoke. In the flavor I get the piney-ness, but also a juiciness that is hard to resolve whether it is fruity or vegetal. I think it is savory and brothy, but also slightly sweet and woody, which is where the confusion is coming in.

Later steepings remind me of cooked spinach and that smoked pine-barrel note hangs on in the aroma, if not the taste. This is a really interesting tea, although not quite my style. Nonetheless I did enjoy my tasting session with it. Now I am more interested to see how the silver buds yabao is similar and different.

Spring cleaning day at home, mostly because we have someone coming to stay with us for a week so our house had to look presentable. Now that it’s mostly done, I am relaxing with this tea from the Verdant Reserve club package from March.

I typically like Taiwan high mountain oolongs, but I don’t typically looooove them. They should be among my favorites (I love floral, green oolongs) but they are typically maybe a little too green for me. Of course I was still very excited to try this one from Verdant. The dry leaves are tight little balls and smell fresh and green and floral, and an interesting, almost licorice note comes out when the are warmed. After a brief rinse, the leaves smell vegetal and floral, like I would expect from a Taiwan high mountain. The flavor of the first steep is like sugar snap peas and very sweet corn, with a floral aftetaste of light lilacs.

Later steepings were much more vegetal, light leafy greens with florals dancing around the edges. The leaves have expanded so much that I am no longer getting that much liquid out of the pot.

This is a very good example of a Taiwanese High Mountain oolong. Like I said before, I tend to like these teas but not love them, and this one fits the pattern. A pleasant and very spring-y tea that makes me look forward to upcoming nicer weather!

First off, woohoo the weird aftertaste that was in my mouth for the last two days seem to be pretty much gone. Looking forward to Verdant teas tomorrow!

I don’t usually have Butiki teas at home with me, but I brought them home this weekend so I could do some photography sessions. I decided to have a pot of this one because a juicy tart aftertaste would go well with it, but it turns out that I needn’t have worried. This was very nice, with that tamarind tang, and a decent amount of earthiness and almost a savory note from the black tea. This is definitely a unique tea, and a tasty one!

Maaan I wish I knew what was going on with my mouth. Mostly when I drink something I get this odd, juicy-sweet-tart taste in my mouth. Even my mouthwash! It’s not unpleasant, but it is misleading when it comes to teas. It actually makes some less flavorful teas taste better, but then I don’t know if I will like them actually after this sensation goes away. I wanted to try some of my Verdant reserve club teas this weekend, but I don’t want to try limited teas with a somewhat warped sense of taste.

So I figured I guess I will drink some fruity teas that will be enhanced by this. I got sachets of this in my Happy Bag at the new year but haven’t tried it yet. It smells highly tropical-fruity in a somewhat generic way. I guess I can pick out pineapple and mango. The liquor is super bright yellow green. It looks like I like this one more than most people… Maybe it’s just the odd aftertaste giving it a fruity sweetness that is quite pleasant. It’s not something I would restock on but I would be that I’ll enjoy it iced and it won’t be too hard to drink through.

Sipdown, 184 (hmmm I seem to have lost a tea in there somewhere. Don’t remember destashing one.)

I brought this home from Argentina a while ago, but finally I’ve been drinking all my herbal teas at night, so I am finally going through them. This is a rooibos, and I’ve been liking rooibos less and less since I’ve been drinking more of it. It has that medicinal, menthol smell. Fortunately it doesn’t really taste like it. It also doesn’t taste much like hazelnuts or dulce de leche. Maybe a bit like apples, but I can’t tell if maybe it’s just my weird juicy taste I’ve been having in my mouth. On well.

I’ve been craving rose lately (but strangely not giving into the craving), and today I decided to try this one again, which I haven’t had in quite a while.

I like the combination of flavors here, especially rose and lemon. I love rose and lemon. The other herbs (rosemary, sage), are not very prominent, and just lend a kind of herby feel to the whole thing. The gunpowder green is kind of boringly grassy without much to it. Classic example of an interesting flavor combination in a tea that is made less successful by use of lower-quality ingredients.

Sipdown, 186. I overleafed this cup because I wouldn’t really have enough in the sample for two more cups, so hopefully my minute-shorter steep time compensated.

Middle Eastern food for lunch again today, which means more onion mouth, which means probably no new-to-me teas anymore today and pretty much all flavored ones. I figured ginger might be good for taming the flavors. Hmm this one tastes a bit odd overleafed. Way gingery for sure, without much in the lychee department at all. Although I am getting a kind of bright juiciness to the aftertaste. I’ve actually been getting that a lot lately, though pretty much always when appropriate, so I am not quite sure what is going on. My tastebuds might be behaving wacky.

Now that this is cooling I am getting a sweet and spicy ginger from it as well as that bright juicy flavor in the aftertaste that may or may not be lychee. It’s tasting pretty good, which I guess is mostly what matters.

Got this in a swap with Tea Sipper, thanks! Interesting that this is caramel AND candy apple… usually they are two different things, not the same, lol. This has large chunks of apple in it, which looked good, but I am not really digging the oily sheen left on top of the tea after steeping. I keep getting wafts of the scent of dried apple chips, which isn’t too surprising I guess, and when I really smell the cup I get a more powerful aroma of cinnamon dried apple chips.

In the flavor I am definitely getting the sweetness of a candy apple, but by and large it is mostly dried apple chips, which are usually very sweet on their own. There’s also a tartness to the aftertaste that also reminds me of apple chips. No caramel to speak of, and a non-present black base (but that wasn’t a surprise). I am kind of surprised as I have had other apple teas with dried apple in them and I don’t get the same sensation, possibly because there is a difference between soft-dried apple rings/chunks and hard-dried apple chips, skin and all.

I’m actually really enjoying this tea, which surprises me. My rating keeps creeping up. I don’t think it’s successful as a caramel OR candy apple tea (and not together for sure), but as an apple tea? Sure! I love those apple chips and now I want a bag of them.

Decided to revisit this one this morning. It is definitely a very robust, bracing Earl Grey! The bergamot is very strong, but it is balanced somehow by the black tea base. I drank this one fast because my previous note said that a citrus-pith-like bitterness came out of the bergamot flavor once it cooled, and fortunately I didn’t get much of that today. It does have a bit of a harsh edge to it. It reminds me a bit of breakfast blends that are meant to be enjoyed with additions.

This tea came back into stock just when I was wanting to put in my latest Harney order, so I gleefully grabbed a sample. You see, Harney has a lower-grade Panyang Congou (which I have not tried), but I wanted the really fancy stuff. :) Looking at the pricing this stuff better be out of this world, because it is actually $50 for 2oz. That is more than Mr. Bi’s First Picking Laoshan Black, or Golden Fleece! And double the price of a 3.5oz tin of Teavivre’s Superfine Tan Yang Gong Fu Black Tea, though unfortunately I have not tried that one yet.

I do have to say, this seems like the first time in a few days that I smelled a tea while it was brewing and my mouth started watering. It smells amazing. Like honey and molasses and malt and raisins and a hint of chocolate. Mm, this is sweet, smooth, and delicious. This definitely has the honey/caramel notes, a hint of chocolate, a little bit nutty. Then there is this intense raisin note in this one that really grows in the aftertaste. Seriously, my mouth tastes like I just ate some raisins. SO bright and fruity. And then I take another sip and get the malted grain sweetness again.

Well I’m not sure if is quite worth $50/2oz, but it is damn good. I will have to try the Tan Yang I brought home from China (currently my favorite example of a Tan Yang) to see how this compares more closely, but wow. If I ever found one of those half-off vouchers for Harney again (now I wonder, why didn’t I buy another one of those at the time!), I would seriously seriously consider buying a tin of this.

Sipdown, 187. I honestly cannot remember who I got this sample from. I think it was Rachel Sincere, but I’m not certain. Sorry about that, and thanks, swap buddy. I used to try all the samples I got in swaps right away, but now I sit on them for a while and forget who they came from.

There are surprisingly few reviews for this tea given how popular Adagio is in general. I think I know why. These have got to be the most overly perfumy jasmine pearls I’ve ever had. Not even just very strong jasmine (which I am of course a fan of) but jasmine to an extreme, to a point where it hardly tastes like jasmine anymore. I would have to say if you are looking for a good jasmine pearl, this is not one to investigate.

Surprise sipdown (188)! Although it was almost not a real sipdown because I almost dropped the cup of steeping tea on the ground. I don’t remember using this one a lot, and I don’t remember swapping it away, so I am not quite sure where all the tea went here (hence the surprise). Perhaps I cold brewed it and didn’t log it?

Anyway, this is quite tasty today. I am going to bump my previous rating a bit because I am very much enjoying the sweet dates, red fruit, and light floral rose. I would like to try this one on the black base, but it’s a pretty nice green as well.

I’m surprised I haven’t tried this one yet… I thought for sure I would have. Now I want to go through my Le Palais des Thés sample set I bought ages ago to try the others that I never got around to.

I have been doing some massive swaps/giveaways and just like that my cupboard has dropped to 189 teas. I of course will be getting some teas back that will make it go up, but goodness it feels good to purge a bit. I had promised myself a tea order after I got below 200, but now I am waiting until I get my tax return and seeing how low I can go.

I brewed this slightly hotter than the lable recommended because I couldn’t bear to brew a black tea at 185°F. I figured my typical 3 minute steep time would compensate as they called for 4-5 minutes. I sniffed while brewing and became extremely wary. It smelled a bit musty, and a bit smoky. I was reminded of my recent experience with the Harney Tippy Yunnan where I didn’t like the slightly smoky note to it, and thought this would go similarly. Despite my misgivings, I let it cool and tried it.

I can say that though this is totally not the type of tea I usually drink, I am enjoying it. Yes, the Yunnan base is woody, earthy, and a hint smoky, but somehow I don’t mind it today. The bergamot is relatively well balanced; it’s not very strong, but I can still taste it and it’s a main part of the flavor. There is also this sweetness to it that is winning me over a bit. I am a sucker for natural sweetness in a tea. Altogether not a tea I would buy again, but way better than I was expecting this morning.

As a sidebar, I am very confused about Yunnan blacks. There are some Yunnan blacks, primarily golden-tip varieties like Golden Fleece and Teavivre’s Dian Hong Golden Tips, that I really really love. No woodiness, no smokiness. But I’ve tried a few other Yunnan blacks lately that have been completely different! I am sure it’s in part a grade thing, but it’s weird. Then again I have realized recently that I can’t stand some Keemuns but love others. So I guess grade makes a big deal for me in black teas.

I was going through my tea cupboard and happened to see this one. My sample is getting toward the end but of course I still have quite a few servings left. Actually looking through my cupboard was somewhat frustrating because I saw all the teas I have a loads of just sitting in my cupboard, not drunk, many of which I really love. Sigh. Now all my recent sipdowns don’t really feel like I accomplished that much.

Anyway, onto this tea. Perhaps it was “contaminated” by my previous selection (though I thought I cleaned my infuser pretty well) but I am still tasting those odd darjeeling notes. The caramelly vanilla is great, but the blech other notes, not so much. Well, as it cools the vanilla is drowning them out, so that’s good. Guess it’s time to give my teaware a good cleaning.