Dinosara

I feel like I’ve been avoiding this tea subconciously. As if it’s too much of a big deal or something… I went ahead and order 2oz of it, but I don’t want to mess it up or anything. I mean, those two ounces cost me a pretty penny. But I’m going to go for it now, and I’m going to steep it western style (following the instructions on Verdant’s site) because it’s somehow less stressful to me at this point.

The dry leaf is beautiful and smells like very fragrant sweet potato chips. I took a big whif and was like, woah! sweet potatoes! Someone came into my office moments after I poured the water on these leaves and asked if I could unlock a door for them, which put me in a panic because I only had a minute to play with. I had a moment of indecision: do I tell them to wait one minute until the steep is done, but the door is just around the corner and that would sound odd anyway. So I walked briskly and I arrived back at my office with 5 seconds to go! Whew.

The steeped tea has some of that sweet potato-y aroma, and maybe the slightest hint of vanilla and spices. First sip, after it’s cooled a bit: woah. woah. Sweet, like brown sugar on a baked sweet potato. Sooooo smooth. Just a luxurious, silky, creamy feel to it. With a little tingle in the aftertaste. In the first part of the sip its straight up sweet potato, one that’s been baked to perfection and still has those fresh notes. Then the brown sugar and spices come sliding in… I mean, not spices so much as the faint hint of allspice perhaps. The after taste is light, and more of a sensation than a taste, a light tingling that is really intriguing. Really an amazing Dian Hong, and if you are a fan of that varietal you owe it to yourself to get a bit of this tea. Can’t wait to gong fu this one and see its performance there!

I definitely jumped on the chance to get some free samples from Fong Mong Tea, especially after early reviews for their teas were coming back really positive. I asked for this one in order to further my education of black teas! I’ve never had a black tea from Taiwan. The leaves are very long and spindly and difficult to dish out, but hopefully I got the right amount in my cup. They smell kind of chocolatey, but also kind of roasted and they remind me a bit of a dark oolong in aroma.

After steeping the scent is fairly different from the black teas I’ve been drinking regularly. Almost floral? It’s kind of weird, but I think it’s just cause I’m not used to a black tea smelling floral. What a unique tea! It’s like I can taste more standard black tea flavors underneath it, but over top there is a flavor profile I am just not used to. I agree that I get the sensation of mint without actual mintiness. The chocolatey-ness comes out, but there are some… florals? I guess? It’s hard to put my finger on. Maybe piney and minerally, the way some dark oolongs are piney and minerally. Maybe a bit resin-y, like a retisna wine. I think I might have used a little much leaf as this cup has the tiniest hint of bitterness to it, mostly in the aftertaste.

I reall appreciate the chance to try this tea, thank you Fong Mong! It isn’t a flavor profile I normally go for but I am definitely enjoying the cup.

I couldn’t help it, I had to try this one right away in comparison. First off, the dry leaf smells much less strongly milky and creamy; it’s more fresh and green. You can certainly tell which one is flavored by smelling the dry leaf!

This one smells more floral as well, and I do have to say that I think this one has more of an inherant sweetness and creamy mouthfeel that is just not as present in the flavored variety. Though both are tasty, I do prefer this one. I think these two are very good illustration of flavored vs. unflavored milk oolongs and what shows up in each variety. The flavored was very similar to lots of milk oolongs I’ve had before… all flash in the high notes with not much to back it up. This one is more reserved up front, but overall sweeter and creamier when brewed the exact same way. I’m also interested to see how they both fare in gong fu (but that’s for another day!)

I recently received another round of free samples from Teavivre… Angel Chen and the folks at Teavivre are really too generous! And with such great tea. Anyway I’ve had their unflavored Jin Xuan before and loved it, but I was wondering how this one would taste. It’s not often a tea company specifies about milk oolong flavoring, and I am excited to try this one.

In the pouch the dry leaf smells incredibly milky, buttery, a bit fruity, as expected. Even milk oolongs that brew up pretty un-milky start out smelling milky, but this one is more amped up than usual. The steeped tea smells more floral, almost magnolia-ish, with a nice sweet creamy background note. If I smell really deeply I get a cooked-greens note in the lingering about as well. It doesn’t have a really rich baked-buttery aroma to it, it’s a bit fresher scented.

Early sips of this yield a nicely sweet-cream, slightly peachy flavor. You know, for all the flavoring it’s pretty light, and it tastes much like some of the other milk oolongs I’ve tried in the past. It’s pretty tasty, but I’m also pretty sure I prefer their unflavored variety. I will have to try that one again now (I still have some sample packs left from my sample of it) to compare because I am curious. I can’t say exactly why except this one seems less creamy which is surprising because it’s the flavored one! But it just kind of seems like the creaminess is on the surface, not melding with the flavor of the tea itself. I’m unsure because it’s been a while since I’ve had the unflavored.

Thanks so much for the opporunity to try this one, Angel and Teavivre!

Ah, back to my tea. Some day I will have a variable-temp tea kettle at home, and maybe air conditioning for hot days, and I will drink more tea at home. Right now its way easier for me to drink it at work!

Once I started getting into black teas I knew this would be high on my list of teas to try. I mean, just looking at the notes on Verdant’s site were enough make me excited. The dry leaf has those molasses-grainy notes I love from Fujian teas, so that’s a good sign already. I followed the instructions for western brewing of this tea on Verdant’s site exactly, which means I used a lot more leaf than I usually do (1 Tbsp per 8oz), but the leaf was pretty fluffy so it probably evens out.

After steeping the tea smells really great. Chocolatey, or maybe more properly cocoa-y, like the smell of my dark cocoa powder. Also a bit grainy, but mostly cocoa-y. The flavor is also very cocoa-y, in that same, unsweetened cocoa kind of way. There’s definitely an immediate aftertaste of having eaten something chocolatey. It’s certainly not bitter in the typical way tea is bitter, but it does give the impression of bittersweet chocolate. It was kind of a distracting morning so I didn’t get to spend a ton of quality time with this tea like usual, but it’s definitely delish. Wish I could have written a more thorough review, but I guess I can save it for next time!

Well I just got in from out of town and I have been inundated with tea! Samples from Teavivre and Fong Mong, and my order from Verdant. I didn’t really know where to start. I did order the Golden Fleece from Verdant but I didn’t want to dive into that one just yet. I decided I wanted to go for a black tea, western steep, from Verdant, and I chose this one. As I’ve mentioned before I’ve been getting into Chinese black teas lately, so I was already intrigued by this tea. Then I also read about it’s namesake and I can’t resist a dagger-wielding warrior woman, so that clinched the order.

The dry leaves are very nice looking, dark with golden streaks, spindley and curly. I can’t smell the dry leaf too well but what I do get smells nice grainy and malty. I steeped exactly according to the instructions on the website for this tea (western style). It smells heavenly. Dark chocolate, molasses, grains, malt, and there’s almost a spiciness that tingles in your nostrils when you take a deep sniff, like sniffing cayenne pepper.

The first part of the sip is sweet, almost honeyed, with chocolate notes that kind of shift from a sweeter chocolate at the beginning to a much darker chocolate toward the end. The flavors that build in the latter part of the sip are rougher, less refined than the first flavors. These are a little bit of wood, a little bit of smoke even that tingles in my mouth. Not smoky even like a keemun is smoky, but more the faintest whisp of smoke or maybe like the woody notes are a little charred. As it cools those flavors toward the end of the sip become stronger, making the whole thing a little prickly in the mouthfeel.

I enjoy this tea a lot, but I have a feeling I will enjoy the other black teas I bought from Verdant more. We shall see! It has a rough quality about it that I’ve found in other fine black teas; it doesn’t really keep me from enjoying the tea, but it’s not my favorite character in black teas, at least at this point.

I’ve been traveling recently, which is why I’ve been so quiet again. This is another short trip, though, so I’ll be back in action relatively soon.

My parents don’t have a tea kettle so I have to boil water in a pan on the stovetop, which isn’t so bad with a small pan. I’ve been tea deprived for several days now, so it’s nice to settle down after violent thunderstorms with a hot cup of Dammann tea (in an air conditioned house, of course… it was over 90°F before the storms!). I love having these tea bags around for traveling.

After reading ashmanra’s tasting notes on this one it has been on my shopping list, and so I was thrilled when there was a sample in my package from SimplyJenW. You are too good to me! I opened the pouch and woah: total milk oolong aroma. Milky, buttery, a little sweet corn, it smells really yummy. It looks like an oolong, too, with it’s little balls of leaf. I kind of don’t believe that this is a “green” tea at all. Green oolong, yes.

Steeped with the parameters that some others have used. The steeped tea has those buttery, creamy scents, along with a hint of a floral note. Definitely that sweet corn/kettle corn scents as well. Flavors start out as leafy, vegetal, not very strong, but as it cools more buttery notes come out as well as a fruitiness (peaches? nectarines? some kind of stone fruit maybe). It definitely gets sweeter as it cools, as well. The mouthfeel is not as creamy as I might have hoped, but overall it’s a very tasty tea. I would definitely call this a milk oolong (not shocking as it’s origin is Taiwan), and it’s a pretty good one at that.

A while ago I would read tasting notes for unflavored black teas with descriptions of notes of chocolate and such, and I would wonder what on earth these people were tasting because I never tasted that when I tried black teas. I’m pretty sure I tried this tea at the Harney Soho store ages ago after reading notes on here about it, and I didn’t really get it. Now I’ve gotten into Tan Yangs and other Fujian blacks, and lately I’ve come across a lot of tasting notes about Tan Yangs talking about how a particular tea is like a Keemun minus the smoke. Thanks to SimplyJenW, I get to try this Keemun again now and make the comparisons!

Honestly, the descriptions of smoky notes in Keemuns have me figuring I won’t like them as much because I’m not a big fan of smoke in my teas. And the steeped tea certainly smells smoky! It reminds me a tad of the wood-fired tieguanyin I had once in levels of smokiness… not like a campfire, but something roasted on one, perhaps. I do also smell more Tan Yang-like chocolate and molasses notes underneath it. The flavor delivers on the scent, and I can definitely see the resemblance to a Tan Yang. I first taste very delicious chocolatey and molasses-y notes, and then the light smokiness grows in the latter part of the sip. Definite sweetness present here.

This is partly rated on the fact that I can objectively tell that this is a very good tea and I can appreciate it as such. But it also falls into the range of teas that I wouldn’t seek out again… I’m just not a fan of smoky notes in my teas. But I’m really thankful to get to try this tea to further my tea education and also narrow my black tea searching!

Aww, I jinxed it. Steepster’s back to running slower than ever for me. :P

This is yet another sample from SimplyJenW. I am so grateful for this package because now I can try a lot of these Chinese blacks I am interested in without falling down the rabbit hole of tea orders. I’m glad this one was in the package because I’d like to try a basic Panyang Congou that isn’t supposed to be special grade or select and see how it goes.

The dry leaf on this one also reminds me of my past life as a horsewoman, but it reminds me of the scent of rich alfalfa hay instead of molasses grain (like the Tan Yang Te Ji from Teaspring did). When steeped, however, the scent has more notes of cocoa popping out, with a bit of that dark molasses in the background. It smells really tasty! I like the notes of molasses, malt, grains and unsweetened cocoa that I am getting from this cup, but it also has a bit of harshness, almost bitterness to it as well. I am very sensative to these things, after all. I’m wondering if a slightly cooler steep time would take it away, or whether it’s just a kind of boldness that is inherant to the tea (very possible). It’s probably just my expensive tastes telling me that I want to be drinking a high-grade version… :P

I brewed up a cup of this for lunch today after not having had it for quite a while. When I first tried this tea I was very excited about it but then ultimately underwhelmed. I don’t know if it was just my tastes at the time (which are definitely shifting) or my expectations shifting or what, but I enjoyed this one considerably more this time around. Nice, natural raspberry with a tasty oolong base. I feel like I should brew another cup of this sometime when I’m not eating while drinking it and do another review.

I don’t want to jinx it, but Steepster is finally loading a bit faster for me today after two days of painful slowness. Crossing my fingers it keeps it up.

Yet another sample from the lovely SimplyJenW! I am excited to try this because two of my favorite flavors are bergamot and rose, and I love Teas Etc.‘s Rosy Earl Grey sooo much. I am currently out of that one, so I hope this one helps fill that gap (since I know it takes me forever to get through samples). In the bag I didn’t get a much rose aroma from the dry leaf and it smelled like a fairly standard Earl. Steeped, there’s definitely something going on here in the aroma but I can’t tell what. I don’t get a distinct rose smell, but maybe it’s hiding behind the bergamot? There is an almost floral note, I just don’t really identify it as rose.

At first while still hot this tea didn’t seem to offer a lot to me. The flavors were surprisingly weak, and mostly an decent but not great bergamot. As it cools, definitely more is coming out. I do get a burst of rose right at the beginning of the sip, which is joined and replaced by a bright, bright, fairly citrusy bergamot, though it lacks those sweetish lower notes you can get sometimes. The Keemun base is in there rounding things out and it tastes pretty good, but I don’t think it’s quite as nice as the Keemun base on the Lupicia Earl.

Overall I get kind of a general decent-but-not-great vibe from thsi tea. I didn’t actually get much rose flavor in my cup despite other tasting notes saying they did get a lot of rose, so I don’t know what’s going on there. It’s tasty enough but I vastly prefer Teas Etc.’s Rosy Earl Grey, which actually also includes jasmine as well. Glad I got to try this one though.

Normally I don’t have an Earl Grey in the afternoon just because I like to have something lighter then, and use the time to have an oolong or some such. But I wanted to have this one in relatively short order after the Lupicia Earl Grey so I could compare them back-to-back.

I’m actually not entirely sure what the base of this one is because Todd & Holland doesn’t say anywhere on their site. I see now it says “a special blend” so who knows. Before I said it tasted like Ceylon, and that probably is one of the components. I’ve talked a bit about the flavors in this one before, but suffice to say that the bergamot is a little more floral than the Lupicia Earl Grey, but still never perfumy, astringent or bitter. I still really love this one, but I think I like the Lupicia one better! I am surprised because I didn’t think that’s how it would turn out. I think there’s something about the Keemun base on the Lupicia one that really rounds it out. Also that slight citrusy sweetness at the end of the Lupicia puts it over the edge. This one is a little brighter, a little rougher, which I guess is to be expected with as much bergamot is there is in it. If I am ever near their brick-and-mortar store I might pick up some more of this but as pricey as it is I don’t think I will order it online when I run out now.

This is yet another of my long-wanted Earls that I now get to try thanks to SimplyJenW. Any time anyone says a particular Earl is their favorite, I have to try it of course, and this one has gotten quite a few lauds. Yet another kind of Earl base, this one is a Keemun. I didn’t actually mean to steep this at a slightly lower temp to start, but I didn’t realize the kettle was set on that temp and I poured it before I realized. It wasn’t too low, at least.

Steeped the brewed tea smells pleasantly of quite citrusy bergamot. It’s not suuuper bright, either, more sweetish smelling. Wow, this is a really good Earl! The bergamot is very nice… I was worried it wouldn’t be strong enough for me, but it is. It’s very citrusy, I like the way it blends with the base, and it almost tastes sweet in the aftertaste. There’s also a hint of that floral quality that bergamot sometimes has. Yes, this a great example of a very well done bergamot. As I’ve tried a lot of Earl Greys I’ve noticed that a lot of them really depend on the quality of the bergamot, and that bergamot flavoring/oil can vary wildly. With the wrong bergamot it doesn’t matter how strong or weak it is, it just isn’t very pleasant. With the right bergamot, it can be super strong and it never gets bitter, pity, or astringent. This is definitely the right kind of bergamot. Color me impressed. Gotta try this back to back with my beloved Todd & Holland Earl Grey Double Bergamot to decided which one is my favorite Earl because this one is a front-runner.

Gong fu oolong of the afternoon. I used about a tablespoon and a half of leaf for my 6oz pot, which 150% of what I had been using for oolongs previously (with not great results).

This TGY is fairly different from the other ones I had been having before I went to Canada. I do remember this from my first session (western brewing) with this: it’s really green and floral, but not really creamy or buttery. First steep of this (20 seconds) pretty much plays out like that. It’s very green, a bit of cooked vegetables, with strongish orchid/gardenia florals laid over the top. Very fresh, very green, very springy without any darker, richer, buttery notes. Also coming with that is a fair amount of mouth-drying astringency. Second steep (20 seconds) pretty much lacks the florals and is all strong, astringent, almost bitter vegetables. It’s kind of not tasty at all, actually, and I don’t really want to resteep it any more. If I were to rate this on the quality of it’s first steep it still wouldn’t be super high based on the fact that it’s missing those creamy, buttery notes I love in a TGY. I liked it a bit more western-style, but not drastically.

With my recent taking to Fujian black teas, I couldn’t wait to try this tea, and thankfully SimplyJenW fulfilled that desire by immediately sending me a sample of it! I’m brewing it western style because that’s how I’ve done my other gong fu blacks so far, with parameters that approximate the parameters I’ve used previously, except this one I brewed a little hotter because that’s more like what TeaSpring calls for.

From the dry leaf I’m definitely getting molasses and grainy notes, that is, it smells pleasantly like horse grain. I’ve smelled that before from the base of the Tea Spot’s Organic Chocolate “O”, and though I know it doesn’t sound like a compliment, it totally is because I love that smell. I always wanted to eat the horse grain as a kid because it smelled tasty, but of course uncooked grains are not that palatable even when covered in molasses. Anyway, back to the tea. Steeped, I’m smelling more of those cocoa, malty, grainy notes in the cup.

Nice grainy, malty, slightly molasses-y, slightly cocoa-y notes in the flavor of this one. It’s also a little less sweet-seeming and a little bolder and a little less smooth than the other gong fu blacks I’ve tried. I’m glad Jen also sent a sample of Keemun Mao Feng, since a few people have mentioned that this tea reminds me of a Keemun without smokiness. I’ve never tried an unflavored Keemun so that will be good to compare. I think Jen nailed it when she said this one was less honeyed and caramelly than the Tan Yang I brought back from China (and I also think Teavivre’s Bailin Gong Fu), but those are some of my favorite parts of the cup. I do have plenty of leaf for this one to try many times and compare side-by-side to some of my other faves, not to mention the others that Jen put in my box (thank you!).

I am definitely enjoying this one very much, but it isn’t an easily-acquired replacement for my Tan Yang I brought back from China (of course I knew that going in from Jen’s reviews). I will have to try the higher-grade Tan Yang Jing Zhi from TeaSpring as well at some point.

I was so excited to come home to a box of tea samples from SimplyJenW full of a lot of teas I’ve been wanting to try. Making a decision was so difficult this morning! First I narrowed it down to some sort of Earl Grey, my usual choice for a bleary Monday morning, but that didn’t actually narrow it all that much. I ended up going with this one, which has been on my shopping list almost since I’ve been on here and was looking up well-liked Earls to try.

The only thing that I’m not sure about with this one is the part-Assam base since I’m not the biggest fan of Assams. We shall see! The steeped tea smells pretty nice, with a healthy dose of bright bergamot. Overall the taste is pretty good but a little weak. I always steep an unknown black tea at 3 minutes because I am sensative to bitterness, but it seems like most people steep this one for at least 4 minutes so I will have to try that next time, especially since there isn’t any bitterness in this cup. I do like the base on this one, actually, and the bergamot is of a middling strongness… not super powerful, but not too weak, either. Well, not too week beyond the overall weakness of the cup. I will hold off rating this one until I get another shot at it. Right now it is a pretty tasty Earl but it doesn’t really stand out to me.

Well I’m back in NY for the moment. Ran some errands today and ended up at the grocery store that carries this line of teas, and this time I chose the honeydew instead of the honeysuckle. I wasn’t expecting it to be sweetened because the honeysuckle one wasn’t, so at first I was caught off guard and I didn’t think it tasted very good. Then after I adjusted form my expectations, I enjoyed it a lot more. It’s not super sweet, and it really does taste like a ripe honeydew melon. There is a little bit of tea taste in the background there, but not a lot. I think I would like it better if it were unsweetened because I have a feeling that the honeydew extract would lend itself to slight sweetness anyway, and it would be more refreshing.

When I first saw this bottle in the store I thought it was just a bottled green tea produced by Canada Dry, and I wasn’t very interested. But then I looked closer today at the airport and saw that it was actually green tea ginger ale. Well, that changes everything! I like ginger ale, and I like green tea, and I’ve never heard of them together before. Plus, this would be like a tea soda, which was also intriguing.

I continued to be pleasantly surprised, as this is actually a very tasty bottle of soda. The green tea and ginger notes are well balanced, nice and light, neither is overpowering or artificial tasting. It’s also not super super sweet, which is suprising for a soda. I mean, it’s sweet, definitely, but not cloyingly so. I’m really enjoying this and wish I could find it in the states, where it almost certainly not available.

Another day, another Dammann. It’s the last couple of days of my collections visit, which means an all out sprint to finish up all the research I need to before I go home Saturday. I barely had time to gulp down a couple of mugs of this tea today, but I also really needed the pick-me-up! This is such a great anytime tea, and the base is so well done… I can see restocking this one once I use up my sachets.

When I went to the giant asian supermarket in Calgary to get my Ten Ren bubble tea, I figured I might as well check and see what kind of bottled milk teas they had around. Alas, no Wahaha, but I did find this Japanese one that was intriguing. Earl grey, definitely want, lavender… maybe. I don’t always have the best success with lavender in teas.

However, this one is very light and pleasant. The flavoring is altogether pretty light, and this actually isn’t very sweet like the Chinese milk teas usually are, so maybe there’s something to this “healthy” business. At first I wasn’t sure what to make of this tea (maybe it’s because I was drinking it with a cranberry orange muffin), but it’s definitely growing on me. I don’t think I taste the bergamot as a distinct entity, but I think it’s contributing to the overall flavor, which itself is difficult to describe. Overall a pretty tasty tea; I might buy a bottle if I saw it again, but I won’t be distraught if I never do.

Thanks hotel internet, for kicking me off just at the time I went to post this tasting note. Fortunately it wasn’t very long. I discovered a couple more sachets of this hidden in a tin of French rose-flavored hard candies. Score! I forgot how awesome this tea was, which always happens when I don’t have a tea I love for a long time. I really have to restock on this at some point.

Backlog from yesterday. I had a very nice cup of this tea in the morning, and then I resteeped the sachet in the afternoon. Having access to a hot water pot (and the ability to take my tea into the collections) is awesome, but it means I want to drink tea nonstop like I usually do at work. But I do kind of need to conserve my sachets, and I knew that this one would be up to a resteep. I did something I never do: I left the sachet in the cup for the entire time I was drinking it during the resteep. But it was still totally awesome! Definitely getting more sachets from Dammann for traveling; I love the individually wrapped ones because they are so easy to throw in a purse and such.

Later this afternoon I really wanted another cup of tea, but I didn’t want to use up my sachets I brought with me. So I poked around inside the cupboard in the staff lounge and filched a bag of this out of a large pouch. Normally I wouldn’t steep a pouchong at boiling, but that’s what the instructions on the back of the wrapper said, so I did. I was afraid it would be bitter or otherwise oversteeped, but it was almost the opposite. Maybe these teabags are really old, but there wasn’t much flavor to this cup. The aroma was somewhat unexpected, as I haven’t ever had a pouchong that was this roasty toasty. Actually it kind of reminded me of some kind of genmaicha, because it had that toasted rice aroma along with kind of a grassy green-ness. Not really my thing, but not bad. Too bad it didn’t taste like much!