Dinosara

I wanted a rich, dessertty tea this afternoon and it seems like it’s been a bit since I’ve brewed up a flavored one (that wasn’t a cold brew), so I decided to finally plunge into my recent Lupicia order. I ordered a bunch of teas on sale and this was one of them, and the biggest surprise in the box. There are no reviews for this tea (I actually had to add it to the database) and Lupicia provides no other information other than a calisson is a sweet from the south of France (side note: I really wish they provided ingredients lists on their website). Well I like French sweets, and I tried to look them up and found out they are made of candied fruit and almonds. I decided to take the risk and order it!

I opened the package and was immediately surrounded by the scent of melon. I also saw that melon pieces were on the ingredients list as well. I don’t think I expected melon but I guess I should have, looking at the wikipedia page for calisson again. Anyway, I really like Lupicia’s melon oolong, so it was promising. I also noticed that the leaf was a somewhat odd mixture of long, black tea leaves and CTC pieces. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a blend like that!

I steeped it up with my flavored standard black tea parameters, although I admit I had slight misgivings about the CTC leaf. The cup is dark and smells deliciously like sweet sweet melons and also a little almondy in a cookie-ish way. It is honestly making my mouth water.

I am thinking I may want to steep this for less time or at a cooler temp because there is definitely a hint of bitterness that must be coming from the CTC leaf. However, there is so much sweet melon and candy flavor coming from this that it in some cases completely overwhelms the bitterness. This is one of those cases where I don’t mind that the flavor overwhelms the base! The main note is melon but then there is this distinct nutty, almondy flavor lurking under all.

This is a hard one for me because I do love the flavor combo but I don’t love the base tea. I think it is the same as Lupicia’s Cookie tea (which I have not had), which a lot of people prefer with milk and/or sugar. I can just imagine sitting back with a big sweet, milky pot of this tea and being in heaven really, so I guess there’s something to that. We’ll see how different steep parameters go, otherwise I will just take this one home and enjoy it with additions.

This isn’t one of my new Teavivre samples; I’ve had this for a while now. I wanted a morning oolong and I decided to go for this one.

It’s definitely a nice dong ding, and on the green side of things which I like. You can never tell with a dong ding whether its going to be slightly toasted or not, but this one is not. I mean, there are maybe hints of buttery toast to this, but it is predominantly green and lightly floral. Tasty and relaxing for this morning, for sure.

This is the fourth tea that I ordered from Butiki. Once again, a black tea varietal from China that I haven’t tried; count me in. I ordered a small amount of this to try and I am not disappointed.

I don’t know what I was expecting the dry leaf to look like, but not like it did. I guess I was expecting longish glossy black strands, but instead it is curly, golden and fuzzy. The tea steeped up fairly light for a black, more like a dark brownish maroon. It smells both a bit chocolatey and a bit fruity.

The flavor to me is a bit of cocoa, a fair amount of malt, some soft breadiness and definite nuttiness like a pecan or walnut. It’s lightly sweet, too, which gives it some honeyed notes as well. It’s not a robust black tea but I would say it is full-bodied in that the texture is rich and not thin. Quite tasty and definitely up my alley. I do like having all of these different Chinese black teas around for a little subtle variety. :)

The Teavivre party continues. Thanks once again to Angel and Teavivre for this sample! I am very interested to try this organic superfine tie guan yin verses the “Anxi” (non-organic) superfine tie guan yin I tried yesterday. Will the “organic” make a big difference?

First off, the leaf looks similar but doesn’t smell as floral or sweet. It still smelled really good while steeping, but once I removed the leaf it was more subdued. Yes, it still smells very floral and buttery, but not AS floral and buttery as the Anxi superfine. Same thing with the taste. I feel like if I had not just had the Anxi superfine yesterday, I would think this is a pretty amazing tie guan yin. It is smooth and buttery, with florals, light vegetal notes, and a hint of sweetness. But the Anxi superfine was mind blowing awesome, so this one is just not as tasty to me in comparsion.

Interesting result but not unexpected; I haven’t tried the Organic Bailin Gongfu from Teavivre but I love the non-organic Bailin Gongfu, and from reading the reviews of the organic version I think I would prefer the non-organic. Don’t know why that would be, but thankfully I am not hung up on organic designation for my teas.

New green teas! What a treat it is to have all of these teas fresh from the spring harvest. Thanks to Angel and Teavivre for sending this sample of the spring 2013 bi luo chun.

The dried leaf of this tea smelled potently like spring veggies like sugar snap peas and perhaps even a hint of asparagus. It’s beautifully squiggly, green, and fuzzy. It smells, well, like bi luo chun. Buttery and vegetal and a bit like miso soup. This one ended up brewed a bit light, but it is still very flavorful with fresh green vegetal notes like buttery beans and a hint of fruitiness, perhaps like fresh green grapes. The texture of the liquor is smooth and silky, adding to that buttery feeling. This harvest is quite nice and makes for a very satisfying cup of green tea.

Made this one cold-brewed for lunch because now I have only one more cup of it left and it’s ready to sipdown.

This was a tasty and refreshing cold brew. The coconut was very creamy and offsets a bit of the grassiness of the green tea. It wasn’t particularly lemony but it was nicely tropical feeling. I’ve been cold-steeping green and white teas for about 8 hours or so, and it seems to be working out for me, though they do border on too strong. I definitely enjoyed drinking this one with lunch today.

I am likely going to bounce off the walls this morning with all of these tan yangs, but I just had to try this one back to back with the others. The steeping parameters, including leaf:water ratio, is consistant across all of these cups.

The first difference I notice about this one is the scent. In comparison to the others, it is less molasses and grains and more fruity, with almost an apricot quality to it. Also perhaps a little yammy; it reminds me of other, non-tan yang black teas I’ve been drinking lately, like a Yunnan or keemun. That being said I still thought it smelled very tan yang-y yesterday, so this is only in comparison.

I would definitely say the flavor on this one is also fruitier. By the way I figured out that when I drank this yesterday my water quality was off; now it is as it should be, and the flavors on this are very present and not flat at all. I definitely get some malty grains, and a bit of caramel, but this is also more dried apricots than raisins. Very sweet on the aftertaste. Neither this nor the Harney have the nutty cocoa notes that my tan yang that I brought back from China has, but those are pretty subtle even in that one.

I would say I marginally prefer the Harney version to this (more molasses and caramel, raisins over apricots), but given the price difference, I am more likely to restock this one than the Harney. It is an exceptionally delicious tea for sure.

Well I dug out this one for a cup. I bought this tea in China after a tasting, brought it home, and immediately wished I had bought more. I have a serious problem with hoarding this one as it is definitely impossible for me to get more of this exact tea. I haven’t gone on a thorough tan yang search for a replacement, but I have started drinking more of them in trial.

The first thing that’s obviously different about this one vs. the Harney one I had this morning is the aroma: This one smells darker, chocolatier, with less honey notes. That carries over to the flavor as well. I am tasting more grains and less molasses, but the sweet raisiny aftertaste is similar. Perhaps more burnt-sugar caramel notes in this one as well. I think its a tad toastier overall. Honestly, although I am making them sound pretty different here overall they are close. The Harney version is definitely closer than TeaSprings Tan Yang Te Ji, though I still need to try their Jing Zhi. This one is a little fuller-bodied, and I do like the cocoa notes present, so I think I still prefer this one, but Harney’s is very very good. Now to try Teavivre’s again!

I figured now is as good a time as any to revisit this one in comparison to the Teavivre Tan Yang I just tried. I have enough of this pouch left for one more cup after this, so I will be able to revisit again before I’m out. I suppose I also need to dig out my Tan Yang from China, see how it compares, and see if either this one or the Teavivre one come close to replacing it.

I’ve also wanted to re-try this one because immediately after drinking it last time I started having some kind of weird, sweet aftertaste for a few days, and then I was unsure of whether the sweet notes in this tea were really real or not.

Turns out they were sorta real. This tea has a ton of molasses notes to it, and that strong raisin is back especially in the aftertaste. I do think it is less sweet than the last time I drank it, curse my wonky tastebuds. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t delicious. It is really an excellent tan yang. And now I am even more antsy to try Teavivre’s again, because I am hoping that brewed properly with good water it is similar, because it’s less than half the price!

I have a few large one-ounce “samples” of fruity herbals that are pretty old by now, but I have no drive to drink them. I look at them and just taste the tartness of the hibiscus already. I guess I will save them for this summer and drink them iced and sweetened.

So I don’t have a lot of other herbals, but I do have this one. This herbal is HEAVY. It is basically composed of exclusively dried fruits, so my 2oz is really not that much tea. It also makes for difficult scooping, but I think I managed a decent blend.

Yum yum. I didn’t realize there was caramel flavoring in this at first, but I can really taste it. Fig and caramel is a glorious combination. This isn’t very rosy, no, but I’ve been having a time tasting rose in any herbal blend lately. I do think that there is a thick floral tone to this that comes from the rose. It is sweet and fruity without being tart. I think the almond also adds to the rich sweetness with the caramel. Yeah this is definitely a keeper for evenings, even if it is probably expensive for an herbal due to its weight.

This tea was actually a surprise; it wasn’t on the list of samples they were sending, and I didn’t request it, but I am so glad it came.

I steeped this one western style following Teavivre’s instructions. I opened the vacuum-sealed pouch, and there was another pouch inside of it! And once I opened that one, the strong, heady floral aroma came wafting out from the dry leaf. It is beautiful, dark green balls shot through with bright green streaks. The minute the water hit it I knew this would be a winner. It smelled sooooo buttery and intensely floral, along with a peachy-melony scent that really rounded things out. The flavor was everything a tieguanyin should be. It is so fresh and green, with lilac-y florals that just surround you. The texture is smooth and creamy. It reminds me of drinking tieguanyin in China because you can tell that it is so fresh and high quality.

When I do make an order from Teavivre this will definitely be on it. It is really really beautiful. Thanks so much for sending a sample of it, Angel!

Sipdown, 182 (oh, samples, you increase my cupboard so). Cold brew. This tea came to me thanks to Tea Sipper!

I decided to cold brew this one after realizing I had just the right amount of leaf. I love a simple jasmine cold brew and this one was pretty nice. When I first tried it I thought it was too strong, but in later sips it mellowed out somehow. It was vegetal but not too grassy, and the jasmine was appropriately the most dominant flavor. This was a tasty tea to have with my lunch.

I feel so lucky that Angel at Teavivre still thinks of me for sending out samples. I’ve benefitted greatly from their free samples, and am happy to review their teas. This time the sample offering was of their new spring harvest green teas, but she also asked if there were any other teas I’d like to try. I have been wanting to try this one since they released it, so of course I asked for it! Thanks so much for sending it along Angel!

The dry leaf is gorgeous, all curly with lots of golden tips. I am actually now on my second cup of this tea. The first time I used half of one of my little sample pouches for my 12oz mug and brewed it at the steeping parameters I’ve used for similar Fujian blacks (and what they recommend for this tea), namely 185°F for 2 minutes. The resulting cup smelled and tasted nice but was also pretty weak. I was craving more so I used the second half of the pouch to steep it at 195°F for 3 minutes.

This smells lovely, like molasses and grains, which is what I look for in a tan yang. The sweet, caramelly, malty, grainy flavors are all there, but still not quite right in the second cup. The second cup is more robust but the flavors are still somehow muted. I think I need to use more leaf… good thing Angel was generous enough to send two more sample pouches of this tea. Also I now have a full pouch’s worth of once-steeped leaves to resteep and play around with. I won’t rate this one until I’ve played around with it more, but even as it is now it would be in the 80s (which remember on my new rating system is very good). I just have a feeling from what I’m getting now that this is actually spectacular, it’s just my brewing of it that is off.

This tea comes to me thanks to GiggleGoddess! I have to say, I’ve never seen tea leaves quite like these. They are so so fuzzy, they look downy soft. They actually look way fuzzier than the picture on Art of Tea’s website. I was unsure of how much tea to use for this cup but I ended up using about half of the pouch that GiggleGoddess sent.

I feel like 195°F is kind of hot for a white tea, but that’s what they call for. Unsurprisingly there is a lot of tea fuzz floating around in my cup, and the liquor is surprisingly dark amber colored. It smells sweet and earthy, like fresh alfalfa hay and honey. This is pretty tasty. It’s definitely sweet, slightly hayish, but “darker” in flavor profile than most white teas I have tried. There’s also a slight vegetal quality to it, and I could be convinced of zucchini or some other summer squash. It’s nice and light, although there is a touch of astringency at the back of it that is kind of odd; I don’t know that I would want to steep it less, though, since the flavors are already fairly light. Perhaps at a cooler temp next time.

I swear this is the never ending pouch of tea. I thought there would be one cup left after this one but there is definitely two. Well, at least its tasty!

My cup today is very roasty-chocolatey. This tan yang defintely has more “bite” to it than some others I’ve tried; it’s less honeyed or caramelly, and it has a hint of astringency not unlike some robust keemuns or assams that I’ve tried. It’s a little too “bold” to be my perfect tan yang, but it’s tasty and nice for a kick in the pants when I need it.

Sipdown, 176. I decided to cold brew this one because I had just the perfect amount for it, and black currant iced tea sounded tasty.

Unfortunately, this turned out very perfumy. I drank about half the cup but then couldn’t take anymore. I won’t rate it because I don’t know how this would perform warm, but I don’t suggest cold brewing this one!

I went through all my ratings and reset them down. Sometimes I would feel like I was giving a tea too low a score, but I had to remind myself that a 70 is still a “smiley face” on the scale. I think by stretching out the 80s into more of the 70s and 80s it is more accurate in its reflection of my likes. Now to keep it up!

Well the off taste of my lips is fading so I decided to try this one today. I got this in a swap with PositiviTEA, thanks!

The dry leaf smells almondy and coconutty, but in kind of a generic way. I’ve had almond greens and coconut greens but never an almond coconut green! Steeped, this smells more coconutty than almondy, and that plays out in the flavor as well. I’m really not getting hardly any almond from this, though I suppose there is some almond sweetness in the background. The green tea is kind of generic but inoffensive. Overally this is decently tasty but I get more coconut macaroon from it than almond cookie.

As an aside, I think I am going to overhaul my tea ratings. Most things will be dropped by about 10 points probably because I think my ratings skew high. 70-79 will now be the range for decent teas that are pretty tasty but not too special. Thankfully if you adjust the ratings on the ratings page it doesn’t make all your old notes pop to the top of the dashboard, unlike changing the rating by editing the tasting note.

Man, I thought this was going to be a sipdown and then it wasn’t. Also, I have some medicated lip balm on for my lip and it’s kind of making the tea taste like petroleum jelly, even though I thought there wasn’t much on my lips anymore. Bleh. I guess today is not the day to drink anything too special.

Sipdown, 177. Plus rose buds for this one!

I burned the heck out of my lip tonight while tasting dinner during cooking. A piece of molten hot spinach was stuck to the bottom of my spoon and latched itself onto my lower lip, and now I have a sizeable blister. So I had to wait until this one was fairly cool before tasting. Fortunately I somehow managed not to burn my mouth really.

This was pleasant, and even more so in the second cup after letting it steep for a looooong time, as the rose buds I put in came out more and added a sweetness that was lovely. I definitely need a verbena/lemongrass blend for evenings.

Today has been busy busy with spring cleaning. I need to start making dinner but I am taking a break for a bit with this oolong. As always, I want to say that I’ve never been the biggest fan of Wuyi oolongs, but some of them I do rather enjoy.

This one seems to be one of those examples. The first steep was honeyed, with lightly toasted grain notes. Honestly I drank it up pretty quickly because it was so tasty. Today I am really digging the bready, roasty notes, moreso than usual. The second steep is also sweet and more toasty. Slightly minerally and rocky, as well, like a stream high in the mountains. This one seems particularly well balanced, and no one flavor really overtakes the rest. The minerals come out more and more in later steeps. I have to say that I have not detected any orchid-like florals in this, but I’m not sure that they would fit quite right to me. Anyway I am really enjoying this relaxing session of tea this afternoon.

Sipdown, 178. Thanks to yssah for this sample.

I have been generally tired lately and last night I slept in for as long as I wanted. Now I have that odd feeling of being refreshed but also a kind of bodily exhaustion. I’m planning on some gongfu sessions later today but right now wanted an earl to get me going.

Like many of yssah’s teas, the dry leaf on this one smelled incredibly pungent. Mostly bergamot, but also with a distinctive rose note. The brewed tea mellows a bit thankfully and is a bit more balanced. The flavors are pretty decent. Definitely strong flavors with this one, but they don’t get soapy or perfumey. The black tea base is smooth and malty, without any astringency or bitterness. The rose and bergamot are doing something with each other such that neither quite tastes like itself. The result is somehow kind of sweet and cookie-ish, though, so I don’t mind. A pretty tasty pot of tea that I won’t have a problem finishing at all.

Sipdown, 179. Cold brew.

I’ve been drinking a lot of cold brews at lunch so I took the rest of my sample of this (probably 3/4 ounce) and made a pitcher of iced tea with it. I haven’t logged my previous cups but this is the final cup of it.

This is pretty tasty as a cold brew. The white tea is slightly vegetal but mild and generally nice, and the pomegranate is pretty juicy and not too fakey tasting. Of course it isn’t totally pomegranate, and there are possibly some other things going on. Rose hips add a tartness and slight berry flavor, but it’s thankfully not overdone. All the same I’m not too sad to see it go.

Happy Record Store Day! I am exhausted after a day of buying limited edition records. Mid-morning we stopped at a coffee shop in Columbus and I was surprised to see they had a bunch of Harney teas on offer. All tea bags, and none that I am very much a fan of, actually. I decided to go with this one, even though I don’t like it all that much, because any Earl Grey is better than no Earl Grey.

Oddly, they served me the tea in a heavy glass beer stein. So the paper taste in this was definitely from the tea bag… Blech. Ah well. Anyway, I never liked that this tea was very light on the bergamot and I didn’t like its base blend. Now I don’t mind those flavors (evolving tastebuds), but this still got old fast. Halfway through the cup I decided I wanted to sugar it a bit (there was a hint of bitterness for some reason even though I controlled the steep time), and then I decided I wanted a touch of milk. Of course, the milk pitcher was f-ed up and drip drip drip SPLOOSH! So I had a lightly bergamotty cup of milk after that. Oh well.

I don’t usually drink actual tea this late in the evening but I really wanted to. I decided to go shu puerh because the fermentation actually results in less caffeine in the resulting tea. I haven’t spent a lot of time drinking puerhs of any kind, and I have gotten most of my exposure through the reserve club. That’s the point, of course! I haven’t come across a puerh that I love, but I often do enjoy them and I am glad to get a chance to try them all.

I am having a similar experience with this tea. It’s earthy, it’s piney. Funny, I didn’t expect this puerh to be so similar in feeling to some of the shengs I’ve had recently. The first steep of this tea is at once light in flavor but with a slight bite. In the second steep the bite has increased, moving almost to bitterness. I’m also getting a lot of conifer notes… juniper berries, cedar wood, pine needles. Also a bit of rocky minerals as well. After a few steepings I’m definitely starting to get some tingly mouth going on here. I have to say this is probably my least favorite of the puerhs I’ved tried through the reserve club so far. Maybe it’s the “camphor” notes. But I’m still glad I got to try it.