Dinosara

Thanks to Ellen for sending me some of this tea in our recent swap! It’s sad that Chicago Tea Garden is no more because they had a lot of nice teas.

Upon steeping, this tea smelled amazingly buttery and floral and delicious. I tell you, I’ve been tasting a lot of teas this weekend that are not quite up my alley, but this is a return to form. This is a green green TGY, and I love it. Lots of warm, thick buttery notes, a certain creaminess, and a bunch of florals. Mmmm. Almost makes up for the fact that it is snowing heavily today (and is supposed to continue into tomorrow!)

Lapsang and I are not friends. I barely tolerate roastiness in my teas, much less full on smoke. So I wasn’t thrilled to see this one in the reserve club package but I decided that I would try it anyway to be a good sport. Plus it’s supposed to be “subtle”.

Immediately I smelled the smokiness of the dry leaf, and the minute the hot water hit the dry leaf the smell of burned, ashy wood filled the room. I basically ended up doing two rinses because the first steep was still way to ashy to me.

I have to say, beyond the smoke, there is some tasty flavors in this tea. There is a lovely honeyed maltiness that I wasn’t expecting. After a few steeps the smoke has actually become subtler, and I can enjoy the tea more. I can see how this is an exceptional Lapsang, even if I can’t quite fully appreciate it. Still, I will never understand the love of smoke in teas. More power to you guys who like them, but that is one flavor profile that I will never get into,

So does anyone want the second half of my pouch (7g left)? I’d love to send it to someone who would appreciate it more than I.

Well I was going to finish off one of the green oolongs gongfu today but I appear to have forgotten them at the office. So I figured, well, maybe I will sit down with one of those shengs.

I chose this one first because it is not aged long and I wanted to try a relatively “fresh” sheng before I move on to the aged one. I am unsure of whether I have had a sheng; I’ve certainly had shu puerh before, but the smell of the dry leaf is familiar to me, so maybe I have. The dry leaf smells very vegetal but also kind of mossy and then also warm like yeasty bread.

When the hot water hits the leaves I am struck by an intense leafy aroma, a little like cooked spinach. The liquid from the rinse smells familiar to me, but not as a tea; more like fresh, damp earth. The actual early steeps (3 seconds) have more vegetal notes in the aroma. They also have a distinct scent of puerh that is hard for me to couch in any other terms. It is a bit treeish, that is both leafy and woody. A little bit of cedar, a little bit of oak. The flavor is slightly minerally and woody, with a bit of cooked greens to it as well. A few steeps in I got an intriguing floral aftertaste of osmanthus that was subtle but present. Hmmm, unexpected!

I never got almondy notes that have been noted before, but I did really enjoy the later steeps. This was a pretty good experience and I look forward to trying my other shengs.

I was going to get into some of my reserve club puerhs today, but then I read the tasting notes for this one and I decided to have it instead. It’s a roasted wuyi oolong, so not my favorite type, but I am of course looking forward to trying it out.

The steeping instructions call for a crazy amount of leaf per ounce for gongfu… almost double what I usually use. But I followed them, using almost the whole package for my 6oz pot (10g). It did fill the pot 2/3 full, which is what the instructions say that Master Bi does with this tea. The warmed leaf smelled like a toasty oolong, but also intensely fruity, and I definitely could smell raspberry distinctly. It smelled very promising!

This, of course, yields a very strong tea. The rinse was crazy dark, and the first 3 steeps (only 3-4 seconds each) were just too strong for me, with a note that edges on bitter to my palate. I did get berry notes on the aftertaste and maybe a hint of bitter chocolate, but overall the bitterness was overwhelming my palate in the main part of the sip.

Quite a few steeps in (I lost track how many) it started smoothing out and losing that unpleasant (to me) edge. The sip was bright and minerally, not so roasty (I think I washed a lot of that out). There’s actually kind of a sweetness here that is very nice. It’s still quite fruity as well, and with a lot of body.

In the end this was a pleasant tea and I enjoyed my tasting, even though it is decidedly Not My Style. But I didn’t expect it to be, and this club is all about tea adventure to me.

Still tired; decided to try one of my other matchas without milk to test and see if it was indeed the milk. This is one I never make as a latte because I feel like the bright flavor doesn’t really work with milk.

I am actually still getting some of the almost metallic, almost salty tastes from this one too, but I’m not so sure it’s the matcha getting old, it might just be that I haven’t drank any matcha in months and forgot what it tastes like. The matcha has been sealed in a freezer so it shouldn’t have degraded too much. It’s still tasty, and I still am enjoying the bright berry flavor of this tea, so I think I just need to pick my habit back up.

It has been a loooong time since I have had a bowl of matcha. I used to drink one every morning last fall, but then I moved to Ohio and my morning routine changed, and I got out of making them. But I was portioning out some matcha for a swap today and decided that I really wanted some. Also I am exhuasted today from having to get up relatively early after a very late night. Then I washed my hands with almond soap and decided that I wanted almond matcha too.

I usually make my matcha with almond milk but I had none so I subbed regular milk. For some reason I just don’t like regular milk matcha lattes as much as almond milk lattes! This bowl had an almost savory note like it had been salted that was odd; I’m not sure if it is just the matcha being old or the choice of milks, but hopefully it is the latter.

The third of my Steep City Samples. I actually was saving this one because there was a chance I would be moving to Miami (I had to make a decision by today) but it turns out I won’t. So I guess this is my almost-moved-to-Miami cup.

There is a lot of stuff in this tea but it seems like it should all go together. I have to admit I was a tad disturbed by the small, slightly granular shape of the black tea leaves in this one… nothing like the wiry leaves in Nutty Love.

Fortunately it all turned out fine. No bitterness or astringency, tart without being sour. This hibiscus seems better deployed to me than the Citrus Sunshine Oolong, as it isn’t taking over the cup here. This is very fruity; definitely mango but also a fair amount of berry and hibiscus flavor. The black tea base I could take or leave; it doesn’t do much for this blend, and it seems a bit “thin” overall. I plan to cold brew the rest of my sample of this one for sure.

Sipdown, 186. This is a pretty decent tea, though not one I will be restocking. Almond and jasmine go remarkably well together. The oolong is definitely a kind of generic formosa oolong but it is a bit nutty and slighly roasty (not too much!) which provides a nice background note.

I decided to take a break from rose and have another floral that I haven’t indulged in a while. One step closer to a sipdown with this tea (one more cup left)!

The thick jasmine smell on this tea is awesome. Even though I’ve had this sample for a while and it hasn’t been sealed in an airtight pouch (just clipped shut as well as possible), the jasmine is strong and fresh and hasn’t diminished. Often I think teas are more resilient and long-lived than people give them credit for. I am liking the brightness and lightness this morning, after being kept out too late and not getting enough sleep last night. I really should drink my jasmine teas more, I do love them so much.

Sipdown, 187. Yet another of the selection of rose teas that I got in my swap with ToiToi. Thanks!

I brewed this one both cooler and shorter than I normally would because I saw immediately that it is a CTC leaf, and I am scared of CTC. Steeped, it smells primarily of rose in a somewhat perfumy way. You guys know that I love strong rose and rarely associate it with perfume, but for whatever reason this one is perfumy. The rose flavor is powerful, but again it kind of like perfume or soap. I don’t taste the vanilla as a distinct note but rather it lends a creaminess to the tea. Unfortunately, the main problem here is not the perfumy rose but the sharp spike of bitterness and astringency from the CTC base is too much for me. I knew I was right to be afraid! :P

Well I might as well go ahead and try my last sample of Fauchon courtesy of ToiToi. I went onto the website to see how this was different from their four red fruits tea (besides the addition of [happy] colorful flower petals) and clicked on the ingredients list, and then was surprised to see green tea also listed among the ingredients. Whoops! Hope I didn’t ruin this cup. I don’t see much green tea in the infuser post steeping, so maybe it’s just a pinch.

This smells very very fruity in a very “red fruits” way. Currant, cherry, strawberry, raspberry, they’re all making themselves known. Fortunately, what little green tea there is in this blend did not affect the flavor by being scorched. Nope, this is powerfully fruity with a bright lemony zing (the real thing that makes this different from four red fruits). This is something I have come to realize about Fauchon teas… they are powerfully flavored. Flavored to the MAX. They fortunately also have relatively robust bases that keep them from being all flavoring and no body. This is pretty tasty, and a lovely fruity tea. Will definitely pick up Fauchon teas whenever I get the chance.

Thanks again to ToiToi for this sample. Am I torturing myself with more French teas (with names like An Afternoon in Paris) that fuel my desire to go back to Paris? Perhaps. But I want to try them anyway.

I’m not sure where I got the strong idea that Fauchon’s teas were not reviewed well; I looked again and some of them aren’t but most of them have few if any reviews. Well now I just feel stupid for missing out on the Fauchon sale recently. Anyway! When steeped up this tea powerfully reminds me of another tea but I cannot place it. Maybe it’s just the vanilla, which is super strong in the aroma.

Wow I just had an intensely sweet sip and I’m not sure where that came from but it was delicious. When I first started sipping this it was like, ok, powerful vanilla flavor, pretty decent. Now it’s like… guh. Vanilla! Rose! A hint of bright citrus! The flavors are so thick and lush it is like you are being immersed in them. This tea is not playing around. I’ve not always had success with vanilla and rose in the past for some reason, but here it plays out so well. The vanilla is rich and sweet, the rose is heavy and luxurious. The orange doesn’t have a starring part but it plays backup well, preventing this tea from getting too heavy. The tea base is hearty enough to stand up to it all and not have it feel weak or without depth.

Man, now I really feel stupid for missing out on the Fauchon sale a few weeks ago. Well, more reason to go to Paris.

Sipdown, 188. I was originally planning that my sample of this would make me two cups (since my black tea sample did), but after scooping out the tea for this cup and looking at what was left I decided to make it one cup. There are a lot of big pieces of orange and hibiscus leaves in this that take up a fair amount of room, so I think tea-wise there are probably the right number of oolong leaves for this serving. Just to be safe I am steeping this for 2 minutes.

It immediately started smelling like citrus and ginger, and after it was done it was a deep pinkish-maroon color which I was honestly not expecting. I mean, it has hibiscus so I guess I should have, but it was still surprising. It smells fairly hibiscusy along with the citrus and ginger notes.

The flavor is interesting and not entirely what I was expecting. My cup was pretty hibiscusy and tart, but with a decent helping of citrus and a bit of spicy ginger. There was also something giving it a lingering sweetness (nice to counteract the tartness of the hibiscus) that might be the ginger. Unfortunately I couldn’t taste the oolong base at all in my cup. I see now that there is also supposed to be berries (cranberries, blueberries), but I didn’t really taste them as distinct either. I could see this as a refreshing herbal tea but this one it’s quite for me. Maybe if I plucked out the hibsicus leaves!

Sipdown, 189. Backlog from last night (no, I’m not having chamomile tea first thing in the morning).

I’ve made my peace with chamomile in blends, and learned to enjoy its appley, slightly honeyed notes. Last night I decided to brew up a sachet that I’ve had of this for a while, and I threw in some rose buds hoping to add some rosey notes. Unfortunately not. The chamomile was so overwhelming that the rose was totally lost. This was potently strong, appley and honeyed, yes, but also kind of dusty in a way that clung to my throat.

So the moral is, chamomile in blends, sure. Chamomile straight up, not so much.

Thanks to ToiToi for this sample! I have to say, I have been interested in trying some of Fauchon’s teas because the flavors look so up my alley, but I haven’t primarily because they haven’t gotten great reviews here on Steepster. But getting some samples from ToiToi of a few Fauchon teas was optimal! I decided to start with this, a simple rose black tea. This one actually has no reviews yet! Also I went on to their site to add another tea to the database and saw they have a new tea: Rose and Litchi (lychee). Be still my heart! I want that tea so badly.

This tea smells strongly of sweet sweet rose candy. Not just rose but candied rose. You can tell that this is not going to pull any punches in the rose department (yay!). This is quite nice! Strongly rosey, and thankfully a tasty black tea base as well. Keemun perhaps? It’s a bit malty and has that “chinese black” taste that I can now seem to identify. As sweet as its smelled, the flavor is less sweet but still rosey in a rose candy kind of way. Anyway, this makes me more excited to try the rest of my samples, and makes me want the Rose et Litchi tea even more!

Earlier today I moved this tea into a smaller tin (my 100g are shrinking slowly, but they have definitely declined), so I started thinking about it then, and then Sil posted a tasting note for it and that sealed the fact that I would have it today.

I haven’t had this tea in forever, but it is still so delicious. Poppy cookies! Poppy macarons? Man, I want to go back to Paris.

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.