Can you help me find new teas ("If you love xxxxx you'll love xxxxx")?
The facts:
1) I love to smell my teas as much as I enjoy drinking them.
2) I love teas with a smooth body (but that’s not a hard rule)
3) I usually don’t add anything to my teas
FAVORITES:
-Jasmine green: I love the floral aroma, which works well with the mild flavor
-Gen maicha: the aroma is amazing! I love the roasted flavor.
-Hojicha: I like the stronger ones-seems some versions are weaker than others.
-Dragonwell: this is almost my “base” green tea (not sure who sells the best version though). Not too mild, nice flavor.
-Gunpowder green: this one is fine but the kind I have is a bit mild for me.
-Lapsang souchong:I think I love that it exists more than I love drinking it! It’s at the extreme end of strong, and for occasional use only, but I’m glad to have it in my repertoire.
OCCASIONALS:
-Earl Grey – I will drink it for a change of pace, with honey.
What other teas do you think I might like? This is like match-making!
If you like jasmine greens – you probably like jasmine whites! Verdant Tea has a Yunnan White Jasmine that is light and delicious, but I’m sure there are others out there too.
Since you like the roasty teas, I would suggest also trying a dark oolong – like a charcoal roasted Tie Guan Yin or Dancong.
If you like jasmine and dragonwell, you might like osmanthus green blends! Osmanthus is a really interesting floral and more similar to jasmine than rose/lavender/etc. There are quite a few dragonwell osmanthus teas out there.
If you like Lapsang Souchong try a Keemun Hao Ya. Teavivre has one that is excellent, the smoke is not as heavy on the front of the mouth, but it lingers at the end. It has notes of cocoa too.
I also agree with Meeka, a roasted Tie Guan Yin may be nice if you like hojicha and gunpowder. Rishi Tea has an awesome one, on their site it goes by the English name “Iron Goddess” tea.
I agree with James on getting a Teavivre Keemun (though I’ve tried all of their versions, and the grade 2 is my favorite). It has all the smokiness I want, that you might get from a lapsang, but in a more subtle, palatable form. Teavivre’s Keemuns really are quite good.
I’m a big jasmine lover and I would suggest Yunnan White Jasmine and Eight Treasures Yabao both from Verdant.
Teavivre has an excellent Jasmine Dragon Pearls and their Jasmine Silver Needle is excellent too.
A good one that is both jasmine and gunpowder is Loki from Adagio, beware this one contains spearmint and I don’t know if you like mint or not.
If you like gunpowder green, you should try a good Moroccan Mint. They (typically) use gunpowder as a base, and add peppermint and/or spearmint, which almost add more to the aroma than the flavor.
If you like the occasional Earl Grey, try Upton Tea’s Earl Grey Creme Vanilla. Its like Earl Grey, but a little sweeter, and the bergamot is a little less floral, and has a bit of a lime flavor. It’s also ridiculously cheap, and Upton offers very reasonable sample prices, probably the best around.
Adagio has a blend of their own called Chicago Jazz Mint that’s like the Loki blend but without the rooibos, and peppermint instead of spearmint. It’s a lot like a Moroccan Mint but with floral notes. Search for “Chicago series” on their site. It’s pretty well hidden!
For straight gunpowder I love thepuriTea’s version. It’s not just rolled, it looks like small pebbles.
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