It’s mint and lemon verbena mixed together, a nice herbal blend hot or cold. What more is there to say?
174 Tasting Notes
The dry tea leaves are nicely rolled and dark green with a floral and milky creamy (not buttery) scent. The leaves fully unroll into huge dark green and still carry that floral milky creamy scent but I’m also picking up a plum scent on the wet leaves. This tea tastes delicious, it’s floral and creamy but not buttery like a Ti Quan Yin. It also doesn’t have that large and long lasting mouth-feel or buttery aftertaste that a Ti Quan Yin has, and I like it even more because of this. After a few steeps the floral notes fade a bit and the creaminess becomes stronger. The mouth-feel and buttery aftertaste become more apparent too the more it’s steeped, but it’s still not nearly as strong as I find Ti Quan Yin to be. This is a green oolong I found to be quite delicious and more enjoyable than a Ti Quan Yin.
Another sample I had bought a while ago. I kind of went overboard when I was buying samples from them, so now I’m slowly going through them.
The leaves are curled like a Bi Lo Chun but lighter and with curled buds. The dry leaves smell very fresh and crisp with a hay note to it. It reminds me dry leaves in the fall. The wet leaves are slightly broken, not too bad and the opened fully on the first steep. It looks a lot like a green tea and I’m picking up some sort of fruit scent, not like a berry, more like a peach or plum. I’m surprised this is a white tea, I would’ve guessed it was green had I tested it blind. The taste is like green tea and white tea had a love child. It has hay notes, buttery notes, floral notes, vegetal like asparagus notes and still has a crispness to it. This is good!
The second steep is a little bitter, I may have overdone the steeping time. The first one was 3 minutes, the second was 5 minutes, but it’s what the package says, so that’s what I did. Next time second steep will be shorter. Anyway, the second steep even though a little bitter keeps all the notes, is much more buttery and is leaving an astringent aftertaste that I blame on the too long of a steep. Overall good tea!
Bright green matcha powder covering flat, dark green leaves. The leaves are broken, badly. It almost looks as if I opened a tea bag and dumped the contents. Dry is smells very sweet and grassy, same with the wet leaves and infusion. The leaves, even badly broken, did open fully on the first steep. The liquior was a very bright and vibrant green. Taste was very sweet from the matcha, grassy from the sencha and had an astringent/bitter aftertaste on the tip of my tongue. I know that sounds weird, but that’s what I was getting and I’m assuming that the bitterness was from the leaves being so broken. Even though it was bitter the smoothness of the matcha balanced it out and made it pleasant. The second steep though had lost most of the smooth sweetness, I guess since the matcha went out into the first infusion. Unfortunately because there was no more sweetness the bitterness was much stronger almost making it undrinkable. I know I didn’t oversteep it, temp was 160-165 and the first brew was 10-15 seconds, the second was 15-20 seconds. Maybe i should’ve added more matcha from my stash, but I wanted to try it without doing anything to it first. Maybe I’ll buy my own sencha and add matcha too it since the first steep was really good.
This started out like a typical run-of-the-mill green tea, mellow, vegetal, nothing special about it. Dry smell: mellow vegetal. Wet leaves smell: strong vegetal. After brewing it and taking a sip: mellow and vegetal. I didn’t pick up any of the orchid notes. But when I swallowed I got this interesting taste, seaweed. It was mellow and light, but it was there. I sniffed the cup and I can smell something slightly salty. I take another sip, vegetal, and slightly salty. Interesting. There more I drank and kept looking for the seaweed notes the more I tasted it and liked it. It never did become strong but it was there and i liked it. It was like finding a toy in the cereal box when you’re not expecting one.
I’ve had this hot before and despised it. It tasted like hot cough syrup. But since it’s getting warmer I’ve been playing with my flavored teas, making them iced. So, in my hopefulness to make this one drinkable, since I still have over half the tin, I cold brewed three sachets in 1 quart of water, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, and lots of ice cubes. This tea is really sweet, and iced it tastes great. I’m really glad I gave this tea a try iced, it doesn’t have that cough syrup taste to it at all and now I have confidence that I will use all the sachets without feeling like I’m a sick 5 year-old!
I’m not a big fan of roasted oolongs but this was a free sample with my package and I’m in the sampling mood today if no one’s been able to tell :) The dry leaves of this are very dark, typical of roasted oolongs and it contains what looks like dried apricot shavings. Its dry smell is slightly smokey and earthy with apricot. I’m picking up what smells like wet stones, that fresh cold stream moving over a bunch of stones and rocks without moss or algae smell, it’s quite nice. Wet, the leaves lose the apricot smell but everything else stays there, only more pronounced. The infusion is a medium brown color and tastes like grilled apricot, the wet stones, and definitely roasty. The apricot flavors are much lighter than what I was expecting, the oolong takes center stage here, the apricot being a supporting role. As I said, I don’t care for roasted oolongs, but this is a good flavored one, especially if you like to taste more of the tea base than the flavors.
I should’ve known better when I read that it’s from Darjeeling area. I don’t care for tea from that area or from Ceylon. But I decided to give it a try regardless. The dry leaves are mostly dark green, there are some lighter green and some brown leaves in there. The smell reminds me of when I worked on a farm, of not quite dried out hay, like a blend of green and black teas. The wet leaves smells like tobacco to me. My dad used to roll his own cigarettes and that’s what I was getting with this tea. The infusion color was a light brown and smelled vegetal, earthy, malty and a hint of a floral note in there. I don’t care for black tea, but I’ve had enough to know that this green tea is from the Darjeeling area. Again, I don’t know why I got this tea, good thing it was only a sample, but I don’t care for this at all and I’m not rating it because I should’ve known better. Perhaps I was thinking of expanding my tastes or something, but I will be sticking with Chinese greens with a Japanese green thrown in there for fun.
I’m surprised that there are quite a few Octavia Teas not in the database here. So, I’m going to keep adding them as I try out my samples.
The dry leaves are small, dark green, curled and smells like grass that is slightly earthy and slightly sweet. The wet leaves are grassy and very vegetal smelling. The infusion is the typically light color of green teas, and again smells grassy but this time I’m picking up the flower notes…just barely. The taste at first seems like an unremarkable grassy green tea. I swish it in my mouth and I can start to taste the flower notes and I get a vegetal aftertaste, it’s slowly gaining character. As the tea is cooling the notes are becoming more pronounced: grassy, vegetal, with a hint of flowers. Pretty good green tea, I like it.
It’s been so warm here that I feel slightly icky drinking hot tea, so I had to make some iced and decided to try this one out. Cold brewed it with one tablespoon of brown sugar, a lot of ice cubes, four sachets, one quart of water. I feel like the tablespoon of brown sugar I used was too much since this tea is pretty sweet by itself. Still good on a warm day and I think I prefer it iced rather than hot.
This reminds me of gunpowder, but not as strong. It’s slightly smokey and vegetal with some oceanic saltiness to it, like seaweed. It’s very interesting how the smokiness blends well with the salty vegetal notes. It’s not one I would have guessed I would’ve liked and while I probably won’t keep it in my permanent stash I am glad I tried it. It is very good, a nice lighter alternative to Gunpowder.
I’m surprised this one wasn’t in the Steepster database. The leaves are a mix of loosely curled and twisted darker green leaves and fuzzy white leaves. There are some broken pieces, not many and this is only a little sample size inside of a packet, so it’s probably in a bit better shape in the full size tin. Dry it has floral and chestnut notes. The floral notes aren’t like a jasmine, it’s obviously not added to the tea. It’s nice and light and not perfumey in any aspect. It’s reminds me a lot of Rishi’s Ancient Emerald Lily. The wet leaves smell more chestnut and slightly vegetal. The infusion in both smell and taste is a wonderful blend of the floral, chestnut, and vegetal notes, no one note overpowers the other(s). Delicious green tea I wouldn’t mind having everyday. Unfortunately one tin (1.41oz or 40g) costs $15. Rishi’s Ancient Emerald Lily is so similar to this and you get more tea for lower cost, I’m going to stick with Rishi.
I really enjoy this one. It’s lovely to look at, it smells wonderful and tastes delicious. Very sweet citrus, not bitter, and floral mixed in. A very uplifting and yummy green tea!
A very unremarkable green tea, but good introduction to Chinese greens. The description says it’s a good “everyday” green tea and I agree that it is, it’s very light and mellow. I steeped it 4 times starting at 1 minute and adding an additional minute every time each time at 175F. The flavor hasn’t changed at all, not that it’s a bad thing. A very simple and pleasant green tea.
This is one of my top two rooibos. I’m not a fan of rooibos unless it’s flavored and I really love this one. The sweet, creamy coconut blends so well with the red rooibos with a bit of lavender. it does seem like there is a slight hint of mint in there as others have noted. Excellent rooibos!
Silly me, I did the same thing as the only other person who logged this tea. I read the description and believed it…haha….hahahahaha! Figs? nope. Raisins? not even close. Honeysuckle? maybe, no, not really. This is a green oolong that I found similar to Ti Quan Yin. Floral and slightly buttery with large dark green leaves. It’s good, but don’t believe the description.
Citrus, creamy, floral, minty and sweet. I’m really enjoying this tonight and am bumping up the rating a bit. I will have to end up getting more and trying it iced.
I drank this before but never noted it in here. Now I’m trying it again, I am a sucker for jasmine teas. I put this in an airtight tin but when I opened it it seemed rather stale. There wasn’t any sort of aroma, no tea scent, no jasmine scent. But it can’t be stale, I just bought this a few weeks ago. So, I brew it up and i get an aroma, but not one I was hoping for. The wet leaves smells like jasmine, but artificial jasmine, and I’m still not getting the green tea base. I take a few sips, not bad. The jasmine is mellow and not as artificial tasting. The green tea is there, definitely not premium, and it has a slight astringency. This isn’t a bad jasmine, it’s nice, but not $7 for 50 grams. I feel like you could easily find similar quality to this in the grocery store. Not bad, but not exactly premium either.
Another sample I received from them yesterday (only two left). Opening the package I instantly smell mint and vanilla, like a creme de menthe. The wet leaves, which are very disappointingly broken little things, smell like an Andy’s candy:chocolate and mint. I brewed this up at 175 instead of boiling because of the green tea in it. The package says boiling but I’m always afraid to bitter the green tea. It came out nice and smooth, the vanilla tempers the mint a bit and at first all I could taste was mint, black tea with a vanilla like aftertaste. Now that it’s starting to cool I can taste the green tea, it’s gunpowder green tea, I know that smokiness just about anywhere. I can definitely taste the flavors more as it cools, I would like to try this iced but I would have to buy more considering that I find that I have to use their entire sample to make a 10oz pot or cup. But it’s good and if I buy from them again this will be on the list!
Let me start by saying I love most anything coconut flavored. So, as any surprise, I’ve been eyeballing this tea for a while now. I finally received the sample package in the mail today with a few others and immediately opened this one. And what do I smell? Coconut, toasted coconut to be exact. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what exact kind of coconut it smelled like so I looked in the reviews and saw toasted coconut and coconut macaroons and they couldn’t be more correct. The wet leaves are large and dark green and smelled of pouchong more so than coconut but the taste was so well blended together. No one flavor overpowers the other, they are perfectly balanced. Nice smooth buttery notes from the pouchong mixed with sweet toasted coconut. Yum!
Backlogged from this afternoon.
This one always surprises me by how much filler is in there, I would prefer more oolong. It’s very floral-citrusy without being overpowering, I like this. Yet if I was tasting this blind I may never guess that there is oolong in it. I only taste it because I know it’s there and I’m looking for it.
Backlogged from this morning.
I really enjoy the way this smells dry, very fresh and crisp. Wet it smells more like cooked greens. Taste is superb, very fresh and crisp with slight cooked greens and the aftertaste has an almost minty quality to it. It reminds me of an early morning in spring with dew on the grass and the earth is slightly damp from the night before. Bumping the rating up a little.
Yesterday was a tea-less day, and the day before I only had one cup first thing in the morning. So, today I am making up for that and I apologize if all the tea-logging is getting annoying. Anyways… I don’t know what it’s been with me and jasmine teas lately, but for whatever reason they seem to be stronger than I remember to the point that they are cloying. Today though was a warm, sunny day and jasmine tea beckoned to me. The first steep I sweetened with rock sugar and threw in the fridge to have it cold for later or even tomorrow morning even though I have been sipping at it. Right now I’m drinking the second steep, hot. It’s strong in scent but having already been steeped once it’s mellowed a little. That being said it does not mean that the jasmine is by any means mellow, because it’s not. I find that I’m actually preferring this cold at the moment and am anticipating warmer weather since this iced and Silver Needles iced is what I typically drink during summer.
Today this tea seems more nutty and a bit creamy. I’m tasting the corn notes that others have referred to, but it’s not like roasted corn or corn on the cob, more like corn bread. I’m not getting much floral notes in it, they’re so slight I barely detect them today. With the second steeping and it cooling down it’s becoming more creamy with a slight mouth-feel.
