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978 Tasting Notes
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The nice thing about working at your school through commencement is that you get to reclaim things abandoned by people who have already left, and that’s how I happened upon a bag of this. I do believe it’s one of the best bagged green tea I’ve had: a lovely grassy sencha with a slight sweetness. I’ve had (and am biased toward) more intensely flavored sencha, but it’s nice to have something that’s a bit lighter.
Some of the comments indicate that this can be bought cheaply in bulk from certain stores, so I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for it!
I’ve not yet reviewed 2/3 of the tea in the Steepster Select box I won months ago, so I thought I’d get on that. Phoenix Yunnan Gold is a hard one for me, since I’ve never had this type of tea from another brand and black teas are, in general, harder for me to pick out specific tastes from than greens. Ah, well!
The appearance of this tea is nothing special, and the smell of the dry leaf, while distinct, isn’t really for me. I’m definitely getting a bit of a honey-esque scent, and some kind of nonspecific spiciness. I have a feeling that would make some people very happy, but not me.
When I sip, it’s still honey, but a weird, less sweet honey. This tea is naturally sweet, mind, but real honey is sweeter. (I wonder how this would taste with honey added? I don’t know if I have any at the moment.) The second steep reveals more of a spiciness, but I have to search for it. I’m not very impressed overall — it doesn’t seem much different from most ceylons I’ve tasted — but I don’t think it’s a bad tea, it’s just not exciting to me.
I notice the steeping time here suggests one minute, but I went for the 2:30 suggested on the package. Will definitely try the one next time; it doesn’t taste oversteeped right now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the flavors changed for the better.
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Adagio took a pretty safe route with this Valentine’s Day tea: chocolate and raspberry. That’s not a complaint nor is it a complement; I love the idea, but I’ve found that fruit-flavored blacks are not really Adagio’s strong point.
It smells nice enough, a semi-artificial (it’s far too sweet to be real) but clearly raspberry scent with a hint of chocolate. Not much of a tea scent here, which is fine by me when it comes to flavored teas on the inexpensive side (better to smell and taste the added flavoring than the cheap base, right?). It’s a fairly attractive tea, too (or else I’m easy to please) with real dried berry pieces and leaves adding color.
In the taste department, I’d call this… good at what it wants to be. It totally reminds me of a chocolate truffle with raspberry filling (which I assume they were going for, given the holiday release) and that accounts for the not particularly realistic nature of the fruitiness. It’s nothing like a real berry, but it’s definitely like a berry candy! The chocolate is there, but weak. It’s not a very complex taste overall (think candy from the drugstore, not Malley’s [do they even have Malley’s outside of the midwest?]) but for a Valentine’s-themed treat, it does the job. My preferred way of drinking this is in a custom blend, though; it goes very well with creamy flavors.
Like most of Adagio’s flavored black teas, you’ve got to keep a close eye on Ripe For Romance, as it can get very bitter very quickly.
The dry leaf smells just like you might expect — sugar, caramel, and oolong — and it’s lovely! Due to this it’s the first dessert tea that’s made me want to bake up something similar, rather than hoping that the tea will live up to a given dessert.
These are nice curled up oolong leaves, nothing exciting to look at at first but beautiful as they steep and unfold. The liquor itself is also nice to look at and sniff, a toasty warm yellow with a weaker but similar sent to the dry leaf.
Unfortunately, the flavor also doesn’t live up to the initial scent. While I can very much enjoy weaker teas, I feel like this one in particular would do better to have a strong taste; in my book, if you’re going to cover up the tea with not-so-tea-ish tastes, it’s generally best to go all the way. Fortunately, the flavoring that is present isn’t even vaguely artificial, and in fact tastes like a higher quality of ingredients was used than I’d normally find in my kitchen. The overall taste is also assisted a lot by the type of oolong that was used; while its hardly my area of expertise, I can tell that it’s on the rich, sweet side.
I tried adding sugar and milk as is suggested on Golden Moon Tea’s website, but it was hardly an improvement; instead of bringing out new elements of the flavor, they just took over the taste to the point that it was as though I’d just put them into hot water.
One last thing that I really like about this tea is the feeling it leaves. Some tea just feels like drinking water when all is said and done, but there’s something about this one that’s very comforting and even somewhat filling. It might be due to the small aftertaste.
I was expecting something different from the name and the smell, but I actually really like this even though it’s disappointing in some ways.
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