307 Tasting Notes

drank Pumpkin Chai by DAVIDsTEA
307 tasting notes

I’ve been in a bit of a pumpkin Chai swing since Halloween, which isn’t too bad yet since I had been stuck between queen catherine and jasmine green tea for a few months before that.

I’m still working on old stock that I have from last year, I’m not even sure if dt released it this year because I haven’t been keeping up with tea news.

The black tea is a bit smoother and mellow now, but that might be my adjusted brewing times. I brew a dt perfect spoon in a gravity steeper for 3 min at 195*f and after decanting that in my thermos, rebrew those leaves and fill the thermos the rest of the way.

The spices aren’t too prevalent, I think they’re just losing flavor over time, but I might prefer it because I like the milder, more melded flavors.

Preparation
2 tsp 16 OZ / 473 ML

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I made homemade pineapple jam recently and I’m obsessed, I wish I had done a full batch instead of a half batch of the jam. Right now I have little pancakes in the freezer (I made a double batch when I do get around to making pancakes, and stick the excess in the freezer for quick snacks), and my late afternoon snack today is little pancakes (warmed up in the air fryer), topped with plain yogurt and pineapple jam, and paired with some tea. Yummy.

A thermos of the queen joined today with this little snack. The warm pancakes and tea paired with the cold yogurt and jam made fun little notes all together. The experience was sweet, tart, creamy, bread, butter, malty… I would recommend. Maybe next time I’ll try it with sour cream to amp up the tartness profile from the yogurt, or buy a tarter yogurt. Queen Catherine hardly any gives me any astringency ever, but it played nicely off the slight natural astringency of the pineapple

Nattie

That sounds delicious! I don’t think I’ve ever tried pineapple jam.

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85

I’m surprised that this tea is in the system, AND there’s a rating, but there isn’t any tasting notes for it. Was that me?
Contrary to what you might think from the name, this is not a flavored matcha. This is instead a green tea, with white peach flavoring, and matcha dusted over it. Green tea with matcha dusted over the tea is one of the few types of tea I prefer in the teabag form. I just feel that the allocation of matcha per serving is more evenly dispersed that way. But then again, I also resteep these teabags pretty frequently, and the taste of the tea doesn’t suffer for having less matcha in the cup.
Today I had it iced. Filled up my little 25oz thermos with ice, and brewed one teabag to 16oz of hot water. Surprisingly this did not overflow, but that might have been a different story if I used crushed instead of cubed ice.
The tea is lovely hot or iced. Iced, it has a pleasant and not overwhelmingly fruity white peach fragrance. The tea is not astringent, and slightly grassy.

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 3 min, 0 sec
ashmanra

Sounds interesting enough to go on my next order!

Nattie

Ooh this is interesting!

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This happened AGAIN, I forgot how much Steepster just randomly exits out of the window sometimes in the middle of write a long tasting note. I need to get back into the habit of writing in a different window and copying over.

The long-short of my long but sadly lost review: Loose tea tin arrived! 2tsp per 16oz is very very overleafed for me. BUT makes for a good milk tea base when iced with honey and milk.

Who’s excited for the memorial day weekend? Me! It’s my first holiday since the start of the new year, and my company is ‘essential’ healthcare devices and I can’t work from home so while I don’t have cabin fever, I do need a break. Maybe I’ll convince my sisters to go cherry picking…

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 16 OZ / 473 ML
Nattie

I might have to start doing that, too. A few of my notes have been lost lately too, but I’ve gotten into the habit of copying my note every couple of lines as I’m writing it just in case. Your way sounds easier! Enjoy your holiday, and stay safe (:

tea-sipper

I hope you are having the loveliest of breaks. :D

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I’m not sure what it is about lychee flavoring on teas, but often it makes it smells…. cold? It’s certainly an odd property of the scent, and one that is much better diluted out over several infusions or in a pot rather than in a mug. Today I did two pearls in 16oz, and I did two infusions into a liter thermos. This helped diffuse the flavoring so you’re not overwhelmed with the lychee and can appreciate the black tea base more. I like it hot, but I kept leaving my desk and it was mostly cold when I managed to get back. I suppose the ‘coldness’ of the lychee flavoring also lends itself well to iced tea. It is the season, although my mom was telling me that it was miserly and raining all day in San Francisco, while at my work it was 77 while I was driving home and I told her I was melting.

I feel like next time I’m in the market I need to pick up some canned lychee. It’s been too long since I’ve had the fruit, and maybe I can put one or a few into a cup with this too.

Edit: it seems odd but I think since others have reviewed this tea, the form factor may have changed, because the pearls are maybe around a centimeter in diameter. I could be completely delusional to say that two pearls is equivalent to 1.5tsp/8oz, but it was quite enough tea to water in my opinion. The leaf certainly bloomed enough to make it look like a good 3-4 tsp in my infuser

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This was recommended to me a few months ago on their website although at the time I was looking at black teas more along the lines of Irish Breakfast. I got the 50ct of teabags and I just reordered for a tin of loose. I don’t know what it is about this tea that is so comforting and yet invigorating. I usually don’t drink much black tea, but Queen Catherine definitely makes me more curious to other similar blends.

On the other hand, let’s see how it goes with the loose leaf, especially since I’ve learned more recently that I tend to underleaf by most people’s standards. I feel like the teabags are good from everything from a single mug to a 25oz thermos.

Nattie

Welcome back!! It’s so nice to see you (:
Wow I’d forgotten about this tea. Reminds me of the old days of Steepster!

ashmanra

This is probably my all time favorite daily drinker!

tea-sipper

Welcome back!

Flyawaybirdie

Thanks for all the welcome! :) Hopefully I can be more active. I missed the community.
This tea definitely needs to be talked about more often, it’s fast becoming one of my daily drinkers too.

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drank Big Sur by Art of Tea
307 tasting notes

I was just reading a thread on the boards about how spammy and dead Steepster has been lately, and that just made me sad. Unfortunately I also find myself drifting away from Steepster because I don’t make the time and I simply am hardly on my personal laptop anymore. Maybe once a week or so, but I generally check my internet stuff on my phone and Steepster is not phone friendly. I do drop by occasionally with a tasting note, but I’m never on the boards anymore.

Anyways, another reason I don’t always post reviews on tea anymore is because I’m too lazy to input it into the database if there’s no previous listing for it? If no one else is drinking it, does anyone care what I have to say about it? Shrug. This is a new listing.

I came across this tea actually months ago, in a little milk tea shop when visiting my friend in a town three hours away. They also carried some loose teas and the owner was kind enough to let me sniff the teas because I wasn’t so familiar with the blend. The company is california based and that intrigued me. This was the tea that caught me attention. He agreed to brew it for me iced, and oh boy, it became a minor obsession for me to obtain some. I can’t even describe how I remember it tasting now because it was so long ago. But the flavors overall lent to a great cup.

This tea is pretty expensive for me. A 4oz zip pouch is $23, which is about 5.75/oz. That may not sound too expensive, alot of teas go for around 4/oz, but that plus shipping for just the one tea I wanted from the company, it was alot. Especially because when I first stalked this tea, only the 16oz bag was available, which is alot to buy when you’ve only tasted the tea once. Nevertheless, it became one of those background tabs in my internet browser that I checked every once in awhile.

I finally gave in a got some a month or so ago and got a bag, and I’m still kind of tinkering with the brewing specifications. My habit is still to brew a large thermos to go for work, so I brew alot of tea at once, all usually off the same leaves. This batch was 2.5 tsp, 16oz water, three steeps into a large thermos.

The Vanilla came out STRONG, and the mint is nice while it’s warm but enhances cold when iced. I think I let it sit too long because the black tea was stronger than my preference, or maybe just I overleafed it. I think I’m looking for something like a creamy mint black, but I need to figure out how to brew it just right.

mtchyg

Thanks for the detailed review! I get so frustrated when I over leaf/steep my teas. Usually I have it down by eyeing it but occasionally I go to drink what I made and it’s god awful bitter

tea-sipper

That’s another interesting point, I don’t think was mentioned in the thread, if Steepster isn’t phone friendly, it might be a problem for people. I only use Steepster on my laptop. I wonder if it’s just us laptop users who are sticking around?

ashmanra

Ipad user here. Wouldn’t even try it on my phone with my eyesight!

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41

My coworker gave this to me, because he hopes to cure my insomnia with tea? lol
I’m a bit surprised that this doesn’t contain valerian, I feel like last time I tried a sleepy tea from this company (way back in college), it did contain valerian, so I was super careful with it.
The wrapper is a plastic lined paper envelope, ugh.
The dry leaf is more minty smelling, and less chamomile than the sleepy time tea by celestial seasonings. See Kevin, I do drink sleepy teas…
The steep time is 10-15 min, and then SQUEEZE the teabag. :/
Maybe I’ll update this tomorrow with how I slept, maybe I won’t.
I shall keep this away from my cat, because of the catnip. What is passionflower herb?

NCCIH says that passionflower was historically used as a mild sedative, and may cause doziness. There was some small studies to see if its sedative properties could help with anxiety, but it was ruled that the studies were too small to conclude anything.
Hop strobile is maybe the stamen of the hops flower? The same hops as is used to brew beer (I actually hate the flavor of hops, it’s too bitter for me, I prefer malty beer). Hops may be a mild sedative, help with anxiety and used by people with sleep disorders. Maybe I should learn to like IPA.
Linden flower tea is sometimes used for calming effects in infants. I’m just googling these ingredients randomly at this point. I can tell you that I am not an infant and I probably need a stronger dose than an infant.

It’s interesting how they list how many mg of each herb is in the teabag. The leaf is coarsely ground. It’s hard for me to want teabags after years of loose leaf. By the way, if you haven’t tried Adagio’s Cha Cha yet, it’s like a mintier sleepytime (CS), but it’s loose leaf and you can see all the pretty flowers and such.

Maybe I should have saved this sample for a night where I’m still staring at the ceiling at 3am, not when I’m just waiting around at 11pm, but 11pm is such a more reasonable bedtime.

It doesn’t really taste like much, despite the long brew time. I just left the bag in there, it can keep steeping, I don’t think it’ll oversteep. I can smell the orange oil a little bit, and it’s got a very mild back of the throat mint feeling. Like you walk past a garden and you catch a hint of mint on the breeze, that’s how mild this is.
Oops, this says to have 2-3 cups late in the day, including at least one 30 mins before bed.
But can you even resteep? Or do they mean for us to use 2-3 teabags per evening? I’m not down for that. Too much waste, but also I only have the one sample.

Eh and now it’s past midnight and bleh. Doesn’t feel that different?

Preparation
Boiling 8 min or more 8 OZ / 236 ML
derk

A variety of this tea that does contain valerian exists somewhere out there.

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Bio

I get easily excited and tend to get into the habit of collecting things I get really really excited about- books, fountain pens, fragrance, tea and any number of things. Mostly I’m just really excitable.

My favorites are oolongs! Also high for me are greens and ripe pu’erh. But I do like most teas and I’ll try most anything at least once. I just don’t like rooibos, smokey, or banana flavored things.

My name is Christina, but there’s also another Christina with a cat as a profile picture, so I go by Flyawaybirdie.

Feel free to drop me a message anytime. I love messages/letters/etc.

NOTE!: My cupboard is not up to date. Not even close. But it does have a bunch of teas I have pretty substantial quantities of, so I put them in there anyways because I’m unlikely to run out soon. Also, if I wrote a note on it and didn’t include a TTB name or a sipdown note, I’m likely to still have some even if it’s not in my cupboard, so feel free to ask if you want to swap!

Steepsterite since 2014. :D

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California, USA

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