14 Tasting Notes

100

My room mate ordered this tea to try a flowered tea for the first time, and damn were we impressed. Full body of a black tea, with the sweet touch of rose. Definitely a good sweet tea to have around the house for when your sweet tooth is calling your name!

Preparation
Boiling 1 min, 0 sec

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100

So this was my guinea pig tea for Gongfu brewing. I recently bought a Gaiwan from Teavivre (go check out their teapots and gaiwans, they’re truly works of art) and bought a white tea to go with it– this white tea!

After I finally got the temperatures and steep times down, this tea really blossomed into a wonderful beverage. The color is golden, the flavor is perfectly white, and the aroma is heavenly! This is definitely going to be a tea I keep around for a while, because it’s the perfect tea for a quiet, relaxing night around the house :D

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 1 min, 0 sec

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99

I recently went off to college for my freshman year, and I could only take one of my yixing pots and its associated tea. Naturally, I went with this divine black tea! It’s taste is so unique and its flavor fits with every mood (I put in a ginger sugar with it if I’m feeling for something sweet).

I’ve come a long way from my novice tea days: I started out at Teavana (their actual tea POTS are awesome and beautiful, they should just stay away from selling tea LEAVES), then I ended up at adagio (to which I was informed is also a low quality tea store), then I ended up where I am at the wonderful world of Teavivre. Every tea I’ve gotten from them (their Iron Goddess, White Peony, Tian Mu Mao Feng) is just 100% quality. They even give you all of the certificates to prove that they are all organic and not from factory farms.

This tea is amazing, and Teavivre is my number one place to go when it comes to buying tea :)

Almost forgot my preparation method haha:

First steep I give it 1.5 minutes
Second steep I give it 2 minutes
Third steep I give it between 2.5 and 3 minutes
I haven’t tried squeezing out a fourth steep, but I feel like it could definitely give one more.

Buy this tea if you want a quality black tea!

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 1 min, 30 sec

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91

This tea is fantastic! It finally came in the mail last night and I put it right into a teapot as fast as I could because I’ve been waiting a week for it to arrive :D

What’s funny about this tea is that it’s $18 for 3.5oz, and it tastes exactly the same as Teavana’s Gyokuro which is $20 for 2oz. Even better? It lasts for 3 steepings and it doesn’t have a bitter aftertaste! The only thing is that I have finally come to the realization that I’m more of an oolong guy than a green guy (greens aren’t strong enough for me, and blacks are too strong haha) so this isn’t going to stay in my cabinet after I finish it unfortunately. But if you are a fan of green teas, then this is perfect for you!

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 1 min, 0 sec

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(I meant to write this back in march)

I ended up not being able to finish this tea, which is a bummer because it’s kinda expensive. A problem I found with this tea is that the first steeping is absolutely heavenly, but everything after that tastes really bad. It’s not bitter, just.. bleh. I’m not adding a rating to this review because it’s most likely something I’m doing wrong on my part that’s making this happen. I just wanted to write this in here so people know that it’s possible for every steep after the first one to taste really bad!

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 0 min, 45 sec

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92
drank Cha Cha by Adagio Teas
14 tasting notes

Mix this with 4 slices of ginger root, then steep for 6 minutes and you will have one of the most deliciously spiced and minted herbal teas in your life.

That is all.

Preparation
Boiling 6 min, 0 sec

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88
drank Yunnan Jig by Adagio Teas
14 tasting notes

This is my first black tea I’ve ever tried (lipton tea bags don’t count :P) and as someone who has only drunken (drank?) whites and greens, I have to say that this is a really damn good introduction into black tea. Right when I opened the bag I knew that this was going to be a completely different tea experience for me.

The smell was earthy and it definitely smelled like I would expect a black tea to smell. The leaves were hard, thin, and wiry which was a lot different from the soft and green leaves of.. well.. green tea. Two teaspoons didn’t look like two teaspoons because of the different way it takes up space, but I just shrugged and put it in anyway.

The liquor is a deep red/brown and it smells just like its leaves. When I finally got around to drinking the tea, it was as if the tea gods slapped me across the face and said “welcome to the world of black tea.”

It’s not as strong as I thought it would be (this means nothing coming from someone with no black tea background) but it is still delicious. The best part is the fact that this heavenly and delicious tea is only $9 per 3 ounces. You can’t say no to that!

I just have to find out what this goes well with, I’m guessing cinnamon, the taste of this tea almost begs for cinammon.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 30 sec

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So, Teavana has this tea called Caribbean Calypso which tastes exactly the same as this tea (except it’s half the price as this one). I’m not kidding, I have both of them, drank them back to back and there are very subtle differences. The problem comes from the Lemongrass. Yes, the Lemongrass, is what Teavana piles on top of weak teas in order to make them seem.. well.. less weak. And the con of that method shows in the fact that two of their teas taste almost completely identical. I’d love this specific tea if I wasn’t aware that I could get it in the same store for half the price.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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Music composition major in a New Hampshire college, with instrumental major on the contrabass.

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