Kittenna

My sincerest apologies – I’m going to be a bit of a tealogging machine in the next few minutes, because I haven’t logged any teas all day yet have been drinking them and playing board games/chatting with Sil, Indigobloom, and Raritea all day! And Steepster wasn’t behaving on my phone.

Anyhow, started off the day with an absolutely fabulous travel mug of this one. Probably one of the best cups I’ve brewed of it yet! Currently enjoying a re-steep as well, since these leaves have a lot left in them!

Sipdown of the last of this one from Alphakitty. It’s certainly not as potent as what we got in the 12 Days of Christmas, but when the water hit the tea, up wafted the most delicious, sweet spun sugar aroma. Worth it just for that, haha.

And actually… I overleafed a little here, and I’m actually really enjoying it. This is definitely a blend much better consumed either lukewarm or cold, for the flavour to come out, and I do think Frank did a pretty good job of it!

Ooh, a tea that I haven’t yet tried! Also courtesy of Alphakitty, thanks! Also, oof, did I mention that I’m trying to hit 1200 tasting notes by the time my 1-year Steepster-versary rolls around, which is on Jan. 29? I have 37 to go….. yikes! I thought I had until the 31st, which would totally be more doable…. so hopefully I drink a crapton of tea tomorrow with Sil, Raritea, and Indigobloom!

So I really had no idea what osmanthus was, but when I sniffed this tea, it smelled sort of peachy. Since I was expecting floral, I assumed contamination… until I just read the tea description that mentions notes of peach! Awesome! Much more stoked to try this now, haha.

Strangely, the flavour reminds me quite a lot of 52teas’ Virgin Fuzzy Navel green… well, strangely until it occurs to me that Fuzzy Navel is orange/peach, not just citrus. (And then I read Alphakitty’s note which also mentions citrus…. go go tastebuds!!) So yes, the primary initial flavour is peachy/citrusy, which is tasty, and once those fruity flavours fade, I’m left with a really nice caramelly flavour, which I totally wasn’t expecting! I assume that it’s from the green tea.

So I’ll admit that this is another tea I wasn’t super stoked to try, but I’ve been proven wrong again. This, is tasty! And the sencha base is pretty good. So, I’m glad you sent me a sample of this one, Alphakitty!! And for those of you missing Virgin Fuzzy Navel, I’d suggest you give this one a shot. Perhaps it isn’t as strongly flavoured, but it’s hitting the same flavour combination for me!

Sipdown! Another sample from Alphakitty (Yeah, that’s right, look at me sipping things down! Woooooo!)

Partial cup of this one as well, because I didn’t leave quite enough for a full cup. No astringency, but I can taste hazelnut and chocolate, and it’s reasonably tasty. A little bit lacking in flavour, but still decent. I think I mentioned previously that this would be the most likely one for me to pick up (of Boston/Florence/Paris), but I probably wouldn’t again, as there are simply too many other desserty teas I enjoy more.

Deeeelicious. I didn’t have enough left of this one for a full cup, so I made half and do think that it has perhaps lost a touch of flavour… but it still tastes deliciously like a Bounty Bar. Eventually, I will acquire more of this one… Either way, SIPDOWN!

Thanks Alphakitty!

Ok…. in conclusion, I suck at brewing this tea. 172F for 20 (or was it 30?) seconds, and I’m literally getting tasteless water. There’s a hint… juuuuust a hint, of tastiness, but even with the fairly weak houji-genmaicha that I just drank, it’s too weak. Bleh. I think I have yet another cup’s worth of leaf left, but I’m about to give up. I’m sure that age is affecting this tea (although I see that JC logged this tea a month ago and clearly thought it was still ok).

ARGGGGHHHHHH!

ETA: Ok, half the water, 1-minute infusion at 175F for the second infusion. Best flavour yet, but it’s flirting with being too astringent. Oh! But there’s finally a nice aftertaste! Not enough for me though, unfortunately. I just don’t think this tea is for me (and it’s seemingly impossible to brew, haha, perhaps someone can offer a suggestion?)

So, tonight I brought out my box of samples from Alphakitty and hung my head in shame that I have ridiculous amounts of so many of them left. Here I was wanting to make a Harney order, and I have at least 3-4 cups’ worth left of both Tokyo and Bangkok, plus 1-2 cups of Paris and Boston. SoHo blend is now gone (note forthcoming), but… still! Bad me. I should at least finish what I have before I get more.

Anyhow, apparently last time I tried this, the tea:water ratio, even with a 1 minute infusion, was too weak for me. Tonight, in spite of just having drank a wicked cup of Mayan Chocolate Chai…. my 30-second infused cup is quite tasty! Toasted and like genmaicha, but definitely sweeter and lacking any “green-ness”. It’s more like… just the rice, with a base that’s less apparent than the usual green genmaicha base. I should try a higher leaf:water ratio just for curiousity (this is super smooth, so I think there wouldn’t be any negative effects), but I’m happy how it is tonight.

Thanks Alphakitty! I’ve decided to tackle one swap box every week or so, and make as much progress in the evenings with it as possible. I have been neglecting my samples lately, and am worried that they’re all going to get contaminated! (My samples from tea companies are of course better packaged, so less chance of contamination).

ETA: Oops, neglected this one during its second infusion…. but I am pleased to report that a 2-minute second infusion in boiling water (about 1/3 of the original volume) results in a pretty darn delicious (small) cup! No astringency, just toasty sweetness. It reminds me an awful lot of puffed wheat, like in puffed wheat squares…. I like to eat that stuff by the handful, haha. Delish!

Brewed this up alongside the Dragonwell-Style Laoshan Green that I also had to look at the differences. While the Laoshan Green definitely had the beany Laoshan Green flavour, this one was more subtle and was definitely less vegetal. Of course, the same thing happened with this cup as with the Dragonwell – I drank half, and it was then forgotten and therefore had to be chucked. Luckily I also still have some of this one left!

With apprehension, I had to try my 2011 Autumn version of this one again…. after the disappointment of my Laoshan Green having lost a good deal of flavour, I wanted to see if this one was also ruined. Thankfully, although it is perhaps lacking in flavour a little, it still tasted pretty darn good! Unfortunately, I only got through half a cup before I forgot about it, and green teas do NOT sit overnight well, either in an infuser or in a mug. So that’s all I got (but I still have more tea, yay!)

Ok, shame on me for not reading my previous review before trying this again. I went with the usual amount of leaf (1.5tsp) for 8 oz. water and gave it a 1 minute infusion at 180F…. definitely too much. Astringent and not very pleasant. Gotta try a 15-30s first infusion next time. This will work for me before it’s all gone!!!

Whoops! I have not been very good about logging teas lately! This is a backlog from Wednesday (actually… I think all four teas I missed are from Wednesday…. I guess the boy is a bit of a distraction!)

Anyhow, made myself a giant mug of this to nearly finish it off in anticipation of the next 0.5 ounce headed my way shortly! I haven’t sipped down too many Butiki teas (Gui Fei and Strawberry Oolong are it, I think), but this one will be added to the list shortly! (Of course, I’ve restocked all three of those, so net progress is still zero, hahaha).

Uh, and as usual, this was delicious, as was the resteep. I lost track of what happened to the leaves after that, but usually I only do 2 or 3 anyhow.

Another travel mug favourite nearly gone! 1 mug’s worth left (plus I think I still have a cup’s worth in my 12 Days of Tea). I’ll be sad to see this one go :(

Inching ever closer to a sipdown of this one. So sad. The caramel in here is so decadent. Probably 1-2 travel mugs’ worth left, plus a cup for Sil.

Mmmmmmm, super spicy tonight! Love it!

Uh…. so I received my (restock) order of Laoshan Black earlier this week, and was thrilled to brew some up for today’s travel mugs. Not particularly noteworthy… except that I just took a sip, and got the most intense sweetness I’ve EVER had from a straight tea! Like, straight-up sugar. So sweet that I actually did a double-take, of sorts (AKA a second sip), with the same result. Sure, I’m tasting malty, chocolatey Laoshan Black, but never ever before has it tasted so incredibly sweet! It’s not a bad sort of sweet either; doesn’t even taste like I added sugar, the sweetness tastes natural. But it is crazy.

I’m wondering if it’s because I brushed my teeth over half an hour ago… but my mouth doesn’t taste “minty fresh” anymore, and usually toothpaste makes sweet things taste unsweet, instead of the other way around. I will have to see whether this sweetness is maintained over the afternoon, or whether it was merely a function of my tastebuds (in which case I am totally brushing my teeth before drinking this tea again, hahahaha).

ETA: It wasn’t as sweet when I finished the mug later, but a re-steep later in the evening ended up producing similar sweet results. I wonder if this is a harvest difference, and there are just more honey notes this time around. Delicious!

I am so disappointed. This one did not work well in a travel mug for me (or I screwed it up). I thought this delicious earthy caramel tea would be fabulous, but I tasted mostly a sweet, somewhat caramelly but fishy flavour. It certainly wasn’t terrible; I finished it before I finished my mug of Della Tera’s Eight Candles. I wonder if this tea needs to “air out” after being brewed, or something?

Ok, I oversteeped this one a bit yesterday (note to self: just go for four minutes), but it was still the first travel mug I finished drinking of the three, by a good solid few hours. There was just a bit of bitterness. There’s something about pumpkin spice teas in travel mugs that just makes me happy, so I’m glad I grabbed another 2 oz. of this one.

Well, it looks like I’m just going to be a dissenter on this tea. I had it in my travel mug yesterday, and while it was ok, there was something off that I didn’t enjoy. It’s light on flavour, to begin with, and I can definitely taste marshmallow, but that’s about it. I’m wondering if I’m wanting a stronger black base here to kind of offset the marshmallow/caramel sweetness, because usually I like a sweet black.

I think I have enough left for a cup or two… perhaps Raritea or Indigobloom would be interesting in sampling it (if I remember to bring it along this weekend), because I really have no desire to finish it off.

Thanks to LiberTeas for a sample of this one, that apparently has been sitting in my box for quite a while!

I think this tea may be suffering a bit from old age; I can both smell and taste some delicious real grapefruit flavour, with a brothy green base, but the flavour isn’t terribly strong. It may also be that my expectation was for something more along the lines of Butiki’s Grapefruit Dragon, which literally tasted like unsweetened grapefruit juice.

Either way, this isn’t bad; I’d try using more than 1.5 tsp leaf next time to see if I can amp up the flavour a bit. There wasn’t any astringency, so I think I’d be ok with an extra half teaspoon.

I’m pretty sure some of this is soon en route to me as part of Lupicia’s Happy Bag sale… (so I’m hoping I can figure out how to improve its flavour a bit!)

Decided to use a whole 5g package of this one instead of leaving remnants… so since I didn’t want a huuuuge mug of tea, I opted to go for gongfu-style brewing, which I don’t often do. I used about 10 oz. water with my 5g of tea, so definitely a higher water:leaf ratio, but I didn’t want an accidentally overly bitter brew!

First infusion (15 seconds):
The aroma I’m getting is quite burny, at first. Not smoky, just… burny. The good sort though! As the cup cooled, the burned aroma turned a little bit chocolatey, and that’s how this cup tastes. Predominantly of… burnt chocolate! Keep in mind that this is not a bad thing at all… it’s pretty tasty, in fact!

Second infusion (10 seconds):
Less “burny”, more dark chocolate. Pretty good, although perhaps 15 seconds would have been ok after all (I now err on the side of caution with the second infusion; I’ve noticed that if I increase infusion time on the second infusion, I usually end up with something unpleasant and bitter, because the first infusion of course included the time to hydrate the leaves. I imagine that if I rinsed my teas, I wouldn’t have this “issue”, but I don’t want to waste any tea goodness!) Anyhow, in addition to this slightly modified flavor profile, there’s a nice sweet finish at the end of the cup now that I hadn’t previously noticed. Granted, I also just finished this off cold, so perhaps it’s an artifact of the tea having cooled.

Well… I think this is better than the first time I had it, but I’m still not a big fan. It’s quite cloudy, and tastes like a cinnamon, watery, somewhat chocolatey chai. Can’t really taste the coconut at all, though it’s probably just coming out as a bit of creaminess. So unfortunate; this blend sounds like it should be so tasty, but it’s really just a big flop.

Bumping the rating up a bit, because this is certainly not as terrible as the first time, but still not a tea I’d recommend to anyone.

Sipdown! I keep thinking that I didn’t like this tea, and then being surprised that it’s tasty. Happened again tonight, haha. I think it’s Stormy Night, the other tea I’m having some of tonight, that I disliked. Or something else. Anyways, this is pretty tasty today. I’d call it something along the lines of Marshmallow Chai, as I still don’t taste “toasted” marshmallow, and there’s spicing in here. Along with an incredibly delicious amount of creaminess that must be from the marshmallows. Mmmmm. Not bad at all, though not something I need to keep around (well, had I fewer teas I probably would).

Anyways, farewell, another tea packet! My “sipped down” box is growing! (Yeah, I’m keeping all my used up packets so I can see that I’ve actually made progress, hahahaha.)

The aroma is fairly non-descript and sweet. I think I may have oversteeped this one a bit as there’s a bit of bitterness, but aside from that, it’s reasonably tasty. Sweet, light strawberries. I can just barely pick out the white tea in here.

Overall, not bad, but I think I prefer DT’s Strawberry White. More white tea flavor, less sweet (not a fan of pre-sweetened teas, generally, and I gotta think that there’s sugar in here).

Second infusion: Hmm, I think I may actually prefer this infusion. I’m getting more of a caramelly flavor, with lighter strawberry and less sweetness. Not bad! Leaves had little aroma after this though, so into the compost they went.

Mmm, tasty. I didn’t know what tea I wanted tonight (yet again, I’m mad at myself for sleeping the ENTIRE day instead of going to work…. something must be wrong with me :( ) but I pulled out the box of Teaopia teas I still had and figured I’d try to make a bit of progress on them.

I still think this is a fabulous herbal, and one I’d definitely recommend to moderate ginger lovers. No hibiscus, sweetness that’s not artificial…. pretty good!