6106 Tasting Notes
Unsure who this sample is from (Sil, VariaTEA?) as it was in the bag of teas from Sil’s house. Decided to give it a shot tonight, and I think I may have oversteeped it or overleafed, as it’s pretty astringent. It does remind me of the purple spear tea (unicorn? I don’t remember what they were called) from… a company… although I’m not sure if I would have made that association if I didn’t know this was a purple tea. (My memory is super bad tonight, maybe I’ll fill in the details later if I remember.)
I’ll have to give it another try more carefully. Thanks for the sample, guys!
Very interesting tea – I found the combination of flavours intriguing, as each sip I was tasting something new. I didn’t write down specifically what I was tasting, but it was fruity and creamy and fairly tasty; the base was present but not overwhelming. Overall a pretty enjoyable cup.
Sad times – this tea smelled like AQ2T’s Peach Crostata (which I adore) initially, but the nilgiri base did not work for me at all. It was very astringent, and very dominant, completely overwhelming any delicious peachiness. It could have been a bit of user error if I oversteeped (possible, I haven’t been timing things for a while now), so I will have to give it a second shot, but I was definitely sad that it wasn’t as delicious as I was hoping.
Try with a slightly lower temperature too – since this is a very darjeeling-esque type of base, I find that 185 – 190 F works better with this tea than boiling water.
I’ll try that, thanks. I felt like it very well could have been something I did because it was sooo astringent.
So, although I like AQ2T’s cranberry flavouring, I’m finding it to be a very dominant flavour. So much so that I think it’s all I can really taste when it’s present. Granted, this tea is supposed to be just cranberries, with brown sugar (aka sweetness) and lemon (aka tartness), so perhaps I’m being a little judgmental. Either way, this tea is basically pure cranberry flavour, which makes it a little one-note for me.
Fallen slightly behind on logging, but I can do this! Haha.
Another one of my new teas tonight, and one I was pretty excited about, since I generally enjoy flavoured oolongs. This one’s pretty tasty, with a nice fruitiness (pineapple is the strongest; I’m not sure I really taste any strawberry) and a bit of oolong finish. It’s reminiscent of Lupicia’s fruity oolongs (of which I believe they may have all three of these flavours, separately?) I would have preferred a bit more oolong flavour here; I’m not sure if it’s the specific base tea used or perhaps I could have steeped it a little longer. Either way, it’s tasty and refreshing.
An interesting tea. The dry leaf smells pretty tasty – very nutty and sweet. Steeped up, it’s not as red as I’d have expected given that beet is an ingredient; the flavour is a nutty and a bit sweet, but the tea is quite drying. I noticed after steeping that I should have used slightly cooler water, so that might be my mistake, but it’s not as good as I remember the first cup being. It would probably take well to sweetener and milk, which I may try.
Although I can kind of taste the cacao and nuttiness (not specifically cashew), the beet definitely eludes me. But really, would I actually want a tea that tasted like beet? Probably not.
Yay, I have a sample coming!