6106 Tasting Notes
The first tea I’m trying from Verdant’s June Tea Box.
This is an oolong unlike any I’ve tasted before; I’m of mixed feelings about it. In the aroma, it appears like a roasted oolong, minerally and toasty. Nothing overly unique there. The flavour begins like a roasted oolong (medium), and has a certain creaminess to it, but the finish is very different. I can’t pinpoint what it is – ‘chlorine’ is the closest I can come to a descriptor, but it’s really not that at all… my vocabulary is really escaping me. It’s this odd finish that throws me – it’s not bad, but I’m not sure I like it.
I’ll try a second infusion today and see what comes of it.
I used an entire 5g sample in a 10oz mug, brewed Western-style with just below boiling water. Didn’t time it but brewed for probably 2, maybe 3 minutes (it was strong, for sure).
I haven’t ever had a tea smell so incredibly accurately like maple! Never ever! Thankfully, I’m also not disappointed in the flavour; this is the most mapley tea I have ever had, by far. Actually – it both tastes and smells like maple walnut fudge (minus the intense sweetness in the flavour, those this is definitely a sweeter tea). I’m also really enjoying the nuttiness here; I can almost taste the walnuts (yes, I know it’s supposed to be almonds, but this tastes nothing like almond to me. Which is ok, because most “almond flavouring” tastes like marzipan anyhow, which would have ruined this tea for me.
You are making it harder and harder to resist a 52 Teas order with all these tasty sounding reviews today
VariaTEA if you think about it make sure you talk to me lol
FWIW I had another $40 cart made up already, hahahahahaha.
52 Teas group order? :P
I’m not a huge maple tea fan but you make this sound so good
These reviews are making it difficult for me too haha.
I tried the teas I was most interested in first! And all but one were pretty darn good :) If anyone wants to make a group order, I have up to $45.50 worth of stuff in a cart, haha.
Also Indigobloom – I haven’t had a maple tea I’ve actually liked before. The closest I’ve ever had was a Butiki tea that I’m distractedly not remembering the name of.
lol kittenna…of COURSE you did
(my cart was about 48….but i REALLY shouldn’t buy anything….)
I may have purchased maple butter recently, in part because of this review! :P
I miss Butiki
I think I was expecting more of a creamsicle flavour with this tea, which it isn’t quite, but it’s still pretty tasty. The tangerine is prominent and reminds me a lot of tangerine pu’erh, without the pu’erh flavour (obviously). And I can actually imagine that the creaminess I can taste is marshmallow fluff. The black base also works well here (solid, not astringent at all). This won’t be a favourite tea for me (orange citrus just isn’t a flavour I tend to go for), but it’s pretty accurate for what it’s supposed to be!
I admit… I’m not a Prince fan and really only wanted this tea because it sounded really tasty. :D
Before steeping, I did try a candied violet straight – it was interesting, for sure, but as I’m not a person who likes to eat flowers, it wasn’t amazing for me. I did make sure there was also one in my infuser, as I felt that the tea would not taste as intended without one.
Anyways, the tea – I’m just drinking the second (or third) infusion now, and unfortunately, the flavour is enough different from the first cup that I’m not sure I can adequately write about it. The first cup was sweet (from the sugared violet), had a nice base, and was creamy from the vanilla bean – I believe there was some apricot, but maybe not as much as I would have liked. I recall liking it, though I am not liking this infusion quite so much.
Looks like I will have to write more details in the future! Generally, though, I found this tea enjoyable.
Another tea nobody has reviewed! (Or I’m bad at searching, hard to say.)
I love lime, and cookies, and oolong… how could this tea go wrong? That’s right, it can’t, and didn’t. First off – the base of this tea is AMAZING. It’s a fruity, somewhat floral, creamy oolong, and tastes fresh and high quality. I can taste the base tea despite the strong (delicious) ingredients, and that’s a wonderful thing. It reminds me of Butiki(!!)
The citrus is not your run-of-the-mill lemon balm/citron oolong sort, and instead is clearly limey (there are actual lime pieces! I just ate a steeped one and it was sour and limey!!!) It’s worth noting that it doesn’t taste like typical “lime flavouring” either, and is not overpowering. The citrus comes out best in earlier infusions (I’m on #3 I believe, and it’s only lightly citrus-flavoured now).
Cookie-wise, I’m not so sure… but the tea is creamy and luscious, and that’s good enough for me.
Also, I forgot about the edible vegan glitter. I didn’t shake the package before measuring out tea (ok, I poured it out, I think someone stole my work teaspoon), and definitely didn’t even look in the first infusion to see if there was glitter. Next time.
To sum things up, this was a really tasty creamy lime-citrus oolong tea. I wish I had more; maybe it will come back in the future.
mmm sounds good
It might be too oolongy for you, because it is a green oolong and the oolong flavour is noticeable. Hard to say, though, I was never able to actually pinpoint the flavour you disliked.
haha no worries..you’re making me build shopping carts though… hoping i can resist…stupid dollar.
The glitter is very hard to see – I bought two containers of glitter, one for this tea and one for the Sparkle Pony and after I sprinkled it over the tea, I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t see it very well even though I had the entire batch of tea right in front of me and I had sprinkled the glitter on top of it. But since it IS in there, I needed to mention that it is in there because if someone comes across a glittery flake I didn’t want people to think it wasn’t part of the blend and that somehow unintended glitter ended up in the tea. I won’t be adding glitter to future blends. It’s pretty in the jar but not real evident in the tea.
Teas not being in the database is definitely a deterrent to posting about them.
Anyways, Sparkle Pony tea! A freebie from 52teas with my latest order, to celebrate…. something. I’m not sure. This tea has pluots in it, crystalized ginger, ginger root… so basically a plum/apricot/ginger tea.
It definitely delivers! Wonderful fruitiness, paired with a perfect fruity oolong base, and lots of ginger (but not so much to impart any off-flavours). I really enjoy both plum and apricot in tea; pluots seem to lean a bit more towards the apricot flavour (I ate a piece of one. Mmmm.)
ETA: the ginger and pluot chunks were really tasty… shifty eyes
I will definitely have to start adding the teas to the database then. I didn’t even think about that, so I thank you for mentioning it.
PS: The Sparkle Pony celebrates our anniversary. On June 1st, we celebrated our 1st year of taking over 52Teas.
I was just grumbling for the sake of grumbling! And was surprised that teas were missing, that I assumed other people may have already written about!
Also – I thought it was the 1 -year anniversary, but couldn’t remember for sure and given that I’m writing this at work, didn’t feel like taking the time to locate the actual description. Sooo lazy.
I understand (grumbling for the sake of grumbling) – but adding the teas to the database isn’t really something I had thought about and I’m sort of beating myself up for not having done so earlier. I will definitely need to start doing that, make a mental note for myself to add the tea of the week when I post the tea of the week to the forum – because I definitely want to read the tasting notes – good and bad. They are very helpful and I treasure the input from the customers. Thank you!
Aw, but I think it’s fun when I get to add teas to the database. haha :D
