New Tasting Notes

I was planning to work on some of my sipdowns today, but I decided at the last minute to have a favorite instead. It didn’t quite meet my expectations today, but I enjoyed it.

I prefer to drink this during fall/winter, but it just sounded so good this morning. This is quite a few years old, but still tastes amazing.

A yesterday tea; two steeps; morning and afternoon. All 5 or so grams, steeped western.

If there is something I learned on the festival, it is that white teas are great teas for hot and humid days. Yesterday wasn’t humid, but hot — well, it was warm.

I was quite distracted both steeps, as in the morning we were preparing for family gathering; in the afternoon the gathering was in the place.

But, if there are some flavours I have noticed (not in order):
Hay
Melon
Stonefruits
Herbacous
Sweet
Sap
Oats

Yes, this tea was mellow and delicious, smooth and refreshing. Sadly, it’s gone. Thanks Leafhopper!

Grabbed a single bag from the TTB, and it was just what I needed this morning. Smooth and very, very vanilla-y, straddling the line between artificial vanilla and something a little purer.

July Sipdown Prompt – an apple tea

I love this tea. It is a fall limited edition tea and I want to be sure to restock it this fall. I have this when I feel like I really need a treat.

The base is hefty enough for breakfast but not so strong as to need milk and sugar. I have never tried with additions because I love it plain. The apple is light and fresh, not too strong and not overshadowing the base.

We escaped for as long as we could here, but it’s all over. It was 106 Saturday, and 109 Sunday, and at least 101 today.
It’s the least enjoyable time of the year, where I drink my morning tea sweating and then spend the rest of the day miserable hoping that things will cool down again.
Sigh. Welcome to summer.

This smelled really strongly of almond extract when I opened the bag. The marzipan-type flavor comes through pretty strongly in the tea and goes well with the rooibos base. I enjoyed this both warm and cold. It tastes really pleasantly spiced with a sweet almond and a tasty rooibos base. The resteep was worthwhile as well. There are cheaper places to get similar blends though.

Sipdown for ashmanra’s sipdown challenge: tea with more than 5 ingredients. I picked this up YEARS ago at a tea festival – I don’t think the company even exists anymore. From a purely flavor perspective, this is not my favorite version of this type of blend, and that’s mostly because the pepper note is really prominent. That’s a big part of why I don’t love DavidsTea’s Super Ginger either. I like pepper in food, but a little goes a long way in a tea blend and I find that it’s easy to overdo it. Besides the pepper, I can taste lemongrass and ginger. Nothing else really comes through. Maybe that’s due to age, maybe it’s due to the blending ratios, I don’t know. I’ve been drinking this down over the past few weeks but can’t for the life of me remember what it tasted like when I first got it.

This past week, I had 4 different 2020 Old Ways Tea Rou Gui over 4 days and this was by far the standout!

My notes are an absolute mess probably because I was more with the tea than concerned about writing legibly.

Complex sweet aromatics, soft in the mouth, blooming vaporous aftertaste. Cooling mineral sweetness.
Warming and drying. Slowed breathing.
Refined, ethereal, silky.
Malty suede.

2020 harvest

I don’t remember much about this. A lighter, fruitier Rou Gui.

Roswell Strange’s note has more to offer than my impressions which have slipped into oblivion.

Been at work for almost 96 hrs. This was a last-minute grab as I left home, and I cracked into it yesterday when I got sent to a different station and needed a liquid hug. I don’t know what it is about this maocha, but I like it. There’s a simple earthiness here that often manages to meet me where I am and makes me feel good.

Packed up to come back to my home station this morning and left the damn ziploc behind. I am quite sad about it, but know full well I’m not going to feel like going to retrieve it in the morning. It’s a shame no one will probably know what it is or enjoy it, lol. Easy come, easy go.

Sipdown! (9 | 206)

This tea sounds so good in theory – a white tea with almond, vanilla, and cardamom.

But it tastes… I don’t even know. I guess I get a bit of cardamom, but otherwise maybe wax? Nothing even approaching vanilla or almond, and the white tea has an unpleasant musty flavor to it. None of those pleasant haylike white tea notes.

I’m a bit baffled by this one. Is it because I had the sachets? I’m just not used to such a miss from Harney & Sons, and some of the other notes are very positive. O.o

Sipdown! (8 | 205)

Chose this one because the name appealed to me, as for some reason Savoy neglects to mention anything about the flavor profile in the tea’s description…

As I suspected, it’s a berry-flavored black tea. Forest fruits make sense for a tea called “enchanted forest”. It has a vague dark berry flavor to it, maybe blueberry with black currant? The flavoring is very mild, a bit too mild IMO. It has a syrupy quality to it, but doesn’t become cloying like the pomegranate black tea I had earlier today.

Would be a tasty tea, if only there were a bit more of the berry going on. As-is, it’s a generic and somewhat earthy/woody black base with a subtle note of dark berry. Serviceable, but nothing I would purchase again. I am thankful it doesn’t taste like chalk to me though.

Spring 2020 harvest.

Dark, damp earthy aroma mixed with a darker milk chocolate.

Malty and juicy, bitter flowers like lavender. Catches in the throat on the way down and leaves a sweet mineral finish. Salivary glands tingle – salty. Peach and orchid bloom from the throat while a vaguely minty and fruity wild blueberry persists in the mouth. Floral bittersweet and woody bite is ubiquitous from 4th steep on.

It was nice but… but what? Maybe the throat catch turned me off a little? Am I sad that the spice notes of the rinsed leaf don’t come through in taste?

April 2022 harvest

Chicken soup, sweet chestnuts and grassy. Viscous, round, bright and juicy. Good aroma, taste and texture. Not a delicate tea — it can handle 200F water just fine, creating a slightly different taste profile compared to the recommended 185F. More of a refreshing, brisk character prepared in a porcelain cup with steeper basket compared to a glass gaiwan.

This tea is over a year old and it is starting to get that dry grassy taste of aging Chinese greens but the overall flavor profile seems like a mix between regular green dragonwell and a yellow tea.

Interesting tea for sure and good but it never fully commanded my attention and appreciation. If this tea appears in Song Tea’s fresh harvest catalog next year, I might buy another bag to see how it tastes at peak freshness.

Sipdown! (7 | 204)

This one just seemed bland to me, no matter how I prepared it. Very thin and weak-tasting with a bit of apple and clove and a bit of tartness.

Tried the last of it cold-brewed, and I think it’s maybe a bit better, but still quite bland. It’s like a watered-down version of those hibiscusy mulled cider herbal tisanes that you often see around the holidays (from B&B, for example).

Meh!

Solid earl grey tea for me. I’m not the biggest fan of earl grey teas, but the roses got my attention. I like it, and ocassionally find myself craving this one. The bergamot and rose petals do a pretty good job of taming the harsher edges of the (fairly strong) black tea and make this a satisfying cup.