Featured & New Tasting Notes

Sipdown (216)

This did not seem promising when I opened it and it lacked the actual gum balls that Necessiteas’ bubble gum tea had. It also smelled a bit off. I just did not think it would achieve the same bubble gum flavour I enjoyed in the Necessiteas blend.

Steeped this had the classic hibby redness and a whole lot of hibby flavour. Hibiscus and waxiness. I am not digging this all that much. Hopefully Roswell Strange can make the last serving of this work for her.

I got a box of this at Walmart for $2, not expecting too much. The flavor is very lightly strawberry. The hibiscus doesn’t take over. I use four bags for a pitcher of tea and drink it cold. It’s a bit weak and fake, but not bad.

Whoa, I just realized I had two pouches of Spiced Pumpkin and two pouches of Pumpkin Cheesecake and haven’t written tasting notes for either one!  sigh.  I don’t even know where the other Spiced Pumpkin might be and it is a rarity for me not to know the general area of a tea.  This is a well organized mess (at least in my head).  This pouch is from M Mack a while ago — thank you!   Using 1 1/2 teaspoons, this one is actually quite pleasant.  I wouldn’t say it is overtly pumpkin but major points to Davidstea for actually including pumpkin in a “spiced pumpkin” blend.  It seems obvious, but I swear 90% of pumpkin teas from any tea shop with PUMPKIN actually in the name doesn’t even contain actual pumpkin.  You’d think it would be easy and cheap to chop up big pumpkins and add them to teas.  I don’t know — I’m not a tea magician.  But there is a lovely pumpkin squashy vegetal flavor here, especially when it’s cooled.  A creamy quality along with the spiciness. Some interesting ingredients here like maple crystals and “whipped cream”.  What the heck?  I wonder how.  I like that the honeybush is the base.  All the ingredients here meld into deliciousness. I have to remember to use 1 1/2 teaspoons in the future… and definitely find that second pouch wherever it happens to be…

Been drinking through all my new 52 teas but haven’t had a chance to review any of them. Just wanted to make a note here that I really loved this one. I’m pretty picky about my chais so it was great to have this one and enjoy it.

Another tea that I think I added to my BYO Bird & Blend advent calendar that I had a chance to try a little bit early…

I didn’t realize this was more of a gingerbread profile than a caramel one, so that was a bit disappointing to me. I really was hoping for a stand out caramel tea; I’ve been hunting for one for what feels like years now and I never seem to land on something that really hits the mark. True to trend, this doesn’t really taste like salted caramel at all so it’s frustrating to me that it was made such a prominent part of the name/marketing. I get the tiniest baby hint of caramel in the finish so I think that it is there, as well as pleasant, but it does sort of feel like more of an after thought?

Now if we’re evaluating this tea as a gingerbread profile then it’s a lot more pleasant! It’s gingery but that sort of sweet and almost “reduced” feeling ginger that has depth and compliments the other cinnamon, molasses, and brown sugar type flavours going on. It’s got a bit of heat but is more warming than spicy, and I think it’s a nice level of sweetness as well. I do think the mouthfeel is a little thin, but as a gingerbread tea I enjoy this cuppa!

I wish I’d gone into this tea with the expectation of it being gingerbread – I think that would have really drastically changed my impression. I enjoyed the tea, but I really don’t know how I want to rate it since I feel like the name was deceptive for the profile. At least, when I get this in my advent, I’ll know what to expect from it!

The scent of this tea is definitely beets. It’s a bit unpleasant warm. I added a small amount of sugar to make it better. As it cools, I get used to the flavor and enjoy it decently well drinking it slowly throughout the day. It’s not one I’d want to have all the time, but it’s certainly unique! Much more of a beet flavor than the DavidsTEA version has. I’d call this one rather savory and warming and definitively beet.

This tea has been on my wishlist for years and I was finally able to find it during a trip to Paris. It looks like a CTC tea. I know what that looks like, but I’m not sure if it is attributed to the taste I’m noticing. I’ve had other CTC teas by Lupicia, the first being Sweet Potato, so some of the flavors in this remind me of that. That flavor is under a strong amount of bergamot and the chocolate is much more subtle. I have to concentrate to pick out the chocolate which almost seems more aromatic, like chocolate scratch and sniff stickers, but doesn’t have the depth that real chocolate has. I’m enjoying this tea, but I do wish it had more chocolate in it.

On another note…. I really need to start letting my tea cool more. I have noticed that I have been burning my lips and roof of my mouth by trying to enjoy my tea too quickly after steeping. Someday I’ll learn. Maybe.

These teakruthi teas have been impressing me with their subtley. I saw that the main ingredient other than black tea was cardamom, and I worried because I’ve had too many chais that are too cardamom-heavy. The flavor here is totally balanced between the cardamom and the black tea. I didn’t use milk because I was afraid that would overwhelm the flavors. This is an enjoyable, light chai.

Honestly, I can’t smell anything or taste much right now. It’s actually a great time to focus on the general impression of a puerh and the way it feels in my mouth and body rather than my default mode which is to get lost in tastes.

Despite my schnoz not working well, I am able to pick up on aged puerh smell and forest floor in the rinsed leaf along with yeasty and bready qualities. The liquor has an oily thickness to it that when combined with a general tartness and minerality gives the impression of a lighter-bodied tea. Seems like it might taste of tobacco. The initial infusions feel great going down my throat and leave a thin and cooling camphor coating. There is also a bit of throat drying early on along with slight bitterness that does grow stronger but it is complementary. A light returning sweetness presents, seems date-like but combines with the back of the tongue bitterness to give a bittersweet lingering. I do notice some roughness and numbing of the tongue.

The energy is notable for me in the regard that it gives me a general sense of well being and positivity and it makes me dance. I much prefer this feeling to heady teas since I’m always thinking anyway.

On that note:
Album pairing: Paul Simon - Graceland, found in my housemate’s record collection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGEz7fwcmlY&list=PLgD_2-Ds0_gpHnMOnyYpuVCdAJ_9Olkv&index=1

This is a solid aged sheng, one I could see keeping as a daily drinker.

Additional notes: Thanks again Meowster! Sipdown. This doesn’t taste like it did before, so I know my “boiling water for twenty minutes on the stove” method is probably not helping the flavor of my teas any. It’s just taking all the oxygen out with the chlorine. I’m trying to drink older teas for now no matter how much I’m dying to review the newer teas. But I’m definitely noticing when favorites are tasting flater. I really need to figure this water situation out soon.
2019 Sipdowns: 79

Okay, I’m finally back. This schedule is killing me. Anyway, this was my most recent sipdown. I had to spend more time with this tea than I planned because I was never able to convince myself that I had the best handle on it. Normally, Mi Lan Xiang does not throw me for a loop, but this one I struggled with immensely. I’m still not entirely confident about the numerical score I’m giving it.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 7 seconds. This infusion was chased by 16 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of honey, peach, orange blossom, sugarcane, and orchid. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of roasted almond and grass that were accompanied by subtler scents of geranium, spinach, and cannabis. The first infusion introduced stronger spinach and cannabis scents, though the spinach scent was the more dominant of the two. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of honey, peach, roasted almond, orange blossom, and orchid that were underscored by hints of pomegranate, butter, grass, cream, geranium, and cannabis. The subsequent infusions quickly coaxed out aromas of violet, pomegranate, cherry, plum, butter, and lychee as well as subtle scents of earth, wintergreen, and wood. Stronger and more immediate butter, cream, geranium, grass, and pomegranate impressions appeared in the mouth alongside new notes of minerals, sour cherry, wood, plum, lemon zest, violet, lychee, caramel, and nutmeg. I also detected hints of wintergreen, watermelon, spinach, and sweet potato. As the tea faded, the liquor settled around somewhat amplified spinach notes and impressions of minerals, butter, grass, caramel, and wood that were backed by hints of honey, violet, sugarcane, roasted almond, sweet potato, pomegranate, and lychee. Bizarrely, green bean and vanilla hints appeared just before the tea liquor ceased to yield much flavor.

There was a lot for me to unpack with this tea. It yielded the expected Mi Lan Xiang aromas and flavors in spades, and though I have not mentioned it prior to this point in the review, the tea liquor displayed nice body and texture in the mouth. Unfortunately, there were some odd, predominantly vegetal aromas and flavors that were also apparent to varying degrees from the get-go that never seemed to be fully integrated into the whole and came off as distracting in a number of places. Overall, I would say the good outweighed the bad with this tea, but in my opinion, it was still something of a flawed offering. I feel there is no shortage of better Mi Lan Xiang out there.

This is a fu made by a well-known Yi Qing Yuan factory. The golden flowers are clearly visible, which is while not essential is still visually pleasing.

This tea is not tightly compressed and can be broken off by hand easily. However, it does require some time to absorb the water and get going and its taste improves with subsequent steepings ( I had it Western), which you can get quite a few out of it.

The liquor is pale and the tea itself has a typical fu taste of a very light decay, metallic sourness, minerals, light berries, figs, tobacco and gentle melon-like sweetness. It produces a very long pleasantly sweet-and-sour aftertaste. The flavors are nicely balanced and complimentary. I enjoyed drinking this tea at different times and in different moods, i.e. the versatility is strong.

In summary, it is not a showy knock-out but a very reliable and solid performer for those of us who appreciate dark teas.

I think I bought this one when I was in Prague on exchange fair. Steeped for suggested, 8 minutes.

Dry tea bag was with really nice and interesting aroma. I think I mostly noticed the mint there, but for sure lemongrass, elderflower and lavender. Maybe little note of spiciness of ginger there too. When I added the water and making the brew, it turned out very herbal in aroma, with none of those distinctive notes. After brewing time, I notice room filled with lavender and lemongrass. It is bit reminding me Douglas fir tips tea from Juniper Ridge.

Slow down.

In taste? Well it’s herbal! Quite refreshing, but as well earthy. There is certainly lavender even in taste. But it is not that artificial one. It is real one, mellowing it a bit.

I wonder how bamboo leaf should taste like?
Song pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw-Tz255GFg with English translation here: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/variace-na-renesan%C4%8Dn%C3%AD-t%C3%A9ma-variation-renassaince-topic.html – unfortunately word-to-word.

Sipdown (718)!

Finished this one off as an eggnog latte! It was delicious, but mostly it was delicious because eggnog is delicious – the taste of the tea itself was pretty masked by the strong and custard-y eggnog, and really I think just a tiny bit of anise and some general warmth from the spices came through in the taste. So, basically I made a more spiced nog.

I’m kind of sad that my last cup of this didn’t really taste like root beer, but not sad that I got to have some tasty eggnog…

I’ve been super busy lately and haven’t had as much time as I’d like to do gongfu tea reviews, though I’ve had plenty of lazy gongfu sessions to sip down old teas. Western steeping seems to be a good compromise. Thanks to Teakruthi for the sample, and sorry for taking so long to get this review posted! I steeped around 4.5 g of leaf in a 355 ml mug at 190F for 4.5, 6, and 10 minutes.

Wow! These white tea leaves are huge! I’m a bit concerned that I didn’t get a proper balance between the white and black teas in the blend because the black tea collects at the bottom of the bag, but we’ll see. The first steep is a smooth combination of malt, honey, flowers, grass, and autumn leaf pile. There’s a lot of sweetness from the white tea and not much astringency from the black. The second steep is grassier, but still smooth and sweet; the flavour falls off in the third.

This tea lives up to its name and harmonizes the white and black teas nicely. I found it to be a pleasant evening cup and agree with Roswell Strange on the rating.

Sipdown (223)

Today has been a super chilly day. It’s cold outside and my class was also particularly cold. Now I am home and back to watching Disney+ and sipping on tea in my pajamas under a cozy blanket.

This tea isn’t my favourite. It is fruity and has a slight green tea twang to it. It’s held up well for its age seeing as even the best before date on this has long since passed but it’s nothing special or life altering.

God, it’s been forever! It seems that every time I try to get myself into some sort of routine when it comes to posting tea reviews, something always happens that causes me to fall even further behind. In this case, it has been a combination of an oppressive work schedule, health issues, and a general sour mood that has left me not exactly feeling like writing in my extremely limited spare time. I’m going to start playing catch-up again with this review, or so I hope. This was my first sipdown of the month and a tea I had been meaning to get to long before I actually managed to motivate myself to try it. My limited experience with winter Shui Xian and previous positive experiences with various Shui Xian offered by Old Ways Tea told me that this would be a quality offering, and it was. It ended up being neither my favorite winter Shui Xian nor one of my favorite offerings from Old Ways Tea, but it was still a very nice tea.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 5 grams of loose tea leaves in 3 ounces of 203 F water for 6 seconds. This infusion was followed by 16 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of baked bread, cinnamon, raisin, roasted almond, honey, blackberry, charcoal, and pine. After the rinse, I picked up new aromas of roasted peanut, smoke, earth, tar, and cannabis. The first infusion brought out a little rock sugar and orange zest on the nose. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of mushroom, cream, baked bread, roasted almond, roasted peanut, earth, tar, charcoal, and pine that were chased by hints of honey, cinnamon, blackberry, butter, smoke, and grass. The following infusions coaxed out aromas of rock sugar, malt, roasted walnut, grass, mushroom, cranberry, and pear alongside subtler scents of vanilla and red apple. Stronger and more immediately notable impressions of blackberry, butter, cinnamon, smoke, and grass appeared in the mouth alongside notes of minerals, black cherry, roasted walnut, orange zest, pear, red apple, pomegranate, cranberry, malt, and caramel notes. I also picked up some belatedly emerging cannabis hints and subtle notes of raisin, rock sugar, and vanilla. As the tea faded, the liquor settled and emphasized mineral, roasted almond, roasted peanut, roasted walnut, baked bread, caramel, butter, grass, blackberry, charcoal, and cinnamon notes that were underscored by hints of rock sugar, earth, mushroom, tar, smoke, vanilla, orange zest, black cherry, and pear.

This was a very complex and interesting tea. It was a little surprising to me that the characteristics of the roast (charcoal, pine, tar, smoke, etc.) came out so prominently and so strongly. Winter Shui Xian is generally not as heavily roasted as other Wuyi Shui Xian, and either this one was more heavily roasted than the average winter Shui Xian, or its roast somehow managed to retain a good deal of its strength and liveliness in storage. I have no clue which is the case. Anyway, this was a very good and very enjoyable Shui Xian, though it was a bit harsher and heavier than I have come to expect winter Shui Xian to be. I’m willing to bet that a few more months in storage would have mellowed it out a bit more.

Thanks so much for these teas, TreeGal!  It’s always a great opportunity to sample teas I otherwise probably wouldn’t try.  I had been meaning to drink this one soon for a few days and then felt a sore throat happening anyway.  Gee, what perfect timing for Achoo. sigh.  I was a little wary of this one… it looks like mostly lemongrass in my sample!  No matter how much I try to mix it in the pouch.  But the flavor is very good.  Lots of lemon and I don’t think it’s just the lemongrass that is making it taste like lemon.  More like a lemon donut than overly herbal.  And the licorice is helping my throat.  A pleasant blend and better than expected.  I wouldn’t mind having a blend with this mix of ingredients in stock in the cupboard. The second steep on the second night: sore throat gone.  I have an awesome immune system. :D
2019 Sipdowns: 77 (TeaRevv – Pumpkin Pie Chai)

Life is different! Disney Plus is out and my brother bought us a subscription and I have literally looked at the movie list for at least an hour because there were so many things I wanted to watch. It’s here and I. am. excited!!!

So now I am watching Disney movies and drinking this as a latte because in addition to Disney Plus, I also have milk again and that is also exciting.

This latte isn’t bad but it drowns out the maple flavor that I love so much in this blend. Alternatively, age has caused the maple flavor to fade but I am blaming the latte because that means there is hope for maple goodness in a plain cup.

So much snow and it makes me so happy. We have a long freakin driveway that needs to be shoveled but I’ll take it. I’ve missed snow as Toronto didn’t really get any where we were. Husband is home today so that’s a nice break too though it means he won’t be home on Thursday. But it means I can actually get some tea drinking in as I have someone to watch her for 5 mins if I want to boil water haha. Excited to get some new teams from 52 teas whenever my tea mule gets a chance to come and visit. But for now I can enjoy the ones I have in my cupboard like this one. Not my favourite 52 vanilla tea but it’s good.

Sample from last order at What-cha. Prepared western (4 grams), 4-5 minutes steep, boiling water.

It is decent black tea with quite strong astringency with baked bread aroma, bit caramel sweetness. As well heavy on malty side. I think I overbrewed it a bit, because all tastes are too strong and hard to recognize each one. It is decent but too strong.

Next time, more precise brewing please. No rating so far.

Sipdown (720)!

Finished this one off after having had it in my cupboard for quite a long period of time; it feels like an accomplishment to have finished it off but it probably shouldn’t given how long I had it and how small of an amount of tea that I had in the first place…

I brewed this up because another tea that I had recently reminded me of it/had be craving it but now I can’t remember what tea inspired my wanting to finish this one off. I’m kind of glad I did though – I think this was already on the cusp of not tasting super great anymore and this is probably as far as I could have pushed that. It has that sort of very thick caramelized sugar and toffee note – definitely accurate for a brulee flavour. The orange is more of an orange reduction; very heavy and sweet and sticky in the mouth. Conceptually it’s divine, but there’s just something really unpleasant about the cup too. I think it’s less the flavourings in the blend and probably more the case of the oolong itself just getting stale/flat over time. Or, alternatively, the oils in the little orange swirls getting going off…

Are there other companies out there right now with this sort of caramel/orange or bruleed orange profile? I quite like the idea of it and would love to try another company’s interpretation of it.

This tea is one of my oldest and while it shows it’s age, it’s not particularly bad. It’s a touch astringent for my tastes. Astringent and with a fruity flavour that is bordering on liquor from age. And some pastry notes. It’s alright.

It’s all good! Calm your nerves

Okay, I will try, my tea.

I have an exam tomorrow and now it is first time I am looking at it. If I fail, it is still okay. I usually fail first one. But in Thursday another one. Why?

Okay, no time to cry. Actually I feel I know it. But of course I am stressed a bit. Maybe more than I actually should. Steeped for 10 minutes, when dry I noticed mostly lavender and hops. As a beer lover certainly interesting to smell hops when drinking tea.

In taste it is very herbal like and lavender is on the top of taste followed with hoppy profile. Weird taste but it is somehow pleasant.