My giant Camellia Sinensis order arrived today!
There were so many goodies in the box, that it was incredibly hard to decide what to start with but I ultimately ended up using my new tea tray for the first time as well as the glass Gaiwan I purchased. The choice of what tea to Christen it with was very hard to make: I felt like it should have been one of the Camellia Sinensis teas I ordered or one of the samples they included but I couldn’t make up my mind so I instead went a very different route.
A little while back a tea friend here on Steepster, who wishes to remain unnamed for the purposes of this tea, sent me a sample of a greener oolong which I sort of then forgot I had until today when I was searching through samples to try. My bad.
I decided to drink that today; and since I don’t work until 4:30 I had plenty of time to have a nice informal Gong Fu session whilst watching some Gotham on Netflix. I’m not really a huge DC fan but I’ve always loved the very well written villains in the Batman comic universe so that aspect of the TV show really intrigues me. Harley Quinn has always been my favourite, but I have to say I REALLY enjoy the portrayal of The Penguin and The Riddler.
This is a gorgeous tea though! The stems are monstrous; the largest I pulled out of the infused leaf is longer in length than my hand. Damn! However, the leaves are a wonderful bright shade of green and have this really eloquent floral aroma that makes me think of fresh linen and the end of Spring/beginning of summer. Mmm! The steeped liquor is a lively yellow green just slightly heavier on the green side of things.
This is definitely a super floral tea; but in a natural, fresh and sweet way. And as much as I tasted wonderful floral notes (some sort of amalgamation of peony, magnolia, and gardenia perhaps?) and a super light almost bamboo-like vegetal sweetness I also tasted a lot of fruit notes. Something like fresh, sweet grapes, and almost a peachyness too. It was very enjoyable; and the most infusions the more I seemed to notice the fruit flavours as well.
I’d love to see this particular tea paired up with a “darker” kind of berry flavour. Something like blueberry, Saskatoon berry, or maybe blackberry? And perhaps white peaches. I can only imagine that would be divinely tasty.
Also here’s a link to some pictures!
Pictures are of the things from the Camellia Sinensis order as well as the steeping of this oolong from earlier in the day. I’ve also got pictures thrown in there of the rabbit tattoo I had done a few months ago and some other assorted tea related things…
Photo quality is kind of crappy; I used my cell phone.
That fishy gaiwan is really pretty
Can’t wait to hear about everything you ordered!
Yay for new tea! That tea tray is cute!
That’s great! I love the yixing, and the fish gaiwan!
I love the teaware!