15662 Tasting Notes
So I’ve liked this tea in the past, but all I was getting with this most recent cup was banana and fabric softener. Green underripe banana. I actually enjoyed that flavour in the black tea quite a bit, but as you can probably imagine… the fabric softener note was a pretty harsh buzzkill on the overall cup. Definitely struggled a little to finish this mug off. It might have been me and not the tea though; I think I was just having a weird tasting day in general.
I feel like I want to like this tea so much more than I actually do. I know that Marika is a really big fan of this blend because the mandarin flavour itself is so spot on and I do agree that it’s quite a pleasant mandarin note… but the dragonwell comes through in taste waaayyy too strongly for me (which was my worry) and the rooibos adds a nutty sort of flavour that I find weird with the mandarin. However, the big takeaway for me was how weirdly complimentary the nutty rooibos was with the natural chestnut notes of the dragonwell. I’ll be storing that little tidbit of information away for later.
Steeped this one cold brewed and deskside on Monday because I needed something cold to drink while I waited for my regular morning cold brew to properly steep in the fridge. I think I compared this to Jello with my first tasting? I still sort of stand by that but maybe a little less so. It reminded me more, I think, of strawberry kool-aid? The watermelon is just so light and reeeeaaalllyyyy reads to me more like a berry than a traditional North American watermelon flavouring. The mint is light too, but nice in the finish. It was tasty overall but I think I’m still struggling a little with the titular flavours not super succinctly matching.
Recently did a comparative tasting with this and the unsmoked version. Longer tasting note discussing the two can be found at the link below – just cross referencing here for consistencies sake!
So I ordered an advent and some Thyolo Moto Guava Smoked Tea from World Tea House and when I unboxed that order a couple days ago I was absolutely surprised and delighted to see that Phil had very thoughtfully included for me a bag of the unsmoked version of the same tea for, in his own words, “science”.
It was just such an incredibly thoughtful inclusion and so of course one of the first things I did that day when I had a moment was cup the unsmoked and smoked versions of the tea side by side for a comparative tasting. Truthfully, the smoked version of the tea just blows this one out of the water – it’s full bodied with a deeply mouth coating smokiness with subtle fruity elements to it and a nice clean finish. It feels so round as it sweeps across the palate. However, this one was still really nice! Notes of malt, honey, red fruit and nuts come across and in general it’s a full bodied and smoothly approachable black tea with very, very low astringency.
Sipdown (1548)!
This was a free sample included in my advent order from Kiani tea and, well, to be perfectly honest and blunt it just was not good. I think there’s something to be said about the few pros: the liquor colour is a gorgeous deep blue/indigo colour and it frothed up excellently. However, the reality is that butterfly pea flower generally just doesn’t taste good and so straight ground butterfly pea flower is exceptionally worse. Very chalky and alkaline mixed with bitter almost kale-like notes.
Could maybe see it working as a SMALL addition to another matcha or flavoured tea or something like a smoothie, though.
I’ve had this tea before and thought it was okay, but recently I got some more as part of my November Subscription box. I’m actually liking it a little bit more than I remembered enjoying it in the past, so we’ll see if that holds through! It’s a deliciously warming black tea to sip on this drizzly autumnal afternoon with perfect notes of malty fresh baked breads, cocoa husk and red fruits. Smooth and accessible for almost all moods!
Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWbr8IHr0G-/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiWa4pK-zew
Gongfu!
Had this session with some fresh and tangy red currants while I work through a backlog of emails from my vacation these past two weeks! The currant is perhaps a little too intense in flavour and I’m losing some of the subtleties and flavour nuances of the shou but overall the thick oily liquor and unabashed woody notes are at least not drowning underneath the intensity of the fruit. I decided to finish the session with the currants only nibbled on in between the steeps, and there’s some sweetness coming through the shou now that was getting lost before. I’m as of yet undecided on how I feel about the tea overall, though this session was nice…
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWWdaYQLWwS/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ki_WCnZwcY
Last of the three!
Lime isn’t for everyone but I thought this was pretty solid. Does taste a little bit like someone juiced a lime and added into that into some freshly iced guayusa then carbonated it. That’s note a bad taste at all though and the sweetness level is just right, as is the pop of bright acidity on the front of the sip. The metallic kind of taste is especially prevalent in this RTD though. It’s in all three of the flavours I tried from RUNA, but I just get it a lot in the back end/finish here. Still refreshing and tasty but could be so much nicer without that note.
I think this was my least favourite of the three flavours of this guayusa RTD that I tried. It’s certainly not that it tasted bad – none of them tasted bad. However, I thought this was the least distinct tasting flavour and also the least memorable overall. It’s clearly berry flavoured but I just feel like there’s no way you would be able to tell what kind of berry. It’s balanced well with the natural taste of the guayusa though and if memory serves it was the only one of the three that didn’t have a sort of acidic tang/sourness to it. Granted the other two are citrus flavours, but it’s still nice to have a more mellow option I suppose.
