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It’s official. Formosan oolongs are currently my favorite type of oolongs.

This is another Carolyn tea, and I’ve been drinking it pretty much all day. Haven’t bothered to refill the infuser with leaves, just been Energizer Bunnying it since at least lunch time. When I finally got around to checking the recommended business it said 180-195, but I definitely boiled the water. It didn’t seem to have an effect on it. I also stopped counting how many cups I’ve had but I’d say five easy, likely more.

It’s creamy, and it does indeed taste of milk. It’s so close at times, that I could actually fool myself into thinking that it IS milk, but the aftertaste gives it away. Sometimes it’s a little more floral and has a shy sweetness in the aftertaste, sometimes it’s more buttery and rich tasting. Occasionally there’s a hint of that vegetal, almost spinachy smell the leaves take on when they’re wet and sometimes I taste bread. Whatever the tea is deciding to do, I’m enjoying it all, so this is a definite win.

This is one of those kinds of teas that I like to watch unfurl. Put in a teaspoon or so and all of a sudden my entire infuser’s full of leaves. They brew into a color somewhere between bright yellow and copper and the tea is smooth in the mouth. There’s just a teeny teeny bit of dryness at the finish, but nothing that I can’t handle. By no means one of those teas that leaves your mouth completely devoid of moisture.

I’m liking it a lot better when it’s hot to warm [this is when having a double walled mug is crazy fantastic]. Once I go through what Carolyn sent me I’ll be ordering this one.

And now, for the first time in weeks, I’m going to bed at a decent hour. I just powered through 45 physics problems and some java programming and my brain is screaming at me for mercy. We’re finally rounding the corner towards the home stretch for the semester, and my motivation is surfacing again. Were it not for this tea, I can guarantee that I would have fallen asleep on the floor, because that’s what I did yesterday. And maybe the day before. I’m not telling.

THANKS CAROLYN.

This is going to be a very trying day for me as I am having a lot of trouble getting my fingers to communicate correctly with my brain. Case in point [though you can’t see what just happened and will simply have to take my word for it]: I just had to delete and re-type the word “communicate” seven times. And three more just now.

If this is indicative of how the rest of the typing I’m going to be doing to get schoolwork done today, maybe I should just cut to the chase and start crying now.

Luckily, during some of life’s gloomier and more frustrating sequences, we have tea. And I picked a good one this morning.

I can see this becoming a staple.

Carolyn mentioned in her review that she caught a flash of midori when she drank this and that is exactly what I parse out. For me it’s more present in the smell than in the taste, but that’s perfectly fine by me. Anyone who’s ever had midori knows how sweet it is, [and for those of you who don’t know…er, it’s pretty sweet] and so to have it take over the taste in this tea would be cloying.

Don’t get me wrong, midori is actually my absolutely favorite liqueur. Midori sours are my go-to drink when I’m out because I’m a girly drinker and I don’t like to taste the alcohol in what I’m sipping on. But, that’s a different class of drinking. When I’m drinking tea I don’t want to think that I’m drinking alcoholic kool-aid.

Sometimes when I sniff this as the scent rises out of the cup, I think I’m smelling apple cider, which is also something I enjoy quite a bit. The scent of the leaves themselves has little hints of both the melon and the cider, but also something else I can’t place. As a single entity, it smells a little bit like candy.

The tea is light, but has the softness in its flavor that honeydew melon, or perhaps cantaloupe contribute. I find it subtle and calming. There are likely to be aspects of it that I’m not picking up presently, but I’m too busy typing and retyping characters to be too bothered at the present. I expect I’ll be spending some quality time with it in the future.

This tasting note has been brought to you by Carolyn, the letter K, and Mavis Beacon.

I stuck some of this in the fridge the other day and I’m drinking it now.

I’ve said that I don’t what I did before I found tea. That’s made even more true when I factor in chai.

Smooth and creamy, when it first hits my tongue it almost tastes like chocolate milk. Then the spices make themselves present and it switches gears from “ahhhhh,” to “ooooooh!” Add to that the satisfaction of having made it yourself, and you’ve got yourself a nice cup of Masala Crack.

This tea, along with Samovar’s Ryokucha, is what propelled me to power through my Calculus test this morning. The dregs of the caffeine’s effects are also what is propelling me through packaging up some stuff for a tea swap.

This is one of the best senchas I’ve ever had. It hits all the points I’ve come to associate with one that is well-balanced – vegetal, approaching roasty, with a sweet chlorophyll taste from the grassy side that at sometimes reminds me of hay, a hint of brine that keeps it from feeling like you’re sucking on a string bean, and it teases just enough at bitterness to keep it interesting.

The nice thing about this sencha is that the flavor is nice and full, but I don’t find it hard-hitting, if that makes sense. It’s not like it’s being pushed on to you, or bowling you over. It just kind of sighs into your mouth and blankets your tongue. The push and the pull of all the different flavors as they swirl and meet and break is fantastic.

The tea’s got a nice, smooth texture to it. Holding the bag, it’s weighty. Like you’re holding something luxurious and of substance. The actual leaves are crumbled, as is characteristic of sencha, but they feel rich, have an almost silky quality. As a liquid, it brews into a nice, bright, lime-y color. Finishing the cup leaves a residue that looks like matcha. I’m not sure if it qualifies as that, but it sure looks like it.

Maeda-en recommends that you take care on the water temperature, and I recommend that you heed their advice. This tea has a delicacy to it and unless you’re seeking bitterness it’ll hit you if you’re not careful. I’ve also been brewing this pretty short. On a day when I think I can take the rollercoaster of changes greens can undergo when you mess with their parameters, I’ll play around with it some more, but I’m pretty happy where I’m at for now.

If you want to get a good baseline for sencha, I’d highly recommend trying this one out. Also, if you’ve tried a genmaicha but couldn’t get on board with the rice they add to it, this might be your bag. It’s fantastic for days that require prolonged productivity, or when you find yourself craving a nice, solid green tea.

Scarlet Sable is a name that is completely fitting to this tea. It is definitely not something that everyone is going to like, and on most days it’s not going to be something that I instinctively grab. However, if you’re looking for something different with some complexity to it, she might be the lady for you.

The rooibos in the blend feels like a base flavor to me, while the black tea that they use wraps smoky tendrils around its core. The smoky taste is very reminiscent of lapsang souchong. Even as I type this it doesn’t sound very appetizing, but it’s not bad. It’s one of those flavor combinations that makes me pause momentarily and go, “Huh.”

The part that makes it really interesting to me, though, is the supporting cast in Scarlet Sable. There is a light, citrusy note that almost seems to pulse gently through it all. At times, lychee briefly presents itself in soft explosions. Little poofs of flavor that hit at the back of the tongue to remind you that it’s in there. Almost like it’s trying to escape.

It’s an extremely interesting tea, but again, not something for everyday drinking. If you don’t like smoky teas, avoid it, because that aspect is very prominent. Good for centering the mind and bringing things back into focus.

This isn’t a bad tea by any means. It definitely tastes like sencha. Buuut, it’s not as full flavored as other senchas I’ve had.

Those distinctly grassy, vegetal notes are present. They’re just…not quite as opaque. Almost like they’re slightly translucent? Someone needs to adjust this tea’s alpha channel. [Apologies, horrid photoshop reference there.]

To be fair, and maybe it’s because I’ve been drinking a lot more black tea, most green tea has a sense of translucence to it. The flavor in greens is always absolutely present, but most have a kind of watery quality to them. Which makes sense in a way, I guess. That characteristic is just more present in this tea.

All of this leads me to conclude that this might be a very good starter tea for someone who is looking to get into greens. However, as someone who has grown to acquire the taste of sencha it just isn’t cutting it. It’d do in a pinch, though.

Lovely.

I am sitting here wrapped in a throw, listening to Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson’s Winter Song [awesome track if you haven’t heard it, you should give it a listen – http://is.gd/4Z7n2 ], and haven’t felt this rested and comfortable in a while. This is going to be the perfect precursor to the amount of work I need to get done tonight.

I put the temperature a bit lower than I typically brew an earl grey because this contains white tea and I was greeted with a pleasant cup.

The bergamot skims lightly across the flavoring of this tea. Not at all high-handed, but strong enough to be sating. The effect is a nice, citrus taste with a freshness to it; somewhat like the way the air gets a cleaner feeling here when the temperatures get chilly. In the scent, I also get hints of a woody, earthy scent, which I found surprising. It’s not all that present in the taste, but I thought I might have caught wind of it in the baser notes at times. Very subtle.

I’m reminded of the sensation I get after the first snow of the year, before everything gets all mucked up by the passing cars and inhabitants of the world. When you wake up and the light coming through the shades has that diffused brightness that says there’s something beautiful waiting on the other side. You hastily pull up the covering to be greeted by something wonderful. Snow always makes me feel like I’m a kid again, though I have grown to hate driving in it as an adult. Everything seems just a little bit more magical when it snows, and being able to rekindle that feeling in a cup of tea is pretty magical in and of itself.

The flavor was definitely better for me in the warm to hot range. It lost a bit as it cooled. For a first try, I am enjoying this enough to seriously consider buying a tin. Bergamot is something that I do like, but not enough to drink every day. That being said, this has been a very good cup.

WHAT THE WHAT?

Clearly, I chose to revisit Steepster at both the wrong and the right time.

On the one hand, I’m so absolutely STOKED about the new update. On the other hand, between the discussion board and the live feed and the tea cupboard and the fact that I really need to rescale all of my ratings, I. Can’t. Seem. To. Log. Off.

To the review, Ryokucha is back in my life and I feel complete again.

I got my Samovar package in the mail the other day and I nearly wept for joy. I have come to rely quite heavily on this stuff in the morning. It’s got a sense of SUSTENANCE, you know? Combine it with oatmeal and I can chug along for hours. Especially because the amount of caffeine in this is balanced absolutely perfectly for those mornings when I know I need to get some serious crap churned out.

The taste is roasty and full. Occasionally there are hints of brine in the taste, which are balanced by moments of sweetness in the aftertaste. The matcha is what I think is mainly responsible for the brilliant green this steeps into, and aside from being responsible for the nice caffeine boost it gives it adds a nice sense of texture. I think it adds to the substantialness the tea has. [You get most of the matcha at the end of the drink, of course.] I’ve also somewhat recently become more accommodated to sencha and I must say that I think the sencha they use in this is damn good.

And the smell? I actually started off almost being turned off by the smell. Which eased into being apathetic to it. And now, I love it. Mornings when I don’t get a little Ryokucha feel empty, which probably means I’m addicted. You heard it here first.

I just want to add two things to this.

1. Samovar’s running some sales on their website right now for selected black and white teas. Also, the code cozytea will get you 20% off through December 1st.

2. Jillian and Angrboda [and any other non-US Steepsterites], I sent Samovar an email that included an inquiry about their international shipping prices and let them know that the shipping fees are deterring you folks from trying them. I have no clue if anything will come of it, but one can hope!

Shhhh. I’m just going to sneak in here quietly and pretend that I haven’t gone AWOL for the past…you know what? That’s not important. While you’re cooperating, we’re also going to ignore how late it is and strike anything that might come out in Stupid instead of English, okay?

I’m not going to elaborate on how bananas [B-A-N-A-N-A-S] school has been, except to say that when this semester ends I am going to do nothing but smoke hookah, drink tea, sleep, sleep, sleep, and maybe play some HALO or something.

Three things have been helping me wade through life.

1. http://www.youtube.com/user/nervouscircus

2. 30 Rock.

3. The tea that Carolyn sent me.

In no specific order.

This smells like vanilla. It tastes of vanilla. And it does so in a sweet, sashaying kind of way. [As opposed to a lure you into an alley to knife you and steal your wallet kind of way, I suppose.] What’s particularly lovely about it, is that it doesn’t smell like artificial vanilla or even have that pungent edge that vanilla extract can take on. It’s more of a fresh, wafting variety. Those of you who have ever slit open a vanilla bean pod know what I’m talking about.

It’s not so strong that I can’t taste the rooibos, and that’s something that I appreciate about this tea. The only possible downside that I can see to it is that it’s slightly one-noted. It hasn’t ever been cloying to me, but I suspect that’s because I don’t drink it every night. Vanilla, as a general flavoring, not just with tea, is something that I don’t think I would be able to intake every day, and the same goes for this guy.

In moderation, however, it does quite nicely. Warm, comforting, and with just enough of a hint of an exotic, faraway place to keep it from being boring. I’ve found myself reaching for it at night, when I need something sans caffeine and I want to nudge my mood in a better direction.

This week has been killing me not-so-softly so I haven’t had time to get on here and do…anything. BUT, I just got a package from Carolyn today packed with tea and OF COURSE I had to make some straight away.

I let this sit for 4 minutes on the first steep, and even though it definitely didn’t make it strong enough for me, I know that I’m going to love this tea. Firstly, the coloring on this tea is absolutely gorgeous, but that’s definitely not all it has going for it. It smelled distinctly of honey, and what surprised me more was that it TASTED of honey. And beyond that I got caramel and a natural kind of sweetness. There’s a complexity to this tea, and it’s rich and smooth and positively, like the name implies, sinful. I drank this first cup pretty slowly, and I can say with some certainty that I like this a lot better on the hot/warm end of the spectrum than on the cooler side, but that’s par for the course for me with black teas.

I’ve got a resteep that I let go for 5 minutes that I’m waiting not-so-patiently to cool. I’m tremendously excited to continue playing around with this tea, and to see what else Carolyn decided to pack away for me. If this is any indication of what she decided to send, it’s probably not just my imagination that hears my bank account whimpering.

I have to get back to this pile of crap I have to finish, but either things are going to calm down soon and I can start catching up with reviews, or I am going to asplode. FUN! In the meantime, I’ve got some likely awesome teas to peruse. [Thanks Carolyn!!!] ACTUAL FUN!