I’m so proud of myself. The way the lemon in this tea tastes reminded me of something else. So I thought about it and thought about it a bit more while steeping a second cup. Then I realized what it was exactly. I feel a bit like one of ya’ll that writes the really great Tasting Notes.
Now on to the tea. The lemon in this tea is not the bright fresh taste of freshly squeezed lemon nor is it like lemon candy or powdered lemonade. When I finally got it, I realized I thought it tasted like baked lemon. You know the lemon taste you get when you bake fish with lemon slices on top or when you roast a chicken with lots of lemon stuck in the cavity. There is a light hint of green tea but it’s not distinct in its qualities and it hides nearly completely behind the baked lemon. It has also a teeny bit of not quite natural to it but I think that might be because I expected a lemon tea to lean more towards the fresh lemon taste. The 1st steep was fairly watery. I expected the 2nd (at 1 min 30 sec) to be even more so but was surprise that the watery was nearly gone. I intend to do a 3rd steep.
With putting my finger on a flavor that I picked out of this tea, I now have hopes in improving my Tasting Notes and advancing my palate. I am more excited about this than I should be currently. Normally I’d have just been like ‘lemon-y’. But I tasted, I re-tasted, I recognized, I compared. Tea drinker break through!
Backlogging
Chrine drank a non-A&D tea and A&D smited her tea. Normally she finds this Lemon Green to be a decent, if not great, cup of tea. Tonight, she did not finish the cup or resteep, which was sad because she was looking forward to having this one tonight as she is nearly out. Perhaps it was not the best pairing with Hunan Chicken and Shitake Beef from Red Orchid.
Ah, the elusive(-to-me) 4th steep. I rarely drink enough of one tea in a row before I get tired it or concerned about the leaves being out too long. More watery than the 1st steep but sweeter, the lemon more muted, the green tea completely hidden, only its essence showing, and a bit of drying bitter. But let’s begin at the beginning, shall we.
The husband and I had a silly not-quite-an-argument. He was tired and didn’t say much. I was upset and upset that I was upset, about nothing really. I steeped the 3rd steep in the kitchen talking to myself out loud.
It was good. The best of the three steeps. The baked lemon had a golden glow-y warm quality about it. It calmed me. I sipped, it soothed.
I’m not even that fond of this tea. Why it’s inspiring me to write such post-y posts, I do not know. Perhaps it is my muse today. An average, not-super-great muse.
I looked down and suddenly, it seemed, the 3rd steep was gone. It was time for more. There was no doubt that I wanted the 4rd steep. Tea made the not-an-argument badness go away.
On the way to the kitchen, I stopped and did a tea dance with song. The refrain went “Everybody wants more tea, more tea”, repeat. It was happy. I was happier. (Yes, there is probably something wrong with me.)
Backlogging. A couple of days ago.
My first cold brewed tea! I made mention a few tealogs back that I had set it up and put it in the fridge. It was a success, especially given that I wasn’t very fond of the tea I used in the first place.
1st steep: approx. 24 hours.
Light! Lemony! Green! Refreshing! In that order. Way better than I’d been expecting.
2nd steep: over 2 days.
This steep never really colored up so I left the leaves in until I drank it. It was cool water with a hint of lemon sencha. Had I more of this tea to cold brew again, I would only do one steep with it.
I am planning on cold brewing tropical sencha or cherry sencha or earl grey next. How well this cold brew went has lead me to wanting to cold brew again more.
And lastly, I am decupboarding this tea. I was thinking about bumping the rating from 35 (right in the middle of the meh range, 30-40) to 40 (on the low end of the drinkable range, 40-50) since I liked the cold brew. But overall, I just wasn’t fond of this tea hot. I didn’t like the way it tasted (roasted lemon) and rarely found myself reaching to drink it. Thankfully, it was a 1oz sample bag from the farmer’s market so there was not much of it to get through.
