Dylan Oxford

This was the free sample I received with my gigantic box of samples from SerendipiTea.

Normally, a peach tea wouldn’t be something that would pique my interest. But, SerendipiTea is always very good with their flavors and blends, so this is definitely worth a shot.

Steeped, this tea smells exactly like those little peach ring candies. The ones you could buy as a kid in the big giant bulk bins in the supermarket. Or at the Sweet Factory (not sure if those still exist or not… haven’t seen one in a LONG time!).

The taste is good, the peach comes across as flavorful but not overpowering, and there’s still plenty of room for the very smooth black tea base to come through. There doesn’t seem to be any astringency to speak of… which just adds to the remarkable smoothness of this tea. If I were to offer dating advice, I would offer this tea (guaranteed to make all pick up lines come across 200% more smoothly).

It should be noted that I’m thinking about buying more of this tea. Not that my silly self doesn’t buy enough tea… just that this tea is good enough to make me change my thought on whether I should keep a peach tea around. This is quite good.

Finally getting around to rating this one. I think this is the third time I’ve had it now, and I’m just getting around to reviewing it. Just poor timing on my part, methinks.

The scent of this brewing is heavenly, but it’s a more warming scent than an overpowering one. Mint, you walk into a room and go ‘Wow, it smells minty in here!’ This, you walk in, give a soft sigh, and think ’wow, it sure does smell pleasant in here". I have no idea whether that distinction makes any sense whatsoever.

Then you take a drink, and this sweet, ginger elixir just glides over your tongue. Its a soft, sweet ginger flavor, as opposed to a spicier, peppery ginger. It has very little bite to it, which I think compliments the sweetness of the bai mu dan. After the initial sweetness, the bergamot flavor begins to sort of… blossom, for lack of a better term. I definitely taste the ginger and the white tea first. But by the end of the sip, the bergamot feels much stronger than at first. It rounds off the sweetness very well. This is just an extremely pleasant cup of tea, it is so darned tasty.

This really makes me wonder why I don’t see any ginger flavored Earl Grey’s around. The combination is so perfect in this tea.

I got lucky here too. I almost missed out on this tea, and if it wasn’t for Frank having the free white tea sale, I would have. This was kind of a throw-away. I wasn’t expecting to like it… and it’s so, so good. He was nice enough to put a double package back up on the website for me to buy more, as well. I figure I’m probably going to end up buying one of these a paycheck until he runs out.

Maybe I should lower the rating until I can buy it all… hrmm…

I’m not sure what to write about this one, so I’m just going to transcribe the discussion between Missy, myself, and our daughter:

Dylan: “It is kind of weird that the flavor is so passive on this”
Missy: “Right? It’s fairly tame, with just a little blackberry at the end”
Dylan: “You can’t even really taste the Rooibos”
Missy: “Yeah, where’d the honeybush go?”

It truly is light enough that we weren’t sure whether it was honeybush or rooibos (the bag says rooibos). At this point, Missy called our daughter in, who we’ve been trying to get to be a little more discerning on how she likes different teas and tisanes.

Missy: “Here, taste this”
Dodge: “It tastes okay. Not like bad okay, but pretty good okay. I would drink this”
Dylan: “I just think its weird that there isn’t that much flavor”
Dodge: “Dude, what are you talking about, there’s tons of flavor!”

Just proves the point that people don’t taste things the same.

Ho hum. I don’t know if I’m a green tea fan, really. Or maybe I’m just not an unflavored green tea fan.

I don’t quite feel fair giving this one a number (thought really, I’d probably put it in the mid-60s, and that’s higher than its average at the moment).

Mainly, my experience with green teas that aren’t flavored or uber sweetened is minimal. I like having… mint, vanilla, jasmine, something in there with the green tea, and that really seems to tie up the package nicely for me.

This? It’s very vegetal, with some sweetness to it. The smell is truly reminiscent of dinner vegetables, and I’d place the flavor somewhere near cabbage. But tasty cabbage. An earthy, mealy, wholesome kind of vegetable flavor. It’s not bad, it’s just not desirable, if that makes any sense whatsoever. Oh man, but don’t let it get cold. Blech.

And it could very easily be that I’ve been ruined by my love of genmaicha. I taste this, and I feel myself thinking “Hey, you know what would spruce this up some? Toasted Rice!”.

This is a very smooth, sweet black tea offering from Golden Moon. What strikes me most about this tea is the color of the brew. It is a vibrant, VIBRANT ruby red color. The thing shines.

The tea itself is very smooth and malty, with a very honey-like finish. Like it literally tastes as though there is honey in this tea. Obviously, this makes it a little sweeter than most straight black teas. The aftertaste of this one is a little sharp, though. It’s definitely better on the tongue than it is on the memory.

I could definitely see keeping this around for company, it’s just visually striking, and the flavor has a familiarity to it that lends itself well to gatherings. I may keep a tin of this around just for that. I wish I had enough of this sample to try it iced, I bet it is splendid.

After a month of waiting, I finally get the Groupon order with my Golden Moon sample. Sheesh. Less than stellar experience from Groupon. Though, it is a matter of managing expectations. Had, at the very start of this, someone said ‘Hey, you will get $50 off of this tea sampler if you wait a month’, I would have very patiently waited a month.

That being said, the sample itself has a nice assortment of flavors… though I doubt I’d order it if it weren’t for the Groupon sale ($10 for a one ounce sample seems exorbitant). But there was a Groupon sale, and I did order it!

This tea smells for all the world like a snickerdoodle while it’s steeping, and while it’s still warm in the cup. Very, Very sweet smelling. The drink follows this similarly, not quite cookie-ish, but still a very sweet chai. The clove taste is the most prominent flavor, but not overpoweringly clove to where you get that smokey kind of taste. For having clove be dominant, it’s well done. The ginger and cinnamon follow a bit behind… not far enough to be lost, but they definitely aren’t holding their own against captain clove.

The tea base, like a lot of chais, is kind of lost here. Although it does have a bit of astringency, which I’m going to blame on the fact that there’s a green tea in here, and they tell you to boil it to death.

So, this is a good tea. However… it doesn’t have any of the kick that I really want from a chai. There’s no pizzazz. It doesn’t really make my tastebuds stand up and go HEY! DRINK THAT MORE YOU GIT! If you want a very smooth, sweet chai… this would probably be perfect for you. I’m evidently not a very smooth and sweet kind of guy… more bumpy and bitter ;)

Another strong, solid tea from 52teas. As this is brewing, the mint flavor just kind of floats through the house. That’s probably one of my favorite aspects of mint teas that I don’t get from other teas… nothing quite smells as good roaming through your house as freshly steeped mint. Except prime rib. But that wouldn’t make a good tea. Moving on!

The vanilla and mint are very nice on the tongue, definitely reminiscent of Creme de Menthe. The toasted flavor of the mate starts coming out shortly and really rounds out the flavor. It has an almost chocolate like quality to it, I’m not sure what the association is coming from., but it is quite enjoyable. Hrmmm. Kind of makes me want a mint/vanilla genmaicha. I bet that would be killer.

I’m eyeing Frank’s stock of this and wondering how much will still be around for my next payday…

You know, I was all relaxed and calm, enjoying a very mellow tea and just letting my week kind of melt away… and then I tried typing the name of this tea into the search bar. Xocolatl… no… xocalatl… no… xocatl… no… xocotlatl… no… XOCATLATL! I’m pretty sure I could have just rolled my face across the keyboard a few times and come closer. Ugh.

Anyway… so, we bought a huge list of samples from SerendipiTea, taking advantage of their $2.50 samples. Only, they seem to have sent us 1 oz samples. So it’s like we got a bunch of free tea that we weren’t expecting. Well, plus they sent us a package of a free tea that we weren’t expecting. So, double bonus. Overall, really pleased with this order… but it seems too good to be true, so I’m wondering if there’s some sort of mistake either with our order or their website.

So, there’s a lot going on with this tea. The aroma smells mostly of cinnamon and mint, and if there’s anything else hiding between those two, I don’t smell it. Overall quite pleasant.

Drinking this tea, I’m really reminded of the expression ‘Jack of all Trades, Master of None’. The flavors of this tea are all very, very subtle. A little cinnamon, ginger… start tasting the mint and the vanilla… and somewhere after the swallow you get a hint of chocolate, along with the lingering mint flavor and a teensy bit of the ‘woodsy’ kangaroo taste.

I don’t really taste the black tea in there at all. I might notice if it was gone, but I’m definitely not feeling like it’s there… if that makes any sense. But then, you could probably say that about any one particular flavor within this tea. The various flavors really blend together well, but they blend together in a very subtle, passive way, which Missy thinks may be because she only steeped it for 3 minutes. I just think there are so many flavors, that none of them can be strong. By your powers combined… Xocolat… xocalat.. xocl… nevermind.

Anyway, there’s some sort of weird disconnect between this tea, and the description of this tea on their website. It’s totally different, it’s like you’re talking about two different teas. The website mentions nothing about ginger, cinnamon or clove (but it is a chai, after all). And the bag doesn’t mention that there is kangaroo in it (which is so totally apparent).

I don’t know, it’s all very weird. My understanding is that SerendipiTea is a bit of a small shop though, so it might just be a matter of not keeping up with variations. I’d say it would be something to watch out for… but I like their teas too much to be that put off by it. If I didn’t already have a relationship with their tea though, I’d probably be pretty upset.

Am I objective enough to lower the rating for that… nope, not really. I’ll send them an email though :)

A big thank you to Ashmanra for sharing this one. My first Irish tea! I feel like we need a big tea map in the office somwhere, probably next to the door. The wall behind the computers might work, but it would be a pain to get to. Anyway, a map! A big map where we can put pins for all the little areas where we order or drink tea from! I’d say pins for where the tea is grown, but we’d have like what… two pins? China, India, and maybe a purple colored pin in… Ecuador? Is that where maté is from?

Rambling. Tea!

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. I’ll admit it, I do not like mango. I do not like it in a box, I do not like it with a fox. I’ve missed out on a lot of very tasty looking things because one of my favorite flavors in the world, pineapple, seems to be attached at the tropical-fruit-hip to mango in the most inopportune number of ways. I was totally willing to try it in a tea though, especially with spicy stuff!

Missy brewed this a little low, because the tea was a bit dusty, and we didn’t want to fly straight into Bitter-town, which has happened with some green teas. I can smell fruit in the brew, coming from the cup. It doesn’t give me that old-lady-perfume smell that I associate with mango, which is a definite plus!

Now the taste of this was intriguing. Much like the smell, I get none of what I stereo-typically associate with mango. I taste indistinct-grabbing-at-the-back-of-mind-fruit that I can’t identify, but it’s so there. SO there, I just need to identify it. After that, there’s just a tiny bit of pepper aftertaste that burns in your throat after the swallow. The flavor of the green tea seems non-existent. Whether this owes to the tea, the phantom-fruit, or the lowered steep temp, I have no idea.

But the flavor of the phantom-fruit is good, so I keep drinking. The pepper in the second, much larger drink was more apparent, but still nothing (for me) to be too worried about. The third drink, and it finally clicks in my mind… the phantom-fruit is a dead ringer for soaked in syrup fruit cup pear. This flavor is EXACTLY what I want out of a pear flavored tea, now that I’m thinking about it. I never would have suspected that from a mango tea, and I’m now going to suspiciously eye every mango tea I see, and wonder whether it’s really hiding a pear-flavored treasure trove, or a perfume-flavored bomb…

Thanks again Ashmanra! I feel very privileged to have had a chance to drink this!

Continuing on my 52teas binge…

This tea smells delicious, all the darn time. Fresh out of the bag, brewing in a big old western style pot, cooling slowly in my cup… a very, very good smell. The freshness of the mint, plus the indulgent sweet smell of the chocolate (which I can actually pick up pretty distinctly in the smell). This would also make a good candle, although it would probably be less tasty as a candle.

Tasting this tea, the flavors seem to move along in waves. The first hint is chocolate, then the mint comes forward, and fades away to the smooth, malty black tea before chocolate round two (which tastes like a chocolate liqueur flavor at this point). From what I’ve tasted in other teas, chocolate seems like it might be a bit tough to master in a tea flavor. Frank does it nicely here, and the mint is at a great level where it accents the chocolate, as opposed to overpowering the cup. A long, lingering fresh mint taste stays in the mouth after a swallow.

Overall, another very impressive tea from 52teas. It doesn’t quite instill the mad-squirrel frenzy in me that the Cherry Cheesecake Genmaicha did, but I’m definitely glad it’s in the permanent collection and I don’t have to have palpitations thinking I’m never going to see it again.

I took advantage of Frank offering free White Teas to place another order from 52teas, and it came today, which I might add is a darn quick turnaround time, seeing as I placed the order… Wednesday evening? Less than a week ago, assuredly, and anytime an online order gets to me within a week, I’m a happy camper.

Something about Frank’s flavor combinations instill this slight madness in me, where even things I’d normally shy away from just seem like they should be amazing. Case in point: Cherry flavoring. I’m not a huge cherry flavoring fan, for the most part. It’s like my least favorite pie in the world. But something about the Cherry Cheesecake Genmaicha just rang out to me. It probably has to do with the fact that I absolutely LOVE genmaicha, and I think Frank is the only person in the world that flavors it.

The dry leaf, in the pouch, gives off a really strong cherry scent with just a hint of creaminess, almost like a cherry bubblegum. Yeah, definitely cherry bubblegum. I don’t smell the green tea base, which is a vast improvement over the somewhat seaweed-y taste of the dry leaf of my normal genmaicha (not that the seaweed flavor exists in the brew, but something about it smells that way to me… go fig).

The liquid color brews to the same translucent elixir-of-life green that I expect from genmaicha, and always makes me happy. Though, I was expecting a reddish color due to the cherry flavoring. The smell is less overpoweringly cherry, and the creamy, vanilla smell is a little more powerful, and it is delightful!

The taste? I don’t know if it can even be described, it is just absolutely perfection. The fruitiness of the cherry with a creaminess that just seems to melt over the toasted rice taste. It is magical. I can taste the green tea, far more than I can smell it, but I’m fairly certain my mouth is dismissing it as an illusion. It can taste it, my tongue knows that it is there, but it just having far too much fun with the other flavors to pay it much mind.

It also tastes much… lighter? than my other genmaicha. I am very, very pleased with this. So pleased, in fact, that after tasting the first sip (and making some sort of comment on its incredible tastiness), I went quick like a bunny to open up 52teas.com and see if there was anymore. Which, of course, there wasn’t. Ah well, looks like this will be a once in a lifetime enjoyment.

So yeah, this is really good. I would recommend you get some… but that would just be mean ;)

No notes yet.

Nummy nummy. With the hot weather approaching, Missy is on an iced tea making kick, and this is one of the teas that got the frozen treatment.

I’ve had a fairly large number of iced chai in my life, and this is the first I’ve ever had without milk. It was an interesting experience to have a non-milked iced chai. Good, quite pleasant actually. Seems like it might be missing a little bit though, I think I really am going to miss the creaminess of a chai latte if I decide to drink this less adulterated (not like I can’t just pour it from the pitcher into a glass of milk, after all).

I’m fairly sure this is going to be one of the teas that we keep on hand pretty much at all times. Good hot, good iced, extremely reasonably priced. All around a clear winner.

So now we’re getting around to drinking this as I believe God (or at least Tropical Tea Co) intended it to be drank: Iced, and loaded with a pound of sugar.

Actually, that may not be entirely true. We made this one a little strong. Okay, a lot strong. This is super strong iced tea. Not overdone, not bitter, but probably a few too many scoops. We ordered a package of about 25 ‘index card sized’ bags to make iced tea with over the summer, and tossed three of them, filled with four scoops of tea each, into this pot.

The tea itself turned out good, but a little stronger than I think I like iced tea to be. Tone it down just a teensy bit, and it will be perfect.

I’m tempted to lower the rating on this, but I might decide on that later. Everything is subjective, but my breadth of tea knowledge has increased a bit since I rated this. While this tea is very, very good… it doesn’t quite have the complexity of say Teavivre’s Bailin Gong Fu. It’s a little bit earthier, more of that “hay” flavor that Sandy was mentioning. Not as creamy, not as malty. I might need to get more of that Bailin and try it iced. Although by that point, it might just BE beer!

I gave my good friend Oolong a bit of a bum rap before, and am much happier with him today than I was last week. I even put up a new picture of him to celebrate (the old picture was pretty lame, it was dark, it was unfocused, and it was a bunch of dry leaves on a paper towel).

While we were goofing off at an Asian Market last week, I bought myself a new ceramic mug with infuser and cover/base thingy. I have a soft spot in my heart for designs which are black, red, and Asian. I’m not sure why, but this fit the bill, and it was $5, so I wasn’t going to complain. (Curious what it’s like? Slightly different aesthetics, but the exact same design as Shang Tea’s Kung Fu cup, here http://www.shangtea.com/Kung-Fu-Tea-Cup). I’m going to officially refer to this as Kung Fu brewing.

I also completely disregarded what the guy from Mad Hat told me, which was to use less tea than I thought I should. After watching how people use a gaiwan, I’m considering this fairly un-sound advice. In my kung fu cup, which holds maybe around 10 oz of water in addition to the infuser, I use two ‘perfect teaspoons’, and this comes out GREAT.

The flavor of the tea at first is very mellow, with a lightly vegetal flavor, reminiscent of a fairly weak green tea. After a few seconds, the flavor starts to take on this sweet fruitiness that reminds me a lot of juniper (or at least of Tanqueray). It was a little bit surprising to me, and a little bit odd. If I rolled the tea over my tongue, the juniper flavor became a lot more prominent.

Steep #2 gave a very similar performance. With steep #3, the fruitiness tasted a little less like juniper and a little more like apricot. Steep #4 was just as good as steep #3, and if it weren’t for a lack of time, I probably could have kept steeping this tea all day. I tasted no degradation in flavor between steeps 1 and 4.

I can’t decide whether I like this tea. It’s interesting, it feels almost entertaining. In a way, it’s a bit of a one trick pony… but it’s a cup of tea, and it’s doing a trick. What more could you ask for? I’m not sure I’ll actually purchase this tea again. It’s very good, and it went a long way to renewing my hope that I’ll find a ‘green’ oolong that will be enjoyable. But… it’s more of an eye-opener than a keeper, if that makes any sense.

A pirate, a zombie, and a starship captain walk into a bar…

I ordered this tea set off of ThinkGeek.com for two reasons: First off the tins looked awesome. Second, we haven’t actually put in an order with Adagio yet, and this seemed like a good way to get to sample some of their teas. Maybe they wouldn’t have been the first teas we tried, but still. It’s a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of deal.

Let me say one thing, to any other potential geeks out there that must order these for the awesome tins… these tins are tiny. I mean small. They say they are an ounce each. This is possibly true, but man it doesn’t look like it. They’re about 1.5″ × 1.5″ × 2.5″. To put it a different way, you can almost hide two behind a credit card. They’re cute, but the size really makes them of limited use if you brew tea in any sort of significant quantity. Missy and I brew tea in a 40 oz pitcher, so one of these almost makes three pots. Besides, where can you buy tea an ounce at a time (and would it be worth it)?

And so far, the tea is good!

As a basic chai, this is a fairly strong contender. The clove and the cinnamon really balance out quite well, with neither taking too dominant of a role over the other (which I personally consider to be a feat!). Beyond that, the lightly malty flavor of the tea itself shines through, smoothed out with just a hint of cardamom peeking out at the end. I get a little bit of a spicy aftertaste, just barely barely ginger.

While I really do think the balance between the clove and cinnamon is perfectly done in this blend, the cardamom and ginger really feel under-utilized. It is possible that I’m asking too much here. If those aren’t your favorite flavors, this could be a perfect chai. But for me, I want something just a little bit more fitting for a permanent selection.

So, not quite my cup of tea. But it could be your cup of tea! Definitely my tin of tea though.

Well then, back to your regularly scheduled tea tastings!

If there are two things I love in this world, it’s vanilla and cinnamon. Granted, there are a lot more than two things I love in this world, but there’s no saying based around that happy little circumstance, now is there? Chances are, if you put vanilla and cinnamon in a tea, I’m going to enjoy it. Or at least finish it.

Anyway, how does it taste? The vanilla is the predominant flavor, adding a smooth creaminess to the somewhat subdued black tea base. I think it’s a ceylon, and nothing in the tea flavor itself would make me guess otherwise. Its a smooth drink. very mellow. There’s a hint of cinnamon, but not enough to really disturb the placidity of the vanilla/ceylon mix. It’s almost like an after thought. I honestly smell the cinnamon much more than I taste it.

But there’s a weird flavor in here that’s offputting, as well. It’s a… dusty kind of flavor, which makes the astringency of the tea stand out a bit more (I find more Tropical Tea Co (TTC) teas to be fairly astringent). I think what is throwing me off is the marigold petals that they toss into any number of their blends to try and… I’m not sure. Make it prettier? I don’t know what marigold is supposed to taste like in tea, but I’m finding very few of the TTC teas that have the marigold petals in them are really enjoyable to me. Even if it’s vanilla and cinnamon, which I would otherwise believe could do no wrong.

Like I said, I don’t really know that its the marigold. I just know the marigold being there is weird, and the flavor is weird where it shouldn’t be… so I make some sort of crazy association in my head. Whether it belongs there or not, it’s there, and it’s comfortable.

All in all it’s not terrible. It doesn’t make me want to dispose of it in a fire. I’ll finish it, but I am fairly certain I would enjoy any random tea company’s vanilla cinnamon offerings more.

This rating has double digits, simply for the fact that we may have nuked this tea in a terrible, disgraceful manner, and under duress it changed its flavor in a way to punish us with horrors that our tastebuds have never previously imagined.

Or, it could just be really, really bad. This cup is at least really, really bad.

Missy brewed this for herself, and came upstairs with the weirdest little tone in her voice when she asked me to try it. I almost couldn’t swallow it, except not doing so just meant I’d have to taste it longer.

Then, being the horrible, horrible parents that we are… we asked our daughter to try it. She bolted to the bathroom sink to spit it out. I haven’t seen her move that fast in weeks. That might make this a sports drink.

We went kicking around a local asian supermarket today in search of a gaiwan (no luck) and any other random gems we could find. So we picked out a couple of things to try.

I have to say, the price of this jasmine green is really the only reason I picked it up. 150g for sub-$3, in a neat little blue tin. The tin probably isn’t airtight, and I don’t exactly have the faculties (or patience, really) to test that… but the seal is pretty darn impressive.

This tea is exactly what I expect from a Chinese restaurant, which, well, is because this is probably the exact tea I get from a Chinese restaurant. A light floral flavor, the green tea barely coming in at the end of the flavor, a mild but noticeable astringency. Compared to the Jasmine Pearls I have from Mad Hat, the flavor of this tea (particularly the Jasmine flavor) is much more subdued.

They had four different Jasmine teas by Fujian tea, one in a yellow square tin as pictured, one in a red square tin, the blue cylindrical tin that I bought, and then a green cylindrical tin. No differentiation other than a serial number up top that might mean something (mine is 2063). Well, and all of the writing that I don’t understand may mean something too, but I just assume it says Jasmine Tea in Chinese :).

I might keep this around. The quality definitely isn’t that of the pearls from Mad Hat (and I’m eventually going to want to try the pearls from Teavivre), but man… at this price… SO CHEAP. IT IS SO INSANELY CHEAP. Sorry, had to get that out.

Long story short, effective yesterday, I began referring to Honeybush as ‘wallaby’ at work. I’m not normally a wallaby fan, but something about this combination of flavors really, really made me want to take the plunge on my first order at 52teas. Plus, there was an offer of a free spoon. Mine is yellow, and awesome in its yellowness. They totally look like you’d buy them in a lot of 500 from Oriental Trading Company or something like that.

Interestingly enough, both the aroma from the bag, and the brewed tisane invoke the exact same flavor to me. It totally tastes like bubblegum. I was a little surprised when the taste first came over my tongue, and it took me a second to sort of… separate the wallaby from the other flavor. Then my mind sort of ‘clicked’ on bubblegum… bubblegum with a slightly buttery after flavor, followed by the lingering taste of the wallaby itself.

As the tea cools, the orange flavor seems to come out a little more for me… and it starts tasting like… well, orange bubblegum. I really have no answer for this one. I actually like the flavor, it is definitely interesting. Of all the wallaby I’ve drank, this would be the one that comes the closest to deserving a permanent spot in my cupboard (well above the vanilla wallaby that the womenfolk of the house are fond of). But something about the lingering taste that it leaves in my mouth (not this one in particular, the wallaby genre as a whole) just doesn’t appeal to me.

This was my first order from 52teas (though Azzrian beat them to the punch with my Mayan Chocolate Chai sample). I have to say, I’m impressed with the quality of both of the items I ordered, as well as the previous sample. I can’t say I’ll order this particular blend again, but I’m definitely liking what I get as a customer.

No notes yet.

So here we are my kindred spirits, another oolong to drink.

We’re somewhat new to oolongs over here, and nary a gaiwan to be found in this household! So, for better or for worse, we’re going to western style this tea. The western style thing is kind of a funny label, come to think of it. I’d consider us to be east of China. Gringo, it’s gringo brewing.

This oolong has a very fresh scent to it, like meadow flowers… it just smells fantastic. Like I want to put it in a bag and toss it in the dryer. Though, that’s probably a terrible waste of tea. Anyway, very floral, very pleasant smell.

Missy put this in the pot for about two minutes, and then pulled it out, and poured us some to drink. It really didn’t taste much like tea. It kind of tasted like a hot liquid that once met some tea at the bar, and hung around all night. It had a little bit of a tea flavor, reminiscent of tea, but it really wasn’t tea yet.

We dumped that pot. Let’s just pretend it was an extended leaf refreshing. Our leaves are now VERY refreshed.

Four minutes later, we decide it looks like it might be dark enough to try another pot. It’s now less khloros, and more a fluroescent green, looks like it has a little more life to it. Not quite the vibrant radioactive green of my genmaicha, but almost heading that way.

I have to say though, the flavor is still rather muted (and maybe this is just how this one goes). The tea itself is a very still, very calm flavor in the cup itself. Its transformed from that flavor of ‘hot water’, into something a bit more vegetal. The flavor of the tea has a freshness to it, and a subtle hint of that floral fragrance that you smell inside the bag. Underneath that, there’s a sweet honey note that creeps in, and then the flavor just fades away from you.

It also has a ninja-like astringency that I never quite felt before. It was like all of the moisture had been drained from my mouth before I ever really knew it was gone. I was still looking for footprints on my ceiling.

Anyway. I don’t think I’m a fan of this particular oolong, on this particular day. It could very easily be our gringo brewing, or our extended steep time, or something else completely. It’s likely that we’ll sort of hide this one in the back of the tea cabinet until we get a gaiwan to give it a more fair shot at life. But as it stands… eh… I don’t see us picking up more of this.

My first tea from Teavivre, a wonderful sample sent to me by Azzrian.

Let me say that off the bat, I’m very impressed with the quality of this tea. Opening up the sample, you get a good scent of the tea leaves themselves that is quite inviting. I opened it up to smell it, and then Missy had to go brew it up for us. She says it was so it didn’t go stale, but honestly I don’t think she could resist the aroma.

She tried something a teensy bit different with this tea, in that she brewed a first steeping in a 16 oz tumbler, and then a second steeping, and poured them into our larger pot. So consider this a review of steeping 1.5 ;)

The flavor packed into this tea is good and thick, almost mealy. I’ve thought of other teas as malty, but this truly and thoroughly blows all other maltiness, ever, away. It’s a very tasty, thick, sweet malt flavor that reminds me of a dark stout beer. Underneath that, there’s a honey-like flavor that comes out and is quite enjoyable. At the end, there’s a bit of a grainy flavor that comes out.

Its a very smooth tea, but it has a very thick mouth-feel to it. Again, I find myself likening this to the tea version of a good, dark, stout beer. It has that depth of malt flavor, and this thickness that almost makes your mouth want to chew by instinct alone. That “are we sure this is a liquid?” sense.

I think what’s interesting to me about this tea is that it’s very, very flavorful, but it doesn’t have that… aggressiveness I’m used to in black teas. It almost feels like a night time black tea, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Definitely puts the bug in my ear to go try some more Teavivre teas, especially now that they’ve added samples to roughly all of their teas, from what I’m seeing.

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