yssah - Love is Tea (LIT)

i have had a few genmais but after a couple of months of not having had much tea (when i got back to the philippines, i didnt have water heating implements and time to get some and prepare some tea so i subsisted on matcha mixed with cool water to keep me awake in class, thanks to Red Leaf Tea i was able to pay attention to biochem this summer) when i had this, i was like…transported to japan! ah, it is wonderful to have good tea on hand!

Thanks to Azz for this swap! Im enjoying every sip of it!

Ok, this is the weirdest thing…

Mr. LBG came to me as a surprise…name and instructions followed in a message (which I had forgotten about). Anyway, idk what possessed me to enter it in my catalog as a chai (this is the first time this has happened) and so I set out following the website instructions for Laoshan Village Chai! Boiled a tbsp w milk (smelled like it was burning) but tasted fine nevertheless. It was already somewhat sweet on its own but I wanted it sweeter and since I do put sugar in my chai, I added honey as recommended.
The taste of toasted rice was predominant and I thought it was weird to put rice in a chai..and then it dawned on me…checked the website, and yep, it’s a Genmaicha! lol.

So my second steep followed the directions ok..tho it was infused with some of the milk I boiled it with ^^’

Unfortunately, this mistake was not as “successful” as this tea’s origins. I taste the toasted rice but not much else :( Will update after the 3rd steep ^^’

Update: Yay, the milk washed off with the 2nd steep and now I’m getting lots of other notes with the toasted rice..hm, lemme see…the original sweetness I detected before the addition of honey, chocolate..some green-ness!…and something else I can’t place ^^

Many thanks to Ze Teamaker for sending me this surprise sample!

Update: I am still steeping it…I think it is the 5th or 6th…not complex as earlier steeps but still with the fun toasted rice flavor that I like!

Oh dear, it looks like I might be ordering from Zen Tea after all…now I know why everybody’s abuzz about this! It has a very light note of coconut and a sweetness that is not in the other EGCs. What more can I say? I like this EGC a lot!

Thank you for sharing this tea with me, sweet Veronica ! (pretends to be visiting for afternoon tea) :D

This will not be a totally precise tasting note as this was tasted together with 5 other EGCs but this one has a solid flavor that lasted 3 steeps and can possibly live up to another steep or so.

For the 1st steep, I liked how this tasted more than I did the other 4…but not so much more than ZenTea’s :)

Hot or cooled down, this did not get bitter! Hooray! And in the end (after the 3rd steep), this was the best tasting of all 6 EGCs that I tried.

Got it yesterday and actually conducted an EGC tasting last night. Almost forgot this one coz I hadn’t logged it in my catalog yet so I rushed to steep it alongside the 5 EGCs but then i realized this was not an EGC!

No matter, it tastes just as good as one. Or rather, this trumps them all in my book! Many thanks to Piccolo for the very generous sample..but I’m afraid it will not be enough for me, haha. I gotta buy more of this!

Silky – perfectly describes the beautiful taste that coursed through my tastebuds and captivated me (sigh)

order it here:
http://www.teajo.com/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=47

Thank you for offering a beautiful EG, Teajo Teas!

update: 2nd steep was still ok. 3rd was not quite but then again, neither were the others. maybe it was because i left them sitting too long? i noticed that with EGs they dont taste so good when cooled and actually become bitter-ish. all of them except for one….which you shall read about in my next tasting note!

No notes yet.

sweet…and nice! it smells really good. the black tea is not strong but i like it just as it is :)

ok, so this loose leaf newbie is growing up. this has ruined my enjoyment for the cheap bagged genmai that i thought i would enjoy forever! i never should have tasted them side by side. i was afraid this would happen.

I really like matcha and I really like rooibos. Plus, I’m tickled pink to receive a tin of this from an angel named Charlotte I would never have been able to try this otherwise. Come to think of it, there are a ton of teas I would never have been able to try if not for my dear Steepster family! So thank you to Charlotte and everyone in Steepster. You make the tea experience so much more than I thought it could be :)

Now, on to the Red Matcha! Being a newbie, I clumsily opened the tin and dropped a bit more powder than I had planned into my (brother’s) shake bottle. Made a mental note of the need for a spoon. Next, I put it under the water dispenser and tiny clouds of powder flew. This helped me inhale the aroma, lol. Upon hindsight, I note: it is better to put in water first..or pour water oh so gently. Ah, matcha truly is an art requiring much grace!

So I shake it, and sip it, and oh, the water’s gone down…add some more water to make up for too much powder from earlier…and sip down some more, imagining the possibilities of mixing this with other things. I did like the teabag rooibos w/cinnamon and vanilla so I think I will try that for a start :)

Wow, thanks to Jackie for a big sample of this. She gave me more of this than the other samples coz she knew I love EG. So sweet ^^

It is a nice EG Cream and I’m happy I got to try it in this never-ending journey of tea and EG :)

After tasting a lot of teas today (17), with only a few that were good, I kinda needed a tea to make me sigh in happiness.

So I reached for this sample from Dustin :)

I have never had this before but thought a Rishi EG can’t be bad.

It is a reserved EG. But that is fine with me. Flavor was a bit muted but it seemed dignified that way :)

of the 14 teas i tasted today, this was among the top 3. the bergamot was very subtle but the lavender was just right.

hm, i wonder how it will turn out if i mix it with some EG?

i like it but buy it? maybe. will have to try other lavender EGs :)

thanks to Azzrian for this sample!

ok, im a little surprised by the current ratings but maybe the other (10+) teas i tried with this with werent all that good that is why this one stood out (with a couple others)

it is sweet and tasted fine enough while warm. it didnt get to the cool stage because i brewed only small samples haha

but this is good. thanks Kasumi for this sample! wanting to try other plum oolongs :)

i thought to try some teas today and of the 14 teas, i liked this, versailles lavender, and plum oolong the most.

of the 3, i liked the scent of this best.

yes, i would buy this! thanks Nicole for this sample :)

To play it safe, I steeped this at a lower temp and shorter time than normally recommended for oolongs. It seems that this can tolerate 170F and 3mins tho.

1st steep: lightly sweet, lightly floral

looking forward to next steeps!

This is CLOVE. It smells and tastes just like real cloves!

While it is not bad, I would prefer to have this mixed with something else. I know it would be perfect for flavoring chai. And it would probably be cool with the orange flavored black tea too :)

I tasted this together with the Cherry and Clove.

While the cherry is super sweet, this one is a bit toned down in sweetness but it has its own charm that I can’t put in words right now…will have to try it again sometime.

Bottom line: I like it :)

well, I can’t really say much except: this tea tastes exactly as it smells – sweet and fruity. kinda like…candy :)

i’m satisfied.

Different from the Fine Jasmine Pearls (FJP) because this for one, is more affordable.

Pricing aside, this is a pretty good pearl and I imagine it would come 2nd to the FJP if I had included this in the Jasmine comparison tasting I did last week.

For the record, this is my first ever milk oolong. And I am not (yet) a fan of green tea (coz it easily gets bitter when I steep it) or the vegetal taste (tho I like matcha and jasmine tea).

BUT this…tastes a bit vegetal..and it is buttery….oh so buttery! From the scent it exudes upon steeping up to the nth steep that I was able to squeeze out of it. I love it so! I imagine I can be happy drinking this for days on end.

color: lighter than the regular matcha
flavor: minty!

so this is my first matcha. well one of the 3 that i tried all at the same time (in small portions tho)

for me, it is pretty good and leaves me excited to try other flavored matchas! but the flavor of a good unflavored one (Davids Matcha Matsu) also makes me want to explore the other side too!

oh happy day! it kinda makes up for not getting any tea in the mail today :)

gotta say this about matcha: a little goes a long way!

thank you TC for adding this to the swap! and for the good-sized amount of it too :)

so i could not wait for a whisk anymore and decided to jump in so i will no longer be a matcha virgin

got 3 small rubbermaid containers that are as big (or small) as my tasting teacups

and tasted this together with Teavana Imperial Grade Matcha and an Organic Mint Matcha

i used water right out of the dispenser (neither cold nor warm) coz i did not want any bitterness but neither did i want to mask the taste with coolness.

this has a pleasant taste! the first time i tried it was at a DT shop in SFO and all i got was bitterness but my aunt liked it enough to buy some.
so glad i did it right the first time!

there is a sweet undertone that makes you want to drink it more :)

thanks to Nathalie for sending me this in a swap!

after a pleasant Soho Blend experience, i was so eager to try Love Life that i forgot that it had a green tea base! good thing i dont usually steep my teas too long ^^’

still, it did not taste bitter as greens are bound to with such carelessness.

first time i met Soho, i smelled him before i actually saw him. his coconut aroma was so strong, i was afraid it might get into the others!

after a while in his intense presence, his sweet scent tried to seduce me. and though i succumbed to a cup, it led me to conclude that i will just swap him away.

and then, in the process of portioning it out, the scent continued to tantalize…and i succumbed again! but this time, it got me thinking…maybe i dont want to swap all of it! maybe, maybe…i might even buy a pound of it…sometime in the future*

so ok, i like him well enough. even though his flavor is not as rich as his scent. and even though the 2nd steep is but a shadow of the first. maybe i will double the tea just to get a strong enough taste next time.

funny how the heart changes in the span of a few weeks.

many thanks to Isabel who showered me with a ton of teas out of nowhere, lol.

*a pound not entirely for personal use but to stock my online tea shop with