437 Tasting Notes

70

When first brewed the scent of this tea kind of put me off because I smelled a cross between charred meat and charred bread crust, but once that dissipated the tea was pleasant enough. I tasted barley and toasted rice, chocolate (both dark and milk at times), raisins, and prunes. The tea is slightly syrupy and biscuity at the same time.

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I am not going to rate this tea at the time because I haven’t had many Jasmine Pearls before and really don’t have a point of comparison.

These pearls appear to have been naturally scented there are still a few petals mixed in with the tea. The sent in the bag was of a strong fruity Jasmine like the scent you smell in the flower markets in India after the flowers have been left to wilt in the heat all morning. The dry leaf is tightly wound strong almost with obvious downy buds with silvery hairs. The leaves range in colour from light olive to forest green. I steeped them 6 times in a Gaiwan. The colour of the tea remained a consistant peach mixed with green tinted light beige. The Spent leaves are small with an attatched bud. Overall these had a pleasant flavour that was a mix of floral, fruity and more savory and vegetal notes through out the brewing with references to the Jasmine, pineapple and peach and vegetal flavours.

40s. smell: light, sweet almost powdery jasmine with a lightly smokey, slightly savory scent from the tea.
taste: the tea is slightly creamy. The flavour is a nice blend of soft floral of jasmine and a sweet vegetal flavour from the tea with a faint hint of smoke and a fruity flavour almost hinting at grilled pineapple. no astrigency or bitterness.

45s. smell: jasmine, smoke,and fruit
taste: jasmine, brighter and fruitier rather than soft. Medium bodied tea with a vegetal taste and a hint of fresh almost green peaches and skin. Tea develops a little astringency felt in the front ofthe mouth and a hint of bitterness.

60s. smell: scent of bright jasmine dominant over sweet tea. taste: tea is thinner loosing its creaminess. tastes of a brighter floral note with the base tasting more green and slightly grassy, faint fresh peach with skin taste still present.

90s. smell: scent of jasmine and a savory vegetal.
taste: more astringent. jasmine flavour starting to loose prominence. The tea underneath still reminds me of an under ripe
peach and skin. need to raise water temperature for next brewing.

2m smell: jasmine scent almost gone.
taste: jasmine is stii contributing both something green, which contributes to the fresh fruit feeling in the mouth and something powdery suggesting almost lily of the valley. The base contributes a savory only slightly sweet vegetal flavour.

4 min. smell: hint of floral, vegetal.
taste: soft powdery floral taste up front, followed by freshening taste in the mouth, mouth feel of having peaches, lightly savory almost salty broth.

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72
drank Canadian Breakfast by Nourish Tea
437 tasting notes

Dry the leaves of this bop ceylon smell of raisins, a little sour and dusty. It brews to a dark mahogany. The tea smells of malt and something sweetly vegetal like cooked peas overlain by lemon and plum/cherry tones. It is sweet on the tongue at first sip but the flavour dissipates quickly leaving a sensee of cool dryness in the front of the mouth. The flavour doesn’t seem to hold a lot of base notes but the top notes are a fruity floral with a hint of vegetal. The floral is sweet with a faint hint of spice like clover mixed with carnation. The fruit is sweet hinting more of plum or a sweet blackberry rather than tart like the lemony smell might suggest. The floral/fruit mix it actually at times reminds me of sweet grass, quite nice. Oddly enough a bitter malty tone appears only after drinking
about half of the cup. The tea flavour is nice enough but it lacks depth and body. It is kind of thin for a breakfast tea. I think it would taste rather thin with milk, however if you drink tea black it is pleasant enough.

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82
drank Sorrel with Ginger by Tops
437 tasting notes

The company that produces this tea is kind of interesting because it has a mission statement to use local ingredients whenever possible and even grows some of the spices it uses on its own 20 acre farm if you’re interested there is more info here:

http://topsjamaicanteas.com/index.php

They have an interesting selection of herbal teas many including ginger and pepermint. ( They use to have one that had both of these which was a perfect anti-nauseant to have when flying) and some with local or regional herbs.

Anyways onto this particular tea. Hibiscus and ginger might be some people’s nightmare but this is actually quite nice. The sorrel is really not that tart at all. I think that this must be a sweeter, milder variety of hibiscus. The tea brews up a beautiful shade of ruby red as could be expected and it smells almost like a honeyed ginger lemon tisane. Both the hibiscus and ginger are relatively mild here and there actually is a hint of honey. The ginger is sweet and only mildly spicy and probably adds a lemon scent to the tea and the hibiscus is actually sweet only adding a little fruity tartness. It almost references cranberries. Its actually quite nice!

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drank Random Steepings by Various Artists
437 tasting notes

Sometimes when I’m craving something sweet but not too sweet I like to mix Teaopia/Teavana Caramelissimo with a light to medium bergamot earl grey(this time CJay teas option). This time I blended them 2 parts earl grey to 1 part Caramelissimo. What you get is citrus caramel blended with a hint of nut from the hazlenut brittle in Caramelissimo, over a ceylon/assam blend base which is both citrusy and bitter/earthy. It’s really nice, but add some sugar or increase the proportion of the caramel tea if you prefer a sweet tea. As it is this blend has an aftertaste that is a little like eating an earl grey dark chocolate truffle.

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91

Lopchu tea estate is located between Darjeeling and Teesta in West Bengal. The majority of its tea is from bushes originally from Yunnan province in China. The tea estate is proud to sell 100% of it’s tea under it’s own brand name. The tea estate is part of the darjeeling region but it’s flavour is unique enough that many people see it as a type into itself.

I bought this tea at a local store. Both this tea, the Flowery Orange Pekoe in a blue box, and the Golden orange pekoe in the pink box are often sold at stores near where I live. It is interesting to have the experience of buying boxes of tea carefully wrapped in paper.

The dry leaf smells like the forest, a mix of very fresh green scents, tempered by earth and spice, very green and clean. It brews to a deep orange red copper colour. It has a very fragrant smell. It is very fruity, with citrus, berry, and red wine accents, underlain by a more savory spicy smell, with hints of chocolate and biscuit which gives it a certain earthiness, plus a sweet and spicy floral. Flavour wise the first notes were green and floral, followed by sweet,citrus fruit accents, which were followed by bitter bisuit notes. It has an aftertaste of grapes, berries and floral spice. It has a fairly heavy body for a darjeeling, but leaves a light and bright feeling in the mouth, otherwise its fairly smooth. It Resteeps very well. It also tends to be more forgiving than some darjeelings and can take higher temperatures without becoming overly astringent. This tea is very
aromatic with lots of flavour and is great hot or cold.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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drank White Cherry by Earth Teaze
437 tasting notes

I bought this tea and two others frankly because they came in nice tins and I need tins and they were on sale so I can’t complain. However, this is supposed to be a Cherry flavoured white tea and frankly I can’t really detect any distinct flavouring or scent on the tea at all. Because the tea didn’t really have any fragrance outside of the pleasant smell of white tea, I decided to let it steep a little bit longer than I normally brew whites just to see if it did draw anything out, but really it seems to be a pleasant heavier bodied white with a few rose petals and a very few chunks of white dried fruit in it.

The base tea is from Sri Lanka and appears to be a mix of a variety of styles of white tea ranging from a silver needle style, and forest green crushed variety of white tea ( not really like a Bai Mudan as the leaves appeared to be folded) The scent off it is like a slightly sweet version of a lighter second cut hay. The flavouring adds very little fragrance but maybe it contributes to the sweetness. The brewed tea smells of a nutty hay, and peaches and cream corn with butter. It taste, almost like a mao feng white tea. It is nutty, heavier bodied, and tastes of butter, with fruity accents which taste almost like a cross between grenadilla and banana and pineapple, with maybe a faint hint of sweetness coming from the coconut. The fruitiness of the tea does not taste outside of the bounds of what is found naturally in some teas but may be due to the flavouring. I can’t say that there is anything in it that screams to me of cherry, but I do know that white cherries tend to have a softer taste. The dried fruit pieces did taste like banana it is possible that part of the fruity flavouring is from any added flavour and the fruit pieces, if so it is done very subtly. I can’t say I detect any rose. Underneath the nutty fruit tones there is a pleasant bitterness, a light astrigency, and a faint hay type flavour in the aftertaste.

Future steeps retained the pleasant fruity nuttiness, but became more astringent.

Overall this is a pleasant tasting tea however it fails to deliver on the flavour promised. As a plain white it has a very pleasant full and rich flavour but it does become astrigent, with more of a caffeine kick than my silver needles.

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85
drank Morning Dew by Teaopia
437 tasting notes

This was a nice floral and fruity blend. It has some similarities to Davids Three wishes, but three wishes for some reason always reminds me of watermelon and summer whereas this one has a spicier floral element that makes the tea seem a bit more sophisticated and year round to me. The sencha and floral blend create a fragrance that does smell like cut warmed peaches mixed with a spicy floral from the roses. The top notes were a mix of fruit and sweet vegetal notes form the sencha followed by a mix of floral spice (rose and almost a lavender note) and a mild bitterness. The base is astringent, not horribly so, but enough that one notices. The aftertaste is of floral spice with a hint of sweetness. This tea rebrewed fairly decently.

There seems to be a various companies that carry very similar or perhaps the same blend, so if I crave this style of tea again I should be able to find it.

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87
drank Winter Green Tea by Bastek
437 tasting notes

I really wish I had bought another box of this when I first found it because I find it to be a really nice, warm and comforting tea on chilly nights.

It has the same gunpowder base of the other Bastek green I have that brew up creamy and slightly sweet. It smells of cinnamon, cloves, apple, sweet fruit and spice. It has a medium bodied creamy mouthfeel and has a sweet taste provided by the dried apple, orange and raisins mixed with natural sweetness of tea. There is a hint of smoke and bitterness all overlain by sweet spice, with cinnamon and cloves on top and ginger underneath. The flavouring tastes a little bit like mincemeat pie but is not quite as sweet and it resteeps quite well.

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drank Monk's Blend by Teaopia
437 tasting notes

This was a nice example of this type of blend with the grenadine being fairly mild and not to sweet and a more dominant cool vanilla that added creaminess and avoided the tendancies of vanilla flavouring tasting like alcohol, pancake syrup, or like candle scent. Like others have said it definitely has a jasmine element to the taste, that blended nicely with the vanilla. The ceylon base was heavier than I am accustomed with in this type of tea and was kind of biscuity/malty. This was a nice tea when I craved a vanilla flavoured black.

I enjoyed this tea but for some wierd reason the mix of grenadine and malt was bringing back memories of the Monaco beer cocktails (grenadine and lager) I had during a heat wave one spring in Montpellier, France (fabulous city just to hang out in and a gateway into a gorgeous region of France). Not that the tea tasted of beer but the mix of malt and soft sweet fruit echoed each other in both beverages.

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