91

After years of contract work, consulting, working from home, and other non-traditional work arrangements, I actually have a pretty normal job where most of my days are spent in an office. I have a space that’s mine, but I’m almost always in another room, so I’m travel mugging it, and this has become my go-to tea for travel mug steeping (even though I should be sipping down the way too much tea I already have in my cupboard, I keep ordering more of this.)

This tea is so, so flexible and forgiving, which is a wonderful quality for steeping in a travel mug. I can use two, three or four pagodas for a 16oz cup, steep from 3 min to indefinitely, use 96C water or much cooler and always get a delicious cup that’s not astringent or bitter. It’s also one of the few teas that I find worth resteeping western-style.

Lighter cups are very malty and chocolatey. Long steeps with lots of tea bring out very rich, almost meaty notes, with a hint of tartness. There are lots of faces to this tea and all of them are good.

The flavour and quality has also been consistent over multiple purchases and multiple years, which I appreciate.

Flavors: Chocolate, Malt, Meat

Kristal I hear you. I love a good vegetal green tea but gunpowder green tea is my work day tea since it’s also so forgiving with steep times and temps.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

People who liked this

Comments

Kristal I hear you. I love a good vegetal green tea but gunpowder green tea is my work day tea since it’s also so forgiving with steep times and temps.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

Profile

Bio

I grew up drinking jasmine green tea with meals, but really fell in love with tea on a trip to Britain in elementary school. My first great love was Earl Grey, and I still adore it and all its variants.

I discovered the beauty of loose leaf tea much later, when, on impulse, I picked up a few teas that were on clearance at a home store. My introduction to loose leaf teas were Masala Chai and Provence Rooibos by the Metropolitan Tea Co and an unknown brand of kukicha and gyokuro (little did I know what a precious treasure I’d stumbled onto with that.)

At the time I was lucky to live in a place with multiple tea shops and several places to have afternoon tea, which is a delight I still miss.

Tea is part of my daily ritual and a nice, affordable way to appease the collector in me.

I enjoy distinctive whites, greens and oolongs, flavoured blacks, and herbals that are heavy on the citrus, lavender or mint.

Rating rubric, to give myself some consistency:
0-15 Yuck, not even drinkable.
16-30 Disappointing, not really inclined to give it a second try.
31-45 Disappointing, but maybe there’s potential? Worth one more try, prepped differently.
46-60 Mediocre, not terrible but not memorable.
61-75 Not bad. I’ll definitely finish what I have and might buy again.
76-90 Very enjoyable. Tasty, complex, it’ll keep me coming back.
91-100 BEST! I love everything about it and I will drink it forever.

Beyond tea, I’m a sex educator, polyamory activist, and radical queer. I love backwoods camping, abstract painting, baking & cooking, nail polish, cats, ceramic sculpture, and home nesting.

Location

Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Following These People

Moderator Tools

Mark as Spammer