1443 Tasting Notes
2023 sipdown no. 34
This one has a creamy vegetal steeped scent, with hints of bitterness. The taste is very smooth with a natural creamy sweetness and just the most subtle edge of bitterness as it cools.
I’m not completely sure if this is the correct tea, the name on the bag is Chilaishan Oolong and the steeping parameters on the bag note:
Amount: 5g+ per 100ml
Water: ~100C
Gongfu: 30, 40, 60 sec. steeps then +15 seconds to taste
Western: 3-5g per mug, 1-2 minute steeps
2023 sipdown no. 33
I’ve been low key searching for a White Rhino replacement forever and I don’t often order white teas, but this one intrigued me. For anyone interested, this isn’t a decent replacement, but it’s fine as a tea in general (though the price was insane in my mind €17 for 10 cups worth).
The tea itself was very unique looking, noted as a “stem tea” on the website, and yep — it’s like tiny driftwood grey twigs! I did really enjoy that. The taste is very clean and balanced. The flavour notes are meant to be “wild honey, stewed apricot, lychee” and I’m not really sure I’m getting any of these.
Preparation
I was initially doing a mini challenge for myself to get a sipdown per day for January, but now that we’re moving, I’m quite thrilled there are this many fewer teas to move. :)
2023 sipdown no. 24 A.C. Perch Organic French Earl Grey
2023 sipdown no. 25 A.C. Perch Organic Wildberry
2023 sipdown no. 26 A.C. Perch Organic Green Darjeeling
2023 sipdown no. 27 Camellia Sinensis Jin Shuan
2023 sipdown no. 28 A.C. Perch Fancy Formosa Oolong
2023 sipdown no. 29 A.C. Perch Green Mint
2023 sipdown no. 30 A.C. Perch Organic Green Kukicha
2023 sipdown no. 31 A.C. Perch Cool Herbal
So the smell of this one reminds me of a wet dog? It’s not turn-the-stomach repulsive or anything, just wet dog. The tea medium-bodied with hints of lemon in the taste. This one is hard to describe and I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it.
Preparation
I’ve tasted the wet dog thing before, but never in a tea with fruit.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who has experienced this. This one doesn’t have actual fruit — I believe it’s made from leaves of a blueberry plant (I Googled and the plant is European bilberry or Caucasian whortleberry). Quite interesting nonetheless!
Lol, I propose we add “wet dog” to the list of flavor descriptors :-D. Kind of torn now on whether I want to revisit this one.
Haha LuckyMe — I was so hoping after a few cups your tasting note would become true of my experience, but it just isn’t turning out that way. Such a shame!
“Wet Dog” is now available as a flavor descriptor.
XD
We stumbled across Tante T mistakenly on our travels and naturally I wanted to smell pretty near all the teas XD. I will never forget the scent of this tea at the shop — my mind was just blown. I knew I had to get some and it has never disappointed.
The Tante T web shop describes this as “liquid dark chocolate” and I have to agree. It is truly like drinking dark chocolate, it even has a depth of flavour that most chocolate teas don’t — reminiscent of a dark hot chocolate (I assume this is from the brilliant addition of barley). The ginger, cardamom, and black pepper fall more to the background here, but add a complexity of flavour and hints of spiciness that work really well.
Preparation
2023 sipdown no. 23
This tea is really tasty. It throws me off a bit as there’s a floral-esque scent, but a tropical floral? It’s hard to describe.
Hot: The taste itself is like biting into a merge of pineapple and mango — very juicy and delightful.
Cold: The cold taste was similar, but there was a slight edge of bitterness that I didn’t expect. I may actually prefer this one hot.
I ordered 100g of this with our advent calendars in October 2022 and I’m nearly through the entire lot. The love of fresh, high quality berries is something my east coast home and Scandinavia have in common and I love it (where I currently am in western Canada has such awful quality berries, sigh). However, because of this love I think A.C. Perch (& Nabo) really nail their berry flavours.
The base here has an edge of astringency, but I lower the steeping time to 3 minutes and it works out quite well. The berry flavours are very ‘wild’ tasting with hints of strawberry and the European ‘red fruit’ flavour. I believe there’s meant to be red currant here as well and there is a jammy quality I’ll chalk up to that. Overall a really tasty tea, and one I’d happily order for our cupboard again.
Preparation
2023 sipdown no. 12 Dammann Frères L’Ôriental Noir
2023 sipdown no. 13 A.C. Perch Green Cherry Blossom
2023 sipdown no. 14 A.C. Perch Organic Green Christmas
2023 sipdown no. 15 Dammann Frères Mon Petit Chocolat
2023 sipdown no. 16 A.C. Perch Green Tanzania
2023 sipdown no. 17 A.C. Perch Java
2023 sipdown no. 18 Nabo Italiensk Sockerkaka
2023 sipdown no. 19 A.C. Perch Queen’s Blend
2023 sipdown no. 20 Georgian Tea 1847 Rolled Black Tea
2023 sipdown no. 21 Teerausch China Pouchong Oolong
