523 Tasting Notes

Backlog:

I tried this tea before I joined Steepster. I won’t be trying it again. I love ripe pu-erhs, though I’ve had some bad ones. However, it was the coconut that insulted me in this one. I just don’t get it though: I love coconut on my my cakes and pastries and in candy bars and chocolates, but liquid coconut flavor does not agree with me. I had another coconut tea that, while somewhat more tolerable than this one, was still not to my liking

The first sip of this tea tastes like pu-erh, The coconut is more of an aftertaste, so I thought I liked it at first. After 4 or 5 sips, however, I realized the nasty left over flavor and felt sick to my stomach. I drank a whole bunch of water and brewed a favorite blend right away to cure me.

Incidentally, my husband likes this tea. He doesn’t drink a lot of tea and he refuses to try plain Puerh because of the smell, but he liked this one.

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75

First a summary of my preferences:
*I love dark chocolate, not a fan of milk or white except as a pairing with something else
*I absolutely love the smell of cherry, artificial or not.
*I have yet to find a chocolate-only flavored tea that I’m crazy about
*I absolutely hate black forest pie (the one with the cherries and chocolate). . .go figure, but something about putting the cherries in there produces a chemical-like flavor that, apparently, only I can detect.

Yes, my taste-preferences are contradictory. But I am that way about a lot of things ;)

So, as for this Chocolate Cherry Bomb tea. I bought a sample for my husband, more so than for me. He loves cherry and not as sensitive to flavor peculiarities as me. But I always try any thing I get for him too because, why not?

So today is Easter. We don’t have children, but we don’t want to miss out on the childish fun of the holidays, so we always give a small basket to each other on Easter. Mine had a box of chocolates, See’s candies (the only chocolates worth buying lol). What a perfect time to brew up a dessert tea, I thought. It was soooo worth it. Seriously, you all have to have this tea with a piece of chocolate and remember to convince yourself that its not a sin. haha.

It has a very smooth, almost creamy texture like a hot chocolate (as far as a tea can be anyway) and the blend of chocolate and cherry comes out absolutely perfect. Neither overpowers the other.

Yay for trying my husband’s samples. (^o^)

ETA:
Apparently, this tea only tastes good when I’ve been eating chocolates (which probably adds to the perceived creaminess). By itself, it’s not so great. However, as far as chocolate teas go, this is one of the better ones.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 3 min, 30 sec

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I don’t like a lot of oolongs, but this is one of the exceptions. It’s very sweet, like honey, and not too floral for me. I can’t stand strong florals at all. I don’t know what different flavors subsequent steepings might yield, however. I’ve just done boiling (195deg where I live) for 4 minutes. The previous time I had this tea, I did a 5 minute steeping and it was about the same.

ETA: I’ve completely lost my taste for this oolong (the last tasting note indicated my declining preference). The honey notes that I thought I loved are making me queasy, and not just in this tea. I have a similar reaction to strong honey notes in many other teas too. so strange to suddenly develop this response. oh well. My mother absolutely loves this tea, so I gave the rest of mine to her.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 4 min, 0 sec

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85

Drinking this tea now, doing some homework. I read through the previous reviews for this tea and, wow, what a lot of discrepancy. Some say it’s woody, earthy, not woody, more like a green, more like a white, etc. Well, here’s my own take on it: It’s very grassy and vegetal to me. Much like a Japanese Sencha, but not as finicky about brew time and temperature. I feel that it has a bit of the Japanese-defined unami flavor. But now I have to wonder if all the batches are consistent, given the variation in reviews. As it is for my batch, I really like it.

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Slept in today to make up for the lack of sleep I’ve had all week. It was the week after spring break and it seemed like all the “catch up” I did during the break was in vain. I’m so glad I made it through though, barely!

Enjoying a cup of mango tango with my brunch-time breakfast. It doesn’t taste so strong of mango or passionfruit as it smells, but the flavoring does have a lovely effect on the tea. It is sweet (as if I added plain sugar to it) and not too bitter. The flavor definitely mellows out the black tea’s usual bite.

EDIT:
I’m not liking this tea so much as I did at first. It still smells wonderful and the taste is largely as I described it before, but the last two times I had it, i noticed an unpleasant aftertaste.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 3 min, 30 sec
Bonnie

Hi, I live in Fort Collins, Colorado…so if you’re coming this way,stop for tea at Happy Luckys Tea House and let me know first and I’ll buy you a pot. BTW there’s a tea festival in Boulder in July.

Shelley_Lorraine

We used to go to Fort Collins a lot when we first moved here to Laramie, but not as often any more. I briefly tried to organize a CKC spaniel meetup there, so that’s what kept us going. But tea could be good motivation too! We probably won’t have any time for such fun till the end of the semester, but I’ll let you know. Thanks for the info!

Bonnie

If you don’t follow people back (or find new ones to follow) they can’t send messages to your mailbox,and you can’t see their reviews.More interesting when the tea conversations are two sided. I’m not trying to be bossy, but thought it might be an oversight.

Shelley_Lorraine

oh sorry! I’m not so used to how forums like this work.

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85

Best. tea. ever. Seriously, this is my favorite tea (that I have tried so far). It’s like my favorite season and happy place all together in a little cup. This is one of the few teas who’s flavor is as strong (if not stronger) than the smell. Sometimes I am sad when a tea smells divine, but lets me down in the mouth. I will have to force myself not to drink it too often so that it will seem “extra special” every time.

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45

To be fair, this tea tastes exactly like a cantaloupe. There are some teas that smell strongly of a flavor, but don’t always taste as strong. This one does. However, I didn’t like it. I love cantaloupe and I love tea. The problem is that I prefer my cantaloupe cold and my tea hot. Also, this is the third tea I have tried with a “cream” flavor and I think I can safely say that I’m not a fan of the cream flavored teas.

Terri HarpLady

I’m actually thinking I migght cold brew the last of this to see if I like it better chilled :)

Shelley_Lorraine

I definitely think this would be a good choice for iced tea. But I’ve always preferred hot drinks to cold. I might try it anyway though.

Terri HarpLady

I’m mostly a hot tea drinker myself, but when gardening season comes around I like to have some cold refreshment too!

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75

Much different that Japan’s staple green tea. Dragonwell is a lot less grassy. It is somewhat nutty and reminds me vaguely of the tea I remember having in Chinese restaurants (though I’ve heard that they usually serve oolongs or jasmine, none that I went to ever served a tea that tasted like oolong or even the least bit floral).

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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100

One of my 3 most favorite teas. It’s not grassy like Sencha or gyokuru and not too fruity or citrusy like some other green teas. It has a buttery mild vegetal flavor that blends well with a variety of tea snacks or even a meal. A lot of teas I prefer to drink solo because other foods distract from the flavor. Not so with the Kukicha.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 30 sec

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This is one of my favorite teas from the teaspot. It has a fruity flavor and does not seem overly sensitive to over-steeping. It can be re-steeped 3 or four times with no loss to flavor. I prefer keep my first steep to a minute and a half or 2 minutes, adding 30 seconds each time.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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Profile

Bio

Name: Shelley Lorraine Limegrover
Location: Livingston, MT

Hobbies: Learning, reading books, math, physics (have a degree in it), literature (have a degree in it too), anthropology, traveling, piano, and drinking TEA, of course (^o^)

Favorite teas: Kukicha, Green teas in general, aged oolongs, charcoal roasted oolong, taiwanese oolongs, Assam . . .

Don’t like: Genmaicha, Earl Grey, Darjeelings, ginger, coconut, smokey teas (even mild ones), nut flavors, overwhelmingly strong floral flavor (esp. Jasmine), most della derra and adagio teas. . .

My Rating System

100 My happiness absolutely depends on it

95 Will definitely repurchase

85: Might repurchase (teas that depend on my mood)

75 Won’t repurchase (but I would drink it again if offered).

65: meh

45: I reluctantly finished a cup.

15: Couldn’t finish a cup.

I simplified my ratings to single numbers rather than ranges because I can’t precisely compare so many teas with a system more detailed than this.

An unrated tea is most often one that I recognize as having significant notable quality, but that does not suit me personally. Sometimes, I leave teas unrated for other reasons, such as I am undecided or I brewed it wrong, etc.

Note: Boiling temp. barely reaches 200 where I am (and a few times it sticks at 195, I assume due to unexplainable shifts in altitude or the position of the moon. . .aliens?. . .).

Location

Colorado

Website

https://shelleyintherain.word...

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