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Hallieod drank Laoshan Black Chocolate Genmaicha by Verdant Tea

73 tasting notes

Kindly sent to me, along with many other goodies, by Dexter3657!

This is one amazing tea. Really extraordinary. Everything I didn’t much like (to my embarrassment) about the Laoshan Black was mellowed and smoothed by the toasted rice and became absolutely wonderful. I’m discovering that I’m even weirder about teas than I’d realised, and one of my weirdnesses is apparently having ‘issues’ about roasty tastes, including dark chocolate ones. I can’t eat dark chocolate any more because of migraines, but I used to love it as much as anyone – er, anyone who loves dark chocolate. But in the Laoshan Black, the malty chocolate just tasted slightly burnt to me, and the bitterness wasn’t the awesome bitterness of proper dark chocolate. But I love toasted rice in tea, and here it was as nice as ever, and it was fascinating how a ‘peasant tea’ became so elegant. I so much appreciate the sample – and such a generous sample! Cara and I had a bunch of cups out of that first batch, and there’s still more to enjoy another day.

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I’ve been drinking tea pretty much all my life, allowing for the fact that there probably was no tea in my baby-bottles. I gave it up twice, once when a then-boyfriend sneered at me for being addicted (okay, I was, but I was also stubborn enough to bear a week of the blinding headaches and overwhelming exhaustion that followed cold-turkey withdrawal), and once on my first pregnancy. Neither experience gave me any reason to believe a life without tea is a good life.

Having spent most of my younger days in Ireland, where tea is everywhere, and mostly it’s decent, I whined my way across the States in the 80s and first half of the 90s. Now back in Dublin, and the tea situation is a bit mixed, but there’s the internet to provide what nearby shops don’t!

I started drinking green and white teas as well as my staple black a good few years ago now, but have recently decided I need to LEARN something more about tea than the little I know.

My likes:
- strong black tea blends; some flavoured blacks, such as Earl Grey and a small (but growing) number of other fruit and flower-flavoured ones; and chai. (For some daft reason, I feel like a tea fraud drinking sweet chai at home, though I’ll happily drink it out.)

- Chinese greens (may update this when I’ve learned enough to be more specific); some flavoured greens, especially if they’re made by the fabulous Yumchaa; Genmaicha; getting to like Sencha, as long as it’s not too bitter.

- White tea, pretty much as long as it’s good quality, I like it. Some flavoured ones are nice, though it’s easy to overpower the more delicate taste of white.

- Rooibos, which I know, I know, isn’t properly ‘tea’. (As above for Yumchaa flavoured rooibos – some of my favourites.)

Dislikes:
- Any black tea made by someone who doesn’t know you need BOILING WATER. (See above about the Whining Years.)

- Hibiscus in fruit-flavoured teas. Looks so pretty! Tastes so awful!

I’m working on trying to like Hojicha, which isn’t going too well yet. Jane Pettigrew describes it as “biscuity”, but unless she’s eaten a lot of cigarette-flavoured biscuits in her time, I don’t get it.

- Aniseed in spiced teas. (Just discovered this one for the dislike list today, in an otherwise-tasty chai. Don’t like the tongue-numbing effect.)

Indecisive, despite being opinionated – okay, very opinionated – so may just add notes rather than rating.