1384 Tasting Notes
Day 8 of the Inoki Bathhouse advent calendar. Gong fu. This tastes like the mental image I have of a Chinese black tea: rich, chocolatey, chicory-esque. Slightly astringent, but when I overbrewed the third steep by 20 minutes it didn’t get more astringent, which I found impressive. Solid entry in this calendar.
The lid fell off my gaiwan teapot while I was pouring out the third steep. It shattered. I felt weirdly sad and guilty because it’s one of the first pieces of teaware I bought on my first trip to Taiwan, and I have really fond memories of that trip. But I guess the bottom piece will now get to have a second life as a pitcher and it could be worse.
This is an incredibly belated note for a sipdown from the fall! I took this with me to a conference and finished it there. It’s actually great for that – brews well at most temperatures, lends itself well to grandpa-style steeps so I can just put the tea and water in my mug and go, and good enough to amplify a good mood without anything distracting or unpleasant in the way. Hoping this comes back in stock; I’m doing a low-spend on tea this year but have a coupon that’s tempting me to break it!
Day 7 of the Inoki Bathhouse advent calendar. This is the kind of chrysanthemum I’m used to – little fluffy yellow flowers. I had to drink my second steep the day after brewing it. Turns out I like chrysanthemum even better iced than hot, surprisingly. It’s floral but more in the savory way of chamomile flowers than the softer way of lavender or rose. I can see why Roswell Strange described it as peppery – there’s a little tingle that lingers after the sip, not as harsh as ginger but notable. Now I get to file away chrysanthemum as a good option for iced herbals when the weather gets hot.
Day 6 of the Inoki Bathhouse advent calendar. Tbh, I’m just generally not a fan of ginseng. It’s like ginger’s more earthy, less zingy cousin. This seems like a decent, even good ginseng to me, but I’m not a good judge and I still don’t like it because it’s just not to my taste.
Migraine day so I just wanted something fun and caffeinated. I recently bought a cute glass bubble tea mug and a couple packets of this were kindly included. It’s surprisingly good for an instant milk tea. The boba came out the right chewiness and consistency, though a few pearls were too hard in the middle.
The tea itself dissolves well. It’s not the best milk tea I’ve ever had, both in accuracy of flavor and because it’s too sweet for my preference, but it’s probably the best-tasting home boba powder I’ve tried. Bonus points for it being dairy-free and vegan. For an at-home option, especially if you don’t have a good boba shop near you, this is a respectable showing.
2025 TTB.
Yoink! I love this blend and I’ve been out of it for two years, so I’m going to selfishly keep the bag from the TTB. Just a bit of brown sugar makes the flavors pop even more. Chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and I could swear there’s a whiff of alcohol at the end of the sip. Not alcohol in the “this tastes like rubbing alcohol” way, but in the “this has a liquor flavor” way. Hands down the best TTB blend I’ve had today.
TTB 2025. Yay, another tea company I’m getting to try for the first time! This blend is extremely hibiscus heavy, to the point where I’d actually suggest a two-minute steep rather than the recommended 3 minutes. As it is, I’m just getting tart and sweet that’s reading as “hibiscus” and not much else. If I didn’t have other teas in this box that I still want to get to, I might play around with this some more, but it just doesn’t seem worth the time/caffeine at this point. I hope someone down the line likes it more, though, and does play with it!
TTB 2025. Have I ever tried anything from necessiteas before? Not sure. I’m not a big fan of blueberries but this looked interesting enough to give it a try. Made as an oat milk latte. Mostly I’m just getting maple syrup, with just a faint whiff of blueberry that I might not have noticed at all if I didn’t know it was there. I enjoyed this more than I expected to, but someone who likes blueberries might be disappointed.
TTB 2025. I’ve gotten on my soapbox about this company before, so I’ll spare y’all the screed this time. Suffice to say, I find their framing extremely pretentious and disrespectful to the history and tradition of tea as well as other companies that have been innovating in the fun-flavored-tea realm long before August was even an idea. I’ve had some good blends from them, so I’m not opposed to trying one that’s new-to-me, but I have no interest in giving them my money or space in my cupboard.
That said, this blend is pretty tasty! The strawberry note hits first, followed quickly by an apple-y chamomile. Some gentle tartness at the end of the sip. I don’t know what kind of bubblegum they’re chewing, but I’m not getting anything bubblegum-like. I also can’t really pick out anything about the base green tea here. A very easy drinker.
I also find their marketing to be a bit much, but also I think there are only 2 or 3 teas that I’ve ever liked enough to reorder from them, and plenty that I’ve really disliked ha ha.
There seem to be a lot of newer companies now that actively try to distance themselves from existing tea norms because they want to attract young and hip people by “reinventing” tea. Not necessarily a bad thing if it gets more people into tea, but they never fail to elicit an eyeroll from me… :P
