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In my last Camellia Sinensis order, I got a mystery teabag as part of a contest, and if you identified what it was, you could win $500 worth of tea. Unfortunately, I only looked at the teabag after the contest was over, so here we are. At least I know what it is! I steeped 3 g of leaf in a 355 ml mug using 185F water for 3:30, 4:30, 6, and 10 minutes.

The dry aroma is of kale, spinach, hazelnuts, and sunflower seeds. The first steep has notes of spinach, kale, lettuce, green beans, sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, earth, and umami. I can sort of see how the vendor says it is herbaceous. The finish is a little drying, but it’s not particularly bitter, though more bitterness comes out as it cools. The next couple steeps accentuate the beans and hazelnuts, with an earthy, herbaceous, vegetal background. The final long steep is vegetal and grassy.

I certainly feel like I’m getting my veggies with this one, and though this isn’t a bad thing, I can’t see myself drinking it regularly. Still, I’m glad to have tried a tea that I normally would have ignored, especially because it was pretty good!

The first sample I grabbed today was a matcha, but I have no tools for preparing it so I put it back in the bag. I’m glad that my second pick was a gyokuro. I steeped 5 g of leaf in a 120 ml kyusu using 140F water for 2 minutes, followed by several steeps of 20 seconds.

The dry aroma is of spinach, grass, and earth. The first steep has notes of spinach, brussels sprouts, broccoli, umami, grass, herbs, butter, and earth. I get very little sweetness and lots of bitter veggies. The next steep features edamame and umami and is still quite bitter. The final steeps have somewhat sweet grassy notes with other veggies.

I didn’t enjoy this gyokuro as much as the Gyokuro Cha Musume I had a couple days ago. It lacked sweetness and fruitiness and was quite vegetal and bitter. I was happy to try it, but it’s not the type of flavour profile I gravitate toward.

These Advent calendar samples also contain a lot of matcha. It seems dumb to buy a $60 matcha kit to make free tea, especially since I’ve never had matcha before and don’t know if I even like it. I don’t have a milk frother or blender, so those options are out, too. Hmm.

This was my first ever deep-steamed sencha and I wrecked it with an inadequate strainer. Suspecting it would have more bitterness than yesterday’s gyokuro, I steeped it in my 150 ml porcelain pot using a strainer from a bigger pot that I thought would filter out the tiny leaf bits. I used 160F water and steeped it for 1 minute, followed by several 20 second steeps.

The dry aroma of the leaves was of spinach, edamame, and corn. My first indication that something had gone wrong was the dark green colour of the tea in the pot caused by all the leaf fragments at the bottom. What a mess! The first steep packed a wallop of bitter spinach and grass, followed by notes of edamame and sweet corn. The next couple steeps were actually a bit less bitter, with notes of spinach, grass, edamame, corn, butter, asparagus, and kale. Hints of florality and a thicker texture came out near the end of the session.

Though my steeping didn’t help, to say the least, I think this flavour profile would have been too bitter for me anyway. I won’t rate the tea, but I’d say my brewing was about a 40. Next time, I’ll have to use my Finum infuser.

Nio Teas kindly sent me their Advent calendar in December, and sent samples again when that package failed to arrive. Thank you for your persistence and generosity! I have minimal experience with Japanese teas, so this should be interesting!

Since I enjoy gyokuro, I was happy to grab this first from my pile of samples. I have a 120 ml kyusu instead of a 150 ml one, which means I had to deviate from their instructions slightly. I steeped 5 g of leaf in 120 ml of 140F water for 2 minutes, then three more times for 20 seconds.

The dry leaf has aromas of spinach, seaweed, and grass. The first steep has notes of spinach, squash, umami, kale, butter, and grass, with slight but noticeable bitterness. I also get the creamy hazelnut mentioned in the description. The next steeps are a bit sweeter, with more of that hazelnut, umami, and grass. As Cameron noted, it does taste more like a sencha as the session goes on. By the fourth steep, I was able to taste squash, apple, and sweet grass as the vegetal bitterness diminished.

This is a nice tea, though it doesn’t have the fruitiness I’ve found in other gyokuro. I particularly appreciate the comparative lack of bitterness.

Not counting Baozhong, this is the only green oolong I picked up in my big Black Friday Floating Leaves haul. How will it compare to their good but not amazing spring 2021 Shan Lin Xi? I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot using 195F water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 180, and 240 seconds, plus some uncounted final rounds.

The aroma of the dry leaves is of orchid, sweet pea, pineapple, green apple, honeysuckle, pine, and spinach. The first steep has notes of orchid, sweet pea, sweetgrass, butter, citrus, pineapple, and green apple. The next steep is more herbaceous and vegetal, with that sweet candied pineapple I found in the first steep. Steeps three and four add minerals, pine, and honeysuckle florals, and remind me of grassy cotton candy in a good way. Sweet florals, minerals, and pineapple persist over the next few steeps. The session has a predictably vegetal and grassy ending, though the florals have lots of staying power.

I’d say this is a step up from their 2021 offering, both in terms of longevity and taste. Oolongs with pineapple notes always make me happy, and I finished this one quickly.

This is my third Ruby 18 in the past few months. The one from What-Cha was so good that I now consider picking up samples of other Red Jades, even though this is a tea type I often find too tannic and astringent. This version is from the 2022 harvest. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of sweet potato, caramel, malt, menthol, sassafras, and tomato vine. The first steep has notes of sweet potato, raisin, menthol, sassafras, malt, tomato vine, and brown sugar. The tea is a bit drying and already has some astringency. The next steep has even more raisin, sweet potato, and menthol notes, with tannins, malt, caramel, cream, sassafras, and wood in the background. Steeps three and four emphasize menthol, sweet potato, earth, raisins, and caramel, with increasing levels of tannins and a hint of something floral that I can’t name. More malt, tannins, and raisins appear in the next few steeps, though the tea is still quite sweet in spite of its astringency. The sweet potato persists into the end of the session, though the tea also becomes more tannic, earthy, woody, and mineral.

A solid Ruby 18, this tea nonetheless falls short compared to my beloved What-Cha version due to its higher levels of astringency and less complex palate. However, I liked the sweet potato and caramel, and this is a nice example of the type. I’m now completely out of Ruby 18 and I’m not sure if I mind. I think I like Shan Cha and Taiwanese high mountain black teas more than Ruby 18, in spite of its intriguing sassafras/menthol elements. Aside from the What-Cha version, it’s just too tannic for me to really enjoy.

I’ve been drinking this Dancong for a while, but am having trouble doing it justice in a review as I find the flavours to be complex and the roast overpowering. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 200F for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of honeydew melon, tangerine, orchid, herbs, hay, and roast. The first steep has notes of honeydew, orchid, banana bread, honey, grass, minerals, almonds, cream, wood, and heavy roast. The second steep adds a bit of tangerine and grilled peach, especially in the aftertaste, along with violet and drying roast. Almond, cherry, honeydew, peach, and orchid are more prominent in the next couple steeps, but wow, the tea is drying. It tastes like a mouthful of almond skin. At the bottom of the cup I smell grilled peach and pineapple and some honeydew melon—all of which are things I’d rather have in the tea. The fruit comes out a little more in the next couple steeps, along with honey, other flowers, and some vegetal flavours. Steeps seven and eight have notes of butter, orchids, banana, honeydew, almond, and roast, with lots of astringency. The fruit peters out in the next few steeps, with almonds, wood, honey, minerals, and roast being the most notable flavours.

This Dancong has a lot going on, much of it good. However, the roast is a bit too heavy for me and I can’t get past the astringency. I’ve sent the last few grams of this tea to Derk, who should appreciate it more.

Happy 2023! I apologize for my long hiatus from Steepster. It’s certainly been a while.

Here’s another entry in my attempt to drink all the unroasted teas from Wang’s catalogue. Shan Cha is difficult to find, and to my knowledge, this is my second one after the excellent What-Cha version. Thanks to Wang Family Tea for the generous 25 g sample! I believe this is from 2021 and is the non-competition version. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot at 195F for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus a few uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of apricots, rose, raisins, and autumn leaves. The first steep has notes of rose, dried apricots, raisins, autumn leaves, cream, malt, wood, and tannins. The stonefruit and rose are rather lovely! The next steep adds a bit of blackberry and more sweet rose and apricot over the malty, woody, tannic base. The next couple steeps are similar, with the addition of honey, grass, and clove. Steeps five and six are less strong on the apricot, but still have lots of rose and raisin. The tannins assert themselves increasingly strongly in the next few steeps, though the apricot and especially the rose continue to make this tea worth drinking. The final steeps are full of malt, tannins, earth, minerals, honey, and wood.

This is a lovely fruity, floral tea that I enjoyed just a little bit less than the What-Cha version. The tannins could get aggressive, both in my preferred shorter steeps and in the longer ones that Wang suggests on their website. I did, however, purchase the competition version of this tea from 2022, so we’ll see how it compares.

I’m nearing the end of the green oolongs I bought from Wang back in 2021, and I have to say I’ll be sad when they’re gone. Most of the previous Qilai Shans I’ve had have been very floral and not that memorable, but of course, I couldn’t resist picking up one more. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot using boiling water for 55, 45, 55, 65, 75, 90, 120, 180, and 240 seconds, plus several long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of orchid, pineapple, and grass. The first steep has notes of orchid, pineapple, mung bean, and grass, and there’s a little bitterness because it’s the last session’s worth of tea in the bag. The next steep adds peach, lemon, and other unidentifiable florals. Steeps three and four give me peach, apricot, pineapple, lemon, cream, and orchid, but are not particularly sweet because the tea is quite vegetal (beans, lettuce, spinach, grass). The vegetal notes get stronger during the next couple steeps, with the fruit diminishing into grassy florals. The pineapple and orchid last the longest, leaving a not unpleasantly bitter vegetal impression as the session winds down.

As with all of the green oolongs I’ve tried from Wang, this Qilai Shan conveys clean, simple flavours very well, with the added benefit of having unexpectedly fruity notes in some sessions. Its longevity is also great, as is the fact that without the tea bits, this vegetal tea doesn’t actually get bitter. It’s a little unpredictable and slightly more vegetal than I’d like, but I’d highly recommend it!

I avoided Ruby 18 like the plague for a while because of a few very astringent examples, but What-Cha’s Yu Chi Red Jade made me more open to exploring this cultivar again. I received this as a generous sample from Wang last year, and was eager to finally try it. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot at 195F for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of cinnamon, menthol, raisins, cream, malt, and wood. The first steep has notes of cinnamon, menthol, cream, raisins, camphor, malt, and wood, with a little astringency. The menthol and cinnamon are stronger in the second steep, and I get that sassafras note I associate with Ruby 18. Steeps three and four are full of mint, cinnamon, and sassafras, with some cream, grass, tannins, malt, sweet potato, earth, and raisins. The astringency isn’t off-putting, but it’s definitely there. Over the next few steeps, the distinctive Ruby 18 notes persist, but the tea becomes more bready, earthy, and tannic. The tea doesn’t change too much throughout the session, although grass and honey surprisingly emerge right at the end, along with the predictable tannins, malt, and wood.

This pleasant Red Jade has a lot of the cinnamon and mint that are typical of this tea type. These flavours persist over almost the entire session, though sadly, so does some astringency. Using the steeping parameters on their website (195F, 40/40/50 seconds) doesn’t tame the astringency, and produces fewer steeps. For me, this is a solid tea that I didn’t enjoy as much as the What-Cha version.