Michelle Butler Hallett Send Message

1.5tsp for 400mL water (approximately — tea was made for me)

Had a meeting at a trendy coffee shop this morning. They also sell loose teas. The teas are properly stored in aritight canisters. Many coffee shops proudly display their loose tea in cavernous jars — pretty to look at, but damaging to the teas, as both air and light gnaw at them.

I don’t know where Hava Java got this sencha, but it was the best I’ve ever tasted. A vegetal note in the aroma, then full-on sweet green CREAMINESS. Not a drop of astringency. No brine. No lawn-clippings. The water was also not quite boiling, which helped. But seriously: creamy green tea! Like a matcha and soy milk latte. Heaven.

Can anyone recommend a sencha to me that sounds like the one I just described?

1 bag for 250mL water, bare,

Strange, to me.

All lemon, at first — an earthy lemon, as the ad copy promises, but also a slightly medicinal lemon, with a muted China green aftertate. No mate taste at all, though you can smell it a bit in the vegetal earthiness. The initial scent put me off, but now that the lemon-wrestler has dissipated, the liquor is delicate and refreshing. It’s like the lemon scent has been pent-up and just explodes when hot water hit the leaves.

One confusion bit: the foil packet says to steep 4-6 minutes, while the little tag on the end of the string says steep 2-3 minutes. I steeped mine for 5 and am quite happy, but the continuity error in the packaging irks me.

The lemon taste and scent comes and goes as you continue to sip.

This would be great to drink while staring into a fire.

1 bag for 250mL water, bare.

(backlogging)

I am totally spoilt. Loose leaf forever.

This bagged Gen Mai Cha is a competent version, but it’s lacking something … body, nuance … I feel like I’m being very hard on Numi lately. I used to think much more highly of their bagged teas. Have they gone downhill, or have I gotten pickier?

Pleasant green tea that will get bitter if the water’s too hot. Nice enough toasty rice. But there’s no oomph to this, nothing to make me choose Numi’s Gen Mai Cha over anyone else’s.

1 bag for 250mL, bare.

Watching tea or tisane steep in my dear old clear glass mug is great pleasure for me. Red rooibos is especially pretty to watch.

The initial scent of Numi’s Red Mellow Bush is that nuttiness some red rooibos has — and sunshine. I mean that exceptionally clean scent of sunshine — laundry dried on a clothesline, conifers in summer, sparkling rocks … that sunshine. No mint and no wood. The taste is a little dull, but i think that’s due to the relatively stingy teabag portion and not the leaves themselves. Rooibos needs a good 5 minutes to start developing its flavour, in my experience. I rarely take my rooibos leaves out of the cup before finishing the tisane.

Like Numi’s Bushmen’s Brew Honeybush, this is very competent. It’s a red rooibos I wouldn’t hesitate to give a first-time sipper. A good example of good rooibos.

T

1 bag for 250mL water, bare.

Ehrrr … I am not kindly disposed to this one. It will have hibiscus — ugh. And adding flavbouring to Darjeeling is risky, at best. Darjeeling is so wonderful on its own — and can be hard to get, so why wreck the limited supply with flavours?

But I digress. I might even be wrong.

Steeping the bag in a clear glass mug … um, yeah, it looks like it’s bleeding, not steeping. Damn you, hibiscus!

Decent muscatel scent, though a slightly earthy one.

If you want to give a vampire tea party, this is the tea to make. Quite striking — and bloody, really — against glass. I would imagine it would be so agasint white china, too.

First sip: all hibiscus.

Second sip: 90% hibiscus, 10% stale tea.

Berries? Where?

Like I said, I was prejudiced against this blend from the start, as I strongly dislike hisbiscus. It’s a bully!

Third sip: 60 hibiscus, 30 getting-bitter tea, 10 sharp mystery dirt.

Steep time: 2:30. I imagine the tea will develop and battle the hibiscus, but the tea’s already bitter. (Darjeeling, bitter? WTH?) Must go water a plant.

If you don’t mind hibiscus, maybe try this one at a very short steep. It shoudl yield you a cup of hibiscus water with a faint black tea infusion.

Not for me.

1 bag for 250mL water, bare.

(Backlogging)

I like honeybush. This is a bag of honeybush. Therefore it was quite good. What makes it good is that it’s honeybush. It’s like chamomile and peppermint that way, pretty standard across the brands, provided the leaves are treated nicely.

1 bag for 250mL water, bare.

Spicy scent when I opened the bag morphed into full-on GINGERBREAD once the water hit the leaves. (MKust be the clove and allspice.) Seriously. It needed a good long steep to taste of anything, but the aroma was lovely. The ginger and cardamom lend the blend some good heat. I don’t really taste much red rooibos, but at least the rooibos is neither woody nor minty. Good. Better than I expected.

1 scant TB for 450mL water, bare.

I’ve written about tasting notes many times before, so I’ll keep my comments brief today and just note that this Keemun, along with a few crackers, can quickly settle my upset stomach.

1 bag for 250mL water, bare.

I love the floral scent, which is hard to define. Almost a spicy floral — I guess that’s the osmanthus. The taste is a bit different. A fairly subtle but not boring white tea. Delicate. Slight touch of apricots on the aftertaste. Very pleasant.

1 TB for 450mL water, bare.

Cool enough water and a 5-minute steep bring out excellent nuances, without soapiness or bitterness. This oolong demands good treatment, better than I can generally give it with my basic kettle. (Oh, for a Breville!) But once I get the water right, this is a very fine, very refreshing gentle ooling. Not too buttery, and not too vegetal. The magnolia scent beckons but doe not batter. Mmmm.