157 Tasting Notes
Backlog
Another bag received from the tea swap a while ago. This was less enjoyable, but not terrible. Imagine Big Red chewing gum in a weak state—toward the end of the chew—and that’s what you get with this tea. Sweet and slightly cinnamon spice.
Flavors: Cinnamon
A few weeks (months?) ago, I was invited to go to a tea swap at a local town nearby. However, there were 4 people that showed up, and one of them being the host. I dropped a ton of loose leaf samples there and swapped them for some bags of tea I’ve not tried – this being one of those teas.
While I typically drink my tea loose leaf, I’m not too big of a snob to avoid bags. I was surprised by the strength of peach flavors this bag produced. I drank it hot, but thought how perfect this would be as an iced tea over the summer. It was quite refreshing and I finished the final dregs at room temperature.
Flavors: Peach
From the W2T club (not sure which – Feb or Jan)
There are not a lot of notes regarding this one. I wanted to believe that it was going to amaze me, but it fell short. There’s not a lot of flavor and a slight leathery note in the back of the throat (aftertaste). Otherwise, it’s nothing too special.
From the April Tea Club
Three things I’ll note:
1. I usually don’t like white tea that much. There have only been three white teas that have blown me away (and that I think about often, but resist purchasing due to a limited self-allowance of tea spending per year. However, if the day were to arrive where I dropped the money for these, I’d buy very little tea the remainder of the year) and those include a. White2Tea’s 2019 Censers; b. White2Tea’s 2020 Night Life; and c. White2Tea’s 2019 Turtle Dove.
2. Now that we’ve established my limited tolerance for white tea, we can establish that this was not on the top list of teas I’d grab willingly. One thing I shall, and will, note is that West China’s offerings are usually top tier and unique. I’ve never had a bad experience, even here, but this wasn’t a ‘blow my mind’ session, either.
3. The tea session was average in time and length. I brewed this around 8-9 times but called the session after the last infusion. It wasn’t extraordinary by any means, and I wouldn’t go out of my way to grab anymore of this tea. I’d rate it as average.
I had this mini sitting in the sample pile for sipdowns, etc. I held off for a while to give this a try. I can’t recall when I had received it, but here we are…I had continued this in the wee hours of Saturday. I hadn’t slept very well (my dreams have been strange lately. I’ve been having “what if” dreams where I went into different fields of study during college and the type of careers I could’ve had, had I chosen an alternative field during college. I’ve also been dreaming of old friends, etc.) and I decided that the best time to wake up, despite having gone to bed after work around 01:00, was at 05:30. After hitting the tea some more, I realized my error, sipping on an empty stomach. I quickly tossed back a fruit smoothie and finished off the leaf.
To my surprise – there sat a little tea being, sharing their own bowl. Perhaps my imagination got the best of me or perhaps there are ‘tea people’ who wait their whole lives to venture into their own cup. Luckily, I was there to capture the moment.
Sipdown
I drank the remainder of this iced yesterday while doing some light house cleaning. I had this as a hot tea during work on Friday, but I assumed it may have been better as an iced tea, so I cold brewed the remainder for Saturday. The hot tea had more black currant/berry flavors, while the iced tea had lesser berries, and more black tea base. The black currant allowed the tea to sweeten naturally, but it was less noticeable as an iced tea.
Flavors: Berries, Black Currant, Fruity
Sipdown
Anything regarding this tea has been removed from MST’s website. I purchased this back in 2022ish and opened the packet about 3+ months ago; however, the sipping truly began within the past couple of weeks. I was able to get this sipped in a few sessions while drinking other teas in between. I had to constantly remind myself that this was a red oolong, not a red/black tea. It had the maltiness of a red/black tea, without that heaviness you may get with said genre of leaf. There wasn’t as much caffeine energy as with a red/black tea, either. Not that I’d recommend it, but I’d say this isn’t likely to hurt your stomach as much, if one were to sip on an empty stomach…by accident. Clears throat
