123 Tasting Notes
I was really looking forward to a good cup of English Breakfast. I LOVE Ceylon Tea. In fact, I had already had a few good cups earlier in the day. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything that good about this one.
The dry leaf didn’t have any interesting aromas. Broken Orange Pekoe, I suppose. You can see tea stem and leaf in the finished product. It’s uniform.
Cup brewed up to a darker red colour. No interesting brewed aromas. I noticed a little bit of dryness on the tongue.
I even brewed the second brewings both together to try to increase the strength of the brew. Still nothing amazing. Sheesh.
The thing that galls me about it is that Ceylon teas are not expensive, so they should be able to provide a flavourful cup. Blending should make that easier too.
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This is quite drinkeable iced with sugar. But remember, it don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that zing. And there is little zing here. Still it’s good. I did notice a bit of that cherry cough syrup smell that someone else noticed. And the back of my throat may be feeling it.
Two bags and 200 mL for 3 min then iced.
After reading about Russian Caravan Tea, I decided to try making a blend. This is probably not caravan tea though.
I chose these three to blend:
Darjerling Black (Unknown)
Oolong Supreme (Davids Tea)
Lapsang Souching (Unknown)
I used 1 teaspoon of each tea for my cup. I mixed in 1 table spoon of honey and 3 teaspoons of sugar (roughly). I also added milk.
I was surprised at how incredibly smoky this tea was. It is like the other teas are enhancing the smokiness and enabling me to appreciate the flavours of the wood.
The body of the tea is a bit lighter. The honey rounds it out.
I can’t really pick out any strong flavours. Though the front of my tongue is tingling with unami.
I think traditionally you want to go heavier when mixing with a smokey tea. However, I think this experiment showed that blending with lighter teas can enhance the smokiness.
Now if I had only made some toast and jam to go with this. Ok, second steeping too light and smokey. Tried the toast and jam too.
Today’s random steepin is a food pairing of Humpty Dumpty Cheese Sticks (Puffs really) with Japanese House matcha.
The matcha was prepared with 120 mL of water and one teaspoon of powder.
I choose the cheese puffs based on how long the cheese flavour lasted. You get a real salty flavour.
Reading the ingredient list there is real cheese and also msg which should be interesting with matcha. The idea is to alternate tea and snack as opposed to drinking them together. This makes the matcha super refreshing, but also shortens how long it lasts in taste. You will also feel like you want two bowls instead of one. It goes quickly.
I also like to add sugar to my matcha. I got the acidity of the green tea for sure. The lovely greeness contrasts the orange colour of a cheese puff. There was definitely some good flavour in the matcha, and I do believe the contrast brought it out.
This matcha has been sitting for about a month since it was opened, and I think it may be moving towards a vegetable flavour.
Next time I might try a spicy Dorito. :)
My second review for this tea. I had some tea bags left over from a 1/2 price box, so I decided to go all in and bet 4 bags on a cup of iced tea. I did this because I thought there were some different flavours that were clashing in the hot brew.
The cup aroma was much closer to that of the tea bag. The colour of the brew was strange yellow. Almost fluorescent.
It did seem to unify the flavours. I’m kind of reminded of one of those fruity blends that uses orange peel. But this was in no way citrusy.
Definitely raspberry jam on the nose and pomegranate. I buy the seduction argument for aroma. Unfortunately, you are going to be walking around with that aroma for some time afterwards.
Brewed for 3 minutes.
Preparation
Today’s random steeping is rather unique. Firstly because it uses well aged Bai Mu Dan. And secondly, because of the advanced brewing technique. The idea is to use ice to super cold brew over a long period of time. Simply place the ice in a large bowl along with the tea and cover the bowl. Come back 6 to 8 hours later. The tea is done when the ice is melted.
10 g of aged Bai Mu Dan tea was used to produce only 200 mL of tea.
The resulting liquid had an orange colour to it. There was a definite floral / tea aroma from the bowl. Evrn though the colour waa orange, the tea was smoother than from hot brewing.
You may want to prepare some simple syrup for sweetener. I decided to use honey that I warmed up in the microwave.
Afterwards, I tried to see if I could still make tea. Using 200 mL boiling water on the ice cold leaves extracted maximum flavour. I got the most wonderful hay / grass like tea. It was like a farmers field right after harvest. The tea was orange coloured as well.
The final brewing with hot water gave a more traditional tea taste.
The advantage of this method is that it supposedly brings out the natural sweetness of the tea I think somewhat like icewine brings out the flavour of the grape. I look forward to trying it with green teas in the future.
My second review for this tea. It’s taken me a while to figure out how to enjoy this tea. Part of the problem is the strong toasted cereal note that dominates this tea. I recommend adding sugar to this tea, and enjoying the taste of it like you would a fine madeira port.
In brewing this, keep the equipment as hot as possible by pre heating it with hot water. I used boiling water to brew the tea as well as keeping the heavy cup covered. Part of the problem with this tea is that it is so strong. You need to find just the right amount. I used 5 grams this time. If you use too much, it may be completely undrinkable (perhaps a lot of hot water might save it?). I used 200 mL of water for each steeping and a full 3 minutes. This seemed to work out.
Brewed 9g and 200 mL of water.
2 minute steeps
Added Sugar.
Got a pleasant cup of green tea. Yellow (Green?) Colour. Similar to a lot of other high quality greens. Cost per cup: 60 cents with multiple steepings.
First steeping 80 C degrees.
Second steeping much cooler.
Third 83 C
Still tasty on the third steeping.
600 mL of tea produced.
This morning I decided that I would start the day with two bowls of matcha and a plate of watermelon. I then followed this with a couple of cups of Long Jing and some toaster waffles with syrup.
I really like the combination of matcha with sugar, prepared traditionally, and watermelon. You take a sip of one and then later a bite of the other. I have yet to try it with many other fruits, I am sure it would work well, though. This mornings matcha was dark green and the froth was lighter colour. It contrasts so well with the red of the watermelon. You can also reverse the order with supersweet fruits and leave the matcha unsweetened.
My taste buds were primed by the time I had my first sip of Long Jing. I was in a sort of sudden matcha enduced calm, as well. It was sweet and brothlike with plenty of umami. Really delicious.
I look forward to many years of drinking tea. It has opened up quite a world to me.
