309 Tasting Notes

96

This is a lovely tea, I think. A sample where I, after first taste the other day, made a full teapot for my morning.

There’s a floral taste on the back of the tongue. I wouldn’t call the tea sweet at all but there is something there that is close. A dark flavor similar to a simple Assam is everywhere in the mouth but especially on the sides of the tongue… it’s not strong, but it is there in a noticeable point; The Darjeeling taate doesnt wholly cover that aspect.

A vegetal strength is on the middle of the tongue mixed with a yellow tone and touches of a light blue.

It has an overall varied and shifting and complex flavor. It has a Very long finish, also rich and with a stronger floral tone. As the finish fades – over a Very long time – it becomes more and more floral and shifts to the tip of the tongue. By the end it shifts further to include the front of the gums.

I really like this. Am so happy I bought the sample. Can completely see myself buying a normal order of it.

Flavors: Floral, Flowers, Green, Vegetal

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec 11 g 30 OZ / 887 ML

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44

Just got this with many samples I ordered. So far I’m not impressed. I’m making my first tries to the directions on the packet, will later see what some fiddling does.

First cup, even though I over steeped a little, has a light mouth feel but has a very watery taste. The flavor has to be actively searched for. That said, afterwards there is a long finish that almost has more flavor that the actual drinking. Watery is a good description of the taste, unfortunately.

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 4 min, 15 sec 1 g 3 OZ / 88 ML
Kittenna

Bleh, I hate when teas have that weak, watery taste. Hopefully more leaf or something helps it out?

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83

No notes yet. Add one?

Flavors: Bitter, Green

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 5 min, 0 sec 1 g 3 OZ / 88 ML

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88

This is a really weird Genmaicha to me.

It has a bit hole in the back of the throat. You’ve got taste and textures around the cheeks and tongue and towards the round back of your mouth but right up in the back of the throat where there is usually a lot of taste or finish this one gives a mental impression of a hole in the flavor wall.

I doubt I’m being clear here.

Let’s just say there’s a noticeable nothing on the back of my throat with this one so far.

The rice has a dark tone than averagely found. It’s more mid or forward tongue and a mahogany-without-the-red color taste of roasted instead of the brighter colored toasted tastes you find in genmaichas. It gives you a weird pause as it hits sort of heavy.

Not bad, just unexpected and unusual.

The green is more the tip of the tongue and sides of the mouth. Sort of a pond-algae color and flavor, both… trailing to darker in the cheeks.

The tea gives a watery pool feel below the tongue but doesn’t give off an astringent tang to cause it.

I get a minor pressure touch to the center inside of my bottom lip as texture while the overall mouth feel is fairly large, round, and grainy. Not a clearer mental image than that.

Light golden sweetness around the outer gums on the sides of the mouth.

It fades slowly into a sort of sharper sweet-tarts plant greenness taste in the front of the mouth and darker more dense green color through the rest of the mouth as it’s finish.

That hole at the back after several swallows is still there but a very faint finish of toasted scent is noticed when focused on.

It’s yummy but weird.

- Added a little later:
As the tea cools further the green flavor becomes stronger and sharper, filling more of the overall.

Flavors: Green, Hay, Roasted, Round, Thick, Toasted, Toasted Rice

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 1 min, 45 sec 2 g 6 OZ / 177 ML

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83

This, my friends, is a gulpable by accident one. As in, “wow, I like the taste of this enough it causes lack of pause”.

It is very smooth, a fair bit smoky without being intense, more than. Medium. Mouth feel, a slight hay sweetness.

The flavour is soft golden I’d say. Wow like this one.

A lot of body and taste for a white still maintaining that slight feeling of delicacy.

My measurements on grams to. Water are rough due to on the go life.

Flavors: Grass, Hay, Smoke, Sweet

Preparation
160 °F / 71 °C 1 min, 0 sec 2 g 6 OZ / 177 ML

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98

Dark with that touch of acrid charcoal-black-burnt brown but it is way deep down into back of mouth and throat.

It has a medium level astringency that spreads across the entire top of tonue.

There’s a bitter, sort of rotting wet winter leaves, flavor that fills the mouth with it. While at the same time it has a lighter sweetness tending towards a malty feel and taste but not going there… just a hint that it could, but doesn’t. If that makes any sense.

That lighter sweetness starts during the sip in the back of the throat but higher up, just above, the dark acrid bit I spoke of. Then in the finish it moves to the upper half of the mouth with strongest at middle between front and back of the roof.

Id gives a deep and round impression. Fills the mouth, hitting multiple areas with the sensation of flavor. Causes production of a little extra saliva to pool at where the teeth and tongue meet in front, but not a dryness strong enough in mouth for such production from astringency level or style. Just an odd little texture and reaction note there.

As it cools a pink, a soft flower petal pink, takes up the place of the sweetness before and holds on with whites and pinks of light flowers into the cooler tea’s finish.

Hot ranging down to cool as I drink my cup the finish on it is very quite long and it is a tea that makes you want to take gulps almost from the way it leaves your mouth.

I bought this on a whim, being lured to the Leaves of Cha site by their post on the name and discount code in memory of Prince. I then found myself excited by the site in general’s mix of teas I was familiar with and more that I wasn’t combined with their very thorough info on their tea pages. Ended up grabbing a few things new to me.

I’d say this one was definitely for me and I’d recommend it.

Flavors: Astringent, Autumn Leaf Pile, Burnt, Floral, Flowers, Round, Sweet, Tannic, Tannin, Wood

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec 2 g 4 OZ / 118 ML

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51

15: first taste is a dark sort of musky mud/soil. Fishiness that is barely discernable. The orange presents in the center of the tongue as dark heavier round taste than I’m used to in citrus pu-erh. There a light-fishy-yellow flavor that develops after it cools some. During this all, the citrus is transforming into a tiny zing that grows in size and shape til it is almost a burn that settles in that same center tongue area but also the very front inside lips and center roof of the mouth.

That zing/burn is not unpleasant, just of a sort of tea sensation I’ve never had before at all. It’s oddly unique.

The ginger develops in clarity at the point where the tea sips become cold. Until then it just develops that feeling described above with the orange. The citrus leads the way with the ginger being it’s support, unnoticed and hidden until the temperature drops. Then it shows itself clearly.

Another weird one for me these past couple days.

The fishy isn’t strong but just a tone to that musky/muddy.

I’m not a fan of the strong fishiness some pu-erh has so that rocks.

First steep is nifty.

10 sec: fishy mud is stronger but not very much, still, and ginger zing is more and more cleanly ginger. Orange rind is very strong and black and surrounds the outside edges of the back of the mouth…a range of over the tongue, up the insides of the cheeks, and then nestles into the back of the top throat, that gap that goes slightly upward behind the roof of the mouth stops and the throat extends a bit (maybe where others still have there adenoids?).

As it cools is all blends together into a more balanced taste, something whole rather than a ton of separate experiences. It’s somewhat thick and round in texture with a flowing sense to it.

Darker and more complex steep, unsurprisingly.

10: this one seems almost like water except the ginger hits the mouth a moderate amount. Totally worthless one to me.

I tend to only report on three steeps, so it may develop more as I do more and up the time now, but that’s where I stop writing today beyond to say that the pu-erh flavor isn’t clear or defining in this tea. It’s a meh item for me, but I might change my mind. So far lackluster.

Flavors: Citrus, Earth, Fishy, Ginger, Mud, Peppercorn, Round, Thick, Wet Earth

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 1 g 1 OZ / 29 ML

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67

Very weird taste. It’s green but not strong and has a zing sort of deal when it first enters your mouth, especially on the outer edges of your tongue.

It’s a yellow grassy green that then moves farther into the yellow as you swallow.

It’s a medium-light strength green tea taste, with a sentcha like dark green bitterness deep underneath the flavor and it hits and sits on the bag center of the tongue.

Makes mouth water but doesn’t have a distinct astringent. I feel like that astringent sensation, itself, is buried by the rest of it all.

Certainly a zing to it, each sip.

Parchment sensation. Yep, that is what it makes me feel. Odd, fair enough, but that’s what my mind goes “ah ha!” on all of a sudden as right. Hm.

This is definitely good and an interesting character, but I’m not sure if it’s a rebuy for me. Is a good decision to buy a handful of samples in this shipment instead of larger sizes of any one thing so that I only have this small amount.

I give it a thumbs up as it also has a looongg finish I’m noting as I write. A dark, heavy and still having some weird zing sort of green stuffed sort of deep low in the back of my throat. Heavier and lower than anything else I can recall ever having, really…

Hm.

Interesting.

Again, not sure if it’s for me, but it certainly is something it was good to try out.

Flavors: Astringent, Bok Choy, Grass, Green, Heavy, Vegetal

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 3 min, 0 sec 4 g 12 OZ / 354 ML

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24

Accidentally ordered again so as reviewing again! Realized by seeing I’d rated it before when I went to put it in my cupboard and rate it now. I saw I gave it a low score but decided to not look at the review itself and give it a clean go-over without past observations read and basing my perceptions. Gonna read afterward and see how they matched lol.

And if I like it better this time it certainly wouldn’t be the first!!

Weak bodied, with a fairly standard but less brown/black/burnt flavor of assam tea.

Very mildly astringent, around gum lines but mostly in mid-underside of tongue.

Extremely short primary finish. Almost non-existent. There is only a flat generic assam feeling in the back of throat and front end, little more than the tip, that lingers for a long while. Actual specific tea traits are gone during the swallow.

A bit of malty sweetness halfway through sip in almost the direct center of tongue.

This isn’t a bad tasting tea, but not a particularly pleasant one either for me. It just doesn’t seem to have much personality in any direction and leaves me going, “ehhhhhhh. No.”.

Like, I am gonna finish what I made of it but give the rest of the sample to my two roommates and make myself a different tea I received today. Maybe whoever uses the rest will like it.

Flavors: Astringent, Malt, Sweet

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 0 sec 4 g 12 OZ / 354 ML

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66
drank Zen by Tazo
309 tasting notes

Zingy, a feeling of light pressure against gum line of top front teeth, green in middle of tongue which in the finish rolls into the back of the tongue and meets the throat with a sweet green taste… Sort of like the four leaf greens or clover greens we ate as kids when out walking.

Yellow around the top half of the mouth as a point longer into the finish.

It has a general sweetness when you sip and it’s a little cooler. The sweet green again wraps around the back of the tongue but also the rear portion of the sides of it, more forward than the finish a bit.

The lemongrass is certainly noticeable and puts that pleasantly unbalanced feel to the taste

Mildly astringent.

It’s pretty good for an off the shelf bag tea. Something I’d pick if that was the best of the options in the supermarket sort of good. Not something I’d want in my collection if I was able to have one again right now.

A pretty good supermarket tea.

Flavors: Astringent, Green, Lemongrass, Plants, Sweet

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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Bio

I live as a nomad now and my cupboard is no longer huge, it goes from bare to maybe 3 or 4 at a time – whatever I can easily carry in my rucksack. But am ordering samples from places so I can keep trying new stuff or more easily carry a variety for my moods that’ll fit!

Note to those who read my reviews:

I only about a year ago learned I have synesthesia and that is why I’ve always wrote my reviews primarily in colors. Clearly, if you’ve read any recently, that’s still how I write most of the time as that’s still how I best describe flavors. Today I realized that may be worth putting out there for folks who come across my reviews.
Moving on:

Unless otherwise noted, I use 2.25g of tea to 6oz of water for my tastings.

Geeky, vegan, dominant, serious, non-gendered, childfree, eclectic, alternatively-styled, friendly and open-minded are good descriptors of me, I think. Also: extremely introverted, but not at all shy.

I grew up on bag teas, mainly Lipton, at my father’s and great-grandmother’s homes. I loved getting up before everyone else and sitting with a hot cup and reading or watching some quiet tv in the morning.

I didn’t bother much with tea for the years of my teenhood because of no longer seeing either of these people and my mother’s house wasn’t one for tea… more coffee drinkers, instead.

During my adulthood I started drinking it again, but still mostly bag teas like Lipton, Tetley, and some herbal mixes. I enjoyed these but went no further…

…until I was at a restaurant one night and ordered a Darjeeling tea to give it a try.

I fell back in love with tea and have since been trying all sorts of loose leaf and some bag teas.

I’m currently delving mainly into white teas, but my tastes wander.

Not sure what else to say here… if you like my notes or are interested in chatting about something, do feel free to send a note. I love meeting new folks, especially since we share at least one interest, being on this site and all.

Location

SE Asia, at the moment Bangkok

Website

http://wanderings.world

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