Bio
Life is too short to drink bad tea!
Pan-American: Left-coast reared (on Bigelow’s Constant Comment and Twinings’ Earl Grey) and right-coast educated, I’ve used this moniker & Email since the glory days of AOL in the 90’s, reflecting two of my lifelong loves— tea and ‘Trek.
Now a midwestern molecular biologist (right down to the stereotypical Hawaiian shirts), I’m finally broadening the scope of my sippage and getting into all sorts of Assamicas, from mainstream Assam CTCs to Taiwan blacks & TRES varietals, to varied Pu’erhs. With some other stuff tossed in for fun. I enjoy reading other folks’ tasting notes (thank you). I’ve lurked here from time to time and am now adding a few notes of my own to better appreciate the experience. Note that my sense of taste varies from the typical, for example I find stevia to be unsweet and bitter. My dislike of red rooibos may be similarly rooted in genetics, which impacts perceptions of many flavors, from asparagus to stevia to cilantro.
I don’t work for a tea vendor, and I’m not a professional tea sommelier. And I don’t taste every nuance, hint of flavor or note of aroma, nor am I trained to describe those that I do detect. But I taste enough to have opinions, and do my best to be descriptive. Sensory preferences can shift from day to day and person to person, so numerical ratings are kinda bogus, especially between and among various people. But there are individual trends, and I try to reflect that. As reference points for my ratings, I give Lipton Black Tea bags “orange pekoe and pekoe, cut black” a score of 65 because it is widely available and profoundly consistent. I view it as just okay. I would give plain, hot, quality spring water a rating of 25, and I buy Crystal Geyser brand for brewing because my local well water is stinky and discolored, and my filtration & softening system leaves it salty and unpleasant. Tea should make the commercial Spring Water better, not worse, so a rating below 25 speaks for itself.
I am conversationally friendly but absolutely not here looking for dates or money, nor to sell anything. If I’ve started to follow you, I don’t mean to be creepy, it only means you recently posted something I liked reading, or it was about an interesting tea or event. And I’ve recently discovered that the Steepster system only notifies me of new posts written by people I follow. If you follow me, I won’t assume anything. If I do not follow you, it isn’t a snub—you’re still a good human being!
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Avatar:. Arrival in Athens, Greece, on vacation.
Location
Chicagoland-USA
I scooped up a bunch of crumbs and fines from the bottom of the jelly jar this tea has been sitting in, and brewed it up tonight. 4 g and 8 ounces of boiling spring water. Overstepped it on the first infusion for about two minutes. OMG, what a fantastic — absolutely fantastic — cup of tea! This has been the best pu’erh, raw or ripe, that I have had in my life. Maybe it’s happenstance, maybe it’s the extra year of age, maybe it’s the fact that I’m now using Spring water to brew, but for whatever reason, this tea is now excellent. Lively, unctuous, spicey, aromatic and the best long-lingering aftertaste in the back and roof of my mouth! I cannot properly identify all the flavors right now, but I will be working on deconstructing its flavors over the next week or so and let you know!
Yup, I just bought a whole sleeve of this stuff!