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I hope the picture I tried to upload displays, because this is a really visually attractive tea. The splash of color from the red saffron blossoms is quite pretty.

In the tin, this smells like an almost perfectly proportioned blend of coconut and pineapple. Not toasted coconut. Coconut. I have had a lot of teas with these two flavors, and it’s usually the case that one dominates over the other. Which is kind of amusing, because when combined with other flavors and not each other, they seem to dominate whatever they are in. Pineapple plus mango often tastes like only pineapple, for example. Coconut and chocolate is often heavy on the coconut.

After steeping, all bets are off. I smell something toasty-roasty that is maybe like toasted coconut, but because it smelled like non-toasted in the tin, it’s hard to know. The pineapple is in there somewhere, but suffice it to say the perfect blend of the two is not what I smell after steeping. The tea is a vibrant amber color.

The flavor is definitely coconut of the toasted variety, and pineapple of the not overly strong variety. But it works! Though not perfectly balanced (the toasted coconut dominates), that’s ok — the pineapple doesn’t need to be an equal partner in this blend to do its thing in a very appealing way.

The BF and no. 1 both thought it was awesome, too.

The BF is sick. He has some throat thing. So I am making extra of this so he can drink something hot.

In the tin, these furry little guys smell like sweet hay. They give off an interesting pink tinge to pale yellow tea after steeping. It’s very, very slight, but noticeable.

Oddly, there’s something a little on the bready/pastry side about the steeped tea’s aroma, though that’s not coming through in the flavor.

I don’t get a nutty flavor, though I can see that it might tend that way. What I get is cotton candy. Spun sugar with a little bit of hay behind it, a bit like sugarcane.

Which is sort of a first for me with silver needles. So yay.

Very likely the last tea of the morning. I was hoping to get a pu-erh in, but given the time, I don’t think that’ll be happening. There’s always tomorrow (holiday! more tea notes!).

Like the Dammann Freres of yesterday, I can find nothing about this tea on the web. There are many 8 Immortals teas, but I find the information about them somewhat confusing. Most of them are referred to as Dan Cong, and most of those as Ba Xian Dan Cong. I know that Dan Cong means single bush, and I glean from the interwebs that Ba Xian is 8 Immortals in Chinese. But this doesn’t help me much as it appears that this type of tea can come from different places in China. The Yunnan Sourcing web site says that they all come from several different villages around Wu Dong. I’ve also seen this type of tea referred to as a rock Oolong that comes from Wu Yi.

Bottom line, this tea seems destined to be forever a bit of a mystery.

What I can say is that it’s a dark oolong. The leaves are long, twisty, and a dark chocolate color. Dry, they smell like rocks. (Maybe it’s a rock oolong after all?)

Steeped in the gaiwan after a rinse starting at 15 seconds and adding 5, at 195F.

In the first steep, the aroma has an interesting floral quality that’s somewhat unexpected given the darkness of the leaves. I expected more roastiness than I’m getting, though there is some. The liquor is medium amber-gold. The flavor is not floral, however. It’s more a stone fruit, mineral flavor.

Steep the second is more stone fruit, apricot maybe, with something that reminds me a little of coffee. Less mineral than the first steep. The aroma maintains the nice floral note. I got a bit of astringency, a grab in the back of the throat with this steep.

Third steep. The leaves have pretty much unfurled. I expected more volume at this point. I think I may not have used enough tea. I usually fill the gaiwan to just under halfway. This time I did a little less because I thought I’d get more volume. This steep is more wet rocks than stonefruits. I’m still getting the unexpected coffee-like note.

Fourth steep. (This one went a bit longer than planned because I had to stop for a bio break while steeping.) It’s starting to lose something — the taste is flattening, with no distinct elements.

I enjoyed this, though I have no other 8 Immortals to compare it to. I’m still tasting a sort of espresso note in the aftertaste. The tea leaves a pleasant freshness in the mouth, like a really, really weak menthol.

I have so many oolongs and I’ve tasted them over so many years, I have reason to doubt the consistency of my ratings over time. So I’ll just muddle through here with what seems right for now.

I generally don’t put samples in my Steepster cupboard because I have so many of them and small amounts that I can sip down quickly enough that I feel like I’m misleading myself as to what’s really in my cupboard.

Every now and then I make a mistake — apparently I put this sample in my cupboard a while back. I’ve now removed it. Which is exciting because it brings me that much closer to a cupboard that is under some degree of control.

Continuing with working my way through the oolong stash, I thought I’d give another Todd & Holland flavored one a try since I enjoyed yesterday’s Tropical Escape so much.

The smell in the packet is strongly strawberry — like smelling a packet of dried strawberries. However, after steeping in the gaiwan for an initial 15 second, post rinse steep at 195F, I get very little strawberry aroma. It’s there, but extremely muted. The tea is light golden yellow.

Admittedly, I had red beans and rice for lunch about 30 minutes ago, so my taster was overwhelmed recently. But the first steep is disappointing. Not much flavor of any kind. A little strawberry in the aftertaste, maybe.

Steep 2, 20 sec. A bit more flavor of the underlying tea, a floral green oolong. I can get a hint of strawberry, a parfait-like strawberry.

Steep 3, 25 sec. Interesting. This is actually the best steep so far, which is surprising. I would have expected the strawberry to become fainter with each steep, but it is actually stronger in this one. It blends well with the flavor of the oolong base.

Steep 4, 30 sec. The strawberry is fainter.

At this point, I feel like I’ve given this as much attention as it warrants. I might steep it a couple more times, but while it’s pleasant enough, it seems like Western in the Breville is more than adequate to enjoy this for what it is.

It’s not bad, I would just hope for more strawberry, since it’s in the name.

Another tea with a duplicate entry. I wish the Steepster gods would use their super merge powers on these. It messes with my OCD.

If I had to guess, this has a separate entry because one is “organic” — but I find it hard not to believe these are the same tea. The description is identical, and there’s nothing in the “organic” description that elaborates on the organic label. BTW, mine is labeled organic and I’m taking the plunge to put it here with the vast majority of entries.

In the tin, I definitely get the “sour, dead plant” aroma from the dry leaves that I have associated with white peony in the past. A more charitable description is something like “arboreal” or “woody.”

The steeped tea’s aroma seems to veer rather significantly from that, however. I can’t say I’m smelling toasted chestnut, which I associate with a very specific smoky smell from the stands in NYC in winter, but I do understand the honey reference. Though it’s not an intense smell, there’s a sweetness that is reminiscent of a very light honey. The tea is a very pale yellow.

So to compare this to the Andao, which I just had a few minutes ago: they’re pretty similar in flavor (minus the undefined fruitiness, which I am now convinced was a holdover from a different tea), as I would have expected since they’re the same type of tea. The main difference is that the Andao is both more and less. It has more of a rounded flavor, whereas I feel as though I’m searching for the flavor a bit in this one amidst the hot water. But it is also less sharp. The Rishi has a sharp note that reminds me of a darjeeling, while the Andao doesn’t.

I’m going to rate this a little higher than the Adagio because I enjoyed this more, but lower than the Andao which will earn a ratings bump.

As I promised myself, I am trying this again first thing (at 10 — how did that happen? Oh wait, I know — I spent last night talking with No. 1 until after midnight, and I don’t stay up that late anymore).

I think the “undefined fruitiness” of yesterday was a holdover from the Todd & Holland. I’m not getting that today. I am getting a hint of butter, strangely enough. And a slight vegetal flavor, which is also surprising. The characteristic white tea flavor I have trouble describing is the most prevalent of the flavors.

I’m going to try another white peony after this and see how it compares.

Ending my tea tasting day with another oolong.

I’ve had this for a long time. Such is the case with many of my teas, but it’s unfortunate in the case of this one because I can find no information about it anywhere. I don’t see it on the Dammann Freres web site, and I can’t find anything about a Dammann version anywhere.

However, there does appear to be another company that sold this once upon a time (Herman teas), and there is information about the Handunugoda estate on the internet.

If I’m distilling this all correctly, this is a Sri Lankan oolong. That’s not a first for me (the LeafSpa comes to mind), but it is a rarity.

The dry leaves on this one are brown and twiggy. Dark oolong leaves. They have an interesting smell. I wouldn’t call it roasty, like a dark oolong, but it is a darker smell as opposed to a floral, green oolong smell. It’s more like a barky, woody smell.

After rinsing, I steeped in the gaiwan for my first tasting, starting at 15 seconds and adding increments of 5 seconds in 195F water.

The liquor on the first steep is a pretty gorgeous, coppery amber. The aroma has a strong brown sugar/honey note and something I couldn’t identify until I happened across someone else’s blog about this tea: sweet potato. Yep, that’s there as well. The flavor has those notes but it also has a bitterness that is sort of espresso-like. In the past I wouldn’t have enjoyed that, but after my trip to Italy last summer I’ve developed a taste for espresso. So it’s all good.

The next steep has less of the bitterness except in the finish and aftertaste but still an espresso cast, and I definitely taste the sweet potato more. There’s an Assam-like throat grab at the end. After the tea is gone, the cup has a very lovely floral (!) aroma.

The third and subsequent steeps were similar to the second, but became progressively less “dark” tasting. As they lightened up, the flavors morphed into really interesting variations on themselves. I didn’t really taste anything new or different, just variations on the general theme.

It’s a really nice tea. I won’t try it in a yixing because I don’t have any dedicated to Sri Lankan oolongs, but I will enjoy trying it other ways while it lasts.

It has been eons since I had matcha. I’m a little conflicted about drinking it. I am worried that once my matcha is all gone, I won’t feel comfortable ordering more. I have a phobia about all Japanese food products because as far as I can tell from internet searches, Fukushima never stopped dumping radioactivity into the ocean around Japan.

Fortunately I don’t have to make any decisions just yet because I still have some Japanese green tea from before the disaster. Which, you might rightly point out, makes it extremely old. In its and my defense, I can only say that I typically don’t open tea before I plan to start drinking it in earnest and I also live in a climate that is dry and not prone to temperature extremes. I have a fair amount of confidence in my storage methods.

This, for example, was still vacuum packed in a pull top tin that hadn’t been opened until today.

I decided to opt for SenchaMatcha’s measurements. 1 tsp, 4 oz water, 180 temp.

I am definitely out of practice. I didn’t get froth. I went back and read one of my other matcha notes and apparently I didn’t get froth when I first tried this a while back either. So I’ll have to practice some. And my tea was pool table green, not sea green, probably for lack of froth.

That said, I enjoyed this. It tasted to me like a sort of super ramped sencha. Seaweedy/grassy, not bitter, not sweet either, definitely what I understand to be umami which could be a flawed understanding.

I did not, however, taste zucchini. Maybe a little green bean, though.

Pretty sure I’ve liked other matchas better, but this was a nice re-intro to the genre.

Last weekend I broke open an ATR white rose sample and was bemoaning how they’re no longer around. Because looking at my tea log, I have discovered that I have a thing for white rose tea. I seem to have rated the ones I’ve tried high, though I never stopped to think about it as a pattern until now.

So I was pretty excited to try this one because it’s still available for order. But then I looked a bit more closely at the ingredients.

Turns out this is white rose heavy on the melange. I mean, it is white rose, but it’s also green tea, peppermint, lavender, and jasmine.

In the packet, the mint is eyewateringly strong. It pretty much dominates everything else, though I do smell some rose.

The tea steeps to a sort of a rosy gold color and is clear. The steeped tea’s aroma reminds me of bath products, with a touch of laundry detergent, which isn’t the best sign.

Fortunately, the tea doesn’t taste exactly like it smells. Everything smooths out into something that isn’t particularly bath producty, but nor is it a home run in the rose department. Then again, that’s not really fair because this isn’t a white rose tea. It is something else.

And what it is is just ok. I think I’d like it better without the melange, frankly. The peppermint and lavender are pretty strong and the rose is just around the edges. I don’t taste the tea at all and I’m not sure I’m getting any jasmine either.

It’s not a favorite, mostly because I want more rose in my white rose melange and I feel a bit misled. But solely because the detergent/bath products aren’t something I taste, I won’t mind sipping it down.

I found an open sample of this, but no corresponding note. Hmmm.

I usually do oolongs in the gaiwan first, then if I have a dedicated yixing, in that, and then I decide whether they’re worth savoring that way or whether they’re not. If they don’t pass, I will steep them in the Breville or make them into cold brew until sipdown.

Flavored oolongs are tricky in this regard because I don’t usually see much difference from steep to steep when I do short frequent steeps. So I’m tempted to skip right to western style. But I have some additional time today so I decided to put this one through a few steeps in the gaiwan to see what is what.

Before I forget, though, I wanted to mention the really wonderful aroma in the packet. It’s a deep, strong, passion fruit smell. If I smelled this coming from a box of dried passion fruits, I’d want to eat them immediately.

I rinsed and then steeped for 15, 20, 25, 30, and 35 seconds using 195F water.

The first steep yielded a light butter yellow color tea, with a refreshing passion fruit flavor. A little tart, but not bitter. The underlying tea isn’t really coming to the fore for me, but judging by the leaves it’s a green oolong even though it is from Taiwan. At most I’m getting a sort of buttery undercurrent. I could see this being a wonderful iced tea.

With the next steep (20 sec), there’s a precipitous drop off in the passion fruit flavor. It’s still taste-able, but pale by comparison with the first steep, and I don’t find the tea base stepping in to make up the difference. The color is the same.

The remaining steeps were more of the same, each one a whiter shade of pale.

I don’t really know how to rank this because it’s not like I’ve had a ton of other passion fruit flavored oolongs to compare it to. I’ll just say it’s too bad Todd & Holland doesn’t have this available anymore. I would order some next time I’m in a position to order flavored oolong, but I’d do so with the knowledge that it’s a pretty much one steep wonder to get the full passion fruit flavor.