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Sipdown no. 4 of February 2019 (no. 22 of 2019 total, no. 510 grand total).

I’m pretty much through all my low rated green teas, so I’m into sipdown territory with ones I’ve really enjoyed. This was a very nice, mellow, take it to work tea. It’s flavor perhaps wasn’t as strong as it was when it was fresher, but it was surprisingly tasty even though it was fairly well aged for a green tea by the time I sipped it down.

Not Lupicia’s most wonderful blend, but I still liked it better than most folks who have commented on it here.

In the packet, there’s a strong almost medicinal smell that is offputting, but after steeping that goes away. The color is a ruby red, and it smells vaguely of roses. The hibiscus is not all that noticeable. There’s a fruitiness to the smell and taste and a slight reediness with a vanilla note from the rooibos.

All of these aspects are in the flavor. My biggest complaint is that all of them could be more concentrated. It’s a pleasant enough drink, it just rather bland. I’d even like the rose to be stronger.

While I don’t think this is a 100 like some others who have rated it, I agree that it’s a really special tea.

In the packet, it smells like roasted peanuts or cashews. In any case a legume-nut roasted smell. The leaves look like a typical green oolong rolled green leaves, and they unfurl to a volume that is significantly greater than their dry volume. But that’s where the comparison stops to other green oolongs I have had.

Gaiwan. 195F. Rinse, then steeped starting at 15 seconds and adding 5 to each subsequent steep.

The roasted nut smell is primarily the smell of the steeped tea, except for a very strong, sweet, floral note. The tea is more golden-amber in color than a typical green oolong, but not as dark as a dark oolong.

The taste is also roasted nuts (heavier on the nuts than the roasting) and sweet flowers, with a bit of a fruity note around the edges. I wouldn’t call it peach though I can’t pin it down. The flavor isn’t heavily stonefruit in the way of some dark oolongs. No cream, no butter, no milk in the way of some green oolongs.

Basically, it has a flavor that is different than a lot of other oolongs I’ve had. Not as different as the Hawaiian one I had earlier today, but also very tasty.

Untasted, un-noted cupboard update:

Pu erh: 6
Oolong: 5
Herbal (rooibos): 1
Blooming single servings: 5

I’m going to remove the blooming ones from the cupboard. I think they’re more like samples since they are one of each.

Which means 12 teas left to taste and write notes about, not including the tea bag samples, the blooming teas, and the sample pu erhs.

I don’t think I’m going to be writing more notes today since it is after 11:30. But at this rate, I should be through my cupboard by the end of the month (or before).

It may take longer to get through the pu erh samples.

Sipdown no. 3 of February 2019 (no. 21 of 2019 total, no. 509 grand total).

Enjoyed it while it lasted — sipped it down hot instead of relegating it to the cold brew pile.

I like chocolate mint black teas, but haven’t found the perfect one yet. This one is nice, but it doesn’t make me go “wow.”

Sipdown no. 2 of February 2019 (no. 20 of 2019 total, no. 508 grand total). A sample teabag.

I had this with a cinnamon breakfast bar (still doing Nutrisystem) and it went very well with that indeed.

Also, black tea seems like the best accompaniment to binge watching Broadchurch. I’m on season 3.

I love that Hawaii has tea production, and I’ve been really impressed with the teas I’ve tried from this company. The black tea was sensational, and the white tea was one I actually got along with. I didn’t rate it off the charts, but I did say that if I bought one white tea, I’d buy the Tea Hawaii.

And this one is right up there, too. So very interesting. Definitely an oolong, but such a different oolong. The dry leaf has no sharpness, and some grassiness. The leaves are not dark, nor are they rolled like green oolongs. So I can’t easily categorize this just on sight.

Gaiwan. 195F. Rinse, 15 second steeps + 5 for each subsequent steep.

The tea is a clear, golden amber color. Also unlike either green or dark oolongs. Kind of its own thing.

The smell and flavor is very sweet and fruity. I smelled and tasted plums, or perhaps a very mild, sweet raisin. It has a sort of a creaminess to it, both in terms of mouth feel but also in terms of suggestion in the flavor. Not vanilla. Just the quality of creaminess.

I agree with the “elusive and complex” description, but I don’t really get “pine” or any of the things the company has it its description. Though there is a cooling aspect in the aftertaste. It’s a sensation, not a flavor.

And I continue to get plum in later steeps. The sugar-forward aspect of the sip falls off after the first steep, but it’s still fruity and very smooth, with no sharp edges.

Every time I have an oolong that isn’t from China or Taiwan, I am hoping it will not be so different as to not be an oolong while having its own uniquely wonderful flavor. Most of the time everything except uniquely wonderful is true.

This one is uniquely wonderful.

Sipdown no 1 of February 2019 (no. 19 total for 2019, no. 507 total). A sample tea bag. I’m changing the way I keep track of sipdowns since I now have a monthly goal.

Yesterday, I didn’t do much tea tasting, mostly because I just felt out of sorts. I had one of the most stressful weeks I can remember having at work, and then Friday I went out with some friends and drank champagne. I woke up feeling like I’d been put through a wash ringer. I had to go get a haircut, and I spent most of the morning trying to get myself to a place where I felt like I wasn’t a towel with most of the moisture squeezed from it.

And so this was a particularly good choice. I hadn’t had an English Breakfast in a while, and this is what I think of when I think of English Breakfast.

The long and the short of it is: Lupicia also gives good decaf flavored black tea.

Really good, that is. It’s not often that I drink a decaf tea that I can’t tell is decaf. I can’t tell with this one. There’s none of that papery weirdness that makes me visualize coffee filters.

The fruit smell in the tin is quite intense and heavy on the lychee. Followed by strawberry. The peach doesn’t make much of a show.

The tea is a sort of standard black “tea” color, with some redness to the brown/orange, and clear.

The aroma is sweet and fruity, less heavy on the lychee, more heavy on the strawberry, with a hint of peach. The flavor manages to mix them all pretty much equally.

I oversteeped this by A LOT, because I had a brain fart and steeped it as a tisane, i.e., for 7 minutes, and then I was in the middle of a conversation and forgot to take the finum filter out of the cup. Even so, it wasn’t bitter.

I’m looking forward to tasting it after a normal steeping time. It’s pretty exceptional as decafs go, to my taste.

Sipdown no. 18 of 2019 (no. 506 total).

So this is amusing. Sipdown no. 18 is tasting note 1818. Very auspicious in the Jewish tradition. Chai is the number 18, and also the word for life. So maybe this is a good sign that I’ll live through the night.

Anyway, I dumped the rest of this into a pitcher to cold brew along with a couple of spoons of the Rishi Classic to make up the difference. It’s actually a pretty nice cold brew. The vanilla isn’t all that taste-able, it’s mostly mint, but somehow the coldness didn’t bring out the heavy earthiness. Which makes it more enjoyable.

What next? Well, I am a little afraid to do a cold brew of tuo chas, but I think I will try it as I have a couple that are far down on the rating list. What’s the worst that can happen?

Maybe don’t answer that…

It doesn’t smell like medicine to me in its dry form, just a very strong berry-red fruit of some kind aroma.

After steeping it’s a pretty, cranberry color and clear, and it smells like strawberries and vanilla. I am guessing the vanilla is the rooibos. Fortunately, it does not have any hamster cage attributes. Apricot? Maybe if I stretch. Same with the honey. It’s very strawberry/vanilla for me.

The taste has more apricot than the smell, and also some strawberry and vanilla. I agree with those who used the adjective “jammy.” There’s something about it that is reminiscent of jam, though not in the mouthfeel. It’s not thick.

In any case, I had worried at first that this would be one of those blends that I thought would have been better with green rooibos. But Lupicia did a nice job with the red — they seem to have avoided all the things that could make it go pear-shaped. Which basically, for me, means having it be taste-able.

The only thing I taste that makes me aware this is rooibos is the vanilla and an ever so slight reediness.

Definitely more enjoyable than the non-caffeinated options I’ve been drinking most lately (chamomile and chamomile blends).