2036 Tasting Notes
Sipdown no. 18 of 2017 (no. 299 total). A sample.
It’s turned chilly here, and I woke up to rain today. Looking forward to some nice tea weather!
This was a surprisingly nice work tea. I am actually disappointed that I don’t get to take it in to work with me another day. Pretty sure I have more pineapple green tea somewhere, though…
Sipdown no. 17 of 2017 (no. 298 total). A sample.
I liked this more the first time I wrote about it, perhaps because I was focusing on it and hadn’t brought it to work.
It isn’t a great work companion for me. The smokiness is a bit too ashy for me, and that made me think about the tea too much which isn’t really what I want to be doing while I’m at work.
Bumping it down. I should try one of my other gunpowders just to make sure. It may be that I don’t love gunpowder that much any more. Or it may be that, like some lapsangs, the ash is too dominate when what I really want is smoke.
Another sample with a tropical vacation spot name. In this case, I don’t have to worry about the pineapple overshadowing other flavors because it’s the only flavor.
In the packet, the pineapple has a rather bitter scent, which worried me — but after steeping that’s gone. While it’s not exactly that sweet, ripe pineapple scent and flavor that makes eating fresh pineapple worthwhile, or even the candified dried version of sweet, it’s not bitter either.
The tea itself its visually weird in that it is rather cloudy and has some floaters on the surface. I’m looking at it more closely than most people probably would, but it has a sort of yellow pond water quality to it that I’d rather unsee.
It tastes good, though. I like the purity of it — the pineapple only factor. If I ruled the world (or had a tea company) pineapple would only appear in green teas without other fruits so we don’t have to play “where’s the mango.”
Preparation
I enjoyed the Tea Table Japanese Cherry so much yesterday, I thought I’d try another company’s version. This is a sample from Todd & Holland.
It’s the first tea of the day — first anything of the day, really, so that will also be different from yesterday, when I tried the Tea Table version after another tea and food.
The teas are very similar in most respects: smell and look of dry leaves, liquor color (the Todd & Holland is darker and more intense in its gold), and aroma.
The flavor’s different though. Sometimes with flavored teas there are differences even from cup to cup with the same tea as the distribution of flavor to tea isn’t uniform from spoon to spoon. It may be that’s what this is. For all I know, everyone gets their Japanese Cherry from the same distributor.
Still, there’s a difference. This one’s a bit heavier, a bit fuller, all around from the color to the tea to the cherry. It’s a pleasant flavor, more cuddly than refreshing.
It will be interesting to try this and the Tea Table again and see if my first impression is borne out.
Flavors: Cherry, Green
Preparation
So that thing I said about flavored green teas being hit or miss? I realized that when I wrote that about the Todd & Holland Copacabana, I was thinking about tropical fruity teas. The thing about those is if they have pineapple in them, and sometimes even if they don’t, I mostly taste pineapple. It’s a strong flavor and it overshadows other more subtle ones. Same with coconut. In any case, I often have trouble differentiating the various tropical flavors because everything tastes like pineapple or coconut. And then I say to myself, eh, another one of these.
I wasn’t thinking of this. I’ve known about Japan cherry tea for a while but I have never tried it until now. And I’m a fan.
Cherries, fresh cherries, are one of the fruity pleasures of life in my book. Cherry flavor, in my experience, is usually pretty consistent. It often reminds me of Kool Aid or Luden’s cough drops, and it’s more the associations that are off than the actual flavor. I’ve never really had a cherry flavored thing that I thought had flavoring that was too bitter or too sweet or too anything. Even the medicinal aspect often doesn’t bother me unless it has an alcoholic side to it.
I steeped this a bit hotter than usual for greens because the packet said to take it to near boiling. But I think the temp I chose was close enough. I steeped a bit longer than the directions (by 30 seconds) but I may try a shorter steep next time.
Cait said that this smells like cough syrup in the packet and I get what she meant — it’s a strong cherry flavored scent. But for me, it wasn’t medicinal because no alcohol side. It was more like Jolly Rancher cherry. It retains a cheerful candy-like aroma in the steeped tea, which is more golden than yellow.
But all of that smooths out in the flavor, which becomes more reminiscent (for me anyway) of the true cherry fruit flavor than candy. There’s nothing sweet about the flavor, though nothing sour or bitter either. It’s pretty mellow, but strong enough so that there’s no mistaking it.
I had this just after breakfast, but I’d like to try it with a clear palate and see if I come out the same way.
Flavors: Cherry, Grass
Preparation
This makes a really excellent mellow spiced cold tea. I cold brewed it in the fridge and was so happy to have a true tea I could drink while chilling in the evening.
I was never caffeine sensitive until I got somewhere in my forties. Or if I was, I didn’t notice it until then. After becoming a mom, I went from being that person who could sleep through an explosion to that person who wakes up if someone shuts a book two houses away. I was talking with a former colleague about this at lunch yesterday. He says in his new job he’s anxious and not sleeping well, but also says he can drink a double espresso in the middle of the night and go right to sleep. Denial, much?
I know that Leaf Spa closed its doors years ago, which is one of the reasons I feel compelled to sip down my entire inventory of their teas, which I bought for a song during a Steepster sale. Of the original ridiculous number I bought, and going in and out of tea for a number of years, I’m down to two cans — this and the lapsang. The lapsang is ok, but I can drink lapsang about 2 times a year, and not cold.
But this, this one I’ll miss when it’s gone. I had written a rather comprehensive note about how it tastes hot a while back; cold it doesn’t have the milk and sweetener and the flavors blend together a lot more, but it does just what I want an iced tea to do. Refresh me and taste pleasant. And being able to drink it at night? That, that is a nice bonus.
This isn’t on the Todd & Holland site any longer.
Flavored green teas are hit or miss with me, and if they miss they miss big.
There’s a promising tropical fruity smell from the packet and sizeable chunks of fruit in the dry mix. The tea comes from Japan, but I can’t tell what kind it is. It’s a spindly, spiky leaf. It may be some type of sencha.
The tea is a clear golden yellow and has a more dilute version of the packet smell for its aroma.
It’s surprisingly enjoyable, without being a total hit. The dominant flavor is pineapple, and even though there’s not coconut listed in the ingredients I get a definite coconut flavor as well — maybe it’s how the mango and other ingredients interact with each other. That said, the flavors aren’t so strong and distracting that there’s no ability to taste the tea underneath.
Its a decent choice for a fruity green tea. I just don’t drink fruity green teas that often.
Flavors: Coconut, Mango, Pineapple
Preparation
Sipdown no. 16 of 2017 (no. 297 total). A sample.
I liked this but after trying it several times, it wasn’t a standout. It would be a fine every day Chinese green tea if it was what was available, but with so many exemplary teas out there, it’s not necessary to settle.
