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This is a sample I’ve tasted before but apparently never written about. It’s no longer showing as available on the Todd & Holland web site.

What I like most about this is the aftertaste. It’s fresh, clean. It’s like what Clorets should make your mouth feel like but doesn’t. A green freshness that makes me think of chlorophyll.

The tea itself is a pale golden yellow and clear, and it has an aroma that could be hay or could be sweet grass. It tastes a little less sweet than it smells, with a briskness to the mouthfeel that adds to impression of freshness in the aftertaste.

It’s enjoyable, but not really distinctive. Then again, I don’t think my palate is sophisticated enough to discern the differences in senchas except in very broad strokes. I can distinguish grassy from vegetal and sweet from savory, and I can sometimes identify the taste of specific vegetables in the vegetal ones. Beyond that, I get a bit lost.

Now that I’m back to taking green tea to work with me every morning, I have a bunch of sample packets that are poised to be sipped down this next week. To ease my burden of recording sipdowns on days when I’m too rushed to do them, I opened a larger packet today. This.

The tea in the packet smells like kale chips! A salty/savory note on the one hand with a sweet green note on the other. Mixed together, I get kale chips! The dry leaves are long and spear-like, not dusty fine like a lot of sencha leaves.

Steeped, the aroma is savory and nutty. Strangely, the nut I get is closest to peanut, and there’s that hint of sweetness that makes it an almost peanut-brittle smell. It’s pale gold in color and clear.

The flavor has a hint of nuttiness, but mostly what I taste is a vegetal flavor with a slightly bitter finish. The closest I can come to naming the vegetable is spinach. I find this pretty un-grassy as Japanese green teas go. I have never been entirely sure I understood what was meant by the word umami, but I think it’s this.

I’m looking forward to drinking it again (next time not on the heels of eating orange flavored chewable vitamin C pills; who knows what that did to my taste buds).

Sipdown no. 8 of 2017 (no. 289 total). A sample.

It was indeed a nice take-it-to-work tea while it lasted. Soothing to sip, but unobtrusive.

Sipdown no. 7 of 2017 (no. 288 total).

I thought I had sipped this down, but I found another package in my stash. Every container’s worth counts when the goal is to clear space!

I can’t really improve on my previous notes about this one, except to say it has a quality that’s to sencha as venison is to beef. A little bit wild.

This is a sample that has been hermetically sealed since I got it. The dry leaves look pretty much like what you see in the picture, but what’s interesting is the way they smell. They have a sort of toasty greenness to them that’s unusual.

The tea is greenish-gold and clear, and it has a buttery, vegetal aroma that’s a bit like asparagus.

The flavor is similar to the aroma. It’s richer than that of many greens, and quite pleasant. If the Todd & Holland Japanese green teas make refreshing teas for work, this Chinese one seems better suited to a relaxing evening environment. Still, I’ll probably drink it at work, since that’s where I am most of the day.

This is a sample I tried once before but never wrote about.

It’s a yellow-gold color with a bit of a haze to the liquor.

The flavor is delicate, grassy, sweet, and even has a tinge of butter to it with a slightly bitter (but pleasantly so) finish.

Refreshing, but calming. Flavorful, but in a subtle way. It will make a good work tea because it doesn’t call attention to itself.

Cold-brewed, this produces a very interesting flavor.

It’s the pepper.

The pepper does a solo with the rest of the spices and tea as the backup band.

I really do love peppery chai hot. I’m not sure what I think about it cold yet. It might grow on me. I’m going to give it another shot. Right now, it’s just weird.

Sipdown no. 6 of 2017 (no. 287 total).

Because I have an overabundance of chai to the point of it being questionable whether I can drink it all in my lifetime, I’ve taken to trying them cold. Not with milk and sugar, just plain. Many of them make a decent cold spiced tea.

This tea is very long in the tooth. I enjoyed it hot, made on the stovetop, in its youth.

Cold is not its forte. Two flavors come to the fore, the chocolate and something else. If there’s cardamom in this, that’s what the something else is. The flavors were much more integrated hot.

That said, it’s not awful cold. Just not great.

Todd & Holland doesn’t have this on their page anymore, so I can’t provide a picture or a description from them for this entry. This is a sample I got a while back. It was sealed up and never opened and has been in a cool dry place since I got it, which may be why it has preserved its aroma and flavor.

The dry leaves are quite beautiful. Deep, rich green, with a very fine, silky, soft-looking texture. In the packet there’s a juicy “green” smell, somewhere between grass and vegetable.

The tea is a medium yellow, sort of a light gold, and clear. The aroma is of warm, sweet grass.

In trying to describe the taste, I find myself thinking in synesthetic terms. The tea tastes golden, not silver, by which I mean it’s a warm taste rather than a fresh one. It’s a snuggly flavor. Very pleasant, but delicate to the point where it is probably best drunk alone. Strong flavors in food, such as marinara would not pair well here.

It’s too bad that it’s no longer on the site. It’s a lovely tea.

Sipdown no. 3 of 2017 (no. 284 total).

Same deal as with the Sri Lankan Leafspa oolong — put a bunch in to steep as a cold brew and found myself left with just enough to give it a whirl in the gaiwan.

Also, I am so glad I remembered to write down which of my yixing pots I seasoned for which teas. I would never have remembered. I thought about using the pot after I’d already started steeping. Oh well.

Anyway, this is a decent green oolong. I put it through four or so steeps starting at 15 seconds after rinsing. It’s enjoyable enough, but has a slightly bitter edge in the longer steeps. I am reminded of why I love green oolongs. It’s like putting my nose into a bouquet of flowers.