2958 Tasting Notes
Cold brew sipdown!
2 tsp loose leaf, 500 mL cold water, let it sit for 15 min+ (however long until I’m ready for another cup of tea). It did three steeps well because I did longer steep times.
I enjoyed this blend, but wouldn’t feel the need to buy it again (I think it has been retired, anyway). Fruity, lots of coconut, the white tea flavour remains mostly hidden-it could have easily been a herbal blend with something like linden blossom instead of silver needle. The coconut is slightly toasty, nutty, and fruity. The mulberries taste like dried mulberries-similar to dry grass, apple, slight sweetness.
Flavors: Coconut, Dry Grass, Fruity, Sweet, Toasty
Preparation
Sipdown Coldbrew!
1.5 tsp leaf with 500 mL cold water for 25 minutes or so
I can taste unripened apricot, vanilla, blueberry, and earl grey. At first I didn’t like the earl grey in it because it tasted medicinal, but now that I know what I’m tasting I actually really like it. The assam is a little bit tannic, so I diluted the liquid with cold water and ice cubes. It’s better, but considering how light in colour the brew was, I’m not impressed with the base. It seems to get bitter easily before you get the full flavour from the tea. As much as I enjoy flavourful teas, this black isn’t balanced enough for me. I like my assams creamy, malty, and free from any bitterness/unpleasantly bold flavours. I do like the blueberry/vanilla/bergamot combination, though.
Flavors: Bergamot, Bitter, Blueberry, Earl Grey, Medicinal, Vanilla
Preparation
Coldbrew!
Subtle black base, marshmallow, chocolate (cocoa), and wintergreen/wintermint. I like wintermint, but find it a bit too strong in this blend. I would have liked more of the black base to come through instead. I also note that the ingredients list peppermint, but this is distinctly wintermint/wintergreen oil and not spearmint or peppermint. Luckily, I like wintermint very much, I just think the blend could have been a bit more balanced.
Flavors: Cocoa, Marshmallow, Mint
Preparation
My summertime white tea has no citrus pieces in it, so I hope this is the right listing?
Delicious bai mu dan base that tastes like dried leaves/slightly vegetal. I would describe it as “crisp” and clean, perfect for a cold brew.
I taste fruit, but more blackberry and raspberry than citrus. It is fairly crisp, so maybe that’s the lemon/citrus. The white base really comes through, the fruit is present but in the background. This is a perfect flavoured white tea because you can really taste the high quality base.
Flavors: Blackberry, Fruity, Sweet, Tannin, Vegetal
Preparation
It’s not Shou Mei – it’s Bai Mu Dan. :)
Corrected, thank you. either way, the choice of base is perfect!
I’m glad you liked it – I didn’t mean to sound snarky or anything so I hope it didn’t come off that way. Since I have made an effort to move away from using Shou Mei as a base, I just want to make sure people know that. Shou Mei is considerably cheaper than the Bai Mu Dan that I use now – but the Bai Mu Dan is so much better in every respect other than cost. The one exception to my “moving away from Shou Mei” statement is that I have used it in several blends with Houjicha – I like the way it lightens the toasted flavor of the Houjicha. Although, now that I have cleared away my stock of the Shou Mei, I may try to find a substitute for it in the Houjicha blends because I just do not care for Shou Mei.
Oh no, not at all. I’m a huge fan of aged shou mei, but less so with bai mu dan (too vegetal to drink plain). I do enjoy both used in blends, I just find shou mei to have a great flavour profile that is quite strong but never grassy or “green”. I would definitely be interested in shou mei blends, but I can see how you would avoid using it if you aren’t a fan. I think you do a great job of picking the perfect base/blend of bases to use in each of your teas.
May I suggest looking into kukicha as a base for teas too? Can’t go wrong with kukicha genmaicha or maple kukicha. ;) It’s cheap and everyone seems to like it (compared to more vegetal vegetal green teas).
I don’t think I’ve had a chance to taste your houjicha/shou mei blends yet, although I’ve been eyeing my unopened package of toasted marshmallow for a morning latte.
I’ve used a green kukicha for a blend (lemon-lime meringue) and I enjoyed it. I want to find a better supplier for it though. :)
Thank you for the suggestion!
I don’t believe that the Shou Mei that I had been using was an aged Shou Mei. I think most of my dislike of Shou Mei lies in the fact that the one supplier that I did utilize for the Shou Mei that I had in stock – the material was far too stemmy to earn my appreciation. I had received a sample of the Shou Mei before I purchased it, but I didn’t find the sample as stemmy as I found the kilo that I purchased afterward to be. I found myself picking out so many stems as I was blending it – and I know that I still didn’t get all the stems out of it – so I found myself rather frustrated with that from a quality aspect.
Cold brewed 2 tsp in 300 mL water for 10 minutes. The green base wouldn’t be my first choice-I would have gone with a white or unroasted oolong. It isn’t overly offputting, I just don’t find the flavour very appealing. It tastes of a typical green tea-slightly vegetal, maybe slightly sweet, grassy, pretty typical sencha flavour.
I’m not getting very much jasmine, but I do like the blackberry/fruit flavours. I can taste blackberry distinctly, and it brings the sweet fruit flavour that I was looking for in a cold brew this morning. It tastes like blackberry jam, green tea, maybe a tiny hint of something floral.
Flavors: Berry, Blackberry, Floral, Fruity, Grass, Green, Nectar, Sweet, Vegetal
Preparation
Cold brewing for only 10 minutes sounds too short.
With 300 mL water I don’t feel it was too short. The brew was plenty colourful, so I feel like it should be full-flavoured. I did do a few other steeps with longer steep times also, but I never got any jasmine. It might be that I was too focused on the delicious blackberry.
