911 Tasting Notes
My taste buds are still overly sensitive and wacky today but I figured I’d just go ahead and embrace it by having a strong tea, but at the same time I didn’t want to waste a really good tea (Thomas Sampson or Russian Blend, which were the other contenders) on my wonky taste buds. I did add a little extra sugar and half + half to smooth out the extra wonky and, all in all, it was a good plan. It was a bit overly strong (my fault, not the tea’s) but eventually my taste buds were beaten into submission and I was able to enjoy my first real morning tea in days. Yay tea!
Preparation
Well, this is a shame. The first tea since I’ve had since Monday and I suppose I wasn’t quite ready for it. It tastes funny. No, correction: I’m tasting funny. I thought I was enough on the upswing from the cold that has literally knocked me out since Monday to have some tea. But no. And to add insult to injury, this cup empties out my tin of this. Really wish it would have had a better send off. I can taste some of the nuttiness and vegetal flavor that I enjoy about this tea, but they just aren’t sitting cohesively on my tongue. Bah. Back to orange juice it is.
The husband has given me a cold. I’m dying. No, actually I just wish I was. So with my sinuses going crazy, I need tea. And tissues, but I’m gonna concentrate on the tea here. Not sure if this is the best time to try a new tea but I have enough to try it several times so I’ll live if my first tasting is less than perfect.
The tea smells very tea-like. Go figure. Very Yunnan-like. Again, go figure. But it is a little lighter and sweeter smelling than the typical Yunnan. It’s making me think of buttered raisin bread.
Wow, the taste is very sweet, light and fruity. A lot like the smell actually. Very smooth and with a hint of a prickle of dryness at the end. Obviously a Yunnan and a nice one at that. Not stout enough to be a morning tea but a little too stout to be an evening tea. So we’ll call it an afternoon tea… A very middle of the road Yunnan with Samovar’s Yunnan Golden Bud – light, sweet, airy, almost delicate – at one end and Andrews & Dunham’s S4 Yunnan – stout, a bit rough, sturdy and brisk – at the other. The light sweetness of the taste makes it connected to Samovar’s YGB but the pleasantly prickly end makes it connect to A&D’s Yunnan. So in the middle but with a slight lean towards Samovar (there is more sweetness than prickle). Nice, if a bit undecided.
2.3g/6oz
Preparation
Tried this at boiling and (thanks to a suggestion by wombatgirl) a bit of sugar. The sugar (about half a teaspoon) did make a big difference in how much the potentially sour/woody of the rooibos showed up. Things were much better blended. But I am at the odd place in that I’ve finished my cup and have no idea what exactly I tasted. Sweet and a hint of tart and desserty but nothing specific. Weird. I liked it though. I just have no idea why.
2.7g/7oz
Preparation
The dry leaf smells creamy. I can occasionally catch a whiff of pouching greenness. But the foremost smell is creamy… something. Vanilla, a hint of dreamsicle-like citrus and something that reminds me of calendula. A tingle or something. Hard to describe so I’m really just stuck with calendula.
And duh, I just read the tasting notes and it says it has marigold. Which I think is the same (or similar?) to calendula. So whew, not crazy.
Brewed up, there is more of a pouching smell and that makes my mouth water. Then I get vanilla and calendula spikes with a little dreamsicle sweetness. So pretty much exactly what the dry leaves smell like but in different proportions.
The taste literally made me go ‘wow’. Very creamy on the front end. Very. Then it mixes with a soft calendula and citrus/dreamsicle, then the pouchong buttery green freshness at the end and then, after the sip, a little tingle on the tip of my tongue from the calendula.
Honestly, I’ve gotten to the point that I’m not a huge fan of calendula in my teas, but I can totally work with this. The tea is unrepentantly creamy and thick tasting, – like the thickness that differentiates whole milk from skim – it is thick and it coats my mouth.
It’s a pretty distinct tea so it’s going to take a few times for me to figure out exactly how much I will enjoy this – crave-ability, addiction level, etc – so this score is a bit soft, but I’m pretty sure it will only go up once I better get to know this tea.
ETA: Second steep @ 2:30 and 195°. Pretty similar to the first steep, sweeter once it cooled a little. Third steep @ 3:30 and 195° poured into a cup then into the pot – I’m tempted to dub this the money steep. The sweetness pops a bit more and the calendula tingle is almost non-existent but the flavor of it is still there and blends well with the very faint dreamsicle thing that’s going on.
3g/6oz
Preparation
A tasting note from sophistre made me want to try this with a little half & half since sometimes the tarry aspect of this tea is just a hair too much for me. I didn’t have a ton left so I figured if I was going to do it, I needed to do it on my next cup. Which is today.
Right away I could tell a difference – even the smell seemed sweeter, not as thick. Still smoky but without the same edge. The taste matched the smell – rich and smoky but no longer coating my tongue as heavily. It has gone from heavy barbeque sauce to smoked meat with a light coating of barbeque sauce. And that sweetness that always seems to surprise me is even more noticeable.
Oh, the half & half doesn’t go so far as to make this a mild tea – no way – but it smoothes it out a little so it doesn’t feel as heavy/rich and that’s really nice. If this weren’t my last of this tea, I’d probably have it with half & half from here on out. But since it is, I’ll just have to try the half & half thing with the other lapsang souchong I have just to see how that goes. Giving the rating a little nudges upward because this really is great.
4g/11oz
Preparation
I love it this way! It was just what the doctor ordered, for me. I’m glad it worked out for you. I think I found that GM’s didn’t really benefit in the same way…I tried it but was unexcited by the results. Gonna be curious to see if you think other lapsangs hold up to the cream treatment.
sophistre, Yes, it really was good – I’m really glad I read your note where you mentioned it because it was so tasty! Great idea!
Cinoi, I look forward to reading what you think of it!
I’m gonna be so sad when this sample is gone. I wish I had caved and gotten this tea when I had the chance. It’s so deliciously nommy. This morning I wanted something nicely stout to wake me up but not too aggressive so I reached for this one. Mmm. Matches exactly what I was looking for. I added a splash of half & half to my cup since I really didn’t want anything mean this morning and it made it just a hair smoother which was, again, exactly what I was looking for. See, if coffee were like this – strong, stout, fragrant, tasty and manly without being so acidic – I could totally get into coffee. ♥
Preparation
I’m simultaneously excited and apprehensive to try this tea that has so much love here on Steepster… but it also has rooibos. The dry leaf smells sweet and tart. Like a pear tart with devon or heavy cream on it. Yummy. Decadent. But when I pour the tea into the cup, I can smell the rooibos. I smell sweet and tart underneath it but I might have to relearn that rooibos is not evil before I can enjoy this cup.
Yeah, this one is going to have a learning curve (tasting curve?) for me. I taste a little something sweet on the front end – honey and pear intermingled I think – but it is quickly replaced by rooibos. And this isn’t just a straight woody rooibos. This one makes me think a bit of moldy wood. No, it’s not quite that strong – freshly dampened wood. I am getting a little light caramel hint at the end so that gives me hope that after a few cups, this tea and I might come to a non-rooibos-focused understanding.
Holding off rating for now to see how this relationship develops
2.5g/6oz
Preparation
I feel the same way about rooibos. The whole cigar-like taste and smell really turns me off. But I’m trying to slowly get used to it, because there are a lot of flavored teas out there (like this one!) that sound really good but have a rooibos base. I want to try them without a bias, and I want to like them!
I don’t know if you sweeten or not, but if you don’t, try this sweetened. It took that to make it less rooibos, more nom for me.
Erin, Yep, I’m doing my best to enjoy rooibos just for the lack of caffeine. Samovar’s Ocean of Wisdom was a full rooibos blend that I eventually enjoyed but it was more spice, not sweet so that might have had something to do with it. Nonetheless, I will keep trying!
Wombatgirl, Thanks for the suggestion – I will give that a try perhaps tonight!
Tried this one out in my travel tumbler, no sugar or half & half. Thought I’d see how it’d do. I rate it as a success.
With the lid on my tumbler, I didn’t get the full smoky experience, tasting more ‘tea’ with the smoky being beautifully tacked on at the end. But it really didn’t make it bad – sure, it changed the flavor a bit but it was still great. I did remove my lid later to get the full sensory experience of this tea because the smell is fantastic and I’d hate to miss out on it.
I love how this tea feels. Almost like Jackee Muntz when it the parameters hit just right for caramel – that heavy, silky feeling. This wasn’t quite as heavy as JM but it almost felt like it had been honeyed. There was a sweetness to the tea that supported that view but it really wasn’t a normal honey taste – not sweet enough and a much darker taste – so it doesn’t really taste like there is honey in it, it just feels that way plus some sweetness.
Anyway, I really like this tea. A lot. It’s smoky and very smooth with a nice sweetness to it. But it isn’t overwhelmingly smoky (well, at least I don’t think so but non-smoky fans might). If this was sold separately, I’d be buying a big ole tin of it.
Preparation
Mmm, smells nice – sweet and like a light floral. There’s also a buttery smell to it. So flower butter maybe. Brewed up, the scent is more solid green floral oolong base but there is still some creamy butter laid over top.
The company’s note says that this tea has slight astringency and I can kind of see that. It’s not what I would normally peg as astringent since it isn’t that strong but it definitely has a sharper edge than I’m used to in green oolongs. But it’s very pleasant. On the first part of the sip I’m getting sweetness and soft floral, then I get the rougher taste of green bushes (or something) – fresh and solid but not heavy. As it cools it becomes creamier like butter heavily flavored with bushes. Why bushes? The taste isn’t sweet enough to be grass or not heavy enough to be tree but it is something green and fresh. And that’s the only thing I could think of to compare.
Anyway, it makes it nice. Simultaneously light and solid, this is a softer tea that isn’t delicate but nor is it heavy. So I’m grooving on the bush butter tea so far.
Second steep, also @ 2:30, the bush taste is a little softer, the butter taste more milky aftertaste. Quite nice. As it cools, the milky tastes almost gets a little toasty hint and I’m reminded of Samovar’s Ryokucha which is never a bad thing.
All in all, a milder milk oolong (I’m guessing because there is no artificial flavors) that I find very nice.
ETA:
Third steep @ 3:30. Not overly special or distinctive but has a sweet, floral, milky note that fills my mouth and makes it attractive. Almost tastes a little sugared.
Fourth steep @ 4:30. The taste is milder now, softer. The milky is fading into a general smoothness along with a more generic green oolong taste.
3g/6oz
Preparation
Bush-like tea! Highly interesting. You’ve been trying all these new teas lately, Auggy, and I likes it. :D
I’ve been buying all these new teas! Actually, all the Tea from Taiwan stuff is from last month when I got all three of their samplers. And then last weekend I bought 7 new teas. So yeah, lots of new stuff in my pantry! It’s overwhelming but fun, too!
Um, wow! Hahaha, you’ve been doing more purchasing than me, by far. But then again, you drink way more than I do, so I suppose it all evens out in the end!