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Okay, so this is some tasty tea. But I’ve got a lot of other sencha to go through so I’m looking forward to finishing this one off and opening up a new one. Because of that, I’ve been trying this with somewhat heavier leaf than O-cha.com suggests. This time I did 9g for my 12oz and I steeped it on the longer side of things.

OMG. So good. It’s really sweet and pungent and thick and yummy. Absolutely zero bitterness and only a tiny hint of astringency. I think this is one of those really quality senchas that give a great cup no matter how you treat it.

Uhm, so I had this tea but I had it about 4 hours ago so it’s all kind of a blur to me. I remember thinking it was really good. It reminded me a lot of Samovar’s TKY which is pretty much the only darker oolong that I like enough to buy (I’m a green oolong girl) but this one was even sweeter and more fruity. Perhaps not quite as toasty/roasty but definitely not to be mistaken for a green oolong. Very smooth, very clean, very sweet, very fruity…. very tasty!

Right now, I’m going to tie this with Samovar’s TKY. I’ll probably end up adjusting the rating when I 1) get to try it and Samovar’s TKY close together so I can compare better and 2) have a chance to pay more attention to see exactly how tasty I think it is.

And wow, writing this log made me realize that I haven’t even tried a second steep. I’m going to go do that now! (What a crazy day!)
8g/8oz

(ETA: Had Samovar’s TKY to compare and like this one better so I’m bumping up the rating.)

Initially, this smelled very smoky – ironically smokier than Upton’s Finest Russian Caravan – and very Keemun-y. I was a bit worried because I’ve been having some pretty kick-ass Keemuns lately and this one didn’t smell like it would match up at all. As it cooled, the smell became less smoky and began to get fruity and sweet, somewhat like plums. So maybe this tea will luck out and not end up competing against super-awesome Keemuns.

The taste turns into a good news/bad news type situation. The good news is that this tea isn’t Keemun-y enough to compete against my favorite Keemuns. There’s a little Keemun edge to the end of the taste, a little raw leafiness, but it doesn’t strike me as a Keemun. The taste is mostly Darjeeling, smoothed out by the Keemun and tiny, tiny bit of Lapsang Souchong. It ends up tasting just a little bit like a thin, light, sweet Yunnan.

But, here comes the bad news: it’s just not all that special. Yes, it’s smooth and sweet and has a nice flavor that doesn’t require any additives but all that just ends up being okay. Nothing really sings or sparkles or jumps out and, while it isn’t a flat, one-note tea, it doesn’t have a very complex or deep flavor profile. So, yeah, it’s just okay. I’d buy it at a grocery store if I needed tea but otherwise, not so much.

The tea bags smell fairly caramel-y with some cocoa notes and a bit of coconut. Brewed, I can smell the barley plus some sweetness and perhaps coconut. The taste is seriously surprising. The barely and caramel combine in a way that makes me think of some sort of baked and glazed dessert. The coconut and cocoa are more accent notes to the sweet, roasted barley, adding to the almost-savory-yet-still-dessert-like feeling. The last sip is the only cocoa-y sip; it looks like there is some cocoa sludge that settled at the bottom.

It’s not at all what I expected – I thought it’d be more sweet and desserty but it’s darker and more grain sweet – but I’m really grooving on it. So much so that I finished my cup and then I finished the husband’s when he turned his nose up at it. Tasty.
3 bags/18oz

I’m not exactly sure what I was thinking this morning when I made this tea. Normally I steep it for 4mins but today I did 2mins. OMG, what a lovely mistake. It’s sweet and creamy and malty and a tiny bit peppery hitting the tip of my tongue. The texture isn’t as stout as with a 4min steep but honestly? It doesn’t lose any of the flavor – in fact, I think the sweet notes might be more sparkly with this shorter steep time. Looks like I need to turn my brain off more often when making tea.

It looks like this is a fairly polarizing tea – a lot of 80s and a lot of 60s. I’m going to be on the 80s side of the fence because I really like this. It’s very mild and I imagine that might be problematic for a lot of folks (the hubby likes much bolder flavors so I don’t think he’d be a fan) but I like the gentle softness of it.

The dry leaves smell of sweet hay and a little bit of buttered grass. The smell post-steeping is almost non-existent but has a little hint of sweetness and a mineral note. The flavor is very mild but really pretty. The front end is the softest with just a hint of sweet hay and floral nectar. The middle bit of the taste is probably the most ‘normal’ Chinese green tasting like… a Chinese green. The endnote is where the pretty really comes in. There’s a beautiful sugary sweet and floral endnote that flares up and couples with the more mineral note that I’m used to getting from Chinese greens. It makes me think of asparagus flowers. Not that I know what asparagus flowers smell (or taste) like, but in my world they smell pretty much like a floral version of asparagus.

Since the flavor is so very mild, it’s not a good tea for a grab-and-go kind of tea drinking. It’s for more of a sit-and-relax-while-meditatively-sipping kind of tea drinking. But I’ve been gravitating towards that type of tea lately so I give this one a big thumbs up.
3g/6oz

Okay, who spiked my Tan Yang with cocoa powder? Because this is more chocolate-y than yesterday’s chocolate chai. Which, okay, considering the lack of chocolate-ness in the chai, that’s really not saying too much, but still. Added to that cocoa flavor is a little thick and chewy texture like a happy Assam, a little sweet like a lovely Yunnan and when I slurp it’s even a bit toasty/smoky like a Keemun. This tea? So awesome.

Thanks for sending me more of this little beauty, Angrboda! It’s so delightful!

My last bit of this one. Yay for decupboarding! I do wish there was more chocolate in this. When made with creamer and sugar, it ends up being a gently spicy, nicely creamy tea with a hint of chocolate. And for something with chocolate in the name, I want more than just a hint of chocolate. Still, anything made with lots of sugar and creamer is never going to be bad.

This tastes like a Darjeeling with a little hint of creamy on the end to cancel out any potential tart edge and then a little whoosh of faint citrus in the aftertaste. It’s not really a bad tea, but it’s not a special one either. The flavoring is too light for it to be considered an actual flavored tea, the bergamot is much too light for it to be anything remotely Earl Grey-ish, and the Darjeeling isn’t special enough for it to be a notable Darjeeling. So basically it’s one big ball of meh. In fact, the more I drink it, the less special it becomes.

Well, this was the tea I made myself this morning. This was also the tea that I accidentally dumped all over the carpet after only a few sips. Boo! So I’m going to hold off on rating this because a few sips just isn’t enough time to make an accurate judgment (well, unless the tea is truly awful but this one wasn’t). I did manage to have 2 thoughts about this tea before dropping the rest on my carpet. 1) This isn’t smoky like I was hoping. Instead it’s more toasty, which is a little sad. And 2) If this is their ‘finest’, I kind of hate to see their regular because the leaves here are large, non-uniform, a bit twiggy and the taste didn’t strike me as overly spectacular.

But who knows? Maybe it turns into liquid gold on the 10th sip – and since I didn’t get to that sip, I’ll have to wait until next time.