American Tea Room

I opened up this never before opened sample packet today. Following my ten steep protocol in the gaiwan after a rinse.

In the packet, the tea has a spicy, wet leaf smell. It steeps very dark on the first steep, like black coffee — when held to the light it has some red to it, like cabernet.

The tea has a very rich aroma even after a short steep that has a cocoa note as well as the earthy, shroomy note I often seem to get these days. Since this says it is from Yunnan, I very much was hoping I’d get that Yunnan thing that I got in my last pu erh from that region, but not so. The flavor on the first steep is a bit more leather than anything else. I had hoped for cocoa.

By the fourth steep something darkly sweet starts to come out, like a molasses note. The tea is still standing up after seven steeps, which takes a turn back to leathery, though the liquor is starting to become lighter in color. The tea has a smoothness to it that complements its richness.

I kept going through ten and the leaves were still producing, though they were in a gradual fade after the sixth steep. Still, they didn’t fade so much as to make the additional steeps not worthwhile. The later steeps were lighter, smoother, and had their own different but tasty character.

I’m far from a shu expert, but this one is just kind of regular to me — nothing terribly special about it, though it is flavorful and not fishy or otherwise objectionable. It’s better than some I’ve had but it isn’t something that makes me go “wow.” Rating accordingly.

Sipdown no. 10 of 2019 (no. 498 total). A sample.

I made two big pitchers of cold tea at the same time. One was the Premium Steap Milk Oolong only, the other was about half Premium Steap Milk Oolong and the rest a couple of samples including this one.

There were only two spoons full of this left in the sample packet, but its influence is very, very apparent in the flavor of the cold tea. The batch made with this is much more buttery, and in a sort of bothersome way that makes me wonder if it had its flavor enhanced (I can’t remember who the helpful person was who commented on one of my notes about this).

In any case, though it was a small amount, its impact on the overall flavor of the cold brew was mighty. And not in a particularly positive way.

This is my last ATR oolong sample. I think. I can’t find any others, so that’s a good sign.

After yesterday’s tremendous success with the The O Dor milk oolong, I’m a little nervous to try any others.

This one has a very strong smell of butter in the packet. Very, very strong. Almost disturbingly so.

I rinsed, then steeped in the gaiwan starting at 15 secs at 195F.

The tea is pale yellow and smells of milky butter. A very slight floral note at the edges. It tastes like milk, for sure, but there’s something about it that doesn’t live up to the very high bar yesterday’s milk oolong set. I don’t want to go so far as to say that it is bad, but to use an apt analogy, it’s as though the milk is slightly off. Like on the way to turning bad.

The second steep turns a little more toward heavy cream flavor. It has a bit more sweetness. But I can’t get the thought of milk that is a little “off” out of my head.

The last two steeps were better. The note that bothered me either became faint enough that it no longer did, or went away. Still, it is just OK to me, not the magical experience I had yesterday.

I don’t know whether I’m being fair here. Everyone else who wrote notes about it seems to really love this one.

Oh well.

Sipdown no. 13 of 2021 (no. 633 total). A sample.

I didn’t have enough of this to steep in the Breville western style so I had to add a bit of tieguanyin to it to make up the difference.

My ATR samples are definitely dwindling, and one might say it’s about time since ATR went out of business years ago. But I’ve hung on to the higher rated ones because that is how I am. And it makes me sad to see them go. But all things must come to an end.

Mostly what I’m getting in my Western-style au revoir to this is asparagus, with a hint of nuts. I think the rating is about right.

I’m trying to remember if I have others of this variety in my stash. If not, that’s too bad because it’s a nice change of pace from other green oolongs.

To fully catch up on my oolong tasting plan, I’ve got to do a third one today to make up for yesterday and it needs to be a sample. How prescriptive can I possibly be? Certainly not more than that. LOL.

But I’m not going to apologize because when your tea stash is out of control, you need to impose some discipline if there is any hope of ever bringing it to heel. So there.

That said, I am not looking forward to another oolong today. I just had a nearly perfect milk oolong from The O Dor, and I sort of feel as though anything I have will be a come down after that. Which is one of the reasons I choose an ATR sample. Since they’re defunct, I don’t have to be on the lookout for something I’m going to want to reorder. Which somehow takes the sting of disappointment out of the whiffs.

Gaiwan. Rinse. 190F (Zo problems) starting at 15 secs.

This is a vegetal green oolong. Even in the packet, what I smell is vegetables. Asparagus maybe. The tea is pale yellow with a green tinge. The first thing I thought when I smelled the steeped tea was: celery.

How very strange. But yes, I get celery in the flavor as well. You know how celery has a sort of a nutty quality? I think that’s why I get celery — everyone else mentioned nuts.

The second steep has a floral quality; I get gardenias. It may be that I’m still remembering the milk oolong, but while this is an enjoyable tea, it isn’t really up to the task of following that tea. The celery aspect seems to have smoothed away into a more typical nutty flavor. A green nut. I can see why Stephanie said macadamias. I can go there, too.

The third steep tasted a lot like the second to me. There’s a sugary sweet smell to the empty cup. Interestingly, in the fourth steep, I get something that is very sweet. Like brown sugar.

So this certainly gets the prize for variety. Celery to brown sugar in four steeps must be some kind of record, no? It’s kind of funny, the minute I typed that, I realized that the celery note had also re-emerged. So it’s not just celery to brown sugar, but celery and brown sugar together in four steeps.

Just for fun, I did a fifth steep. This is certainly an interesting tea. It has a little something for everyone. I don’t get the toasty notes others have mentioned, and nothing dark or woodsy about this at all. Nor do I get butter, or more than just a small amount of floral. Really, that’s what makes it interesting to me — it is probably the most vegetal of the green oolongs I’ve had.

Sipdown no. 25 of 2020 (no. 620 total). A sample.

Feeling rushed while having this, because I have to get my house cleaned as it is bugging me a lot. Rushed is not my favorite way to enjoy green oolong. I made it western style. For thoughtful details, see original note.

For the 10K foot level commentary, it’s a little less floral and buttery than my original note suggested, which may be a symptom of age.

But it has a fresh floral aftertaste that is quite pleasant.

This is a never before opened sample. I’m doing the usual first taste in the gaiwan with short steeps after rinsing starting at 15 secs. The temp today is 190F instead of 195F because someone unplugged the Zo, but it should do fine. The packet recommends 175F but I think that’s too low.

I’m very partial to the floral, buttery green oolongs like this one. Though the dry leaves don’t have much fragrance (just a little green smell), the steeped tea is particularly aromatic. Very floral with a buttery undercurrent. It’s a light yellowish green color.

The flavor is very much like the aroma, and it makes me sad that I only have a sample of this and that ATR is no more. Because this something I’d want to keep in my cupboard.

My second steep was accidentally 25 seconds instead of 20. Slip of the finger on the timer. I’m loving the lightness of this, by which I don’t mean lack of flavor. I don’t know what narcissus smells like — I probably would have said something like lilac — but if that’s what this tastes like I am a narcissus fan. The butter is really coming out with the longer steeps.

By the third steep, the leaves have at least doubled in volume. The wet leaves are interesting for their green-ness, which isn’t a sort of olive, blanched look, but more the color of parsley — leaning toward emerald. The tea starts to get a crisper mouth feel, a fresh, hard water feel that juxtaposes interestingly with the buttery flavor. When I taste butter, I expect to feel butter, but not here.

I’ll bring this note to a close after the fourth steep as I must get my turkey in the oven. The flavor is starting to get a bit weaker, but I think it could have at least one more good steep, maybe two. Still, it has a pleasing floral nose with the buttery undercurrent at steep four. The cup smells vaguely sugary when the tea is gone.

Lovely.

Sipdown no. 15 of 2021 (no. 635 total). A sample. Backlogging from last weekend.

Steeped in the Breville this time around. A mild, nutty dark oolong with a silky mouthfeel. I agree with my first note’s assessment that this was less toasty than other dark oolongs, which was a nice change.

Getting to the end of my ATR oolong samples. I have two that I know of after this.

Trying this with short steeps starting at 15 sec in the gaiwan at 195F after rinsing.

I get walnut and cocoa smells out of the packet. Something fruity as well.

It’s a golden color and clear, and definitely smells like walnut. I get a little of the cinnamon, too, but I’m not smelling maple.

The flavor is pleasantly toasty and mild, and it tastes pretty much like it smells.

On the second steep, still no maple, but something that reminds me of cardamom, for sure. I don’t find this particularly sweet, but it remains mild and smooth.

Anyway, third and fourth steeps are also mild, very much like the second.

Not as toasty as some other darker oolongs. Milder, and pleasant.

I really like this, but as ATR is no more, I will have to savor the remainder.

Sipdown no. 2 of March 2019 (no. 37 of 2019 total, no. 525 grand total). A sample.

This was among the lowest rated samples not yet sipped down, so when I was looking for my next sipdown candidate, I went for this and made a big pot Western style.

A very nice dark oolong that leaves a silkiness in the mouth. Nothing else to add to the original note.

After thoroughly enjoying the Andao Big Red Robe yesterday, I thought I’d try another. This was in a never-before-opened sample packet.

The leaves smell amazing. I confess I read the description before I smelled, but it’s all there: nutty? Check. Roasty? Check. Mineral? Check. Woodsy? Check. Fruity? Check.

The usual ritual for tasting in the gaiwan. Rinse, and start at 15 seconds with 195F water.

The tea is a peachy-amber color. Apricot, but a little pinker. It’s clear and smells of brown sugar. Flavor wise, it has a mild, woody flavor. Not as complex as the Big Red Robe of yesterday, at least so far. No floral notes to speak of.

Second steep. Did I say no floral notes? I spoke too soon. There is a definite floral lilt to the aroma. The tea is a darker apricot color. The flavor is similar to the first steep except a little toastier.

Third steep. The floral note is gone. The flavor is similar to the second steep. I may only do one more if I don’t get something new.

Fourth steep. Nothing new.

It’s pleasant, but not as exciting and special as the one of yesterday.

Sipdown no. 6 of 2021 (no. 626 total). A sample.

Backlogging from the weekend. My original note relays a sad story about the loss of some of this tea, and now it is entirely gone — but it was lovely. As the original note said, flowered butter, all the time. I did steep it western in the Breville this time, and it was still quite special.

And oh — sad news. My Breville died after approx. 10 years of faithful service. It gives me an error message, which all online sources say cannot be reset and requires a customer service call. By the time you factor in the amount it will likely cost to repair and ship, plus the amount of time that is likely to take, I decided I should just get a new one. I found one on sale through Williams Sonoma. Hoping it arrives soon — it is quite cold here.

Playing count-the-oolongs left in the cupboard without tasting notes isn’t nearly as fun as the black tea and green tea exercise because it is just a reminder of my embarrassing excess.

I have 40 oolongs in the cupboard that have yet to be tasted or written about.

And that number is also misleading, because I have many more oolong samples that aren’t entered in the cupboard.

There’s only one thing to do: persist.

I’m a little upset about this one. I had it all ready to go for a tasting last weekend, sitting in the gaiwan. And then I got busy and forgot about it.

I was going to resume where I left off today, but discovered that my house cleaners tossed the unused tea and washed the gaiwan. Nice of them to wash the gaiwan, but I wish they’d realized it had tea that should be preserved in it.

So I have less of this than I thought I had, and because it is an ATR tea, there won’t be more.

Anyway. Steeped in the gaiwan at 195F with short steeps after rinsing starting at 15 seconds.

Have any of you found that your interest in tea has led to some insights about yourself?

Mine has.

I never thought of myself as a type A person, or as someone who is constantly on the go. I’ve always had an impatient streak, but not because I had too much to do and needed to get on to the next thing. Just because I’m wired that way. Which is amusing because I have a reputation at work for being much more patient than other people.

I do think of myself as someone who throws herself into whatever she’s doing rather completely, which pushes out of the picture time for other things. But eventually, because of that intensity I burn out and turn to one or more of those other things. Which is why I drop off of Steepster for months and years at a time.

But now, I think there’s a real possibility I have developed adult onset ADHD. I’m constantly interrupted by emails and instant messages at work, so I’m constantly having to shift mental focus from one thing to another. Also, the older I get the more I find I have to do. So sometimes I just have to cut things short to move on to the next thing that must get done.

Today I have to get my hair cut and colored, but I also want to work out and it’s almost noon already. So watch me totally fail to savor this tea for the number of steeps it probably deserves. Generally, I can sit through about 4 or 5 steeps without feeling compelled to move on to the next thing.

I am hopeful, though, that after I race through the exercise of tasting everything I have at least once, I’ll feel the internal pressure to do so lifted and will be able to revisit some of these from a more relaxed place.

So. About this tea.

In the packet, it has a floral, green aroma. Of the flowers listed in the description, I definitely smell orchid and lilac. I am not sure I know what narcissus smells like. I don’t smell jasmine, or at least I don’t smell it as a differentiated aroma. When I think of lily smell, I think of the vanilla of stargazer lilies and I don’t smell that here either.

The tea is a medium butter-golden yellow that darkens with longer steeps. It has a butter-cream, floral smell.

The flavor is everything I like about greener oolongs. Buttery, floral, flavorful but delicate. It’s mild, not astringent, not bitter. There are a couple of unexpected aspects to it, one of which is that I sort of taste the paper that’s described as a wrapping. It’s not nearly as prominent as the paper flavor in some decafs, though. And the other of which is that the tea doesn’t seem to have much of a grassy or vegetal quality. It’s pretty much flowered butter, all the time.

I’m really upset about the loss of the gaiwan full of tea now. I like this a lot.

This is a nice solid Earl Grey. The tea is smooth, the balance is right, and I think it’s a tea that most people could enjoy. The bergamot is just a touch sharp for me, but it’s not bothersomely so. I got this as a sample, and if I liked Earl Greys more, I’d buy more – but they’re not often my cup of tea. :)

It’s Doctor Who day! I saved enough of this sampler (3.5g) for my quintessential British English breakfast 16 oz. pot of tea with my McVities digestive biscuits for the episode viewing with my friend, then used up the rest of the sampler for my black tea hair rinse with my morning natural hair care shower regimen.

American Tea Room has gone out of business, and this was a free sample they gave me when I placed an order with them during their “going out of business” sale. It’s a blend of Assam and Yunnan black teas. What I find interesting is the last English Breakfast tea I drank was entirely Ceylon teas and I didn’t get any citrus notes (which is apparently common of Ceylon blacks?), and this one is lacking Ceylon blacks, but I definitely noticed a citrus note in it. Huh.

This tea had that typical malty/baked bread base, leading to a bit of a slight burnt toast flavor with a more subtle spice note mid-sip, and then a hint of citrus toward the finish. The astringency was rather mild overall, especially when I think back to the last few English Breakfast blends I’ve tried. This was a full-leaf blend rather than CTC, which may have contributed to it being a little more smooth.

Overall, a rather pleasing cup. I think now that I’ve started to experiment more with English Breakfasts (a tea I really never cared for much in the past), I’ve found that my tastes seem to fall with blends that are predominently (or entirely) full leaf and that have a strong Chinese black component to the overall blend.

Sipdown no. 116 of 2018 (no. 472 total). A sample.

I took this to work on Monday, and after spending a bit more time with it, I am bumping down the rating.

There was something weirdly pungent about the underlying tea that bothered me. I don’t think it was the berries, though part of it could have been. Or maybe it was that the berries didn’t mix well with the toasty, woody oolong base? No idea, it just was borderline berry-flavored cedar chips the second time around.

This is a sample packet that I’d never opened before. As ATR is no longer around, there’s no information available other than what is on the packet.

I will say that the info about the color is spot on. Wow, how pretty! It’s a pinkish copper that is very different from any color I’ve seen on an oolong before.

The dry leaves are dark brown with the berries obvious in the mix. They have a tart, fruity smell.

The tart, fruity smell is also in the steeped aroma. I took this through a number of steeps in the gaiwan, starting at 15 seconds.

The thing about flavored oolongs is that I’m never really convinced it is worth it to do short multiple steeps because mostly the flavor is whatever the flavoring agent makes it. It’s pretty rare that the flavor changes much from steep to steep in my experience. Nevertheless, I persist.

Given the tartness of the aroma, I wasn’t expecting a sweet flavor. It’s not what I’d call sweet sweet, but it is not as tart as I expected either. I don’t feel the pucker reflex being triggered. The mouthfeel is soft and pleasant. I wouldn’t know a schizandra berry if I met one on the street, but there’s a definite tart fruitiness to the flavor. Also a woodiness, a toasty woodiness.

It was definitely interesting to try, and enjoyable as a palate cleanser between my morning teas and what is likely to be one more this afternoon. But it’s not something I would have put on my order list if ATR was still around.

This is a nice blend, very strongly spicy to give you a lift but without the caffeine. I think it’s pretty nicely balanced and has no artificial taste to it. No “softness” to the flavor, it smacks you in the face. A lot of chais disappoint me by tasting weak or watery – this one doesn’t in the slightest and has good body to it. However, I personally can’t stand it, as it has a distinct anise flavor. It isn’t too strong, and if you like anise, it’s kind of a nice twist on the usual cinnamon, etc. I just happen to loathe anise, so…

Sipdown no. 100 of 2018 (no. 456 total). A sample.

Since there was so little left after my stove top cup this morning, I decided to make the rest, about half a cup’s worth, as a plain black tea.

Much more pepper this way. A nice little peppery dance on the tongue. Not sure why it hides so much made on the stove top, but that’s what makes tasting teas so endlessly fascinating!

Today, I opened up the sample I found of this post-project chai sipdown to give it a whirl. Made on the stove top using the Samovar method.

The tea blend doesn’t give off much pepper, and if you know me you know I rather like black pepper in chai. This is true after steeping, as well — mostly I smell ginger and cinnamon.

The flavor has these, and also a discernible cardamom. Not so much clove, which is fine with me. There’s a slight spicy hotness on the tongue in the finish that is likely the pepper asserting itself, but I would have preferred a bit more in the pepper department. I don’t taste a lot of vanilla, but that’s ok with me. What is there adds to the creaminess of the milk.

That said, it’s very tasty. I think a lot of its tastiness comes from the tea base. ATR does (did) good base.

I’ve settled on a couple of favorites in the chai department, but this probably would have come in third or fourth if not for the fact that ATR is gone and it is no longer available.

Sipdown no. 21 of 2021 (no. 641 total). A sample.

Backlogging from Saturday.

I completely understand why I loved this on a first tasting. It is really well done. No soap, lotion, or glommed on aspect, and yet not so subtle that you have to hunt for the rose.

I used the Breville settings for white tea, so steeped it a bit less long than the first time — with less time, or perhaps the luck of the mix, there was a bit more planty flavor from the white peony base. But not enough to make me rethink my rating.

Sorry it is gone.

Another unopened ATR sample packet. I steeped according to package directions (hotter and longer than usual for white tea).

I adore the way this tea looks and smells in the packet. Honking pink rosebuds and a divine rose smell that is neither soapy nor lotiony, but has both depth and roundness on an earthy backdrop.

It doesn’t happen often in my experience that the aroma after steeping is identical to that of the dry leaves — but it really is here. The tea is a butter yellow and clear.

I love the way this tastes, which makes it all the more sad that ATR is kaput. I would love to order a pound of this! I love rose teas done well, and this is the closest to a perfect rose tea I’ve had. The base is a perfect delivery mechanism, adding some balance with its earthiness, and the rose tastes naturally sweet and dewy, like fresh rose petals smell.

Bravo. Come back ATR!

Had a weird aftertaste, one I would best describe as similiar to seafood. Would not recommend.

Sipdown no. 107 of 2018 (no. 463 total). A sample.

Yeah, I’ll really miss this one.