Teavivre

Mineral, roasty, stonefruit, oak, rock sugar, a faint hint of charcoal and a fainter hint of vanilla.

Also made me hungry somehow, even though I had just ate my apple-ginger-coconut red lentil dal for breakfast. I enjoyed the tea for three steeps, Western style.

It’s decent for the price point, but lacks the juiciness, body and warming qi that I’ve been pining for ever since Whispering Pines Tea Company’s Wildcrafted Da Hong Pao like 9 years ago. I think all my Da Hong Pao purchases have been an attempt to experience that specific tea again. I’m nostalgic and sentimental like that.

For a moment when I was mildly stressed about having to interact with too many people this week (I’m an AuDHD clinical psychotherapist also studying hypnotherapy), the jasmine seemed to lift some tension out of my head and bring a bit more lightness to my energy field.

Nice to enjoy jasmine with a black tea base, as green tea can make me feel dizzy. Thought that golden buds would be an odd pairing with jasmine, but the cocoa note is very subtle and doesn’t clash.

1st steep: 90C, 1 heaped teaspoon, 4 minutes

2nd steep: 95C, 5-7 minutes. Stronger this steep, reminded me of floral-y Peruvian chocolate.

After easing back into brewing tea with a few basic mistakes like over-leafing and under-steeping, I’m intuitively making things work again with more presence

1st steep: 85C, one heaped teaspoon, 3 minutes. Cocoa-y warming comfort

2nd steep: 90C, 5 minutes. Slightly stronger cocoa-y warming comfort.

Had it with crappy microwave rice in a plastic cup as I was time poor this morning before an online workshop. Elevated the experience of eating instant rice. Made everything a bit better.

2nd day in a row of this.

I find that the main benefit of logging these tea notes is that it’s a reflection of a choice I’ve made to live slower.

2 teaspoons of this in a 225ml pot. 1st and 2nd steeps were quite tasty at 85C. I haven’t been timing them, just intuition. 3rd steep at 90C and it starts to lose flavour. I’ll do a 4th at 95C for longer.

I prefer the Premium Golden Monkey Black tea from Teavivre. That one, I steeped maybe 5 or 6 times into the night and it was still so lovely even when lighter.

Cocoa-y, warming, gentle, comfort.

April backlog and sip down

Aroma: Nutty, milky, grassy, & floral.

Tasting Notes: Refreshing, crisp, green beans, buttery collard greens, & refreshing.

A sample from Teavivre! The leaves are lovely – long and half golden. The resulting tea with just a teaspoon and a half of leaves is certainly deep and complex enough for me. It’s dark and rich, but it’s also sweet. Hints of tomato soup, but really this reminds me of Ruby 18 but deeper but also another specific tea…. had my mind on it but it slipped. Notes of black pepper like to linger. It’s a good one! Not describing it well enough! Exceeded my expectations. I think Teavivre’s teas in recent years have had lighter flavored harvests, but this is darker than I thought it would be. Love that.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug // 22 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 minute steep

Gongfu Sipdown (2783)!

To be honest, I’ve been holding onto this sample for so long that I don’t even remember when and where I got it – so definitely time to finish it off! To my surprise, it was a lot less thick and full-bodied than I’d expected. That’s not to say it was thin/weak per say, but more just medium-bodied and mellow with a bit of a woody oak-like profile, clean earthiness, and some sweeter brown notes of dates sandwiched between some lightly medicinal and warming top notes and undertones of citrus. I really appreciated that the sip started zesty, like the spray of essential oils while peeling a tangerine, and finished in a similar (though milder) way. Just citrusy through and through integrated with a really nice, clean shou pu’erh!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHUBd34yF-d/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN4lfTKPr_o&ab_channel=BloodWizard-Topic

April Sipdown Challenge Prompt – Ching Ming Festival – drink a Chinese green tea

This note is to serve as a reminder how not to make flash chill tea.

I have been working outside most of the morning but the temperature is climbing to 90F today and I was dressed for 60F. I decided to flash chill my green tea with lunch.

Mistake 1 – I didn’t add extra leaf, which I should have done since the melting ice is going to add a lot of extra water.

Mistake 2 – I used old ice which probably had absorbed some freezer odors since we really haven’t been using ice much as hot weather is just now coming on.

Mistake 3 – since I knew I had failed to add extra leaf, I didn’t use as much ice as usual for fear of making this entirely too watery. So my tea was cooled off but not refreshingly cold and I was eating outside.

I hope I learn from my mistakes so that future flash chills this summer go better than this one. This is a stellar tea and deserves better treatment.

March Sipdown Challenge Prompt – your oldest green tea

Mastress Alita mentioned going out for Japanese food for lunch today and that started a hankering for something Asian that wouldn’t quit. I have some frozen springs rolls and made do with those and a nice green tea!

I can not believe I let this get past its “best by” date. I held off ordering green tea for a long time because they do need to be really fresh and we don’t drink them as much as oolong and black tea. When I finally ordered this one and Huang Shan Mao Feng, two of our favorites, I thought we would finish them in record time. Not so.

I love this tea. It is smooth and nutty, and goes great with food as well standing on its own very well. This is not a sipdown. There is a lot left, so I am going to have to focus on these two out of date greens for a while. That will be an easy task.

I must admit my backlogs are quite backlogged due to oddball work schedules, holidays, etc. I found a moment where I didn’t want to write anything, but began making YouTube videos again; which lasted all but two videos. I ramble during tea sessions, which are likely 30 minutes or more, and cutdown to feature the sensible material which last about 2+ minutes. Lol.

Anyway, I drank this on Thursday during work. I followed the recommended time and temperature the sample bag listed (180F // 3-5 minutes), and it made for a gentle grassy tea. I noted that this was “equivalent to Japanese sencha, but less umami notes.”

Extremely Backlogged

I had this way, way, way back a few weeks (or months) ago. It was on the bottom pile of my empties, but I remembered to leave a small slip with notes in the sample bag!

Notes: Asparagus, collards, nutty, butter green beans, & umami.

Generally underwhelming and I didn’t really pick up any outstanding notes, but I think I might just be beginning to understand that I’m not really an oolong person.

A nice, decent green tea, but no notes I could detect or anything that blew me away. Slightly sweet and becomes lightly astringent and vegetal with more steeps. If you’re looking for a nice standard green, this is good choice, but if you’re looking for a tea with interesting flavors and notes, I find this one lacking.

I was really excited for this puer but I am pretty disappointed, it is extremely mild, nearly tasteless to me. I get a hint of jasmine, but not much else.

Wow! I was unsure how this one would be because the normal flavor profile of a lapsang souchoung is not really my favorite but this is great, really something unique. It has a chocolate, caramel, dark honey flavor with no bitterness or astringency! Definitely worth a try!

I was worried the chamomile in this would be overwhelming but it’s not! A very pleasant flavored tea, white tea and chamomile at the beginning, a bit of rose at the end, and at the very end, a hint of fruity rosehip. Very good!

A strange, more astringent jasmine tea. I feel the amount of jasmine in this one does not necessarily make a more aromatic tea than other jasmines and instead adds a floral bitterness. There is a soft floral honey note there if you really search for it, but overall, certainly not my favorite jasmine, but also not horrible.

Certainly a darker tea, quite woody, with a bit of a honey flavor before you swallow, but a dark honey, like honeydew. Gives a pretty bold and astringent aftertaste.

The notes in this were extremely subtle, barely there, nothing that blew me away. A near standard black tea for me, save the hints of stone fruits you get if you swish it around in your mouth. It’s not a bad tea, in fact it’s pretty good, but nothing that impressed me too much.

Its aroma is incredible and really makes you understand why jasmine teas are considered scented teas and not flavored teas. It has a very light flavor, nearly tasteless, but the aftertaste is like sweet mountain spring water. The experience for me in this tea is more in the aroma and the aftertaste than the taste of drinking the tea itself. Still, both make it worth it.

I’m always up for trying another unsmoked lapsang, so I was excited to see this Hua Xiang Xiao Zhong in Teavivre’s catalogue. I steeped the entire 5 g sample in 120 ml of 195F water for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of peaches, citrus, sweet potato, florals, honey, and malt. The first steep has notes of peach, orange, raspberry, other red berries, sweet potato, honey, orchid, and malt. The tea has a nice, syrupy quality but is a bit drying in the mouth. The next steep is even more peachy, with a lovely peachy aftertaste. Steeps three and four are more malty and woody, but with plenty of peach, honey, berries, orange, and sweet potato. By steeps five and six, the jammy berries are taking over the peach, and the tea has more of those lapsang notes of malt, honey, wood, minerals, and light tannins. The final few steeps have faint hints of fruit, along with malt, wood, honey, tannins, and minerals.

For the price, this is a pretty good lapsang, though I don’t think it compares to the offerings from Wuyi Origin. I’m a fan of the peach and berries, and the tea’s longevity is good. The flavours are lighter than they could be, perhaps because I was using 5 g instead of my usual 6. If you like unsmoked lapsang and are ordering from Teavivre, I’d say this would be a good tea to add to your cart.

I received this tea as a free sample in my last order. It seems to be the least expensive longjing in Teavivre’s catalogue, and I don’t think I’ve had it before. I steeped about 2.5 g in 250 ml of 185F water starting at 4 minutes, refilling the cup as necessary.

The dry aroma of these extra-long, sometimes broken leaves is of chestnut, sesame, orchid, and spinach. The first steeps have notes of chestnut, sesame, butter, faint florals, spinach, kale, and green beans. I taste some bitterness that I typically don’t get with higher-quality longjing. Subsequent steeps are buttery, nutty, and vegetal, with cashew, chestnut, sesame, kale, spinach, umami, and beans being prominent. The final steeps have some bitterness, along with lettuce, spinach, nuts, and faint sweetness.

This is a nice entry-level longjing, though there are better ones on the market. I’d recommend this tea if you like nutty longjing and don’t mind a touch of bitterness.

I’ve been curious about Tai Ping Hou Kui for a while, as it’s supposed to be a floral tea. After reading a discussion of it on TeaForum, I finally bought a sample. I followed Teavivre’s instructions and steeped 15 leaves in about 250 ml of 185F water, starting at 4 minutes and refilling as needed.

These long, flat, beautiful leaves stick up above the rim of my cup! The dry aroma is of orchids, pears, and vegetables. The leaves are easy to push into the cup after a few seconds in hot water. The first few steeps are very subtle, with orchid, pear, bok choy, cucumber, green beans, and minerals and no bitterness at all. This tea is quite sweet, with a taste I’d describe as sugary. Predictably, the tea gradually becomes more vegetal, with cucumber, green beans, lettuce, bok choy, zucchini, and minerals. There’s a lingering floral sweetness in the aftertaste. The minerality increases in the final steeps, and the tea becomes even more vegetal without acquiring any bitterness.

This tea is pleasantly floral and sweet, but its subtlety is a bit of a drawback. There’s nothing really wrong with it, and pushing those long leaves into my cup was kind of fun. However, I’d recommend their Mingqian Bi Luo Chun and Longjing over this tea, especially for the price.