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Made a really good pot tonight.

2 tsp organic linden leaf/flower Rosemary’s Garden/Starwest Botanicals
2 tsp organic peppermint two leaves and a bud
1.5 tsp organic lemon balm Rosemary’s Garden/Starwest Botanicals
0.5 tsp osmanthus flowers SF Chinatown
1 organic hops cone Rosemary’s Garden/Starwest Botanicals

1L boiling water, steeped for 10 minutes

Very fragrant. Thick and syrupy body, plenty of sweet linden floral at the forefront with a mellow dose of savory-fruity osmanthus. It has just the right amount of pure, crisp peppermint to cleanse the palate of the linden and bring a sweetness out in the throat. Green and citrusy lemon balm finish. I added the hops not for flavor but for sedative effect.

It’s lovely <3

Nearing the end of the packet, I can say I think I prefer this tea gongfu, which isn’t usually the case for me and green tea. It tends to develop more astringency western and grandpa but it does overall do well with various methods.

In a gaiwan, the gentle character of the tea shines. It’s round, thick and soft with just enough astringency to balance. The sweetness is soothing, soymilky-nectar. Do I taste lactose? As it opens up, I taste the scallops I’ve noted before and green peas. Very subtle mintiness. Aftertaste moves back and forth between white peach and ham. I feel a small flame alight in my body. This tea easily goes for 7 or 8 infusions in a gaiwan. I have been measuring the leaf to find this tea’s sweet spot and I think 4g:150mL is it.

Compared to the last Yunnan imperial biluochun I had, this is sweeter and milder, without a strong floral note; less vegetal, and I don’t get any black pepper notes with this one. Sweet scallops and ham are present in both.

A very gentle, tonic tea <3 good for those womanly monthly moments.

I’m back home! Kiki won’t make tea for herself haha. Here we go.

Kiki:

“Maybe it’s got a little lemongrass in there. I’m just jumping right in, aren’t I? hehehe I can smell the spiciness. It’s got a little fruity, some kinda fruity like cherry. Is that what it is, cherries? It’s good, I like it. Got a little hibiscus maybe? because it’s got a little of that because lip smacking. It goes down easy. What is it?”

I read the short description: Vegetal and fruity, combining the tang of melon and wild strawberry and the refreshing taste of mint with the sweetness of green tea. An irresistible blend of summer scents.

“Huh. Very nice. That’s exactly it.”

derk:

I maybe have oversteeped it because it’s too drying. Otherwise, it’s tangy-fruity and juicy, thick and glassy. The green tea seems both spicy and subtly grassy-vegetal and sweet. Subtle fruit flavor, I can see how it’s melon and strawberry, both candylike. The mint I wouldn’t have known was in it. It’s very quiet. Thanks for sharing, Cameron B.! This one’s very good but not standout enough keep in my current doomcart (40 teas haha – it’s going to be torture paring it down).

Martin sent me a whole bag of whole linden from his town in the Czech Republic! I love that it’s in a fold-over style paper bag. Minimal waste! There’s a thoughtful touch to the bag, too. Attached is a small square of clear plastic with a sample of what’s inside!

I’ve been sipping this while dogsitting, needing something soothing for the evenings. At my house, the TV is on from dinner time to bedtime. I don’t watch TV myself, unless with Kiki (Tournament of Champions, Clarice and Big Sky have been the few shows that I participate in watching). It’s strange being in a silent house, even if I am familiar with my work father’s home. The dog makes dog noises and sometimes I play music on my laptop, but other than that it’s mostly silence. I hear everything in the evenings. Every tick-tock of the clocks, every cycling of the hot tub outside, every time the shower head in my bathroom mysteriously drains even though I took a shower in the morning. I’m spooking myself out. That’s where this tea comes in to play. As soon as I get the heebie-jeebies, I brew a cup of this.

The leaves are so delicate and the flowers small. They’re an entangled mess in the bag so bits often end up all over the counter trying to get some out. It might annoy somebody else, but I find it stupidly amusing and enjoy the puzzle. Since there’s like 3 or so leaves to each stem, I have to crumple them and break the wiry stems to get them to fit into my steeper basket.

I have given an awful lot of preamble for the following:

This is the one of the best linden teas I’ve had. It isn’t as syrupy as my other favorite from Dammann Frères, nor is it as intense. But not everything beautiful has to be flashy and French. Pure, sweet and simple.

Thank you so much Martin. This is the most intimate and thoughtful tea I have ever received <3

So I simmered some seeds for maybe 30 minutes in a small saucepan full of water. Boiled down halfway and left to sit for an hour, this is a lot darker than the earlier steeps in my teapot (I think it’ll take me into the night to steep out the teapot). This is absolutely the essence of tea. Chinese white and black teas at least.

I bet this would be lovely in a medicinal elixir or as an iced tea concentrate. I’m going to take what I have and make a simple syrup, though. I’ll figure out what to do with it later. Baked goods, whiskey cocktail, idk. Oh boy, now I’m thinking about baklava. Or glazed shortbreads. Maybe added to plain chamomile tea. I wonder if the hummingbirds would love it? Ha!

I have an unlabeled packet of tea seeds from Liquid Proust. This came as part of an LP group buy in 2018. Is that your photo, Roswell Strange? And do the 3 dishes of tea seeds correspond to A/B/C? The ones I have look exactly like the third dish, so I’m dropping a note here.

These little clove-looking seeds are from the Camellia Sinensis tea plant. Some have fuzzy little buttons in the center so I was thinking maybe they’re flower buds and not seeds? What am I doing…

My first attempt is brewing several teaspoons in one of my clay teapots, long and hot because they are as hard as cloves. When I opened the bag, there was a high aroma of spicy, woody geranium and tea rose. When I cup them in my palm they smell yeasty, twiggy and tangy-musty. I did rinse them briefly and let them steam for a while. They ended up smelling like the tea-in-hand aroma though more like a yeast roll and peppery-airy, aged wood and forest floor. I feel like I can smell a living tea tree typing that up :)

I’m just sitting here doing my taxes and brewing these however long. The aroma is sweet honeysuckle, woody and spicy. Roswell Strange said “Tea Seeds – A” tastes similar to an aged white — while not the same seed, dang right do these have that similarity. But it’s different somehow. Light, sweet, floral, refreshing, soothing in a gentle viscous body that swallows a touch dry. The essence of tea. The aftertaste is like yeasty baked goods. The first thought that popped into my head will probably not be understood by many people reading: Auntie Anne’s pretzels. The bottom of the cup smells like warm, golden spun sugar. I’ll see what later steeps turn into, if they turn more concentrated in flavor.

I have a pot simmering on the stove right now with the rest of the sample. Going to taste it as it reduces.

Lot 802 (Spring 2019) blew me away. This one seems to lack the deep intensity of Lot 802 and is more temperamental, though the Red Jade white tea trademark still presents fully. Western style brewing was ok, a little too drying for my likes.

With longer steeps in a small teapot, the flavors became more complex in an already complex style of tea. The more aromatic components of the tea arrive on the sip and include flowers along with pungent herbs like bay leaf, wintergreen, fenugreek and anise. The body has some moderate, gripping woody tannins. The main taste is of straw and strong minerals, supplemented by a fruity and malty guava-berry-orange-cinnamon tone. I notice the cinnamon more in the bottom of the cup smell. Later steeps smooth out the drying quality, tannins and minerality. It does take long steeps well but if overbrewed, a medicinal, fresh plant resin bitterness is noticed before anything else. Because of this bitterness and the drying quality, I do not think this is suitable as a grandpa style brew.

I opted for only a 10g sample of this since I also bought a 25g bag of last year’s harvest (Lot 901, Spring 2020) for a sweet deal. Like the Sanxia white tea I logged the other day, I wish I had gone for a larger package. This is a good tea to play around with to learn how different temperatures and steep times can alter a tea’s structural profile. I do wonder how more resting will affect this tea.

I wish I had bought a larger package of this winter 2020 harvest Taiwanese white tea so I could have more to play around with. It takes boiling water with no issue whatsoever. The liquor is a bit drying and the flavor a little lacking early, with watery notes of hay, oats, orange, ginger, beeswax, canned lychee syrup. Longer, hotter steeps develop more juiciness and creamy-smooth heft, while a deep orange character comes to the fore. Is this similar to what white tea stuffed mandarins taste like? Check out the wet leaves: they’re pretty small, rounded and many with blunted tips.

I want to boil this tea so bad. And grandpa it. And brew a big pot of it.

Wuyi yancha of the uncommon Que She (Sparrow Tongue) varietal. A first for me! This is a sweet, smooth and subtle rock oolong that Old Ways Tea calls ‘elusive’ and I have to agree. It’s different.

The dry leaf gives sweet and milky notes, caramel with darker notes of black currant and oak wood, a minty undertone. First impression from the warmed leaf is a very dark and strong mocha coffee with trails of caramel as I pull away. When I go back in for more, I notice dark brown toast and cardboard. Rinsing brings out the gentler characteristics of the tea: herbal, orange blossom, woodiness, wet vegetation, eucalyptus. I still notice coffee. It’s all so complex.

I gave it some intuitive brewing because that’s what it asked of me after the first short steep.

The flavor and aroma components are very active but the tea is overall very soothing. It’s at first a little alkaline I think from the roast, then opens up into a milky-woody-floral profile, a little caramel. It’s soft and somehow the deep and dark Wuyi minerality does not overplay. Balance. It travels in a minty cool stream down my throat and lingers there but not in my mouth.

With the next few cups, I notice the rich and sweet aroma that carries the same floral, milky character. The brew has more of a sunflower seed nuttiness to it. It’s interesting to breath the tea out of my nose – it seems to stick to every receptor and every hair. Aftertaste develops into a kind of incense, more sweet herbal than woody. My sinuses open completely. I notice cannabis. A few cups later and my throat is very warm, my body feels like a furnace yet my neck feels like ice in the sun. Hints of unripe apricot in the aftertaste.

I did many short steeps in the beginning and it was just this amazing tea. Once I started getting into late steepings, it became rather citrus-acidic and bitter. Drank the rinse this morning, cold. Despite sitting all night, it was fantastic, rich and sweet. No char or lingering roast notes at all.

It has this medium-oxidized/medium-roasted character but then it also seems like low-roasted. I would need several more sessions of this tea to figure out its nuances and understand its nature better. The subtleties of the tea don’t require your attention to appreciate it, though. It’s clearly a high quality tea.

How many times have I had a tea with moringa? Once? And I don’t remember that blend highlighting the moringa profile. This Tulsi Moringa is also a blend, containing moringa, 3 types of tulsi and lemongrass. I still don’t have a good grasp on the moringa flavor but I think it’s highlighted enough in this blend to say it tastes kinda like nettle in that it has a nutritious taste and is predominantly herbaceous-vegetal. I also pick up a touch of an earthy smokey-roasted tone. The tulsi leans more heavily into sweet clove than the Sweet Tulsi Rose I had yesterday. Lemongrass gives a bit of a green, citrusy vibe but I don’t taste it distinctly. One thing I wasn’t expecting from this tea is that it has a juicy swallow. It was a great cup to start the morning and awaken the senses. Bright, clean, fresh, grounding, aromatic.