353 Tasting Notes
Sipdown
A fun tea – magically blue/green. I think I used most of this cold brewing.
Fruity, kind of funky aftertaste (bamboo). Refreshing, grassy.
I noticed as I drank a lot of it that the bamboo flavor kept building and I started to dislike it. I probably wouldn’t get this again.
Purchased 2017 @ Midwest Tea Fest
Flavors: Bamboo, Fruity, Grass
Sipdown. I put off drinking this tea for a long time because it never looked appetizing. I’m not one for matcha. And matcha, black beans, and genmaicha to promote “healthy living” per the label sound like one of those things for you to do that you do because it’s healthy and not cause you like the taste.
Which is where I’m at with this tea. It’s cooked beans and rice that have been overdone with some added grass clippings thrown in. Yuck. But is gone now so yay!
Flavors: Beany, Grass, Rice
Work sipdown. I had a hard time getting the ratio right on this tea. Sometimes it was a lovely mint chocolate and sometimes it was very out of balance. Decent, probably pretty easy to replicate if I wanted. I still think I’d rather a good Yunnan black though.
Flavors: Chocolate, Mint
I found this in the back of my tea cabinet. Pretty sure I moved with this tea to my current house, so that makes it at least 6 years old, probably older than that. I tried it and surprisingly it doesn’t taste off after so long as it is a flavored tea.
Unintentionally aged flavored darjeeling tea is not that good. It’s drinkable, but pretty flat. There’s also kind of an mouth coating affect that appears after finishing it. I’m sure that’s due to the age of this tea and flavoring. Not a sip down yet, but I should finish this sometime in the next couple of weeks.
Tea Club – been sitting out since I got it.
Gaiwan 100ml, boiling water
rinse
10s – earthy and a little sweet, light orange color
After this steep I picked the ball apart, I probably should have waited or let it work itself apart, but I was impatient. Liquor went super shou dark on the next steep.
10s-earth, bit of dark, sweetness
10s – solid earth, hella dark
10s, 10s, sweetness getting longer
More steeps after this but I stopped recording notes. Nice accessible shou
Flavors: Earth, Sweet
Preparation
gong-fu 205F
10s- hay, sweet, thick, floral aftertaste
10s, 20s- floral, sweet like clover blossoms, thick; ball is still pretty together
30s- lost the sweet spot, more woody, drier
I went back to 20s – floral, but deeper, darker, honey
20,20,20, 6 steeps on and still some dry leaf?! I’ll need to break this up a little more next time.
Flavors: Floral, Hay, Honey, Sweet, Thick
Preparation
10s- wood, vanilla, black tea underneath, soft, wood not oaky (softer) (here I couldn’t read my own handwriting – I wrote not oaky but it looks like not ooky) Just marveling at that.
20s- more woody as it goes longer
I don’t like this blend as well as some of the others. It’s for sure the wood in the blend – just not my thing in drinks – tea, beer, or wine.
Flavors: Oak wood, Vanilla, Wood
