592 Tasting Notes
I should really resist opening up my new teas from my Verdant order until I sip down more of the ones that I already have open in my cupboard… But I have no self control, apparently. I just couldn’t resist opening this one up for work because I was really craving a chocolate-y tea. This tea definitely delivered that and more. I will say that this batch of LB Genmaicha seems to be a tad weaker than the one I finished off from about a year and a half ago. It may be because I just steeped it differently this time around or something, but I’ll have to keep my eye out for it in future steepings. (Not that it will really diminish my love for this tea anyway).
This is my second office teabag tea of the day. I let the water cool for about 5 minutes before putting the tea bag in to avoid bitterness from scalded tea. It worked for the most part. The tea was a little bitter, but it mostly came out as the tea was cooling and was barely noticeable while the tea was still hot. I don’t really drink many Chinese green teas anymore because I prefer Japanese greens in general. However, this tea surprsingly reminded me of sencha more than it did of other Chinese green teas. It’s puzzling because the name of the tea acutally has “China” in it… It was less sharp and grassy than a lot of other Chinese greens I’ve had. It was more of a grassy/vegetal mix with perhaps even a bit of umami in there as well.
Maybe I’m not the best at explaining it eloquently, but as a mostly Japanese green, loose leaf tea drinker, I found this to be actually not too bad.
Well, I was thrown off my Daylight Savings more than usual. As a result, I rushed out of the house without my mug and other tea things that I brought home for the weekend. So I had to make do with teabags and paper cups at work. I don’t think that this tea is necessarily that terrible, but the paper cup really makes it taste like malty paper. I guess the upside is that the tea is not bitter at all! I wouldn’t buy these teabags for myself, but it was a nice quick fix at work this morning.
I’m so very glad and lucky that Verdant had all my favorite teas in stock when I made my last order! This is definitely one of my favorite black teas. Just the delicious and complex combination of malty and potato-y flavor is so perfect. Today, I think I detected a hint of smokiness that was surprising. I can’t remember if I thought there was smoky flavor in this tea before. Maybe I’m just going crazy today. In any case, it’s such a lovely tea, and I’m thinking that I probably should have ordered more of it because I’m going to run out pretty quick at the rate I’m going!
After yesterday’s successful experiment with LB/Wuyi Mountain Big Red Robe, I wanted to sip on just the Wuyi oolong today at work for comparison. For the first two Western style steeps, I was getting a lot of nutty and chocolate-y flavors along with that wet leaf taste that I find in a lot of different oolongs. The third steep was significantly weaker in flavor (and oddly a little bitter), but I went ahead and did a fourth steep anyway just to see what would happen. The fourth steep was pretty much just like slightly flavored hot water.
In conclusion, I think that this is a 2 steep max kind of tea for me (Western style anyway). I’m so happy that I reordered this from Verdant because it’s just the perfect delicious, clean cuppa I need to motivate me through the workday.
Thank goodness my Verdant order got here because I just finished off the last of my previous batch of Laoshan Black. I actually only had enough for about half a cup, so I made up for the rest of it with Wuyi Mountain Big Red Robe. I’m no expert at blending teas or anything, but I thought it sounded like a good enough combination.
So the first steep (Western style) was very much like Laoshan Black. It started off with a punch of chocolate flavor and ended with a nice, sweet maltiness. I was confused that I didn’t taste too much of the oolong, but I figured that LB has a pretty strong flavor, so it was probably just overpowering. Surprisingly, the second steep was totally different. I think the LB took a little step back because I was getting a pretty strong roasty oolong flavor out of it. There was still some malty flavors from the LB, but it played nicely with the oolong flavor instead of dominating.
On my third and final steep, I was getting that kind of generic nutty water taste that I get with both LB and Wuyi when the flavors start getting weak. Even though it is weak, I do like the taste of the nutty water, so I don’t mind too much.
Even though I mixed these two teas together because of convenience, I actually quite enjoyed it. It reminded me a lot of the LB Genmaicha, which I’m pretty sure has an oolong in there with the LB. I may try this again in the future to mix it up a little :)
Backlog. And sipdown (92)! This was quite a lovely oolong, and I will miss having it around. I think it has a nice balance between floral and roasted flavors all at once. For my first steep, the water was a bit hot, so there was an unpleasant metallic, bitter taste in the background, but when I use lower temperature water (maybe around 185-190?), there was no bitterness and the sweetness really shone through. I’m sad to see this one go, but I think I have enough other oolongs to put me at ease for now!
Backlog. My Verdant order came in! Yay for restocking on favorites like LB! I ordered a sample of this oolong because based on the reviews here on Steepster, it seemed like a tea that would be right up my alley. I neglected to look up any steeping parameters, so I left the tea steeping for about 3 minutes, oops. The resulting tea reminded me a lot of Laoshan Black, but it had a bit of a musty raisin-like taste. That was unexpected and confusing, so I looked up steeping parameters, which turned out to be 30 seconds.
So after my first mug, I resteeped a few times at around 40 seconds or so each. I think that my first long steep kind of drained a lot of the flavors out because the resteeps tasted a bit more like nutty hot water than anything else. Anyway, I’ll probably bring the rest of the sample back home where I can pay more attention to it and steep it right.
I’m sipping on this tea this afternoon because I have just been drinking so many black teas lately that I needed a bit of a change. My friend bought me this tea as a congratulations on my new job. She knew I liked tea, so she picked one up for me! So sweet. I am a fan of Mighty Leaf’s White Orchard, so I was pretty excited to try this one, too.
First off, I have no idea how hot my water is at work, so I may have steeped it at water that was too hot. That being said, I wasn’t too impressed by this tea. It did have a pleasant, generic tropical kind of taste that was to be expected. However, it verges on the edge of tasting medicinal to me rather than natural, juicy fruit flavors. It’s nice enough to have at work, so I’ll probably keep it around my desk somewhere.
Edit: As it’s cooling, the flavor becomes more medicinal, eek. I’ll just have to gulp it down while it’s still hot!
Backlog. I think I may have underleafed this tea this morning. It was less maltier than usual and just not quite as flavorful in general. I mean, it was still a nice, solid black tea, but it tasted a little more generic because of the weakness of the flavors. Fortunately, I have enough left to make a few more cups and figure out the best leaf ratio for my work mug!