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Sipdown! 853… Yes, you read that right. I’ve tallied up everything now and am officially over 850 :( Here’s hoping I can make short work of that… July 1 goal: 750.

Anyhow! Thanks to Sil for giving up one of her precious Peaches and Cream teabags. :) I was dying of curiosity about it given the rave reviews!

Steeped it up this morning before I head off to the Farmer’s Market. Haven’t slept yet, but I did try. Sigh. Stupid sleep schedule. But yes, back to the tea. I didn’t look up any brewing parameters beforehand, so just went with my standard 90C/2 min infusion for white teas (heh, I’ve noticed that I pretty much standardly brew all teas aside from oolongs for 2 minutes now. Greens, whites, blacks. Oolongs (green ones) get 3 minutes usually; dark ones I go with given parameters or 1 min). Uh yes. Back to the tea. I’m rambly this morning. I didn’t really get a good whiff of the aroma as I had other teas brewing and just didn’t bother to separate out the cup, but it smelled a bit peachy and vegetal to me. Flavourwise, I’m getting light peach (makes me think white peach), with a gentle, somewhat vegetal white base. No astringency, so it’s very smooth. Definitely a bit on the creamy side, but I think I wanted more of both the creaminess and the peach. I don’t think that a longer infusion would have helped either of those; this tea is probably just meant to be somewhat subtle.

Overall, I am definitely not as taken with this tea as other people have been, which is perfectly ok with me. I still haven’t found a great peachy tea – though Peach HoppiTea minus the hops might make a good case for it. This one’s definitely tasty though, just not one I’d be too likely to stock up on (especially given the price!)

ETA: Meh… really didn’t care for the second infusion. Lowering the rating… I don’t think this is a tea I need to drink again.

I seriously cannot get enough of this tea as a chilled hot brew. I craaaaave it. It’s crazy! And I’m running out quickly. Sigh. I should really be trying to drink down other teas…

Cold-brew! I thought this one would do really well cold-brewed. And, it is pretty successful, although I think I underleafed slightly. There’s definitely tasty honeydew flavour, but there’s a bit too much mate flavour (or possibly green rooibos?) and I’m not a big fan of it. I think I have just a bit of this one left; I may still cold-brew the rest because it is certainly refreshing and all that, but it’s not my favourite. I’m guessing it would be better with sweetener, but I’ve been a bit too sweetener-happy lately!

Ohhh maaaan. Finally got around to cold-brewing this (and I did a side-by-side hot-brew-then-chill comparison as well). This stuff is wicked cold-brewed. Massively creamy, delicious, limey goodness. It’s perfect. And I didn’t notice any difference between hot-chill and cold-brew methods, so don’t bother doing anything but chucking some of this tea in a cup, filling it up with cold water, and leaving it in the fridge for a while. I highly recommend a bombilla for subsequent consumption of this tea, as it eliminates the necessary to futz about with straining the tea or whatever. And for the most part, the bombilla prevents little rooibos pieces from making their way into your mouth.

Anyhow! Very impressed with this one. I have DT’s Lime Gelato sitting downstairs to attempt both ways as well soon, and I’ll see how it compares to this one. I think it may have the edge on tasting a bit more fruity, but it probably will lose this battle. Yeah. Lime Chiffon is that good.

Another Verdant sample that I’m just getting around to trying. I discovered that my sample pack of this was not properly sealed, so the whole time I’ve had it, it has been sitting totally exposed to the air :( I’m hoping this won’t affect it, but I guess I probably will never know.

Anyhow, I also followed the Verdant instructions for this one, using 1 tbsp of tea for 8 oz. water, and rinsing the leaves once before a 30s infusion. The resulting brew has a toasty aroma that reminds me of other aged oolongs I’ve previously had (notably the other Verdant ones). I don’t know how long the other two were aged… well, actually, they were roasted. Maybe they weren’t aged at all? I have no idea. They smell the same, anyway.

Flavourwise, this one also tastes much like those other oolongs. Creamy, smooth, and lightly roasty. It’s more the sort of tea I’d turn to when I wanted something warm and comforting, than when I wanted an oolong fix. It’s tasty, but I don’t know what the difference between it and other similar oolongs is, and being that I already have good-sized amounts of two of them, I probably don’t need more of a third.

More notes on additional infusions to come.

ETA: Second infusion (1 min) was pretty darn delicious. Similar flavour profile. Third infusion (2 min) is ok, but losing flavour. I’ll try a fourth and see how it goes, but 3 might be it.

My first dong ding oolong experience was with Teavivre’s, and it went very badly. Mostly, I oversteeped it (and probably overleafed as well) and it tasted awful. I still have at least one sample pack, so should really give it another shot some time.

Anyhow, in the spirit of trying all the teas, I picked up a sample pack of this from Verdant a while ago. And since I felt like some straight tea tonight (and am planning a teensy Verdant order in the near future), I figured I should make some progress on a few sample packs tonight!

I approximately followed Verdant’s instructions for this tea: 1 tbsp of tea, 8 oz. of water, a brief rinse, and then a 30-second infusion. I thought it would be a bit weak, but the aroma seems to indicate otherwise – it’s a bit toasty and a bit florally-green… definitely intriguing! The first sip is lightly sweet and floral, kind of like TGY but without that turpentine smell/overly green flavour. The second sip (this tea is a bit too hot for my liking, still) brings out more sweetness, and is a bit more vegetal, but also has more oolong aftertaste. I keep spying bits of Dinosara’s note as I’m writing, and I agree that it’s quite savoury. I’m enjoying it, although I’m not sure it’s quite my favourite sort of oolong (and what that is, other than good milk oolongs, I can’t really tell you quite yet to be honest.)

I’m interested to see where the next few infusions take me, but this is certainly pretty tasty so far!

ETA: Like the other oolong, the second infusion of this one (1 min) was pretty tasty, but the second infusion (2 min) tastes a bit astringent and oversteeped. Perhaps should have gone with 1.5min. I’ll try a fourth infusion tomorrow to see what happens.

Sipdown! 817.

This one also smelled kind of soapy while I was brewing it, but drinking it cooled, I’m not getting any soapiness, just a herbally citrus flavour with a bit of spice. I bet this made a great iced tea way back when it came out like 2 years ago! There’s still a bit of bai mu dan flavour peeking out here too, which is really tasty. Overall, a pretty good tea.

ETA: Second infusion was good; third started to taste too much like lemongrass.

Sipdown! 818.

I forgot that this tasted better the longer it was steeped. Oops. So it’s alright, but not wonderful (age may be a factor here too). It tastes a bit citrusy/orange, with the creaminess of banana, so does mimic a breakfast smoothie, although I think there are other HB blends that I’d prefer over this one.

Drank this, but confused it with sTEAp Shoppe’s White Chocolate Tea. Clearly there are similarities… This also means that I couldn’t pick up any citrus :( There’s definitely creaminess though, so this one will get another shot sometime in the future!

ETA: Second infusion of this one also smelled like dry cat food, and induced gagging and cup-dumping. As with White Chocolate, I did remember this aroma from when I was brewing it as well. I will add, though, that in this case, it was spiced cat food. But once I’d made the association, it was just downhill from there. Hopefully the second attempt is better.