LuckyMe Send Message

Spring 2019 harvest.

This was kind of a ho-hum tea. Thin-bodied and mostly vegetal with some milkiness and hints of osmanthus and pear. Mild aromas of sweet cream, oranges, and flowers in the wet leaf.

I initially brewed it following Mountain Stream Tea’s instructions which call for boiling water. The tea had some dryness and peaked early, around the 4th steep. Dropping the temperature down to the 185-190 F range got me more steeps but also made the tea taste like hot water.

I tried brewing this multiple different ways including western and cold brew but this just seemed to lack any distinctive flavor.

London was the final stop on my Eurotrip during which I dropped by Mei Leaf in Camden. I’ve been curious about their GABA teas but didn’t want to commit to a large quanity so I ordered this iced. A few sips later and I ran back to the shop to buy the 70g brick. That’s how impressive this tea was. It had a smooth, fruity flavor with a honeyed sweetness. Some hints of spice and baked fruit.

I didn’t know GABA tea could taste like this. My only basis for comparison are a budget GABA oolong from TTC and an Alishan GABA green tea from Taiwan Sourcing. Both had some off-ish notes and struck me as something one would tolerate drinking in exchange for the health benefits of GABA. Not so here. It’s a delicious tea that’s enjoyable on its own.

Discovered this colorful, brightly lit tea shop at one of the Paris metro stations. The brand looked vaguely familiar although I don’t think I’ve ever had it. The store seemed like a French version of Teavana with a large selection of blends and straight teas. This was one of the samples they offered me and I liked it so much that I ended up buying it along with a couple of other teas.

This tea is an example of a well done blend. White tea because of its delicateness can get overpowered or lost with other flavorings. But here you can still taste its soft texture underlying the subtle tropical flavor. The passion fruit and mango mingle together beautifully to add a sweet, pleasing tang. I had this iced and it was fantastic…the perfect summer refresher.

I’m visiting Europe right now and spotted this everywhere in Paris so naturally had to try it out. I never liked the weird, corn syrup sweetened canned stuff with the Lipton label sold in the US but I had a hunch that the French version would be different. And boy not only was I right but this tea far exceeded all of my expectations.

Maybe it’s because I was parched on a hot summer day and needed something to wash down the huge street crepe I just had, but this little can really hit the spot. In fact, it may just be the most amazing peach flavored drink I’ve ever had. It tastes like biting into a ripe, juicy summer peach. The flavor is natural and sweetness is just right. The peachiness stands out more than the black tea base which seems to be a subtle accent. Then again, with this being Lipton maybe that’s a good thing.

Super refreshing and you can bet I’ll be picking up more while I’m in France.

Sippped down the last of this sample today. This is a good tea that more or less has a standard Long Jing flavor. I steeped this grandpa style, 1.5g of leaf to 10oz of 180 F water. It brews up clean and smooth without any bitterness. Notes of pine, spinach, light grass, toasted almond, and chestnut.

Compared to Mrs. Li’s 1st Picking Shi Feng dragonwell, this one was nuttier and had more mineral notes. While I liked this year’s harvest better than previous ones, I still prefer the greener taste of classic dragonwell over the newer #43 varietal.

Spring 2019 harvest

This was a 5g sample that I split over 2 sessions. I’m a commitment phobe who hates buying tea in large quantities so I love the fact that Verdant offers samplers for all of their teas. Aside from 25g of regular Laoshan green which is pretty consistent every year, I bought a dozen or so 5g samples of every one of their green teas.

My Instagram note aptly sums up this tea: “Delicate body, dew like sweetness, and refreshing.” This year’s crop was light and delicate, like spring mix salad. Notes of fennel, oats, and a little toastiness. Very nice overall, but not quite as good as the spring harvest from a few years ago.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/B0jMmTYgHOD/

The description of this tea sounded exciting: a new high mountain cultivar with the minerality of Shan Lin Xi and the fruitiness of Pear Mountain. However, it tasted more like a green tea than an oolong to me. It’s got a little butteriness to it but otherwise is vegetal and flat. The flavor didn’t evolve much, remaining constant for 5 steeps. Didn’t do a whole lot better cold steeped.

I wouldn’t mind if this were a green tea but as an oolong I found it pretty lifeless and bland. There was a little staleness in the smell so perhaps it was good back when it was fresh.

This summer is going to go down as the summer of cold brew. Ever since I got the technique down, I’ve been cold brewing non-stop and my daily tea consumption has quadrupled as a result. I think I’ve only hot steeped a handful of times this week.

What follows is my shortcut cold brew method which I learned on IG and tweaked slightly. It was designed for Japanese green tea but works well with other teas too. I drop 2g of tea in an 8oz cup, fill with room temperature water, cover and walk away. 2 hours later, the tea is strained and poured over ice. With certain teas like this one, I’ll give the leaves a vigorous stir 5 minutes before straining. Lather, rinse, repeat with other teas. Way more efficient than waiting 8-10 hours for tea to steep in the fridge, IMO.

This has been my favorite tea for this cold brew method. The broken up fukamushi leaves infuse quickly and have so much more umami and sweetness as compared to hot steeping. When cold steeped, I definitely prefer the intense flavor of this deep steamed sencha over my lighter asamushi sencha. Upping my rating slightly because of how well this performs cold brewed.

This is Baozhong #2 from my Mountain Stream Teas order. It’s a flower scented tea and a very good one at that. The osmanthus mingles with the floral baozhong for an intensely fruity brew. The tea smells and tastes like stonefruits, apricot to be precise. You don’t really taste the osmanthus until later after it’s been steeping for a while. Thick mouthfeel with a lingering, sweet finish.

I steeped this grandpa style in my tumbler, ~1.5g leaf in 10oz of 200 F water. I also like adding a pinch of this tea to spent green tea leaves. Not only does it get me a few more infusions at the end of the session, but the osmanthus flavor perfectly complements green tea’s grassiness.

Had this iced at DavidsTea as the tea of the day. The color is a deep, burgundy red and the flavor reminds me of fruit punch. It’s quite tart, even sweetened, obviously due to the hibiscus but also the cranberries in this blend. I also tasted raspberry and cherry cough syrup. There’s Stevia in there which I wish they’d left out because it leaves behind a weird aftertaste in the mouth.

This would be a good tea for those who want something tangy that tastes like fruit juice. I feel like there there was too much going on flavor wise in this tea and prefer a more straightforward hibiscus flavor.