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I seldom review a tea twice but I feel I was too hard on this tea in my first review. The house was freezing today and I was craving something roasty to warm me up. Normally I time all my steeps, but was feeling lazy and decided to wing it on the steeps. I really enjoyed how it tasted today. The spice and roasted stone fruit notes provided some much needed warmth and comfort. Bumping up my rating for this tea.

This is a green tea that has a very similar profile to another Teavivre favorite, Tian Mu Yun Wu. It’s got a sweet aroma of fresh cut flowers. When brewed, it’s light bodied and fruity with notes of crisp lettuce and sweet pea. There’s a nectar like sweetness to it and no bitterness even when the temperature is pushed.

Compared to Tian Mu Yun Wu, it doesn’t have quite the same depth nor resteeping power. Regardless, this is another stellar offering from Teavivre. I wouldn’t mind buying some more if I hadn’t already bought a 100g bag of the other tea.

After hearing so many great things about Floating Leaves, I finally got around to trying them this year. I generally favor Taiwan Tea Crafts for the value and quality, but at this point I’ve tried every single green oolong in their lineup and was ready for something new. I ordered the Winter High Mountain sampler pack and this was the first tea to go into the gaiwan.

I steeped about 3.5g of tea in a 80ml gaiwan. The dry leaves had a light orchid aroma. A rinse intensified the orchid and brought out notes of lilies, custard, and cream. The first steep was a little light, probably because my water temperature wasn’t high enough. On the second steep, I was able to taste the flowery notes in the aroma and some honeycomb in the finish that was very nice. The next two steeps were juicier with crisp florals, sugarcane, snap pea, and a hint of cucumber. Mouthfeel wasn’t as full as other high mountain teas but very clean and refreshing. I was able to push this to 10 steeps in total and despite fading a little, it maintained a pleasant orchid/lilac profile throughout.

This was the first Ali Shan in a long time that’s really wowed me. A bright, fresh, and flowery tea with some serious staying power. And a great start to trying out my samples. Hoping the other teas in the sampler are as impressive as this one was.

I consider this to be a connoisseur’s tea. This is an elegant dan cong full of nuance and texture that’s best appreciated by a seasoned palette. It has less of the juicy characteristics usually seen in dan cong and is more akin to a refined high mountain oolong.

It begins like a fairly typical dan cong with some honey and spice in the mouth. There’s a gentle floral hint in the finish. The roast is soft and doesn’t have that oily/mineral sensation of dark oolongs. To be sure, the minerality is there but it’s light and caresses your throat as it goes down. By the third steep what little roastiness there is clears up. The tea becomes sweeter and has a bright floral aftertaste reminiscent of magnolia and honeysuckle. There’s a linen like softness to the texture and a playful tickle in the back of the throat. Mouthfeel is incredibly smooth and supple like silk. As it progresses it becomes fruity with subtle hints of lychee and saffron.

I really enjoyed how this tea evolved over steeps. You don’t often see that in dan cong. It had an almost ethereal mouthfeel that was so soft and airy. Just a wonderful tea that you need to slow down and relax in order to savor its delicate flavor.

I have to agree with the other reviews of this tea. While it brews up a beautiful dark burgundy color, the flavor of the tea leaves a lot to be desired. There’s an unpleasant smell and taste to it that reminds of a generic black tea like Lipton. I’d describe the taste as somewhat earthy and malty. There’s no sweetness to it, no depth, and the flavor is basically the same steep after steep. It brews fairly strong and I reckon it would hold up well to milk and/or sugar.

Another purchase from the Verdant Black Friday sale. I had been curious about this one for a while and the tasting notes sounded intriguing. The smell out of the pouch was very promising. Delicious aromas of pumpkin pie, sweet malt, and toffee on the nose. My first attempt brewing it grandpa style was rather disappointing. It tasted mostly like a generic black tea, faintly sweet with a hint of sweet potato.

Gongfu proved to be the way to go. I steeped about 3g in a 160ml teapot for 30s at boiling followed by flash infusions. The first steep had a nice pumpkin taste. The second infusion was similar with a sweet potato malt. The next couple of steeps brought more pumpkin and jasmine like florals.

Good flavor albeit with a fairly thin body. A nice change from the chocolatey blacks I usually favor.

It’s taken nearly a year, but I think my little purple clay teapot is finally starting to give back flavor. And that presents a real dilemma sometimes when it comes to rating teas. This was one of those situations where the gaiwan and clay teapot resulted in two very different tasting teas.

The dry leaves are large and dark green with a green apple and orchid aroma. When wet, they emit fruity cucumber-melon and vegetal, slightly herbaceous aromas. The tea starts off fruity, some green apple sourness initially along with little floral hints in the background. This is where the gaiwan brewed tea stops and the other begins. In the tea brewed in clay, the depth of flavor is far greater. I detected notes of narcissus, hyacinth, egg custard, and pineapple in the finish. As it continues steeping, it gains thickness in the body and develops a sweet floral-fruity flavor. There’s a slight funk in the smell of the steeped leaves that thankfully doesn’t make it into the tea.

The main difference that I can tell between the porcelain and clay brewed teas seems to be the clay teapot did a good job of minimizing the sourness that cropped up here and there and amplified the flowery notes. The gaiwan brewed tea was a good, serviceable gao shan but nothing memorable and far from the better Li Shans I’ve had such as the recent one from What-Cha.

This backlogged tasting note is long overdue considering I’ve had this for a year now. I’ll preface this by saying that I don’t really like straight matcha but love it in food and drink. I bought this specifically for making matcha lattes. It’s O-Cha’s lowest priced matcha and strikes a happy medium between the expensive ceremonial grade and culinary grade stuff.

The matcha powder I received had a date stamped that was almost 3 years old which irked me with a little. Harvest date is important for green tea and a tea that old has lost some of its freshness. Nevertheless, at $10.68 for 30g I wasn’t going to complain. I use 3-4 scoops with about 4 oz of 165 F water and whisk everything up in my chawan. The matcha froths nicely producing a brilliant green color. Tasting it straight, it’s vegetal and somewhat chalky. However with a splash of milk it transforms into a delicious matcha latte that still has an assertive green tea flavor.

By itself, there’s nothing remarkable about this tea but it suits my need for a green tea that can hold up well to milk and a little sweetener. I portioned it out and refrigerated it which helped preserve its freshness and flavor.

Man, it was a struggle getting through this tea. I don’t do well with darker oolongs in general but this one was rougher than most. It has a thick, oily mouthfeel and a taste that can best be described as drinking tar. Can’t taste much beyond the roast other than a little licorice and an odd medicinal note that reminds me of Tylenol. After about 4 steeps, the oiliness fades and you get a nice toasted nut flavor. No sweetness or discernable fruity flavors.

I steeped this for 5 times, starting at 185 F for steep times of 2, 3, 5, 7, and 10 minutes.

Just when I thought I’d seen and tried all things jasmine, along comes this tea to dispel that notion. And what an incredibly good jasmine tea this is! It’s quite similar to Verdant’s White Jasmine which I also enjoy with its clean, fresh, and sweet jasmine fragrance and taste. Here the jasmine is accented with a little malt and caramel sweetness in the aftertaste. Its flavor is soft yet prominent. A lovely tea and one that’s great for grandpa steeping.