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Writing a paper about Shakespeare’s sonnets with this tea as my companion. First steep is as good as ever. On the second steep I notice some very nice floral notes and a faint buttery taste/feel in the aftertaste.

Lovely.

First off, Den’s Tea is a wonderful company. If you’re considering ordering from them, I say “Do it!” Timely delivery and they included their catalog, a pamphlet about the health benefits of green tea, and a magazine about Japanese cuisine and culture. It’s the small things, yes?

Of course, all of this would be nothing if they didn’t sell high quality tea.

I’ve tried all four teas I bought from Den’s and they’re all absolutely delicious. (More reviews coming soon!) Today me and my housemates celebrated Christmas. It was wonderful. We all went to church, had breakfast together, opened presents, ate a fantastic homemade dinner (each person made one part of it), and, finally, played cards together. No homework, no stress. Just quality time. And I don’t have school tomorrow! (That’s the cherry on top, my friends.) In any case, my housemate Shane got me an awesome elephant teapot. The tea comes out of its trunk! Love it! In fact, I just finished an elephant of Fukamushi Sencha Special.

According to the Den’s Tea webpage fukamushi sencha is steamed at least two times longer than regular sencha. I believe this is the first deep steamed sencha I’ve had. The dry leaf smells full and fresh with light fruity notes. The flavor is deep and complex. Pleasantly grassy with hints of ripe fruits and brine rounded out by a wonderful taste of milk at the back. The aftertaste is milk then fruit.

I think I’m starting to get a hint of what good sencha can be.

I really wanted to like this. I really did. After reading several reviews of it I thought it would be nice. I like honey, I like pears, I like black tea. Honey pear black tea? That’s a no brainer, right?

Wrong.

The dry leaf smelled weird. Extremely vegetal with a sweetness that just seemed not to belong. A tragic foreshadowing….

The smell of the liquor was nauseating. I don’t know what it was. It smelled bitter, flatly sweet, like it had splenda or sweet and low in it. And it had that bad vegetal smell to it. Like boiled weeds.

I sipped it twice before dumping it in the sink. Tasted like sweetened bitter greens. The Flavor was muddy and disjointed with a slight whisper of pear dropped in there somewhere.

I wish this tea would have been good. I really do. I don’t know what happened but it was just awful…

Ratings bump! I drank this last night while doing homework and I was very impressed by the floral notes in this tea. Fruity and flowery with the occasional and very welcome milkiness.

Good for at least five steeps!

Life is starting to become busy again but I’m not sure I’m ready for it! Winter session Shakespeare class for one more week and then the regular semester starts. And I finally have a job. At a coffee shop that sells Rishi tea! I’m kind of excited about that. Maybe I can get a discount or something.

In any case, I’m fully stocked up on tea for at least the next couple of weeks. Orders came in from Red Blossom Tea Co, Den’s Tea, and the famed Golden Moon sampler (so I can finally ship my swap box to you, takgoti! Sorry for the wait, it’ll be shipped tomorrow!). There’s almost too much to take it all in and I’m enjoying it very much.

Last night I pored over The Merchant of Venice and drank somewhere in the neighborhood of half a gallon of tea while doing so. I haven’t done the homework & tea thing since high school! It was great.

Anyway, I’m slowly making my way through the Golden Moon sampler and it was either Vanilla Jasmine or Tippy Earl Grey tonight and my housemate chose Vanilla Jasmine so here we are. The dry leaf has a very warm vanilla scent to it. Not too sweet but just nice and rich vanilla. While brewing the scent was lovely. Light jasmine robed in vanilla, not competing but complimenting nicely.

The flavor is full and robust. It’s dominated by vanilla but with nice floral jasmine notes throughout. The vanilla flavor is wonderful. Rich and creamy and the overall flavor of the tea is perfectly balanced. My housemate loved it too.

Absolutely wonderful.

That is what I have to say about this tea.

The leaves are beautiful. Long and twisted, downy in spots. They brew a very pale tea with a heavier scent than its taste. It smells almost like sweetgrass. The flavor develops beautifully as the tea cools. It starts out like a very light pi lo chun. I don’t really know how to describe that flavor but its definitely akin to that class of teas. It tastes like a light chinese green, I guess. I don’t pick up on many other notes until it starts to cool and then it comes alive. This tea doesn’t relax me like a pi lo chun does. Instead, it refreshes. The flavor is delicate but lively. It has a faint grassy note but not like japanese teas. It’s more like sweetgrass. This tea is just so revitalizing. I couldn’t stop smiling while I drank it.

Fairly robust. Lots of good vanilla flavor. Delicious with cream and a little sugar.

I wish it had more body, though. And a heftier mouthfeel. (A vanilla scented yunnan would be so good!) Maybe I didn’t steep it long enough?