Featured & Popular Tasting Notes

[Spring 2022 harvest]

Great warming and crisp white tea with some green edge to it. The mouthfeel is a little too watery for my liking, but otherwise I like it a lot.

The aroma is a mix of peas, squash flowers, pancake, and thistles. Taste is bright and savoury with good umami and grassy sweetness as well as notes of sand, shellfish, apple leaves, and rapeseed flowers. The aftertaste is sweeter with a fruity apricot note present.

sad sipdown. Picked out this one to finish up this weekend because the idiots working on the balconies in our complex decided to start stupidly early on a saturday morning. So i needed something delicious and wonderful. Had multiple steeps of this one while trying to get up and ready for the day. stupid people.

This was in a my Christmas stocking this past December in festive holiday packaging. I remember thinking Ghostly Green was an odd name to add into a Christmas based tea collection but hooray for a tea I’ve not had before.
There is a strong mint flavor with a hint of floral in the back. There’s a bit of creaminess to it as the tea cools.

I’m still trying to finish samples I received this time last year (I know, I know). I’m almost caught up, and I’ve had the chance to enjoy little gems like this along the way. The apple flavor is delicious, and I appreciate how the spices (cinnamon, ginger, and clove – I think) are used to enhance rather than overpower the fruit flavor.

This is definitely a good way to beat back the Monday morning blues.

I do not know if the unpleasant note I get from this tea is from the fermentation or if it was wet stored. It tastes much like a wet storage note. A taste of either wet wood or perhaps bamboo. Maybe this one will improve with a couple of years of dry storage.

I steeped this eight times in a 75ml teapot with 5g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec.

Excited about the Canton Tea Co sampler which arrived over the weekend! I’ll start my Monday morning with what sounds like a good breakfast tea. The dry leaf is pretty, with orange highlights in the long brown strands, and their aroma is very nice – there’s a sweetness there which reminds me a little of Darjeeling. We’ll see what comes out in the steeping…

Mmm, this tea smells really, really yummy – I’m definitely getting the caramel that other tasters have noted. The liquor is a medium-brown and on first taste is great. The caramel is there, and the natural sweetness of it means I won’t be adding any sugar to it. In addition, underneath that flavor, I’m getting something akin to fruit flavors; peach and nectarine are those which come to mind. This one’s a keeper.

Equal parts Market Spice Butter Rum + Touch Organic Keemun x (a filter you used to make Marco Polo yesterday and didn’t rinse out very well) = a Bob Ross happy accident that sort of resembles warm root beer. Eh, I took a chance :)

Additional notes: Today is Towel Day for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! One of my favorite things! So I’m drinking this today and 52Teas PGB! Today this blend was very blue and sparkly, which it hasn’t been before. It must have known to brew up special for its special day. Hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day weekend.

With milk, this has a pretty nice, mild banana flavor. The rooibos itself is super strong and not the most pleasant of rooibos, so unfortunately it steals a lot of the attention. The coconut leaves a fresh, tasty coconut flavor that goes well with the banana. If the rooibos could be toned down, this would be a pretty great blend. And as usual, I wish the banana could be amped up even more!

Well, my last Upton sample is green Earl Grey, which is simply Not Suited for being my morning tea, so I’m going to get started on a new project! The Great Finish Off My Adagio Samples That Have Been Taking Up Space In My Cupboard For Ages To Make Room For More Samples Project! (or TGFOMASTHBTUSIMCFATMRFMS Project for short)

Does anybody else do this thing where you end up not drinking your favorite samples all that often because you don’t want to finish them off and be left with the not so great samples? That is what has happened to Golden Monkey. I love this stuff, but the sample tin tends to sit in the back of the tea cupboard, neglected due to my miserliness. Poor Golden Monkey. This tea has a lot going on; I was thinking “smoky” when I was drinking it earlier, but reading the other notes, malty is definitely the right word.
I let this steep for a stupid long time this morning because I was distracted trying to find all the April Fool’s jokes I could before leaving for class, so the end result is extremely strong and extremely malty. Suitable for mornings, when nothing else gets through the post wake-up fog, but I was definitely wishing for more subtlety by the end of the mug.

I attended a small group writing workshop yesterday and one of the warm up exercises was to write a list called People who suffer. When we shared our pieces, the unanimous perspective was that all people suffer, though in various different ways. No one escapes.

There’s that Buddhist parable of the Second Arrow. The various types of pain that life brings are inescapable. It’s a fact that people get sick, suffer mild annoyances and big losses, and die. The second arrow is suffering we inflict on ourselves as we deal with the
hardships that life brings, so essentially we stab ourselves with various negative thoughts about ourselves and our situation as we try to cope. However, the fact of the particular hardship remains the same. The pain that life brings is a fact whereas the suffering we inflict around that is optional.

These are my early morning mullings after having been woken by baby next door at 3 and then 4 and then 6. And now as I write this, her older brother is racing like a dervish, his footsteps thudding and echoing through the walls and throughout the space.

I wonder whether my cursing this loud, noisy, and profoundly inconsiderate family—ongoing issues, not just the children— is the second arrow and what, aside from moving, I could be doing differently.

Somehow this was to segue seamlessly to the description of this fine cup of tea. The transition eludes me. This cup, however, is delicious.

The citrus is bright, both flesh and rind. The spices are subtle enough to not hijack the rest of the flavours. The base is a bit creamy.

So it’s tasting note 2,500 for me! Not a big a deal, as another Steepsterer hit 4,000 just the other day. But I keep truckin along with my tasting notes. :D But how about a special tea for #2,500? How about a new to me Butiki tea?! That gets a very high Steepster rating?! Thanks for including this in the awesome tea package, StarFevre! I somehow never tried this one in the Butiki days. And I love the melon teas. I wanted a white tea today so a decent amount of these sickle shaped leaves with cute pink flowers went into the infuser. The dry leaves still smell like melon! More cantaloupe than watermelon, but I certainly prefer that anyway. And both steeps still had a HUGE amount of melon flavor. Awesomely unexpected. I usually don’t think a sickle shaped white tea has enough flavor, but this one had quite the nice sweet mellow base for the melon flavor. Maybe I steeped the right amount of leaves. I can always appreciate when an aging tea is still delicious!
Steep #1 // 20 minutes after boiling // 70 second steep
Steep #2 // 12 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep

Edited to add: Scratch that. The third steep is very melony too! At least when I used just boiled water. And now I will stop drinking this tonight and save it for tomorrow as it is 11:19 and I don’t need the caffeine! I wonder how the Butiki tea magician is doing these days? Not getting tea flavors to magically last forever, I suppose. :D

#adventageddon Day Twenty One – 2/6

This is definitely the most surprising tea from the 52Teas selections yet, and I love it. It’s one of the new flavours and honestly what a refreshing take on winter flavours.

Literally.

This is basically a wintergreen blend – though it tastes like it could be a mix of wintergreen oil and peppermint. It’s very sweet from the wintergreen, but also has a nice creamy undertone and finishes very crisp and cooling. I adore wintergreen as a tisane and usually anything that it’s blended with as well and this is really no exception. I slurped down my mug super fast, and I’m already fighting off the urge to go and make myself another cup…

Instantly a new favourites 52Teas blend!

(Would totally be interesting in buying more of this one if it’s available…)

Stolen from the box I have half-ready for Sil.

Tastes more like a black tea than a white.

Steeped 1 minute at 195F.

It’s really good, but I’m still not really into tea, so I won’t keep it. It just smelled good, so I wanted a cup today.

This houjicha can change profile depending how aggressive you steep it. Lower leaf (3grams 5oz) I got something lightly roasted, corny and sweet. Steep it 6grams and its rich, more roasty, and tastes bready like an unsalted pretzel. Feel free to go boiling water with this green and oversteep. It doesn’t get too dry other than a bit of a squeaky popcorn texture.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/tencha-kuki-houjicha/

Drank this one last night with some almond milk;

What does it say that I had just gotten home from our staff meeting at DT where I drank a lot of tea (five cups in two hours) only to come home and immediately after turn on the kettle?

This was great through; the perfect silky, creamy and soft sweet tasting note to end the day on. Except I ended up having an unplanned final cup after this so it wasn’t really an end to the day. I love the natural balance of caramel and fresh, floral and green oolong as well. It doesn’t feel like it should work but it totally does. The almond milk added a hint of nuttyness that suited the overall sweetness as well.

Blissful.

This is a winner. I may even love it more than actual eggnog.

For old fans of Butiki’s Creamy Eggnog, this is a more than adequate replacement. The main differences are this has a somewhat floral white tea base instead of a green, and it takes a backseat to the flavouring instead of being particularly noteworthy in it’s own right.

The smooth and creamy eggnog flavour is spot on, with even the odd hint of cake. I just need to remember not to double fist it with On Wisconsin Jade Oolong; that was possibly too much cake this morning (but so good that I secretly regret nothing)!

Steep Count: 2

I had to rush out the door only grabbing iced tea out of the fridge this morning, but I was really crazing a warm cuppa on this rainy morning, and had to wait until my lunch break to finally get to brew a thermos of hot tea. This is one of my oldest teas so I grabbed this one to start working on sipping down; it smelled fantastic steeping on my desk, reminding me a lot of the Blackberry Dumpling tea I had not long ago, which I really enjoyed.

I’m getting some baked bread and subtle honey notes from the base black tea, with a stronger sweet rose florality; it isn’t as strong as I was imagining (I’m a big fan of rose so there is pretty much no such thing as “too strong” with me and rose!), but I can pick it up toward the back of my tongue. The fruitiness of the blackberry is a much stronger flavor note and dominates over the florality, so it tastes more of a nice blackberry black tea, with a very soft and subtle floral touch to the base black; I think even someone that typically hates floral notes in teas would have no issues with this tea. Since I love rose teas, I actually could’ve done with those notes presenting a little stronger, but I still love the blackberry flavor used by 52Teas — it just tastes so full and juicy, like biting into actual fruit. It’s a good tea and I’m so happy to get a hot black cuppa on this drizzly day, but I would’ve liked to have seen a little more balance between the fruit and florals, personally

GCTTB DAY 1

Second tea I’m sampling today, this one caught my attention because I like Stash teas but I’ve never seen this one being sold in store. The concept sounds intriguing, and I figured the salted caramel theme might be appropriate for the holiday season. I only left the bag in for about 2 minutes because the tea turned dark quite quickly and I can smell a slight herbal bitterness to it (the mate?) so better safe than sorry.

The aroma does smell like caramel, but it’s mixed in with that strange ashy note that I can only assume belongs to the mate. It almost reminds be of the earthiness of puerh, but not the same type, if that makes any sense.

I couldn’t really taste the salted caramel in the tea. It was overpowered by the earthy/herbal notes that gave off a slightly ashy aroma. It was faint, and only in the background. Overall it just wasn’t for me. I didn’t really expect the flavour of mate to overwhelm everything else. I’m glad I at least didn’t leave it for be recommended 3-5 minutes!

Ancient Alphabet challenge – Z

Ending on a high note on one of my only teas representing ‘Z’ but wow, this one is aging gracefully.  It’s very delicious.  Such deep flavor for such a huge leaf, which sometimes looks more like twigs that would never unravel than anything that would have this flavor.  Another fantastic black tea that I wouldn’t mind keeping around.  In stock at Verdant right now! This Ancient Alphabet challenge was perfect at reminding me that Ancient tea is usually still delicious tea… which might not help the tea museum in the long run but at least all of these teas weren’t terrible!    Only TWO of the Ancient Alphabet teas were actual sipdowns, but most of them are ALMOST finished now.

Additional notes: I tried this one with two teaspoons as opposed to one and WHOA the flavor is amazing! Of course, this one in particular is a little costly with two teaspoons, but it’s a green tea and I have a big pouch of it from one of the mystery grab bags. The cinnamon is the perfect strength — two types and also like those cinnamon candy hearts. Hints of smoke as well. Not enough cayenne to notice, but it might not have been mixed in well enough. I really like this one with two teaspoons so I might as well do that every time. Raising the rating from an 80! It’s just a really well thought out blend.
Steep #1 // 2 tsps. // 30 min a.b. // 1 minute steep
Steep #2 // ?? min a.b. // 2 min

Advent Calendar from TakeT: Day 7

Sorry, my Finnish knowledge is short about the name of this tea and I don’t feel it is correct (the color is correct, name as well, but why to speak about snout of someone?)

Anyway; definitely sounds interesting and they have also a black tea version of the same tea; saying it is Petteri’s Red Snout (Punakuono). But in fact, it is a pretty nice and straightforward green tea with creamy vanilla and hints of almonds. Not a prefered flavour profile, but it wasn’t bad, so… so what.

Sipdown no. 9 of March 2019 (no. 44 of 2019 total, no. 532 grand total).

I drank the last of this as a cold brew. My initial notes on this tea are still ringing true to me, though I wouldn’t have identified a smoky note in the most recent cold brew, I don’t think. At least I’m not identifying it now.

It’s the sort of thing where I’d be happy to drink it, but I don’t need another tea like it. It’s solid but not distinctive enough to merit a permanent cupboard spot.

I rarely buy flavored black teas because I feel like the black tea overwhelms the flavoring (and often a cheap black tea is used as the base and it’s too bitter). This tea is really really good, though. I love all things maple so I couldn’t resist trying this one.

The smell in the bag is maple-pecan and no scent of the black tea at all. Once brewed, I can taste the black tea but it doesn’t overwhelm and is not bitter. And, oh boy, is the maple flavor present!

3 for 3 with Fava teas!

Brewed 2 tsp to 8 oz for 4 min.