New Tasting Notes
Because of the citrus notes, I anticipated Here Be Dragons to be smashing on as a cold bevvy. Having just tried my first pint, I think I’ll back that off from a smash to a good, rousing pillow fight. Since my luck with cold-steeping green teas is so-so, I prepared it according to package parameters, then chilled it all day. The citrus which is so prominent when it’s hot is less so now. Still, it’s a tasty flavored green and is doing an adequate job of helping me chill.
2023 Ode To Tea – Part II – M
This looked like a great blend and sounded like a great blend in theory, but the flavor was always off. Especially now that it’s older. (Are you all getting sick of these repetitive “this tea is old now” notes that I keep writing? I know I’M sick of them.) So I’m glad it’s a sipdown.
2023 sipdowns: 67
2023 Ode To Tea – Part II – L
4,000th tasting note here! (Is that all?! It seems it has been WAY more than 4,000…)Finished off one pouch of this one (the sample) but luckily bought some more for backup. Nice lemon rind flavor. On another lemon note, I could drink gallons of the Simply brand lemonade, to any lemonade fans out there… it is by far my favorite lemonade. There is SO MUCH lemon pulp in it. It’s so good.
2023 sipdowns: 66
ashmanra’s Sipdown Challenge – “A tea with orange flavor”
A new month brings a new set of sipdown challenges! Going to try to use these prompts to steep up some teas that I either haven’t tried, haven’t written about, or just haven’t sipped in a long time.
Okay, technically this tea has clementine flavor, but I’m calling that close enough. :P This one is a bit disappointing to me, if I’m honest. It’s from my last Dammann order, which was in the fall of last year sometime, mostly made to get their advent calendar, but of course several teas tagged along. I wanted to try one of their flavored yerba matés (and by “try”, I mean order 100 grams because that’s the only option with Dammann), so I waffled between this one and Citron Cerise, and ended up deciding on this tea. Of course, I ended up trying and loving Citron Cerise in the advent…Anyway, it’s not that this is a bad tea. It has a very prominent green yerba maté flavor to it, herbaceous and woody and slightly smoky. And I like yerba maté, so I do enjoy it. I just feel like the clementine takes such a backseat that it ends up being in more of a supporting role, rather than the star flavor. It does add a nice sweet, citrusy brightness to the blend, I’m just left wanting more of it.
Maybe next time I’ll try a shorter steep, or even try this cold steeped to see if it brings out more clementine zing.
P.S. – Dammann’s new website is gorgeous! And love the changes like displaying a short description of each tea’s flavors in the grid, and showing the ingredients on the product pages.
Flavors: Citrus, Citrus Zest, Hay, Herbaceous, Mandarin, Mineral, Raisins, Smoke, Smooth, Sweet, Tangerine, Woody
Preparation
That’s a good idea! I wanted to try a new advent this year and that would be a good way to justify it – add in some old favorites. I actually put “orange”, backspaced and put “any citrus” and went back to “orange.”
I’ve never actually used these prompts, but I think it would be a good idea for me to get through some teas I never/rarely reach for!
I didn’t think I had any teas with orange left and found two tonight, so the prompts help me to rediscover blends that don’t have as much attention.
I love that! I really try to keep 60 teas or less, but one can still lose teas with that number, so this is very helpful!
I’m in a perpetual state of sipdown, which sort of narrows the range of teas I let myself drink. So this is a nice way to step outside that range every so often! :)
This is pleasantly tart with a bit of coconut in the background. I feel like there’s some element that’s slightly missing here, but it’s pretty decent at making the flavor profile it’s trying to. I don’t know that I’d call this cherry specifically, but it’s a nice red fruit combo.
Preparation
Sipdown! (54 | 252)
Another belated July sipdown, and the last one from my Adagio iced tea order.
I also added some Strawberry & Lemon cold brew sachets from Twinings, mostly because I’m trying to use them up and I don’t love their Cold Infuse teas on their own. Here the lemon adds a nice counterpoint to the strawberry, which reminds me of Welch’s fruit snacks. But this tisane was also perfectly pleasant on its own (if a bit generic), with a candylike strawberry flavor and a lot of tart apple and hibiscus.
I probably won’t reorder this, but we’ll see!
Flavors: Apple, Artificial, Candy, Fruity, Hibiscus, Strawberry, Tart
Preparation
Notes of cherry and dark chocolate. The roast enhances this tea without being overpowering.
Website: https://iteaworld.com/
Sipdown! (53 | 251)
Belated July sipdown. For cold brew, I count it as a sipdown when I dump the tea into the pitcher and put it in the fridge to steep, but obviously the actual drinking doesn’t happen until the next day or so. Anyway, I’m counting this for July.
Quite enjoyed this one from Adagio. I also tried it with adding in some of the Twinings Watermelon & Mint cold brew sachets, but I found the mint sort of overpowered and ruined it for me. This is a bit light, but so refreshing, and has a nice combination of sweet watermelon candy and more tart apple flavors. The hibiscus is a good amount as well, not so much that it tastes like hibiscus, but enough to add some dimension.
Anyway, I ordered a bunch of other fruit tea samples from Adagio to try cold brewed, so we’ll see which ones I end up ordering after that. At the moment, this one and Wild Strawberry are my top contenders.
Flavors: Apple, Candy, Cucumber, Fruity, Sweet, Tart, Watermelon
Preparation
I’m going to save money and only pick teas I like this summer…..$150 later…
Yeah. I’m a sucker. I got a bunch of teas from Magic Hour and Wang Family Tea, some of which I intend on fully sharing. I got this tea with the small leaf Shan Lin Xi Black and a Qin Yun Oolong, and I honestly was not a huge fan of either of those two teas, which I’ll describe in a few posts away. This one, however, I was. I feel guilty that I really like the nuclear green oolong tea saturating markets, but green oolongs are my sweet treats without the sugar. Leafhopper was concerned this would be too roasted based on appearance, but going off of the notes and my taste, this is definitely on the floral greener side of fruity and roasted.
Roasts are meant to enhance the flavors of the tea, and this one showcases it. It has no hints of charcoal whatsoever, and is very similar to the Jasmine Scented Shan Lin Xi they sell, and that I regret not getting more of. That one is a staple for me right now. Going back to this one, I’ve followed their methods of 55,45, 50, and it’s very heavy on honey, florals, and jasmine with a bit of a sweetness like raw sugar. Longer steeps has a slightly heathered profile, shorter ones are more floral and surprisingly just as viscous. It doesn’t really evolve passed steep 4 or 5, but it keeps on delivering flavor. The tea is super stemmy, so it’s naturally very sweet with large leaves.
I actually like using less leaves for more western sessions so far even though it’s fun to play with gong fu. I’ve only experimented a little with the end of two gong fu sessions with it, but I’ll write more when I brew this tea mug style. I’m not ready to rate it yet, so I’ll end with a positive note that this is my kind of light roast oolong.
Flavors: Floral, Fruity, Honey, Jasmine, Nectar, Orchid, Sweet, Tannic, Viscous
Having this iced with a creamer. The flavors aren’t as bold as I was hoping for. The mint is the most noticeable, but barely cuts through the light cream. The chocolate flavor only exists as a suggestion in the background with the malt. I keep hoping to find a replacement for a Teavana chocolate mint tea that I loved and still haven’t found a match for. I suppose one might consider this tea okay without the expectation I’m coming at it with. I’ll have to double up the amount in my steeper to try to pull more flavor from this.
Well, ever since I tried that sample, I have been obsessing. I needed to make another order from Adagio anyway, so I ended up picking up 2oz of this.
I increased the steep time this morning and that did improve the mouth feel and increase the flavor a bit. However its still a delicate tea and I can only get about 2-3 resteeps before its no longer worth the effort. By this point, it goes more vegetal as it cools instead of the sweetness of the grapefruit coming out more.
I am curious how this might work iced or cold brew. Will have to try that at some point.
Sipdown! (52 | 250)
This one was too mild for me, I ended up adding two sachets of the Twinings Mango & Passionfruit cold brew tisane to every pitcher to add some additional flavoring.
It definitely helped, adding some juicy passion fruit notes to the subtle peach and apple. Plus it also helps me sip down the other tea, which is not particularly good on its own either.
Anyway, definitely won’t reorder this one. I do have a sample of their Peach Serenity on the way, so we’ll see if that one’s anyway better.
Flavors: Apple, Peach, Sweet, Watery
Preparation
Still absolutely delicious, but my least favorite of the ethereal flight. Entirely a personal preference, as I prefer matcha with a deeper, rich profile rather than a bright profile and this is incredibly lush and bright. Super bright green. Snap peas cooked in butter.
Flavors: Butter, Grass, Snow Peas, Vegetal
I love Breakaway Matcha. I’ve been so spoiled by their matchas that I can’t really enjoy others anymore. I treated myself to the ethereal flight that they offer to try out some of their more luxurious offerings.
This is lovely and shares a lot of similarities with Blend Hikari (which was my favorite of the ethereal flight). Notes of dark chocolate and cooked greens. Not getting any grassiness. Not bright, but deep and rich.
Flavors: Dark Chocolate
