New Tasting Notes

It’s a little bit weaker with less leaves. Longer steeps had a caramelized marshmallow green taste, shorter steeps brought high mountain green oolong that was not quite as complex. There were more complex smells for sure, but flavor was a little faded.

It also does better when cooled down or with cooler temperature. I liked it more in spring and winter. It’s marshmallow profile and complex florals still standout, though I’m not ready to rate it. I’ve got just enough for one more Grandpa and gong fu if I go heavy.

I tried this hot and found the added flavors to be quite mild.

I tried it as a sweet iced tea and after a day in the fridge I can safely say that if I didn’t know this has added flavors I wouldn’t know this has added flavors. It tastes like an okay, slightly weak and slightly brisk (because it is Darjeeling) tea.

Since it doesn’t have any really special flavor hot, I will make big pitchers of iced sweet tea to use the rest. It will go down fast and easy.

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https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/tranquil-garden-10315

I think this is the one MB loved. Tropical notes are gentle now.

Due to overexposure as a kid on the farm, I have a long-standing aversion to raw cucumbers and canteloupe, simply because they stunk up everything else in the fridge. But thanks to a kind donor (I’m sorry, I don’t know which of you lovely folks shared this), I can at least slightly revise my melon aversion. I fridge-steeped this overnight. The green tea was a nice counterpoint to the authentic melon flavor. Cool and pleasant.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – June 2023 Tea #3 – A true sipdown tea

I feel like I haven’t had an actual sipdown in months!  uh oh. But here is one.  A TRUE sipdown!  Amazing!  Not a bad oolong, but at this point I have no idea the age, so it is probably no fault of the oolong that it isn’t spectacular.   It steeps up well enough for the day, anyway!  It’ll do when you’re craving an oolong.
2023 sipdowns: 52

Needed something to wash out the dust in my gullet after mowing the lawn this afternoon. Having stirred up the Jumble of Neglected and Mismatched teabags in search of some pretty ones to share at an event earlier this week, one lone bag of Turyaga Ginger Lemongrass green tea levitated to the top and looked tasty. In theory.

Some gift grade teas surprise you; some are duds. This fell pretty solidly into the second category, tasting pretty much like a gingery version of what the mower had just spit out. Lemongrass does have a shelf life, and this bag had exceeded it. Eh. I guess it counts as a sipdown, quality or otherwise.

This mostly tastes like hearty EG with a teeny bit of something else in there…maybe I can taste the jasmine! It’s not something I necessarily need again, but it was enjoyable warm with sugar and milk.

This was a little basic. Somewhat alcohol-tasting almond flavoring on a rooibos base. I’ve seen this flavor profile done better.

Wasn’t sure how this would ice down because of the chocolate—I hadn’t intended to—but due to a stuffy office, I dumped it over a tumbler full of cubes. Good surprise. Since it’s grapefruit-forward, it was very pleasant—likely even more so if I had steeped it to iced tea strength.

Sipdown no. 23 of 2023 (no. 681 total).

Had the rest of this last week as a take it to work tea, and the melon flavor was still as I remembered it and predominated. Fortunately, the flavor kept the tea from that planty weirdness I don’t like in a lot of white teas.

I still don’t really get white tea. As much as I would like to get it, I don’t. I’ll keep trying, though.

Another great tea from Eco-Cha. At this price point, it’s wonderful.

No bitterness or astringency. Flavor is very floral, but not overwhelmingly so. Aftertaste and mouthfeel are fairly thick and very fragrant, floral, and perfumey. Minimal sweetness.

Harvest: Spring 2022
Location: Songboling (400 m elevation)
Cultivar: Si Ji Chun (Four Seasons)

Dry Leaf: Floral.
Wet Leaf: Spinach.
Flavors: Floral, rose, green apple, cream.

This is a high quality tea and was either not cheap, or was a great value if so. Impossible to know as it is sold out on their website. Glad I got a free sample anyways :).

This is a blend of leaves from six large trees from the mountain Ba Da Ye just north of Little Jinggu. The man who sourced and processed the tea is Luo Kai Yin.

Unlike their 2022 Gulan from yesterday, this one had arms wide open from the start. William’s description on the website is spot on. Only a twinkle of bitterness with no astringency. Mouthfeel is medium-thick. Mild sweetness. Hou yun is long and vaporous like a cloud in your throat. Flavor is mild, but incredibly pleasant, soothing, and most noticeable in the aftertaste. Longevity is 16+ infusions.

Wish they still had cakes left…

Dry Leaf: Vegetal.
Wet Leaf: Dried apricots.
Flavors: Bitter, sweet, cream, white grapes.

A sipdown! (M: 1, Y: 34)

Well, that was fast. Within a week I finished all three sachets of this I had and brought to the office.

Well, it’s interesting twist to use Dian Hong for breakfast tea and well I liked it actually?! It wasn’t so bitter and brisk; but still filled with caffeine boost needed in the mornings.
It was very malty and quite rye bready. But also very smooth, and there wasn’t any astringency to be noticed in all three mugs.
Lovely, however it was a bit too little? I have been hoping for some longer aftertaste and different flavour profiles during drinking it from hot, through luke-warm, to cold tea?

Martin’s birthday countdown AKA Your Daily Tea Cup Advent Calendar

Day 16

Another plain tea, but putting yellow tea in Advent calendar is interesting for sure. I could not find it on YDTC website; they have only tea called Yellow Sun there, and it looks like this one but not sure, so I don’t want to mix it up.

I have prepared it as a green tea, so not boiling water, shorter steep; afterall both is written in the list. So, 80°C, 2.5 minutes steep and voilá:
I got a very tasty tea, which tastes a bit more like genmaicha, but with fruity (tropical fruits) note. Yes, it was a bit roasted, a bit sweet, a bit toast bread like. It has been turning a bit buttery when it was cooling down, but overall enjoyable cuppa.

First GABA oolong and I’m glad to try this type of tea. Apparently, the tea is fully oxidized like black teas, but made via an intensive oolong like process.

I don’t get all of the apricot, dark fruit, or papaya flavors that others get according to reviews on the Eco-Cha website, although I do get undertones of banana. To me, the predominant flavor is gingerbread and graham crackers.

Very sweet (though not as much as yesterday’s moonlight white), with ever so mild bitterness and no astringency. Mouthfeel is unimpressive, but hui gan is nice. Longevity is 6-8 infusions. Overall, the tea is very nice, but the flavor lacks depth and structure. I also wish that, as with some other teas I’ve tried from Eco-Cha, this one had information about its location and cultivar.

Harvest: Fall 2022
Location: ??? (400 m elevation).

Dry Leaf: Ginger, gingerbread, graham crackers.
Wet Leaf: Ginger snaps.
Flavor: Ginger, gingerbread, graham crackers, banana bread, sweet, cream.

I ordered this when it was on special in order to bring up my total so I could get free shipping. I found the brilliant pink package a little offputting, and when I opened it I wasn’t too excited about the aroma, either. However, I’m happy to say that it tastes just great! Not too sweet, not too much hibiscus, just a nice tart berry flavour.

As soon as I saw the name of this tea, I just had to try it, and I’m so glad I did. It’s delicious, not too sweet, not too anything. I think I could drink quite a bit before I’d grow tired of it.

ashmanra’s monthly sipdown challenge
May 2023 → a limited edition or seasonal tea

Oh gosh, this is not good today. I don’t know what happened, but it’s going down the drain. I don’t even know how to describe it.

Sip down! Or is it sipdown? I neglected to drink this in a timely manner for a tea containing coconut, so I decided to try this cold brewed today to see if it cut down on the old coconut soap taste. I’m pleased to say it mostly did! I had this iced and slightly sweetened and it was really good. Light coconut with a little smoke in there. Kinda wish I had saved the leaves to try to get a second steeping out if it. If I saw this in stock while making another order, it would end up in my basket for sure. For now, I’m glad to finish another tea in my cupboard, especially before it became undrinkable.

#SVTTB Round Two – Tea 15/???

Y’know, people like to shit on bagged tea but this was honestly just one of the best teas I drank all week. I had it hot with a splash of oat milk and the full bodied notes of malt, honeyed graham cracker, and grains were exactly the richly robust yet sweet and comforting answer to a quest I didn’t know I was asking. Does that make sense? Definitely tastes like the Biscoff cookies you get on flights sometimes or that, occasionally, were handed out with school lunches. They’re such good dunking cookies with a cup of black tea, so suffice to say that the idea that Taylor’s of Harrigate was going for totally comes off exactly as intended.

Yum. Yum. Yum.

#SVTTB Round Two – Tea 14/???

Iced Latte!

One of my coworkers and I are obsessed with mystery flavoured things so a few days ago, when she saw it at a hockey game, she bought a couple bottles of Milk 2 Go’s new “Mystery Milk” for us to taste test. I’m personally convinced that it’s blueberry flavoured.

I mention it because after our initial taste test I took the rest of the milk in the bottle and used it to make myself an iced latte with this Blume powder. Basically, it was a blueberry lavender latte and it was delicious. I really enjoy the almost “pure play” lavender notes of this powder blend. They’re fresh and intense but not, like, intense in a soapy way. My only main criticism is the same one I have with many Blume powders and that’s with the texture. The grind isn’t super fine and that results in a little bit of a mealy kind of thing. The milk helped mask that a lot, though!

Also, it’s just the most GORGEOUS rich blue colour and who doesn’t love a blue latte? Especially a blueberry lavender blue latte.

#SVTTB Round Two – Tea 13/???

Had to try this one since I own the 2022 version which is a wildly different ingredient list minus the oolong base! Like Veronica (the other person who’s reviewed this tea on Steepster), I also didn’t taste any caramel or sesame at all. What I did taste was coconut, but a super buttery type of coconut. In fact, the more I drank through the cup the more intense I felt the butter element of the coconut got. By the end of the cup I didn’t really taste coconut at all anymore, but instead sort of just the general vibe of a flavoured milk oolong. Y’all know the ones. They just taste a bit like straight up movie theater butter and it’s either the best or the worst thing depending on the mood you’re in…

Happy to have tried this, and honestly I don’t really mind flavoured milk oolongs at all so I didn’t have any problem with the taste aside from just wishing I was getting other things alongside it. For that reason, I am happy the tin on my shelves is the 2022 version and not 2021’s formulation.

#SVTTB Round Two – Tea 12/???

There are a couple different blends from Trader Nick’s in the box this time around, but this was the only one I didn’t already own. Man Catchin’ Beignets is one of Trader Nick’s most popular blends so I definitely wanted to try this one since it’s also inspired by The Princess and The Frog, but by the villain of the movie.

Honestly it was just fine as a tea. Solid chocolate and roasted almond flavours with a hint of toffee and the more mineral and chestnut-like notes of the oolong which really compliments the almond and chocolate flavours. My main thing was mostly that I just don’t really love chocolate teas a whole lot personally, so I could appreciate that this was a well balanced rich chocolate blend while also acknowledging that I probably wouldn’t ever really find myself gravitating towards it over some of the other chocolate teas I own already.

And on that point, that was the other big thing for me. As nice as the tea was, I just felt like it was a combination I had tried already so, so many other times…