Featured & New Tasting Notes

Steepster seems to be getting worse. Is anyone else having major issues?

They say this is honey-scented, but I am blasted away with chocolate notes. Ghirardelli milk and dark chocolate. Chocolate shavings. Cacao. At the end, there are some savory honey notes. After smelling my 3 honeys (Manuka, wildflower, and raw beekeeper honey), I think it’s more like a chocolate-infused honey I had once.

The flavor is sweet. Lots of chocolate notes with a honey after note. The mouth feel is silky smooth.

I received these as a gift from one of the ladies who comes to the MN Tea Society meetings.

2025 Steepster Advent Swap: Day 8

Another OBTC blend I’ve been wanting to try!

This is definitely quite nutty, although I’d be hard-pressed to identify it as pecan-specific nutty. I think a large part of the nuttiness comes from a natural flavor that doesn’t quite agree with me, because I’ve noticed it elsewhere and often feel vaguely offput when I encounter it.

Other than that, I do get a bit of butteriness, which feels appropriate. There’s also cinnamon and a bit of cocoa, both of which take away from the “pecan pie” vibes, IMHO. I also find the lingering sweetness from the licorice root to be a bit off-putting. I do like the pu’erh base; it’s present but not overwhelming.

I like the idea of this blend quite a lot in theory, but it’s just not gelling for me as a whole!

I don’t recall seeing Bhakanje either. But the leaves are very nice!

I prepared this tea also gongfu, using all 5 grams in 100 ml. Steeps were 20/30/40/50 and a few longer ones.

In a first steep I got old-well-known Nepalese terroir aromas, those being woody, but also very aromatic herbals, malts (a little like dark, roasted malts) and tannins. Considering that I haven’t made any rinse, this looks good!

Second steep was very malty and adds baked bread notes, which are extremely pleasing to me. There is a little dryness, but nothing too much. I haven’t noticed that much of herbals and florals as Leafhopper, but in the major flavours we noticed the same.

Following steeps were pretty much similar as others, always with some note being more dominant and others were weaker. I would not consider it very drying, but I was drinking it rather fast, that’s true.

I really like this one. But I am a little biased towards Nepalese teas, so that’s why. But it is also just a delicious tea. I will definitely keep this one in my wishlist.

Note: As I go tomorrow for 3 days long business trip, I won’t post any new notes. It will be hard to catch up, but hopefully I can make it!

It seems that this tea puzzles me.
Once it was fine; once it was bad. And today, in advent calendar it tastes like something different and fine.

I have steeped all 5 grams western today morning and steeped those in 80°C water (a little colder, actually) for 2 minutes.

I have received a tasty cup with lots of fruity, tropical notes, which were pleasing to drink. As of now, writing this note much later, I can’t recall exact fruits. The base was a little rough though. While not exactly bad, it was a bit astringent and maybe a little bitter for me. But it was strongly prepared, that could be the cause.

Anyway, it was fine… though agian not a tea to keep in the cupboard.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – December 2025 Tea #1 -A tea with fruit flavors

It was time for this one to go — at this point it is just mostly resulting in a spicy cup, with no hint of blackberry or earl grey.  I really should have finished it sooner.  Take note:  52Teas is one of the shops that does a GOOD blackberry flavor.
2025 Sipdown total: 82
2025 unique tea sipdowns: 65

Whoops, this was for day 5 and today is just day 4! So, tomorrow will be day 4 tea.

I hoped to like this. It contains eucalyptus, not so common ingredient, but also pine buds which have relaxing properties and that is something I would love today.

But alas, I don’t like it too much. It was very floral and heavy in herbal notes; and from the ginger I barely noticed anything. Nothing warming, nothing spicy from that.
I think that the eukalyputs here was the strongest and sadly overwhelmed all the other ingredients. Well, not all teas can be winners, right?

Advent Calendar 2025 – Day 3

This one… It just tastes like Darjeeling to me, I can maybe detect a tiny hint of spice if I squint, but I wouldn’t know it had any flavoring additions at all by the taste. It’s pleasant enough, definitely a later flush sort of Darjeeling with bready and hay notes. Maybe it’s better this way, since I am not a clove lover anyway heh heh… :P

As for jam, today it’s Plum Pear Star Anise Spread. Plum might be my favorite fruit for jam, so I was excited to see this one. It’s a nice mix of plum and pear, with the plum adding that stonefruity tang and the pear adding syrupy richness. I don’t actually notice the star anise, even trying it plain, but I’m enjoying the two fruits together so I don’t mind!

It seems we had this tea in the very same time with Leafhopper but I am writing a note a little later, as I went distracted a bit. Also we did very similar steeping parameters. It would be fun to prepare it together and share the impressions with each other right away.

Well, I have to agree that vendor’s notes about aromas are just right. Honey, fig, little smoke, wood. I would add another description and that would be tobacco after making the leaves wet.
The flavours are pretty much similar and it was nice and fruity and while I couldn’t point out the fruit on the first sight, it was the fig. I need to have more experience with this fruit apparently. It was very round and sweet, however a bit longer steep turned it a little drying, exactly how Leafhopper notices too.

In conclusion, it was very tasty and enjoyable tea from a little less common terroir of production and maybe just because that I am biased — and raising a rating because of that. I have used all 5 grams for 100 ml gaiwan.

2025 Steepster Advent Swap: Day 1

Iiiiit’s advent season! And this year it’s already bringing me a lot of joy. We had to say goodbye to our nearly-16-year-old pup the week before Thanksgiving, and the grief has been tough. We’re riding it out, but yeah… tough. She was my first dog as an adult and had been with me since I was 24 (I’m 38 now). Life without her is just not as bright.

Anyway, I’ve been looking forward to the festive fun of advent season. Michelle was my homemade calendar swap partner this year, and rather than label/number her teas, she suggested a random pull — with the instruction to choose another if the randomly selected tea didn’t bring joy. Well, I love that approach! Happily, my first random pull did bring joy: this lovely cookie-flavored black blend.

I am not Italian, but I did grow up in a state with a large Italian-American population, so pizzelle cookies were a staple of the holidays for me! My Portuguese grandma had a pizzelle iron and always made them for her annual Christmas party. I bet she still has the iron, actually — maybe I could veganize the recipe.

Pizzelles are very delicately flavored, in my recollection, but this blend does them justice, thanks largely to the anise and vanilla. It would’ve been easy to be heavy-handed with the anise seeds, but the blend has just the right amount. I’m not getting much orange, but that’s OK — I actually don’t remember tasting orange in the pizzelles I’ve had.

All in all, this is a tasty, simple, gently holiday-inspired blend that brought back some lovely childhood memories for me. A good way to start the advent season. :) Thank you, Michelle!

A sipdown! (M: 1 Y: 88) — prompt: A flavored green tea

I steeped this earlier this month, but I found out I haven’t removed it from my system. And I had a file where I have written down unwritten sipdowns to make a list for a month or two. But that file is lost. So, my count won’t be exact this year. But there were just 3-4 teas, so it is fine for me, and all prompts filled by that were already marked. Maybe I can ask my brother if he can find all the teas that went with qty to the zero once “issued”?

Anyway, this fruity green tea is pretty standard. Nothing too fancy, but tasty enough even after 5 years since Crafted on: date. Fine for mindless drinking and generally accepted by every single one. But, I am glad to have it finished and thus I think that all teakruthi teas I had here were drank.

However, my mom has retired and brought back from the office a Cinnamon Chai I gave her for Christmas 5 years ago. So… there are teas to drink I guess. Hopefully it iwll be still tasty. It was in sealed bag all the time and opened just once or twice. She said it is a strong tea and that’s why she didn’t drank it much.

This is a second tea I am writing a tasting note from their Discovery collection. An old classic.

I do notice a few pieces of lemon in the pyramid sachet and, well, the tea is quite non-descript; very boring and somehow classic. But lemon was quite good one, adding nice freshness and seems it was indeed a lemon and not just a flavouring. I am pleasantly surprised.

So, yep, it tastes as expected. Sadly the base is just a bitter something.

I do have a new gaiwan, as the old one suffered an accident and lid shattered into a milion pieces. So, I took this a freebie sample from my last Siam Tee Shop order (of Advent and Vietnamese oolong) — Thank you! to test it. It is a little smaller (just 100 ml) but it seems it works same, or maybe even better; considering that the lid is a little more sunken than the other one. Of course, I feel bitter about that gaiwan, but a new one is also very nice.

I am writing this note two days later, as Steepster was rather funky, not mentioning my busy life and no time to write it before.

I wonder if Leafhopper is aware about TaiTung oolongs?

Anyway, to the tea. I think you will be surprised it tastes quite like a black tea? Strong malt notes were there, followed with ripe fruits and brown sugar. Smooth as a honey, so does tastes like it; and it was very aromatic dry and wet too.
Although it is heavily roasted, there are just a little roasty notes for me, and definitely no bitterness or rough notes from this process.
It has got a wonderful mouthfeel, as already mentioned and very long-lasting.

I just wish to have more than this 5 grams sample.

Steeped roughly 40s/30s/40s/40s/60s and some random steeping times.

November 28 Sipdown Challenge Prompt – Black Friday: drink a black tea

I have been trying to choose international prompts and not just American holidays, but it seems Black Friday has spread far and wide so I used it! And if the opportunity arises I will sign a petition to move American Thanksgiving to the same time as Canada’s because it just makes more sense, but we can keep Black Friday closer to year end bonuses and Christmas for shopping purposes. Ha ha!

I asked AliasHali to help me choose and she said that since I mentioned that I have hoarding this tea I should declare today a special occasion and drink it, so I did. I am shocked that I haven’t reviewed it here yet because I have dropped a broad hint or two that it would be a great item on a Christmas list…

My first Golden Monkey was many years ago from Harney & Sons. It was a real breakthrough tea for me because it was the first I loved without sugar and put me on the path to giving up sugar in my tea. The following year their catalog warned that there had been drought and the new harvest was not as sweet and rich. It was still good, but nothing like the first one I tried.

Teavivre has a very good GM and the price point is excellent, though I might rank a good harvest from Harney slightly higher. Teavana had a one but it simply tasted like a decent breakfast tea to me. It lacked the sweet potato and honey notes of Harney’s and Teavivre’s.

Happy Lucky comes along and charms my socks off. This is a rich, full-bodied GM with both sweet potato and honey notes. It is a real treat, and was a gift from AliasHali – many thanks.

This one brews well for three steeps, has distinct and interesting notes and disappears from my cup far too fast. There is a salty, mineral note along with a smooth dark chocolate note and the finish is smooth enough for my dad’s palette. I will need more of this gem from WP!

This is delicious! Sweet and fruity initial sip, followed by dark chocolate and malt. This isn’t as malty as something like an Assam by any means, but enough to be robust and satisfying. The aftertaste is reminiscent to me of red wine. I’m glad to have finally tried this one.

This is so good, and not at all what I was expecting; sweet potato and honey with undertones of caramel, chocolate malt, and pine resin. So smooth, and only the barest hint smoky. My new favourite lapsang for sure, can’t believe I didn’t try this sooner!

Just ok, not too smoky, not too smooth. A decent example of smoked tea, but I don’t need more of this.

TTB! I can really taste the Assam in this! This ends up pretty well-rounded and tasty!

Sipdown 30 – 2025

A bit too muddled. Didn’t really get any honey from this, more of a woody ginger blend.

Surprise tea-mail from gmathis! Thank you!

I am drinking this while on the second day of a cold that has leveled Ashman for almost two weeks and AliasHali for four days. My taster might not be as sensitive as it should be, but I agree strongly with gmathis that this is a very woody tea. The base could easily support milk and sugar if you wished but is not brisk, so it doesn’t NEED additions for taming. The berry flavor is light but that could be the cold talking and the cream is mild and doesn’t come off as straight vanilla as cream can do at times.

A welcome diversion to soothe my angry uvula.

My dad got me a bunch of white2tea samples for my birthday and I am just getting round to tea notes! This one is buttery smooth, caramel sweet, and is a nice change of pace from the yunnans and assams I usually drink. It doesn’t have a deep flavor profile, but is entirely too drinkable and my cup is already empty. I might need more of this in my cupboard.

TTB! I couldn’t taste the lavender, but the masala spices were quite hearty! The last few sips were gritty, but otherwise, this was pretty pleasant! Masala all the way.

Herbal TTB! The floral flavors combine really well with the rooibos base. I also taste a good amount of berry. It accomplishes what it sets out to do!

I stopped by the Louisville Tea company and bought a bunch of teas. I tried Big Four Chai before purchasing, and I wish I had done the same with this tea. Its quite yummy to start with distinct cranberry and gingerbread flavors, but the finish is medicinal cherry, why?!? I’m pretty sure this is just wholesale from another company and not one of LT blends, but I am disappointed in this tea. I will experiment with time and leaf to see if I can minimize the cherry aftertaste for the rest of this small bag and wish I had just gotten more of Big Four Chai…