Featured & New Tasting Notes

This is my first DHP, so take this with a grain of salt.

This tea is all right. I ordered a sample of it from a promotion the company was having, and was excited to see the package in my mailbox today. I steeped up the tea with 190 degree water, and sipped.

Roasty.

The first steep was good—intense roast on the front end and then fruitiness on the back. However, steeps 2-6 all just tasted like roasted leaves, without nice fruit flavor. I think this might be a freshly-roasted tea…? It’s just so dominated by this roast flavor, which is surprising because the leaves are pretty green. Ah well.

Later steeps are definitely better. The roast dies down a bit and the fruit and flowers come out a little. Still, I can’t help but think that for $40/100g, this tea is not worth the money. Would probably be better if I left it alone for a couple months and let the roast die down.

Finally got around to trying this one at work today. I let the water cool to around 175 degrees before I added the bag, because it’s a green tea and Twinings’ bagged greens in particular seem very prone to scorching. I gave it approximately 2 minutes, after which the liquor is a medium green-brown.

I expected a degree of bitterness, and so I was pleasantly surprised to find none. There’s a sweet candy cherry flavour that’s maybe a touch reminiscent of cough medicine, rescued by a background note of almond/frangipane that makes this much more reminiscent of a dessert. There’s even a butteriness to the green tea that suggests pastry. The best thing by far, though, is the distinctive flavour of glace icing. Combined with the cherry, almond and pastry notes, it makes for a pretty delicious cup! I rarely commend bagged teas, but this one’s worth the hype. I’d repurchase this for fuss-free spring/summer drinking. It’s a sweet, desserty treat.

This is a fairly tasty ripe tea with a fair amount of fermentation flavor left. I’d say I noticed it through the fourth steep. It was bittersweet in the start and gradually transformed into a sweet ripe puerh. It was dark and rich in the early infusions, creamy too to some degree. I really did not notice notes of chocolate. It was slightly astringent as well. This astringency lasted all twelve steeps. Overall I liked this tea. It was cheap, something around $13 and change so buying one is not much of a risk.

I steeped this tea twelve times in a 150ml gaiwan with 12g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min. I’d say there where a few more steeps in the leaves if I wanted to continue but I’ve had enough tea.

This is a tea that I will be stocking up on! It’s unbelievably fantastic!

The cake is nothing special with a very typical scent of a dark wood and some dry grass. I warmed up my yixing and popped it in. I had very low if not any expectations for this tea. I was not impressed, and I thought it to be a very basic sheng. I lifted my teapot’s lid, and all my doubt was instantly washed away. An incredible intense aroma of warm honey, mahogany, and pure maple syrup engulfed my tea room. The taste was so sweet and so potent, I was salivating. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The sweet and dessert flavor remained except a vibrant spinach tone now lie in the background. The liquor was a crystal amber color and steamed with delicate fumes. The brew began with a cleansing grass tone with a smooth floral wash. A quick nip at the tongue kept me alert and ready for the grand finale. Immediately after I swallow, a beautiful and deep huigan drowned my senses. I cannot describe how powerful and clear the honey aftertaste was. I literally looked up from my tea table and “wow’d”. This brew was so good, so potent, so balanced… I was in love. The flavor continued with a well arranged floral delicacy and tangy sweetness that lasted well into the night. The fragrance from my pot grew stronger and filled my tea room with an intoxicating perfume. The only fall this tea has, is the qi is very quiet and acts as a background fuzz that just slightly lifts the drinker. The sensation was subtle and obscure, but it still was a nice companion. This tea is fantastic if you want a sweet, decadent, and memorable sheng. I highly recommend it, and I will hopefully be buying a tong or two.

This is a queued tasting note.

Bright fruity apricot note that basically punches through everything else! Like drinking liquid happy! Good choice for a commute tea.

so i used up the rest of this sample.:) its lovely however, i don’t like the mouth full of matcha in the last gulp one gets when one uses the recommended ammount

I’ve been drinking through a bunch of old YS samples this weekend and this was the next tea up. The sample bag has been open (tied with rubber band) in my pumidor for seven months.

My first impression on sniffing the cup is that it smells a bit like cinnamon rolls. The taste is spicy, rich, and sweet, with lots of spice in the finish. Hints of raisins. Thick; feels almost chewy in the mouth. Feeling some cha qi. 2nd steep: the nose is still spicy. The cha qi from the first cup is really hitting me. Taste is similar to 1st cup but not exciting me as much, perhaps because I’m so anxious to taste it that I’m drinking it too hot. 3rd steep is much more integrated than the earlier steeps. Hard to describe the flavor, but it evokes baked goods, though with an apricot fruit hiding underneath. Very good texture and big finish. Lots of cha qi. Shows a slightly bitter astringency at the finish. 4th (30s): Now that I’m looking for it, I detect a hint of apricot in the nose. Taste is smoother and sweeter and the finish isn’t as astringent. The cha qi is powerful: I’m taking 20 minute breaks every two steeps to let it die down.

This is the type of tea that I prefer: slightly fruity, not bitter, with complex flavors. All three components (smell, taste, finish) work very well together and the texture is excellent.

After I posted this review I discovered a prior review from 7 months ago. I suspect the differences between the two reviews is at least partly due to the pumidor storage, which makes me feel good.

I reviewed this year over a year ago but I still dug up an extra unopened sample a few days ago when going through my teas. Today I have finished off the last speck of this tea. Over a year old and it’s still outstanding. Floral with a creaminess to it.

Still…. I am glad to cross another one off my tea list even though I loved this one. Down to 160 teas. At one time I though around 120-130 was reasonable. Then it ballooned up to about 190 around Christmas. I want to try to keep all my teas under 100 (maybe even 80) but if I can get down to 130 I will be happy!

I got sucked into a DavidsTea the other day, and since this one is being discontinued, I thought I’d give it a go.

First things first, though. WTF is up with their new shitty steeping directions? 1-2 “PS”? “Hot water”?! Way to be freaking non-specific, DavidsTea. No wonder you have to add stevia and candied fruits to everything to make it taste OK.

Now.. the tea. It smells kind of OK in the bag. A little toasted, fruity, and I can smell rooibos for sure. Steeped, it’s… sugary-sour, rooibosy, and a little toasty. It’s not good. Really, not good.

Now.. the tea. It smells kind of OK in the bag. A little toasted, fruity, and I can smell rooibos for sure. Steeped, it’s… sugary-sour, rooibosy, and a little toasty. It’s not good. Really, not good.Oh gods, that is terrifying.

Now.. the tea. It smells kind of OK in the bag. A little toasted, fruity, and I can smell rooibos for sure. Steeped, it’s… sugary-sour, rooibosy, and a little toasty. It’s not good. Really, not good.Oh gods, that is terrifying.My tongue doesn’t know what to do.

Now.. the tea. It smells kind of OK in the bag. A little toasted, fruity, and I can smell rooibos for sure. Steeped, it’s… sugary-sour, rooibosy, and a little toasty. It’s not good. Really, not good.Oh gods, that is terrifying.My tongue doesn’t know what to do.It tastes burned from the toasty rice and rooibos. There’s some fresh pineapple, but it’s not a nice pineapple flavour. Sweet from all the candied fruit.

Now.. the tea. It smells kind of OK in the bag. A little toasted, fruity, and I can smell rooibos for sure. Steeped, it’s… sugary-sour, rooibosy, and a little toasty. It’s not good. Really, not good.Oh gods, that is terrifying.My tongue doesn’t know what to do.It tastes burned from the toasty rice and rooibos. There’s some fresh pineapple, but it’s not a nice pineapple flavour. Sweet from all the candied fruit.Not nearly as bad as cherry cola, but this is bad.

oy…back from work travel and trying to get organised. So many things to do to get ready for monday. I am really enjoying this one, esp with a splash of honey. Just a nice balance of fruity goodness without the caffeine.

As I was recording my tasting notes for the 2014 Autumn Mu Shu Cha, I discovered that I have the Spring version as well. I couldn’t resist doing a sequential review.

The difference was surprising. The Autumn tea tasted of straw and wood, with hints of fruit underneath. This tea is all about the fruit. The first steep showed a sweet, tropical fruit flavor with hints of straw underneath. I immediately felt a powerful cha qi, but it is building on a base from the previous tea, so wasn’t sure how much is due to this tea. 2nd steep had the same tropical fruit flavor at the beginning of the sip, but builds up a strong astringency going into the finish, which is dominated by the slightly bitter astringency. REALLY feeling the qi. By the fourth steep, it was still fruity, rich and sweet. There is a bit of wood underneath the fruit that adds depth, much as a bassoon does in an orchestra. Still too astringent in the finish, which detracts from an otherwise really good tea. Still tons of cha qi.

I’m a fan of young sheng, and this one was clearly the better choice for current drinking. It was fresh and fruity, with enough hints of other flavors to be interesting. The Autumn version wasn’t bad, but was just a slightly above average woody sheng. Of course you pay for quality: as of May 2015, this tea was $118 per cake vs $45 for the Autumn.

Ive been drinking this one a while now & really enjoying it.

Wonderful bread/cake aroma from the steeped leaves, ‘rich’ taste but not rich, not quite coffee or chocolate, somewhere in the middle but definitely very nice. It has an air of quality or ‘right’ about it. I am finding it hard to describe this. Soft with a hard hint of bitter/sharpness like nice coffee or dark chocolate..

The wrapper claims it is 60-100 year old Bulang Gong Ting gushu. I paid £50/$70 for the cake & am unsure if this claim is truthful or not but it certainly tastes different from my other puerh which isnt named as gong ting grade.

The qi is a nice feeling, & a very coffee-like aftertaste present. The first time I tried it I was unsure as the taste didnt jump out at me, but now I quite like the ‘less is more’ taste it has. Its more like chocolate brownie crust or something.. Ahhh words are failing me.

I would recommend this if you like unsweetened black coffee & bread/cake, to me it tastes a lot nicer than that but its in that ballpark rather than thick earthy or sweet chocolatey or any kind of storage taste for a shou.

I really needed this tea today. Thankfully, I received this in a recent swap with CWarren…

With that said, I’ve always liked Genmaicha. There’s that rice crackers wrapped in seaweed flavor—which was a treat often shared by my Japanese friend who’d bring them over to the States when she visited—therefore, drinking this is nostalgic (https://www.snackinn.com/jfc-nori-maki-arare-rice-crackers-seaweed?gclid=CjwKEAjwgbG5BRDp3oW3qdPiuCwSJAAQmoSD4Zq_Zdr9PyeSqnjngkzJpVQ8N4bPcCF66E7eadd49BoCA5_w_wcB). I enjoy the heaviness of the rice in this, where the sweet rice/nutty flavors jump out; however, the base really is alive in this blend, too. I guess this is the type of tea where I’d opt for this versus eating heavy salted foods.

When I worked at Teavana a while ago, I’d grab Genmaicha before I’d head into the food court. Unfortunately, after drinking Genmaicha, that I felt was “okay,” I grew tired of drinking it. Now this, I could drink often. Perhaps it’s the Matcha that gives it the robust greenness to the tea, or perhaps it’s the large quantity of rice added; whatever it may be, I like it. I could make this a daily drinker, and will consider buying more in the future.

PS. I had a total of 5 steeps with this. I felt that it could’ve gone 6-ish, but I don’t like pushing green tea any further than that. That’s when I have a tendency in burning the leaf.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFEtELmg-08/?taken-by=s.g_sanders1&hl=en

Thanks for a sample of this one, Ost! I was hoping this tea would be like this. :D It’s the silky black snails with hints of gold! The flavor is very sweet with a medium body, hints of honey, molasses, malt and tomato soup. Some black teas also have a quality that I can only describe as like a fruit juiciness. I’m also beginning to see that Simple Loose Leaf definitely has the same supplier as another famous tea shop, but I don’t mind, as I usually love their teas. This tea is also like the new Phoenix Pearls from Zen. A solid black tea here.
Steep #1 // 1 teaspoon for a full mug// 13 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 minute steep

OST’s Stash Sale

I’ve tried Harney and Son’s Paris before at a friend’s house, and enjoyed it so when I saw this on the list of teas OST was selling, I had to give it a try. I’m glad I did! I think I oversteeped it since it was just a bit bitter, but it had a lovely floral taste from the bergamot and a slight sweetness. I will definitely enjoy the rest of this tin.

This is for Verdant Tea’s “Thirty Year” Tieguanyin. Probably not worth making a separate database entry for this because it likely won’t be available again. I bought some of this when I purchased their bamboo strainers, which I highly recommend, and I needed to add only a few dollars more to get free shipping. Thus I tossed this into my cart.

This tea is tough to judge because it has been heavily re-roasted recently. In fact it tasted like it was re-roasted right before I got it. Noticed some nearly char black pieces, the roasting is rather uneven. I mainly tasted the roast throughout with a slight sour note. The tea looked green once the roasting soaked off. I don’t think this is 30 year old Tieguanyin but with Verdant’s track record of misleading marketing lately I wasn’t expecting this tea to be as old as advertised.

On the plus side, it does steep quite a long time. I got 8 steeps before getting bored with the tea and it could have easily gone a few more. I don’t remember what parameters I used but I did use quite a lot of the tea.

Woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep. So I figured I might as well have some tea. I won’t have time for any caffeinated tea after work so now is the time. This was a nice raw with a little bit of wet storage taste that I noticed in steep one. Didn’t notice it i steep two or three but found a little in four. There was a nice flavor to this tea. I want to use the word honey, yet I know that is inaccurate as it was not at all that sweet. This tea was fairly astringent. I noticed astringency through all ten steeps. There were also some mild notes of leather and tobacco but not noticeable. Overall this was a nice tea but it had it’s downside to it. As to qi I am really not feeling it.

I steeped this tea ten times in a 120ml gaiwan with 8.4g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min. For those who like the flavors in aged sheng this is probably a good pick. I recommend it with reservations.

This tea is relatively nice but by no means spectacular. There was a fair amount of bitterness, but not an abiding bitterness. A certain sweetness did emerge in latter steeps. I only gave this eight steeps because I didn’t want any more caffeine today but it was by no means done. I would not describe this as overly apricoty but it was nice enough to drink. I didn’t really notice much in the way of qi but I think I am feeling something. It was quite a bargain price wise, I think it goes for $18 a cake. For that price I was not expecting much but it was at least enjoyable.

I steeped this tea eight times with 7.4g 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. The tea was not at all weak at eight steeps. It would have gone another six or seven steeps by my best estimate. This one may have potential for aging if what I have heard is true, that bitter teas age better. I have no room for it in my pumidor however, so it will have to age in the New Your climate.

So I began drinking this for breakfast while at my cousins and I was 100% confused…
This tasted like a lot of the early 00’s teas I’ve had so I was curious what the heck I was actually drinking. Insanely dark for a 5 year old raw pu’erh and a lot of age in the taste. Well, I did what I normally don’t do when I sip away at a pu’erh; I read about it. Turns out it was meant to taste like this! Whew, I’m not crazy then.
This still has some smokey/camphor to it, but it brews out around the sixth steep. The longevity of the brew is quite well depending on what you are eating or drinking with it because it can dry your mouth out in roughly 10 steeps… but I was going hard on my drinking as I am just chillin’ here :)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFBrmH0RYCc/

This was a sample with my last Bluebird order. I think I’ve only tried it once before, and that was also a sample if I remember correctly. While I like the idea of herbal bedtime blends, floral teas aren’t usually my favourite so I just tend not to buy them often (or at all).

I’m pleased to be able to give this one a second chance, though. While brewing, it smells strongly of lavender. It’s a very calming, reassuring scent, at least to me, but it’s too perfume-like for me to want to drink regularly. Fortunately, the lavender doesn’t really translate into the flavour. To taste, this is mostly chamomile (with all the thick, sweet hay-like honey notes that implies), with a hint of rose water. The lavender lurks around the edges as a sweet, floral background note but it’s not massively prominent. As the cup cools, I can begin to taste a touch of lemon – the sharper citrus helps to brighten things up, and is a refreshing counterpoint to the otherwise heavily sweet and floral flavours.

I liked this one more than I was expecting to, which seems to be the same experience I had last time too. It’s not something I’d drink regularly, but it would make a really good stress-busting blend, and it puts me in mind of summer which is instantly cheering on a dull-ish day. As ever with Bluebird blends, it’s also a very pretty tea. The pink rose petals, lilac lavender, yellow chamomile and green lemon verbena are very much reminiscent of a wildflower field in summer, and that added just a little extra touch of wonderfulness as I watched this one brew. A pleasant reacquaintance!

From Dark Matter 2016:

Anyone remember that “hangover cure” concoction from the movie Heathers? I kept thinking that’s what this would taste like if I added some OJ. My palate is definately sensitive to smoke flavors so that’s a bit understandable, but there is some other flavor to this that I dislike as well.

So yea, sample this tea before buying…

((I’m never on here oops))

I haven’t posted for 3 months now, but I’ve been having tea here and there!
Sipdown day today bc I’m legit getting rid of 90% of my teas!

Ehh any free tea is good tea. Not my fave jasmine.

In other news, the reason why I’m getting rid of my teas is because I’m going to Walt Disney World! I’m very excited :) I got a management position over there (a management internship in food and beverage).
Yeah things have changed in the past three months. I took and passed my level 1 (introductory) sommelier exam for wine, and I got this internship aww yeahh. But it’s kinda stressful bc I really do have to minimize what I bring to Florida D:

Okay that’s it for now. I’ll hopefully have more sipdowns/tasting notes today!

Sipdown! I had enough leaf for two weaker cups of one slightly overleafed, so I went for the overleafed with a bit of additional sugar and a splash of milk. I’d rather have one memorable finale, rather than two lackluster ones! Fortunately, that’s what I got. The root beer and vanilla/ice cream flavours are both present and correct, meaning that I leave this one with good memories. I still have an unopened reblend pouch of Butterbeer, so I’m not too sad to see this one depart for the moment.

Aww, this was a disappointment. Funny how their chai is loaded with cardamom but this barely had any at all. If I tasted this blindly, I don’t think I would have been able to detect the cardamom in it. It’s just a bold, astringent tea with a barely there hint of spice.