New Tasting Notes
Gongfu!
Enjoyed this session with this afternoon with some freshly sliced orange. You would think the orange would overpower this beautiful golden bud-heavy black tea, but weirdly what ends up happening is that the mouthfeel of the tea becomes incredibly buttery and smooth. It’s tasting notes lean predominantly in the more rich and decadent camp with flavours like dark chocolate, carob, malt, and freshly baked bread. So with the smooth and creamy mouthfeel and pops of juicy orange this pairing is almost like the tea session version of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. Less sweet though, annnddd still pretty orange heavy.
I don’t want to jinx it, but it really is starting to feel like the weather has stabilized enough to be back to regular outdoor tea sessions again. Definitely excited to be back to that practice – it always makes me feel so grounded and at peace.
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C5_Uq2Uus1Z/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MY9fGsHetc
Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
Gongfu!
This organic Kenyan grown tea is so rich and full bodied, but also quite sweet and smooth with prominent notes of stewed or brandied red fruits and citrus that feature alongside flavours of malt and molasses and a hint of spices like allspice, ginger, and nutmeg in the undertones. In the past, I’ve compared this tea to fruit cake (but, like, GOOD fruit cake) but today the prominent molasses and spice notes are making me think a little bit more of gingerbread and mincemeat. Regardless, it seems like this is a tea that definitely elicits fond memories of holiday baking. Is that perhaps a little weird for what is the heart of Spring!? Maybe just a little. However, it’s a delicious tea and easily one of the most complex African black teas I’ve tasted!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6B840CxaMz/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw-AQZo_R5s
I brewed this tea grandpa-style while enjoying the fresh air and surrounding signs of Spring. This tea is so rich and full bodied with velvety smooth notes of dark chocolate truffles and roasted barley with deep, dark fruity undertones of sweet red wines and black cherry and a finish that hints of leather and charred peanuts. With this brewing style there’s less naunce and some of the more delicate floral aromatics are lost, but the flavours that remain feel so much more intense. I especially love the contrast of such a fudgey and slightly bitter cocoa note with those lush red fruit and liqueur elements – it tastes expensive, if that makes any sense at all!? Definitely one of the first teas from The Tea Practitioner that I would recommend to someone else – these little mini coins/bings/cakes can do no wrong!
Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6EyWoZOs58/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYqPaBQP9m0
Gongfu!
Even though this tea isn’t actually smoked or alcohol-infused, I can’t even begin to explain how excited I got when I smelled the dry leaf of this tea sample. True to name, it does have a natural smoky edge (which comes even more alive once infused) with an oaky undertone that really evokes the nose of a good whisky. Steeped up it’s pretty smooth with whisps of smoke, Bourbon Vanilla, and peat moss with a finish of oak and cooling camphor. Soft at first, but with a presence that builds into something quite powerful feeling by the mid-session. It sneaks up on you, though. Basically, it’s sneaky and slick but in a good type of way. Definitely very, very accurately named and soooo up my alley!!
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6HftVeuPth/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uugDpWJ7big
After a horrible attempt (45s first steep, 10s other steeps with strong bitterness), I tried the following Gong Fu style:
First Infusion:
Steep for about 10 seconds. That’s to quickly extract the flavor without letting the tea become bitter.
Second Infusion (15s) : Very relaxing, as bitter as expected for a black tea, but otherwise a very standard yunnan black tea, nothing seemingly outstanding out of this one.
Third Infusion (10s) : This is where the tea really showed its potential, the biterness is gone, it’s almost light. This is great.
Fourth Infusion (25s): Except for the obvious added biterness, no difference was noted between the 3rd and 4rd infusion.
Overall, it’s a non-exceptional yet pleasant black tea with a bit less bitterness than the norm. Would recommend for a casual consumption.
Preparation
The quality of this Earl Grey tea is far beyond any Earl Grey out there! Since I opened the canister I am hooked <3 this tea transport you to a pleasant realm of flavor
Flavors: Bergamot, Floral
Preparation
This tastes a bit like sugar cookie sleigh ride from Celestial Seasonings, which I was glad to find a box of this holiday season after a few years without. I’m kind of obsessed with how sparkly this tea is. It also tastes somewhat like the various forever nuts spinoffs. Not bad, just not special, and a little weak. Pleasant with milk and sugar overleafed.
I had some pretty negative apprehensions when I was about to try this tea,
As many others, I find most Japanese teas to be too herbal, vegetably even; having that typical astringency that you find in especially cheap ones.
For Matchas and Senchas, it’s not uncommon to find herbalness mixed with a strong and direct bitterness that rules over every other subtleties.
But this wasn’t one of those cases, in fact it is one of the only senchas I was able to drink gong fu style — albeit with some consequences.
There are many reasons why Sencha isn’t really compatible with gong fu style, its finely cut needle-like leaves are hard to block and Sencha is usually infused for long periods of time, a kyusu thusly being the more logical vessel to be used and more generally, the tea itself doesn’t benefit much from a tea “cleaning” per se since the leaves are already broken, so I’m gonna drink that 1st steep anyways.
With all that in mind, I tried a different method. First, I would infuse for 2 minutes at 70C, then I would make two more 20s steeps, any more would be too bitter.
Here’s how it went:
1st Steep: The herbalness is particularly clear here, with surprisingly almost no bitterness — Airing the tea a little bit gradually makes the tea more and more bitter however.
2nd Steep: Now the bitterness took over completely, it’s almost undrinkable, the vegetable-like taste is still however completely present.
3rd Steep: No herbalness whatsoever now, it’s completely bitter, like drinking ear wax I guess…? Cannot describe what could possibly be worse that this.
Alright, although it may seem as if I hated this tea, this is truly one of the most suprising ones I’ve tried so far. The first thing that came to my mind when I drank that first steep was “fresh”, it was just fresh and very vegetably, like cucumber water. Just for that first steep, and the shock that it caused, this tea deserves more recognition.
Flavors: Cucumber, Fresh, Herbal, Vegetables
Preparation
Coworker brought this back for me from a recent trip to Taiwan. I was thrilled after some searches and Google Translate to realize this was a real milk oolong and not a green tea.
A very green oolong.
Dry leaf has very little scent to it.
Wet leaf almost reminds me of cooked spinach. Leaves have some breakage, but overall are whole or nearly whole.
Water temp was not quite boiling but I did not measure.
Hot, flavor is light with a wonderful creamy mouth feel. As it cools, flavor becomes more pronounced. I’m not sure how to describe it however.
Doesn’t have any grassy notes that I dislike about a lot of greens. As it cools, it does have a bit of a vegetal note, but this is mild and does not make me feel like I’m trying to drink the water brussles sprouts were over boiled in.
Second steep the vegetal notes in the taste and smell are more pronounced, but not unpleasant. Mouth feel still has that creamy texture, coats the mouth nicely. There’s almost a kind of tang in the back end of the sip. Unsure if this is some bitterness (my perception of bitter is messed up) or something else. Its a little drying on the mouth and tongue, but again not unpleasantly so. Let it really cool and there is a bit of astringency.
Third steep and the vegetal smell is more pronounced, but not so in flavor. Reminds me more of the first steep,
What I haven’t seen hide nor hair of is any hint of the sweetness described. I did at one point seem to detect almost a light floral-ish aftertaste.
The downside is this is just not the kind of tea I tend to crave. Just finished lunch and what I am thinking right now is that I wish I had something else to drink this afternoon.
I use this tea as the base for making boba tea. I brew it strong in hot water (~200-250 mL) and buy frozen or shelf stable pre-cooked boba pearls. I just got some taro syrup so I’m using ~50-60 ML of that too. Fill up the rest of the big cup with ice and soy milk. This tea has a wonderful desserty quality with dark cocoa and smooth malty notes. It even smells like cocoa. It has a nice sweetness but a touch of roasted notes (like how coffee and cocoa are a bit roasty, not like grain type roasty).
Flavors: Chocolate, Cocoa, Roasty, Smooth, Sweet
Preparation
Sipdown! I wish I’d purchased a larger pouch of this one when I ordered from S&V last year, because it’s excellent. Juicy and mildly tart, with lychee flavor just bursting in every sip. Yum.
2024 sipdown count: 18
Flavors: Fruity, Lychee, Tart
Well this tea bag wrapper I have is saying it contains Chinese green tea and temperature 85°C.
The bag smelled mostly after cardboard and hay, which wasn’t too promising, but tea itself is luckily just hay. In taste it is like a tea for jasmine green tea; but without the jasmine, grass seed and cut grass, but not hay yet.
Pretty okay-ish, keeping my old rating 69.
Preparation
For this one, I used a gaiwan and I admit I tried something a bit weird on this one, 80C 4g/100mL for 3min on the initial steep (then thrown) and then constant 10s steeps.
This, retroactively not so smart idea, caused the following results:
- 2nd steep: plenty of jasmin upfront, strong clove-like taste too and some floral notes. Unfortunately, it is ruined by the incredibly bitter aftertaste…
- 3rd, 4th and subsequent steeps: A lot more floral, the jasmin is now dominating completely, letting no room for any other aroma.
Obviously the first steep is the cause of such strong bitterness in the 2nd steep, and I expect actual proper gongfu style brewing to allow for better results, taking that into account (and the fact this was a sample) I cannot wait to try it again and maybe edit this comment !
Overall though, I definitely appreciate this blend, the second steep had, appart from the bitterness, a lot of complexity and that’s not something you can say about most teas. Very pleasant.
Flavors: Clove, Floral, Jasmine
Preparation
Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – April 2024 Tea #6 – April 22 – Earth Day
Had this yesterday! I only forgot about an Earth day tea until after I steeped up some tea for the day. However, I’d like to count this anyway, as I think green teas make me feel most connected to the earth. Both in how fresh they taste, and in their appearance. This one especially — it looks like the finest of mowed grass clippings. Yum.
This one is quite a shocker for me, mostly because my experience doesn’t seem to fit that I’m reading around here.
It’s sweet and subtle, both traits that are important for a tea that describes itself as inspired by oriental hammam’s sents.
Here’s my issue, out of the four elements of the tea, only two seem to be noticeable with one overpowering the other, the green date (aftertaste) and the rose (subtly at the front of the taste).
The green date is something I never expected in a tea and it’s a very refreshing form of sweetness, the rose is very hard to get but it’s a nice touch that add for that Hammam-like taste — but no signs of orange flower water or red fruits.
This is a recurring theme in PDT flavored teas, they’re too perfumy, lacking much needed substance, they proved multiple times that some recipes of theirs can hit that note well but this isn’t one of those cases.
I have tried this tea twice, once in a gaiwan, 30s steeps at 75C and 2.5g/100mL and once in a teapot (6g/300mL, 75C, 3min) — both have been disappointing so far.
I am sad because I deeply wanted to love this tea, but for PDT teas I think I’ll just stick to their pure teas.
Flavors: Dates, Rose
