New Tasting Notes

Tastes more like citrus and lemongrass to me. It’s got a little bit of a sharp taste to it. It’s pretty good.

I was in the grocery and had settled on “Namacha” from Kirin, when this caught my eye. With a name like TeaO, I HAD to try it. Apparently, Asahi had ceased sale of this in 2004 and was now reviving it, aiming it towards men in their twenties and thirties. The appeal is not immediately obvious to me, but I am A. Not male and B. not Japanese, so what do I know?

This tea’s “thing” is that it tastes sweet but doesn’t contain any sweeteners. Instead the sweetness comes from something they call the “golden drop” which seems to refer to, from what I understand although admittedly I didn’t put THAT much effort into it, the deliciousness of the last drop of tea in the pot. So…I guess they collected all of those drops and made it into tea? What did they do with the rest of the tea?

The ingredients, however, pretty clearly list sweeteners as the second entry, so I have no idea what that’s about. Is it because the “no sweeteners” on the front label uses a different kanji compound than the one in the ingredients? The one on the front can also mean “saccharides” while the one in the ingredients is “sweetening materials” and includes three words, the first two I have no idea on (oh wait no, one is xylitol. can’t think how I didn’t immediately get that from kishiritooru), but the last on is sucrose. So yeah. Asahi advertising scandal blown WIDE OPEN, you saw it here first, steeples!

The taste is interesting. It’s only very lightly sweet and the sweetness has an interesting quality to it that I could totally be fooled into thinking was a property of the tea itself if I didn’t instinctively mistrust everything that advertisements tell me. The tea itself is lightly perfumed – I’m almost getting a hint of rose here (are you SURE you’re marketing this to dudes, Asahi?), light in color, and fairly light in terms of the black tea taste as well, although definitely present.

If you absolutely MUST sweeten all your black teas, Japan, I guess this is the way to do it, although your weird marketing ploy seems a tad dishonest, not to mention lazy since you don’t even try to conceal the ingredients. Or maybe the fact that you don’t bother hiding them circles it around back to honest? I don’t know. Still, it mars my enjoyment of this tea and that makes me sad because it was quite enjoyable.

Backlogging a pretty pleasant tasting peach tea with too much almond for me.

Yum! I have been wanting to try these for a while now and thanks to teaequalsbliss I finally got to try some! Thank you! I used 1tsp per 8oz of steaming water and steeped for about 3mins. This brewed and mellow greenish/yellow tea and tasted beautiful! A light silky, vegetal taste that tasted very pure and clean. This is some very high quality white tea, the pearls almost look like little fuzz balls due to all of the white hairs on the leaves that are nicely rolled. I’m going to have to definitely buy a tin of these!

This is my first milk oolong and I can tell this will be the first of more to come. It is amazing and delicious. It is sweet, creamy but not in a rich sort of way, just smooth. I allowed it to cool and it just got sweeter and happier. I can tell this will be the start of a beautiful relationship.

Thank you, thepuriTea for this sample.

Another sampling from TeaEqualsBliss – thank you!

I really wish this tea didn’t have hibiscus. I don’t really mind hibiscus in blends most of the time, but, I don’t like it when it’s the first flavor that I taste with the initial sip… it sort of turns me off on the cup.

Trying to move beyond the hibiscus, I can also taste the blueberries which have a nice, plump juicy flavor, and I can taste a gentle peach flavor as well – sweet and smooth.

This would be infinitely better without the hibiscus, though (or even just less hibiscus in the blend) – but it’s still decent tasting. Not my favorite from Talbott Teas though.

This was the best rooibos I’ve had in a while. I love the real vanilla taste in this like others have said. Every time I have a tea with vanilla is seems to suffocate any other ingredients or taste odd. Even with bad brewing conditions the flavors melded well and highlighted the tea insted of trying to convince us it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

Yesterday when I brewed the English Breakfast and the Strawberry black tea (both from Enjoying Tea) I went ahead and brewed a little extra of each so that I could chill them together in one of my favorite custom blends.

I love the little hint of strawberry that this blend has – it’s not overwhelmingly BERRY … just a hint of it. Enough to make you want to keep sipping. It’s a very refreshing iced tea.

(Although, I will say that the Strawberry Black from Enjoying tea is also quite good iced, on its own… if you want a strong berry flavor)

So I decided to participate in a knitted washcloth and soap swap on Ravelry (kinda like Steepster for knitting :) I knew of this amazing store near where I work which makes handmade soap, so I made a pilgrimage there on Friday to get the soap part (Blood Orange Tequila soap! Fun!)

Tea related: I also got a spiced tea scented soy candle for our home, and a green tea mask for myself. If you’re curious:

http://www.durossandlangel.com/

I also knew that TBar is around the corner from there, so I popped my head in. I didn’t have time to sit and have a cup of tea, but I took an ounce of this tea home with me :) I was very curious about it because it had bee pollen nuggets in it like Golden Moon’s Honey Pear, which I found to be strange and delicious!

This tea is…promising. I don’t think I used enough leaf for the amount of water (12 oz water 1.5 teaspoons of tea). It has a creamy yet musky honey flavor, but it tastes weak. I’m not getting much caramel. I’m tasting what seems to be a hint of cinnamon (?) I’m rating it on the low side, but the rating will most likely improve once I make it with more leaf.

Wonderful floral and fruity notes. This was definitely the most sweet smelling tie kwan yin I’ve ever had. Absolutely delicious and smooth, from the first infusion.

This one is another sample from TeaEqualsBliss (which I keep typing as TeaEqualsBills – a subconscious adjustment perhaps?) The scent is a lot like Rishi’s Jade Cloud and there’s a lot of similarity in the taste, too. But this is smoother and has a much prettier taste. There’s something sort of expansive about the taste – it feels very full and relaxing. Chinese greens aren’t really my favorite type of tea but this one is very tasty!
3.6g/7oz

Steep Information:
Amount: 6.3 g (one of the two sample packs included in the pillow box)
Water: 500ml filtered water 180°F
Tool: Breville One-Touch Tea Maker BTM800XL (custom, mild)
Steep Time: 3 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: strong sweet jasmine flowers
Steeped Tea Smell: lightly sweet and jasmine flower
Flavor: floral, slightly vegetal, sweet, refreshing
Body: Light
Aftertaste: sweet
Liquor: translucent yellow-green

Resteep: 4min, a bolder flavor but slightly astringent.

Not as strong a flavor as I would have preferred, perhaps a longer steep, the smell was amazing though.

Images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/06/thepuritea-loose-leaf-oolong-tea.html

Thank you to Rachel for sending me this tea to try!

My initial sip tells me that it is very smooth and creamy tasting – which based upon my limited experience with the adagio black tea base – a smooth, creamy start is a really GOOD thing. I’m not tasting a LOT of the Earl Grey notes, but, I do get a hint of it towards the end of the sip – kind of like a tip of the hat from the suave gentleman, letting me know that he is here, but he’s letting the sweeter vanilla and cream play the star role here.

My experience with the Adagio signature blends is admittedly quite limited – but I really am enjoying this one. Well done, Rachel!

I loved the description of this so I decided to order some with my initial H&S sample order.

It’s got whole flower heads in it, which I thought at first might be chrysanthemums. Thankfully they are chamomile flowers as I don’t get along well with mums. The leaves are a green/grey, and look like white peony. The smell is, oddly, chocolate/vanilla mint/creme. Like Andes mints with vanilla ice cream. No idea where this comes from given the almonds and chamomile, but I’ll go with it as I like Andes mints just fine. ;-)

It still has that Andes note in the aroma after steeping and there’s some almond here as well. The liquor is sort of a light amber. A bronzed yellow. Clear.

The taste is pretty interesting as it’s very similar to the aroma but not at all something you’d expect from the ingredients list. For one thing, it’s like the cardamom is chocolate instead of itself. I wonder whether that’s why some chais that aren’t chocolate chais still have a sort of chocolate note to them. I don’t taste anything that tastes like what I’d expect cardamom on its own to taste like. This isn’t a spicy tea. It may be spiced, but it isn’t spicy. The almond is sort of hiding as well. The vanilla is there, but paying homage to the chocolate/vanilla continuum in that it’s kind of hard to tell where one flavor stops and the other starts. Though let me reemphasize that as far as I’m told through the ingredients, there IS NO CHOCOLATE in this tea. Tell that to my taste buds.

I maybe get a little of the underlying white tea, but it seems mostly a base here for the flavors to do their frolic and detour on. Flavored white teas, it seems to me, are tricky. Not as tricky and more forgiving than flavored greens, but tricky nonetheless. The flavor of white tea can’t really stand up to anything intense. It does best with subtle fruit or floral flavors superimposed on it, nothing heavy which obliterates the tea.

This isn’t an unpleasant drink at all, it just doesn’t seem very self aware. I would think it could call itself White Chocolate and get away with it, but the Christmas name suggests something heavily spiced or appley, maybe. This isn’t that. Probably a good thing as I’d think that would make for an even worse white tea.

I don’t feel compelled to reorder this but I would drink it again if it were offered to me. And I wish there was some way to reconcile the actual ingredients with the flavor that didn’t leave me feeling entirely disassociated.

I could swear I had this tisane a second time already. I remember picking the apple pieces out to eat off the top of the tea before I removed the filter the second time I had it. The first time I had it, I ate them out of the filter after I removed it from the tisane. This time I did not eat them at all.

I do think the rating’s going up several points, to a 70 at least (middle of my good range, 60-80). But I’m still not sure exactly where I want it so I’m going to drink it a few more times to decide before bumping it up.

A bit more chippies were used this time for a cup with a nice full taste. While I like it, I don’t think I’d drink it several evenings in a row. I should mention that I like apples quite a bit, but they prolly aren’t one of my favorite fruits and I only want to eat them by themselves sometimes. So I think that’s why. I also enjoy this tisane best before it hits the lukewarm temperature.

This tea has beautiful long leaves and smells a little of hay. The taste is reminds me of toasted corn and the smell is slightly floral. A very nice cup of green tea.

I am giving this tea a second chance, since my last tasting of it was less than favorable. I am hoping this time will prove to be tastier than my last.

Yes… this is much better. I can taste the sweet-yet-tart blueberry as well as jasmine notes and they play off each other very well. Not as bitter as my last cup of this. I shall up the rating a bit to reflect this change in my opinion of this tea.

So I’ve been saying more bergamot than black tea for the past few tealogs on this one. The night before last I decided to do something about it. I’d add some plain black tea to it. Out of my plain black teas, I thought the Tiger, Thomas, and A&D’s Ceylon might pair the best. I decided to start with the Tiger.

So yesterday morning, I steeped a 1/2 Tiger:1/2 EG ratio. The first steep was mostly Tiger with a hint of EG. The second steep was a wonderful and delicious blend of the two. This seems to be a successful idea. I’ll just need to tweak the black tea:EG ratio. I think I’ll definitely be more interested in drinking up this EG this way.

PS This is only the second time I’ve blended two teas. I’m happy it went reasonable well since the previous attempt was only so-so. I now have a bit more confidence to keep trying.

2nd steep: 5 min 30 sec.

The dry leaf smells so fantastic. I can’t quite place the smells but there is some brine, some grass, some sweet fruit. It’s intoxicating. It brews up a bright, vibrant green and the smell becomes more like buttered grass. I almost expected something like Yutaka Midori since the brewed smell is so similar but wow, it’s not. This is so buttery and creamy. The mouthfeel is deliciously silky, it’s quite fantastic. Then there’s a sharpish, fresh cut grass taste. Then there’s a fruity, almost honeydew rind aftertaste.

This is a difficult one to rate because I can’t help but compare it to the Yutaka Midori I just had. The YM is the epitome of the stereotypical sencha profile. This one though, is the buttercream-icing version of sencha. If I could only have one sencha in my pantry, I’d go for the YM since it’s so perfectly sencha. But the creaminess and mouthfeel of this tea just really blows me away.

3.1g/6oz/ Pour started at 30s, finished at 45s

Rather than duplicate what has already been said, please just refer to TeaEqualsBliss’ review — I think she described it exactly.

I wanted to try this out so I bought a box at the grocery store nearby. I can’t rate it this time since I used it to make spiced chai the way I like to make it – on the stove. I am studying for my step 2 board exam, which I’m taking on Monday and needed a break. Chai – my comfort beverage of choice!

This is exactly what I needed.

This was f a n t a s t i c! I added 2 heaping tablespoons of this blend. From the box (its a cute box IMO) it smelled like it would be strong and possibly bitter alone… the leaves are all cut up really small – fannings? CTC? Is that what its called? This blend turned out darker than any of chais that I’ve made in the past. It was not bitter! So delicious! Great tea for chai. Well… I think strong tea is great for chai. It balances out all the spices. _

If I were to try this plain, I would probably add half a teaspoon and steep for a short amount of time. Til next time!

Thank you to Doulton for making this tasting note possible… thank you very much!

A fantastic aroma – although I’m not at all surprised… I’ve come to expect a sumptuous fragrance with Dammann Freres teas! Always enticing is the scent – beckoning me to take a sip.

I am going to agree with Morgana on this one – it definitely has a depth to it that would make this a much better tea for chilly weather. Not heavy, exactly… but, deep and rich in flavor… very French.

Even though the weather isn’t chilly, I’m still quite enjoying this cup for what it is. Lovely, aromatic, rich and delicious. Pleasantly fruity. Lovely and floral. Very nice.