15662 Tasting Notes
Gongfu!
Snuck in this early afternoon session yesterday before I’d completely lost all natural lighting in the apartment. I feel very unmotivated to Gongfu when there’s no natural lighting, so I quickly powered through the tea before it was totally black. Eight or nine steeps in about half an hour; I got wicked tea drunk and very drowsy/sleepy afterwards from how relaxed I was feeling. Ended up having a two hour “nap” shortly afterwards…
This shou is deeply earthy and camphorous, with notes of petrichor, molasses, wet wood, potting soil, and dried Medjool dates. Very, very clean and smooth though; with a great coating sensation down the throat. Exactly the kind of profile that I love most in a shou.
Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJYoSU8gI0g/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERA4lD-Wlfg&ab_channel=Jakey-Topic
Gongfu Sipdown (1287)!
I probably should have waited and had this on Saturday, for the joke, but I was craving Chenpi and it was an easy sipdown…
The coin was a tea order freebie, but I also blind caked this one in a previous order because I do love me some chenpi shou – and I’ve had really good experiences with White2Tea’s. I’m very glad I blind caked this; it’s reeeaalllyyy thick & full bodied, but very clean and well rounded tasting at the same time. Really robust & bordering on medicinal tasting chenpi with a brothy tasting shou as thick as mud. Just bitter enough.
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJZRE_sgmCZ/
You know it’s a good tea session when your gaiwan looks like it’s seem some shit afterwards!
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3qF6jErAOg&ab_channel=MatingRitual
Sipdown (1288)!
Finished this tea off earlier this morning while doing some tea sample reorganization. It was a nice last cup of this – thick and very roasted tasting. In addition to the strong coffee-like taste of the heavy roasted barley and the light but sweet and juicy notes of watermelon it also kind of tasted like puffed wheat cake. Such a weird profile that, on paper, shouldn’t work – but it’s like this weird mash of cozy autumnal and juicy summer flavours that’s pretty solid.
Oof – and not a good oof.
So this is obviously inspired by DT’s Cherry Berry Punch, which was one of my favourite teas that DT released this summer. It was super juicy with punchy, vibrant cherry and pineapple notes and a playful pucker to it. This is… not that.
The one thing that I will say it’s got going for it is that you can taste more of the black tea, and it’s a pretty nice/smooth black tea. However, that’s about all the praise I can give this one. Even if you view it completely as its own cherry tea without any other direct comparisons, I think it’s a let down. The cherry is flat/stale tasting at best and medicinal at worst. Unfortunately the dry tartness of the hibiscus comes through and exaggerates those notes. Not every tea needs to be sweet to be good (far from it!) but I feel like in this case the blend is reaaaalllyyy lacking either sweetness or tangyness – probably both in all honest. The dry and tart mouthfeel and medicinal tasting cherry are very harsh combined, and sadly the pineapple is more waxy than anything else.
Cherry has a wide spectrum of flavours, but medicinal is probably the worst it can get and in my opinion this lands on that end of the spectrum. Definitely a shame.
Sipping this currently, in sachet format, and it’s actually really enjoyable! Full bodied and smooth with dynamic and complex flavours. When I sip without thinking it just tastes like bourbon and is delicious. When I give it more thought, I tastes three distinct layers of flavour – the top is smoke and wood, with more of the black tea flavours coming through. The second is more of a carmelized sugar and boozy sweetness that coats the palate. The third is that candied red apple flavour and fruity sweetness, which crops up in the finish and playful lingers for a few seconds after the sip. Lots going on here, but regardless of where you view it as a “whole” or as the different parts that make up the sum… it’s delicious!
Cold Brew!
From last week – this was a free sample from my Autumn tea order, and this was my first time trying it. Or, at least, I think it – I’ll be honest that some of Deb’s flavour profiles seem very similar to me so I might be confusing it with one of the other coconut black teas.
I thought this was nice as a cold brew but it seemed like it was missing a little something. The black tea really comes through and it’s nice and robust and malty with hints of breadiness and almost a wood-y kind of note similar to what some Chinese black teas have. The coconut is also pretty strong, but kind of flat. I would have appreciate either more of a sweet and creamy note or more of that toasted coconut with the hint of sweetness from the caramelized natural sugars from the coconut. This reminded me of the unsweetened coconut that you bake with, which is nice but without either a pop of acidity or creaminess or sweetness it’s just… a bit bland.
The lemon was present, but not rich – basically just tasted like steeped out lemon peel which isn’t an unpleasant taste (especially in a chilled drink!) but it didn’t lean into the “pie” inspiration or contribute anything interesting to the flavour. It felt disconnected from the coconut to me.
Overall still smooth and enjoyable but, at least with this prep method, it seems like the potential of this concept wasn’t fully lived up to. I’m holding out hope it’ll surprise me when I make it hot in the future.
Oh boy…
So, let me start by saying that I actually greatly enjoyed the taste of this milk oolong. It’s very rich and essentially tastes like straight up buttered toast. Like, veryyyyy generously buttered toast. Creamy, luxe and super tasty. I haven’t had the DT milk oolong recently enough to confidently say if I have a preference, but it reminds me a lot of that one…
But I have some serious issues here too.
The lesser issue is the copy writing of this tea – it’s described as “A stunning tea of profound depth” and, just, no!? Like, it’s a good tea but to say there’s depth here is a stretch. I mean, it just tastes like so much butter. Very one note – but a damn good one note.
Issue two, and this is the biggest issue, is that T Kettle is claiming this is an unflavoured milk oolong. As someone who works with tea daily, loves milk oolong/Jin Xuan and has tasted dozens of milk oolongs both flavoured and unflavoured I am saying with 100% confidence that this is is ABSOLUTELY flavoured. It’s too rich/buttery and consistent to not be flavoured – plus, you can taste the actual oolong flavour notes underneath the strong buttery/creamy main sip.
Now, I’m not shitting on flavoured milk oolong – there are a lot of reasons why you’d flavour a Jin Xuan, the main one for a larger scale tea company being the need for consistency. The creaminess of Jin Xuan comes from cold snaps during the growing of it, and varies a lot from harvest to harvest because weather varies in different agricultural seasons. So, when you’re carrying a tea like this on a large scale as part of a core/yearly assortment you want to be able to guarantee that your customer base is going to buy the same tea at different times throughout the year or months apart and have it taste the same each time.
So the issue isn’t in the flavouring of the tea itself – but just in the dishonesty of selling this as unflavoured. There is just literally no way it’s not flavoured – and I’d respect the tea much more for the delicious buttery profile if it wasn’t marketed as a straight oolong.
Ugh. Ugh. I hate that. I’ve met wholesalers claiming to sell “unflavoured” Jin Xuan too and found it to be a straight up lie, so who knows if this is blatant dishonesty or a case of them not having anyone on-staff who is tea-savvy enough to see through this kind of thing.
Yes, that’s very true – it could easily be the case of their staff not knowing any better or the result of not having a proper regulatory department (because of how quickly they started up) to catch issues like that. I know I’ve noticed a few things in the ingredients lists that are either ignorant mistakes (like not listing sub ingredients on candied fruits) or deliberate omissions of information. I can’t tell which, though. With how new they are, it definitely makes sense that there are going to be some fumbles/a learning curve and I’m willing to accept that to an extent. I really struggle with the inaccuracies in the ingredient listings though; it’s so misleading to consumers but especially frustrating because one of their big marketing pushes out of the gate was to have more natural ingredients/vegan options/kosher and organic certified teas. When you leave out things like flavourings in your teas or don’t list the sugar in your candied fruit… of course it seems more natural… Bleck.
I also hate it when I visit a tea website and they don’t bother listing the ingredients list at all, just a vague description of the “flavor” of the tea. I want to know the exact ingredients in the blend! It always makes me feel like, “What are you trying to hide?” (I love you Lupicia, but I’m looking right at you right now… And yes, they do list them on the packaging, but I want to know before the tea is in hand, and they aren’t on the webpages!)
I’m not 100% sure about FDA, but technically that violates CFIA regulations – the ingredients/nutritional information needs to be available to the consumer at the point of purchase. I consider myself pretty lax in what I’ll accept from online tea companies regarding CFIA/FDA compliance, especially for small Indie and local companies, but I’m with you Mastress Alita – incomplete or missing ing lists drives me insane! Especially for larger companies like Lupicia that should have the means to declare them properly.
Every time I see flavour in ingredients list, I usually return the tea/snack back to the shelf. They changed their approach though and they now declare: natural flavours or natural identic flavour. Same with aromas. Saying aroma is so easy, but I wonder what is it! But why? Why they didn’t tell us everything?
Or often the ingredients is in such small letters, that even I have troubles to read it. Now there is a law it must be done with some minimal letter size and I think most of the companies actually comply.
Natural Identic flavouring is interesting too – it’s a European term, in Canada/USA the regulations surrounding flavourings are stricter and all natural identic flavouring has to be declared as artificial flavouring. Sometimes that bothers me when I see people complain that EU based tea companies carry “more naturally flavoured teas” versus North American based companies that seem to have a higher % of artificially flavoured teas. Certainly not in all cases, but in many, teas listed as naturally flavoured that are sold in the EU would be listed as artificial here…
(Though, personally I don’t really care whether my tea is art/nat/org flavoured at all – taste trumps everything else for me.)
Also, “aromas” in North America are basically always listed as flavourings – not sure what the EU regulations are though/how it’s differentiated there.
I don’t know either, it is quite wide topic even to understand. I searched after I wrote that comment for “natural identic flavours” and Czech Health Bureau said it is banned from 2011 I think? Yep, it sounds better to say “natural”, but actually mostly they are just artificial.
I don’t mind either how it is flavoured. But I don’t like saying natural while it certainly tastes artificial.
…so, this is the T Kettle version of Vanilla Cappuccino.
Obvious comparison of the vanilla/coffee profile (and shockingly similar ingredients list) aside, the two teas actually taste very different. Plus, there’s a difference in smell. I’m not a coffee expect by any means and I wont pretend to be, but the dry leaf aroma of this blend is a bit off putting to me – it almost smells oily/fishy.
Thankfully it doesn’t taste that way at all. It’s actually not really sweet, which was surprising to me at first because the tea they’re trying to recreate is very sweet. Like, I don’t taste the stevia in this tea at all (and I do taste it in Vanilla Capp) but I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not because I sort of want sweetness from this tea!? It’s a really pronounced dark roasted coffee flavour that takes up the majority of the sip. Creamy and vanilla? Yes, but honestly not a lot – certainly not to the level that the name or copy writing would seem to imply.
I don’t like the taste of coffee very much, so the strong and pronounced roasted coffee flavour was off putting to me personally – but that definitely doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t appeal to other people! Ironically, the coffee note reminds me more of DT’s Coffee Pu’erh than Vanilla Cappuccino. If you like Vanilla Cappuccino for the sweetness and the fact is mirrors more of the sweet Starbucks coffee drink vibe/makes that coffee flavour a bit more approachable than I think this would be a disappointment. However, if you think Vanilla Cappuccino is too sweet or doesn’t have enough coffee? Then I think you’d probably dig this one.
I’m just not loving it – but for personal taste preference reasonsl.
This one is Grapefruit Rose Starburst…
It’s honestly not a bad attempt to recreate that profile, and if I wasn’t super familiar with Grapefruit Rose Starburst/already a fan of that tea I think I would have really enjoyed this. It’s a sweeter pink grapefruit mixed with a floral oolong and hints of rose. However, it just doesn’t have quite the same juicy and fresh note to the pink grapefruit that the DT tea has – in fact, the citrus tastes a bit aged here because it’s just slightly starting to do that “waxy citrus” thing that aging citrus rind gets. The greener oolong is also a bit rougher and more prominent.
However, other than aspects of the flavour seeming less polished to me, it’s still quite nice.
Sipped this one last night over an evening of playing Among Us with some IG tea friends!
As far as I can tell, this one isn’t a recreation of any DT profiles and is actually a more “unique to T Kettle” profile. In quotations because it’s not like strawberry green teas, even this cakey/creamy strawberry green profile, are a new discovery – but I do appreciate that it’s not a mirror of something DT is doing, and I feel like it helps me actually get a better sense of what T Kettle’s style might be.
I was surprised by how much I liked this one – the smell is a bit artificial, like those “Strawberry Shortcake” scented dolls from the 90s that smelled like chemical strawberries and plastic. However, it doesn’t steep that way which was a huge relief! I mean, it’s still pretty artificial tasting – but not plastic/chemical. More the type of artificial of the mass produced grocery store cakes with the thick buttercream frosting that tastes really good for the first three or four bites and then if a bit too much.
In this circumstance, that very thick frosting note actually works really well for the profile they’re going for! I taste the fondant-like vanilla and rich creamy profiles mixed with a sweet and creamy strawberry and even without the name I know that what they’re going for is either a strawberry cake or a strawberries and cream sort of vibe. I also like that it’s thick and rich without being super sweet/cloying. Unlike those grocery store cakes that I can’t finish a slice of, I could easily finish the mug of this!
You for sure have to accept that (despite the use of natural flavouring) none of the flavours actually “taste natural” but if you’re willing to go down that round, it totally tastes like the namesake.
