4325 Tasting Notes
From Dustin! Thanks so much! I always wanted to try this one. Visually, it looks like a really balanced blend of black tea with apple and cinnamon pieces. It tastes very good! I have only had one other tea that I remember with fenugreek in it, which was also supposed to be caramel flavored, so I think the fenugreek is really carrying that caramel flavor. Along with a nice balanced apple and cinnamon flavoring. Second steep is also full of flavor! Drinking this, I could swear I have had this blend from another shop, or something similar but I KNOW I haven’t had the Arthur Dove before… I will try a couple apple teas around here to remind me. This tea tastes exactly as it says it should, so completely meets expectations, but I think that my beloved Simpson & Vail Apple Cinnamon French Toast still can’t be beat.. but that is impossible to my tastebuds anyway. This tea would be my second choice! So I really appreciate trying this new favorite. I didn’t see this before steeping the tea up… but it’s interesting this is mentioned as being a Sri Lankan tea, as I was hunting down Sri Lankan teas for the book I’m reading: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. (But that doesn’t mean I want to drink a string of Ceylon teas…)
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug // 21 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 5 minute steep (unintentionally)
A leaf from the Sanxia District of northern Taiwan, this tea is crafted from the same leaves as a Bi Luo Chun green, and picked when the leaf is young. The dry leaf is long, twisty and black with twinges of maroon and a touch of gold. The dry leaf certainly has a fruity fragrance! And in a blind taste test, I would certainly guess this is a Taiwanese tea. It’s very close in appearance and flavor to Premium Taiwanese Assam. An explosion of lingering mouth feel, very fruity. That lychee again, but also strawberries. A bit of a drying mouth quality. Second steep, it tastes more like a Ruby 18 varietal. The third steep seemed a bit weak and not sure if it was worth a third steep, mostly tasted like a faint Ruby 18. The first steep was definitely the best. Maybe I needed to use lower temps and less steep time in the steeps to recreate that first cup of amazing flavor. It’s odd this tea is VERY similar in flavor to the other black tea from Tealyra I had the other day, the Wen Shan Bao Zhong black.
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoons for a full mug // 22 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 18 minutes after boiling // 2 min
Steep #3 // just boiled // 4 min
Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – January 2023 Tea #4 -A tea hard to pronounce or spell
So folks on Steepster are usually intentionally spelling the name of this shop wrong as it is confusing, so I thought I would go with the name of the SHOP that is tough to say or spell rather than the name of the tea, which is easy enough. But the name for this tea was always so weird anyway… why Shogun when the green tea isn’t even Japanese? It’s green tea from Ceylon and Indonesia… Regardless, the flavor of the blend overall was quite decent, if I ignore the name. Fruity and long lasting. I’ll kind of miss it. I’d love a good blend to represent the Shogun though!
2023 sipdowns: 6
Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – January 2023 Tea #3 – My (second) oldest green tea
additional notes: Also having my SECOND oldest green tea, or maybe it’s the third oldest, but also won’t be a sipdown. Reading my original note, I think this is far diminished now… understandable but that’s a shame. I liked this.
additional notes: I wanted to try this again with my at-home steeping parameters and yep, it’s still a good tuocha. The leaves are tiny and the tuocha unravels the instant the water hits it. But that is what I like about this one! No negative aspects to the flavor – just very dark and rich. Four solid steeps, even in a bigger mug. The last steep went for over twenty minutes.
Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – January 2023 Tea #3 – My oldest green tea
I love the idea of a prompt focusing on the OLDEST green in a cupboard. (I wouldn’t mind seeing this for other types of teas in future months, white tea, rooibos, etc… note to Ashmanra…) This is the oldest green! Not close to finishing it! I think it was a free sample and if anything, it’s a nice experiment in the aging of a flavored green tea. There is STILL some flavor here! Strawberry and lychee! How old is it? Let’s see… according to my first tasting note…. ELEVEN YEARS OLD. whoa. A shame, as this is a rare flavored green tea that received a rating of 90 from me. The photo is lovely too.
Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – January 2023 Tea #2- chocolate tea
Forgot to post this last night in time for chocolate day! Finishing up this tea with better steeping parameters. This time, rather than Russell Stover chocolate filling or Three Musketeers bars, I’m tasting what seems like flavoring that would be in a chocolate milkshake. Definitely not a flavor of chocolate I have had in TEA before. I’m glad I tried this, and it’s going on the wishlist again so I can remember it’s good! Also raising the rating from 72.
2023 sipdowns: 5
additional notes: Revisited this oldie yesterday. I forgot how good it was! Still has some cream flavor which is amazing with this rich hojicha. No chance probably that Necessiteas would have this again (not there now, haven’t seen it in a while…) Another 96 rating from me! These poor neglected teas…
Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – January 2023 Tea #2- chocolate tea
additional notes: Another chocolate tea today because neither with caffeine is a sipdown. I forget how much I like this one. Almost gone now… and it’s sad I don’t see it on Fusion’s site for sale anymore.
