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Sipdown

This was such a mild sheng! I did a rinse and it was still so tightly formed that I did a second rinse and let it bask in the steam for a bit. The first steep was very mild, and my neighbor who was trying puerh for the first time said it was a bit weak for him. I let the second steep go longer and he liked that better, and the third steep still longer and stronger, and he really liked that. He said the initial aroma reminded him of suntan lotion that had been applied much earlier but it wasn’t cocoa butter smell. He didn’t think it tasted the same as the aroma he was picking up.

He and his wife felt like they initially got asparagus flavor but they were frustrated to identify the familiar something that they couldn’t pin down, something that happens a lot when we first start drinking good tea and try to describe it. I told them the third steep onward seemed to me to have mineral flavor followed by menthol/minty/camphor and he said YES! That is the sunscreen part! They noticed how the menthol built up in ontensity the more the drank.

I gave them lots of samples to take home and sent the rest of this with them as well, so this is a sharedown!

My neighbor wants to drink green tea for the antioxidants but said he couldn’t find any green tea he liked at all. I assume they were buying grocery store green and when he helped us out with sod laying I gave him a cold shaken matcha for the hot afternoon work. He loved it and drinks it every morning now, shaken in the jar with ice just as I first gave it to him.

I told him and his wife that I would love to have them over to sample lots of teas and I was sure we could find one he would like. Since he loved matcha, I began with this Japanese green that had a lot of similar flavor notes and he loved it. He also loved puerh – the stronger the better whether sheng or shu – and Chinese greens, especially Anji Bai Cha from Teavivre.

They didn’t know the word umami yet, but began describing what they loved about the tea and I told them there was a word for it, so they know all about umami now. Teas that I shied away from until I was a seasoned tea drinker, they loved. We drank tea for four hours. I love tea padawans!

April Sipdown Challenge – raise your cup to the tea farmers for Earth Day – bonus points for an earthy tea!

I didn’t add this to my cupboard because it is a sample that I received as a gift from Whiteantlers. Many thanks, and I miss you!

I decided to go with ripe puerh for this prompt because most of them have some earthy notes. Little did I know I was about to drink the earthiest puerh I have ever had.

Dry aroma was pure dirt, in the best way possible. I love the smell of freshly plowed fields and of petrichor. We live on the border between the Sandhills of NC and the Piedmont. Our soil is sandy and dry, and this puerh smells like when I crawl under a house into the dry, undisturbed crawlspace. (Yes, I have had to do this quite a few times as the elderly ladies on the street used to call on me to hit the reset button on their oil furnaces. Ha ha!)

There is no fishiness and no real aged manure/horse barn scent here, other than the dusty smell of a barn with an earthen floor. There is no mushroom scent. There is a strong minty or camphor tingle that builds as you drink but dissipates fairly quickly. Pleasant.

I have had four steeps thus far and will be having more throughout the day. I am glad I tried this one. It is a very enjoyable ripe pu.

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This is a public service announcement. Lupicia has posted their line up of Mother’s Day teas, floral special edition tea tins, and cherry blossom/cherry flavored teas!

I was hoarding the last bit of this and planned to have it with Ashman for afternoon tea today. There was less in my tin than I thought so we had Decaf Muscat instead and I made this to go with ice cream tonight.

The aroma is pure Luden’s cherry cough drops. I love it. But I will admit that it did not go as well with ice cream as I thought it would. I usually have lapsang, hojicha, or a plain black tea with ice cream and this one got a little lost because it comes off sweet and the ice cream was sweet, of course. Not enough contrast.

I will admit here that I have already ordered two new bags of this. I am a little ashamed to admit I also ordered two new-to-me teas to try but one of them is for Ashman really so maybe that makes it a little better.

April Sipdown Prompt – a convenient tea

We had a clogged kitchen sink this morning and I decided to try to unclog it with the traditional methods of baking soda and vinegar, which didn’t work, followed by lots and lots of boiling water, which also didn’t work. Standing around waiting for water to boil I started hankering for a cup of black tea. I didn’t have time to fool around with it much and no time to sit and drink. This teabag fit the bill and Lupicia teas usually call for really short steeps which is even more convenient.

I had one tea bag of this from a Lupicia order, but I have had it before from a swap and liked it enough to order the decaf version for evenings. I am tempted to also order the regular version.

The fruitiness is matched by the savory rosemary with amazing balance. I guess I can count this as a sample sipdown, but it doesn’t make my numbers go down since samples and swaps are not added to cupboard.

April Sipdown Prompt – A pantry staple

I have had this tea on shelf for fourteen years (not the same tin ha ha) with very few months where there was none at all in the house. We definitely prefer the loose leaf version over the sachets. If you buy the pound, turn it upside down occasionally because this is FULL of vanilla bean specks and they need to be kept evenly distributed.

The first few times we drank it, we thought we had tea dust in the bottom of the pot until one day when JacquelineM wrote that those are vanilla bean specks! So instead of discarding what looks like the “sludge”, slurp it down because it is yummy.

I have made many notes on this tea already, so here is something new. When I made this last, I made a huge pot and we had about ten ounces leftover. I poured it in a jar, stirred in a little sugar, and put it in the fridge to have with lunch because we are working very hard on our outdoor projects and it is over 80F most days. Iced tea season is upon us. (We drink all year anyway.)

This made an absolutely brilliant iced tea. I may have to go back to buying it by the pound for this summer. The vanilla is so smooth and glides down when you are hot and thirsty. I highly recommend this tea both hot and cold!

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This is actually a sharedown. I had this one apparently and didn’t make a note. I think it must have been a latte.

Today we had a pallet of sod delivered and our next door neighbor came over to help us get it in place! He has been trying to find a green tea he likes but has been unsuccessful so far. It was really hot and hard work, so I went inside and made him a mason jar full of this, just 3/4 teaspoon or so shaken with ice in a jar of filtered water. He loved it! I sent him home with the jar, instructions, and the rest of the tin. He was promised a refill as well, because I have lots more matcha and I am so grateful for the help!

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April Sipdown Prompt – a tea that is a special shape

I see I had an April sipdown of this once before. After a very busy morning, I am lounging in the hammock with Hugo the Lionheart having tea, strawberries, and crumbles of chocolate scraped out of the pot where I made my son’s birthday cake with boiled chocolate frosting.

This is a year and a half past date and very muted. I will definitely buy this again because the base is far smoother than other Jasmine green teas I have tried and the Jasmine is sweet and natural, hitting the perfect level for me. When fresh, it resteeps well. This has grown a bit too weak for a really good second steep. It is a definite re-order and probably fairly soon, as I have no green jasmine on shelf and only one black tea with jasmine, I think Yunnan Golden Jasmine.

Teavivre’s jasmine teas are top notch to me and I prefer them even to Grace Rare Tea’s “Flowery Jasmine Before the Rain” and Harney’s Jasmine Dragon Pearls. And of all of Teavivre’s jasmine teas, this is my favorite. (So far.)

April Sipdown Prompt – a tea from a swap or a sample

I guess this counts as a sample because I didn’t swap anything for it! It is a gift from derk.

I may not have had a lot of sipdowns last month, but I did have a LOT of sample sipdowns. I don’t list those in my cupboard which means I don’t have the pleasure of seeing numbers go down, but I do see progress in the neatness of my shelves and cupboards, and this sample was finally able to peek out of the pile.

The leaves remind me of my first shou mei in appearance. Large broken bits of leaf are green on one side and nearly white on the other. I don’t see trichomes but there is a sort of cellular pattern visible on the back of the leaves.

I used boiling water and our shortest steep was five minutes. The liquor is deep deep yellow gold. The flavor is mild, more herbaceous than most white tea, and mellow rather than strong. I am not really getting an aftertaste, and Ashman’s comment (he is working in the yard on the new project) was that it had a very interesting flavor to him, and since he is on his third cup he must like it.

The description says it was reputed to “aid debilitation” and I told Ashman that if burping aids debilitation I should be right as rain soon. Strawberry leaf does this to me, too, and it is supposed to be good for digestion so maybe this is, too.

I am so glad we had something caffeine free to enjoy this sunny but windy/chilly in the shade afternoon! Many thanks, wonderful derk!

April Sipdown Prompt – a tea that reminds you of a garden

The last time I drank this I was frustrated about a construction project. Today the first stage of that project is nearly done. I enjoyed sitting on the bench on the front porch (a bench Ashman made using the metal ends I found thrown out by the road because the boards had rotted) sipping this tea yesterday.

Just a few feet from the bench is a lilac bush in full bloom, and the heady aroma has had me craving violet candies, lilac candles, and now – liquid flowers.

If you don’t like floral tea, you are going to hate this one. But if you enjoy floral tea, you just might fall in love with it. Even with all the floral notes, the green oolong base still shines through. So lovely. I don’t want to finish it, but I hope I have learned my lesson about hoarding things until they fade so I intend to enjoy it every time I want it.