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Sipdown! No.5 in 2025 (counting samples over 10g…)

This oolong is on the greener side, and I found it quite non-descript to be honest. I liked having it, and got 3 good steeps before it became even more non-descript. But it also has a random mildly sharp bitter edge unless you are super precise in brewing.

By no means a bad tea. I’ve just had some realllyyy good other Tie Guan Yins in my day.

An Australian brand tea that I tried yesterday at high tea in Vaucluse, a fancy expensive suburb in Sydney which we hardly every visit.

Ovvio’s French Grey was a lovely floral tea which felt uplifting to drink. I don’t reach for rose often, but it felt right yesterday enjoying some quality time with my husband.

Now that I’ve got good memories associated with this tea, it’s hard to stop myself from purchasing a whole tin of it. I’ve been wanting a French bergamot blend for ages, while avoiding most of them on the market due to artificial flavourings.

I’ve now found a natural, organic one now as per my wishes, but I’ve got so much tea in the cupboard and more tea on the way.. including the Earl Grey blends from Whispering Pines. So surely I ought to try those first before purchasing more tea, right? Right?!

Sipdown! The fourth one of 2025! (now, this was a sample sipdown.. but I’m going to count this for any sample sizes over 10g)

Enjoyable and greener than I expected. I’ve had Dong Ding in a bubble milk tea before and while fragrant, it tasted quite watery and weak in the milk and sugar.

Glad to try this as a standalone tea without additions. I love roasted oolongs and don’t tend to go for green notes, but when I do want the green freshness, this product hit the spot. Got 10 enjoyable steeps out of this one, albeit quite light after steep 5 without much interesting development in flavour profile.

Has piqued my interest in trying more Taiwanese oolongs in the future.

Sipdown!

My 1st one since getting back into tea as a special interest 2 months ago. Since then I’ve amassed 5 months worth of tea, assuming I only have one session a day.

Haha the way I deep dive..

Anyway this chamomile is often a fine line between weak and tasting oversteeped but when you get it just right, it is lovely.

Shall be trying more chamomile from different brands now though.

Presence is everything.

I got to brew and drink this with all the time in the world today. And it becomes a completely different tea when I do so.

Having this for the first time while I was rushing to get to work, I could not notice a single thing about it other than ‘Chinese black tea.’ But today, I took a sick day and just sat with the tea and my experience of it.

100C, Western style with 1 tablespoon in 200mL for 3 steeps. Afterwards, I contemplated what tea to have next, and then promptly chose to brew another tablespoon of the Imperial Golden Needle.

Beyond words and descriptions, I simply enjoyed it without bothering the cognitive mind with specifics. I like when vendors are detailed with their tasting notes, because it gives me the option to search out those notes in the tea without bothering to go down memory lane to retrieve those impressions myself.

Power of suggestion. Which is what most of reality is, anyway. But sincerely, I agree with Brendan’s descriptions. The chocolate-covered strawberry note comes out more as the tea cools, by the way. It’s one of those teas where I notice that the temperature it is drank makes a change to the notes in each sip.

Longevity isn’t quiiite there for this tea, but maybe other premium oolongs have spoiled me for that.

Enjoyed this for many steeps nonetheless and it was a wonderful character in my day.

Oolongs mean I’m having a day off at home where I can really observe how the tea changes across 10+ steeps. I lost count.

I also haven’t kept proper track of temperatures, steeping times, leaf to water ratios and the like. It hasn’t been a measuring kinda mood for me, and I love that.

But I do note a vague recollection of enjoying this tea more when brewed at 85C for a few steeps, then gradually increasing to 90C, 95C and 100C later on.

Shall try it at 100C with flash steeps at some point, because I’ve read that’s the way to brew Dan Cong. And it’s my first Dan Cong, so I’m open to all suggestions.

I loved this so much after only maybe four sessions, that I’ve dedicated a clay teapot to Dan Congs already.

The peppermint adds a slight refreshing element to the blend which makes me hungrier than chai normally does. It feels very nice to support digestion after a meal.

Brewed stovetop and into a tumbler to sip during client sessions. Hit. the. spot.

I mean, yes they’re talking about all kinds of trauma and challenging material, but the chai being thisss good at the same time.. life is still good y’know?