161 Tasting Notes
Sipdown no.20 of 2025.
Cherry-like, mineral, chocolatey goodness. I love the mineral note in teas, how random like yes, give me the taste of rocks.
I enjoyed this Western style, and would also sometimes brew it extra strong and add a dash of milk for an oolong milk tea.
Interesting that I noted vanilla, charcoal and oak as the predominant flavours for this tea about 4 months ago. I would use a tablespoon of leaves for about 150mL water at 90C
Today, as well as the last time I brewed this, I get a very predominant note of sweet raisins, and it’s harder to detect anything else. The difference is that I’ve been measuring 5g of tea for 150mL water in 90C, which is a lot more than I used before.
It’s almost a different tea with an increase in leaf to water ratio. How fascinating.
Sipdown no.18 of 2025, 10g sample.
Marine and refreshing. The reviews of this tea on their website mentioned someone’s fond recollections of driving through Monterey, California. I too, loved Monterey when I was there seven years ago. I loved that we both thought of that wonderful place, shared through the experience of this tea.
I brewed this at work in a gaiwan with a standard non-variable temp kettle at 100C for an indiscriminate number of minutes and when I tasted it, the tea was strong but not at all oversteeped. I like when teas withstand all kinds of parameters and end up tasting great no matter what you’ve done to it.
Eager to purchase more in the future.
Sipdown no.17 of 2025.
So I bought a 10g sample, enjoyed it so immensely I immediately bought another 25g (rare for me to rebuy a tea), drank all of that, and now I’m trying to stop myself from buying 50g more.
I can taste the mastery in the making of this. It’s really impeccable. Caramel and vegetal, which sounds like a strange combination but felt harmonious here.
Sipdown no. 13 for 2025.
I ought to have tried this gongfu at some point, but it became one of those teas I did Western style on a busy work day when I needed something with briskness to get me going.
Malty, tobacco-y, woodsy and a hint of smoke is what I remember. Good with Western style savoury food.
Sipdown no.12 of 2025.
Some days the chocolate-y base of the Golden Snail came through more. Other days, the bergamot was stronger. Once, it was the most perfect orange-chocolate tea I could dream of. But it seemed to be a bit finicky depending on steeping parameters, and I’m a bit loosey-goosey with that most of the time.
No doubt this is a high quality tea and I love that real bergamot is used instead of flavouring.
