2291 Tasting Notes

Ohhhhhhh my goodness, this smells amazing. I have a failed (the dough was weird so it never cooked through yet it burned on the outside) gingerbread loaf sitting on the counter, and I can say that this smells very similar. Molasses, some spice, sweet baked goodness. It also smells a little like genmaicha. Green/seaweed and toasted rice. Yep.

Actually, that’s not bad at all! There’s some warmth from the spices. It’s a bit too “green tea” for my preference, but it’s really not bad.

If only the flavour was available as a black tea. :)

Thanks so much, MissB!

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 0 sec 8 OZ / 236 ML

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85
drank Butter Pecan Black Tea by 52teas
2291 tasting notes

A mug of this, and one pot pasta for breakfast.

Om nom nom.

And apparently we had an earthquake last night. I didn’t even wake up. :) I’ve seen everything from 4.3-4.9.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 4 min, 15 sec 3 tsp 16 OZ / 473 ML

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drank Hibiscus Berry by Rishi Tea
2291 tasting notes

Not really getting orange OR mango from this. It honestly just tastes like a generic berry tea, heavy on the hibiscus.

Not bad, but not one I’d get again.

(Cold brew overnight.)

Preparation
Iced 8 min or more 3 tsp 32 OZ / 946 ML

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I feel really bad about this one. I’ve had it for a LONG time, MissB gave it to me ages ago. Thank you! I’m sorry I lost track of it.

I’ve been avoiding it, because I don’t really like da hong pao. It’s too roasty toasty woody for me, and tends to make my tummy upset. I really do prefer a mega floral oolong.

Anyways, here it goes. I rinsed and let it sit a few minutes, in my eensy teensy gaiwan. I’m using 50-60ml hot water, doing short steeps. I have a litre of water left, so let’s see how this plays out.

1) Quite toasty. Sweet underlayer. Nice mouthfeel. Not that bad, actually.

2) Basically the same. I think this is quite light, at least compared to other of these teas I’ve had.

3) The toastiness is reducing already. It’s a little stone fruits, a little sweet. Still pretty nice. (I’m not drinking all of these, btw. Just tasting, letting it cool a bit, tasting again…)

4) Hmm. I honestly don’t know how to describe this. I’ve looked up some flavours, but the only one that seems to apply so far is herbaceous. The roasty flavour is kinda maybe sorta like toasted buckwheat tea, but not totally.

5) I should maybe have steeped longer than 30 seconds here. Still, the brew is a nice amber-honey colour. It’s starting to turn a bit more herbaceous-floral, although it’s not all the way floral yet.

6) 1 minute this time. I think the tea could keep going a couple more steeps if you wanted to increase the time a lot. Still, not my favourite but not bad.

In conclusion, I ended up enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would. It’s a pretty decent tea, IMO. Compared to others of it’s type, I honestly have no idea. But I would consider trying this one again, perhaps once I’ve worked through my puerh samples and want to educate myself more about oolongs. :)

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drank Banana Nut Bread by DAVIDsTEA
2291 tasting notes

Hmm.

Not bad. More like sweet nutty nutness, than banana bread.

It’s honestly kind of ridiculous how the 25g bag I got will only make 2 mugs! I’ll have to try the second as an eggnog latte. I mean, why not?

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 6 min, 0 sec 4 tsp 16 OZ / 473 ML
Evol Ving Ness

Eggnog latte! What a brilliant idea!

I do like this one but heavy and expensive. Still, it is nice to have it from time to time.

OMGsrsly

Hahaha. Eggnog goes with most teas. :D I ended up adding a little to this one after I tried about 1/4 of my cup. Really good combo with the nutmeg.

Evol Ving Ness

Mm. Yum. I sounds delicious.
I find the best way I enjoy this particular tea is if I steep it for like 10 or more minutes. I wonder if DT would go along with this if I were to drop in for one. And are they even still doing eggnog lattes?

OMGsrsly

I have no idea. I hadn’t been into a store really for months. I’ll have to try a 10 minute steep for next time though!

Fjellrev

So glad I don’t like this one too much because damn, you’re right, you need to use SO MUCH just for one mug.

OMGsrsly

Yep! The only reason I grabbed it is because it was on sale. :) They didn’t have any of the cardamom one left, or I would have tried it as well.

Fjellrev

Oh yeah, forgot that this was included as one of the bulk varieties on sale! I think my Cardamom French Toast-obsessed brain does a Terminator-like scan over the 40% offerings on the counter, doesn’t see CFT, ignores the rest, and walks out without even considering the others.

Evol Ving Ness

^ :)

I steep it in a paper filter in my timolino or carry mug with the lid loosely on so that it doesn’t get cold.

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drank Midday Flight by Tippy's Tea
2291 tasting notes

This tea is thanks to CrowKettle!

It’s super mild. Definitely more of an afternoon tea than a kick-in-the-pants morning tea (hey, someone dropping coffee again can hope!).

I can tell it’s a Chinese black, but it’s not terribly complex. IDK. It’s nice, but I don’t think I’d go after this one myself.

Thanks for sharing, CrowKettle!

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 14 OZ / 414 ML

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drank CHA THAÏ BOPF by Mariage Frères
2291 tasting notes

OM NOM NOM.

I’m doing an experiment. That experiment is weaning myself off of coffees every day. Hahaha. We’ll see how that works.

I needed something strong. Something flavourful. Something good with eggnog. And this tea is excellent.

If I could find it locally, I’d totally buy it. So delicious. But I do have some other strong black teas, so I think I’ll be OK. :)

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 2 min, 30 sec 2 tsp 14 OZ / 414 ML

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Thank you to Dexter for sharing this unusual tea with me.

I can’t remember if this was a sample gift or a purchase… it’s been a while. :D But it is unusual, I mean, 1000 year old trees? And as a black tea? Ok. I’ll try.

It smells a little smoky. A little like an Assam. A little like chocolate-dirt. The tea is really a very pretty amber colour.

Oh, this is quite sweet. I rinsed, and my first steep is about 10-15 seconds. It has a hint of carbs to it, but nothing like the honey black I just tried. It’s also almost floral-grapey like a Darjeeling, although it doesn’t have the perfumey notes of a very fresh/green leafed Darjeeling. And there’s some smoke in the background, but it’s more like tobacco leaves that have been warmed, than true smoke.

It’s also quite thin. Maybe that’s because of the shorter steep, but it’s somewhat unexpected.

I’ll have to drink more of this tea tomorrow, it’s not really what I was looking for tonight. But it’s really interesting.

Thanks so much for sharing, Dexter!

TBH, I think it’s this tea: http://store.thechineseteashop.com/Yunnan_Gu_Shu_Old_Tree_Black_Tea_p/rt-gs-001.htm
Just “Old Tree”, not specifically 1000 year old tree.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 15 sec 6 g 5 OZ / 140 ML
Dexter

Dunno – that’s the one he gave us saying it was “special” – I would have just entered it here as it was labelled.

OMGsrsly

It is labelled “1000 years old tree” but I checked the website, and based on the pictures, it looks like what I linked. The flavour profile seems in the same ballpark as well.

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drank Honey Black by DAVIDsTEA
2291 tasting notes

So I finally got this tea. Finally. And I’m going to share the love. :)

5g in about 120ml water. Short steeps.

(Spoiler: I like the Honey Black and Li Shan Black from Green Terrace way better.)

This is… really carby. Like plain plantain chips. Astringent, even though I’m only doing short steeps. Malty. Fairly rich, because of the heavy carbs. But astringent. And not honey-sweet IMO. Not compared to other teas out there. There’s a bit of bite from spice at the back of the sip – maybe white pepper. It smells a lot like hay. I just dipped my nose in the mug, ick.

So while it’s not bad, there are others out there at a similar price point that are much tastier to me.

(195F for the rinse and first steep, 208F for subsequent steeps. I got… 4 steeps before I was done.)

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 4 OZ / 120 ML

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After going through all my teas yesterday, I put a few I need to work on finishing out in a bowl. This is one of them.

I’m sad, because I love the Hattialli Assams, but my parents tea shop hasn’t been able to get it in. That was my only other source!

Anyways, this is delicious and strong and fruity and malty, and an eggnog latte. :)

As far as Christmas Teas, my dad got me 2 African teas (both quite different!) and more Rungagora – so now I have 200g of that. LOL. Disregarding duplicates, I’m now at 268 teas, with about 70 (estimated) of them being gongfu capable samples – puerh, black teas, oolongs. Of course, I have two other small bins of samples as well as all the other larger quantities. The only ones I have ~100g of are Rungagora, So Long and Thanks for all the Licorice, Chandernagor, and Noel a Paris. :) Oh, and the puerh bricks and cakes. But we’ll just ignore those since they never go bad… right?

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 3 min, 30 sec 3 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML
Fjellrev

What! I had no idea your parents had a tea shop. I knew they were also into tea, but…

So glad I’m not in your position in terms of volume! I feel overwhelmed as it is with my 60-ish teas. Keep putting off a damn Bayswater order because I want to be down to 50 before that happens.

OMGsrsly

Sorry, their local tea shop I guess? Although I do shop their stash when I visit. :)

OMGsrsly

Also, well over half of the teas are samples, and many more are within sipdown range. So it feels like a lot (I weighed tins too btw and didn’t bother subtracting them, if you saw the weight on FB), but I don’t think it is. The samples are overwhelming, but my actual collection is much less overwhelming than what it was.

Sil

trade you lol

OMGsrsly

Nope! I’m happy with what I have! :P

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Bio

I mostly drink black tea.

Also: A map of tea places in Vancouver. I’ve been to some of them, but not a lot. If you have any suggestions, please let me know!
http://goo.gl/maps/gXsKK

Location

Vancouver, BC, Canada

Website

http://goo.gl/maps/gXsKK

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