2036 Tasting Notes
Ahhh, this is more like it.
After a bit of white and yellow tea disappointment, this is some chocolately goodness.
In the tin, the tea smells like a chocolate bar. Really. Sweet, dark chocolate. Not much in the way of rose scent, though there is some.
The chocolate isn’t lost in the steeping. The tea smells strongly of chocolate, and the rose comes awake with the heat to give just a little bit of interest. The tea is mahogany colored and clear.
Maybe I’m just in the mood, but this is really hitting the spot. The chocolate flavor is rich and sweet, not the less sweet, baking chocolate flavor of some chocolate teas. Like someone shaved a candy bar right into the tea.
Now if only my Pokemon Go habit hadn’t been revitalized by people talking about it at work Friday so that I’m feeling compelled to hunt all the time, this tea would make this a lovely morning.
Flavors: Chocolate, Rose
Preparation
Sipdown no. 74 of 2018 (no. 430 total). A sample.
I found a few other Todd & Holland white tea sample packets in my stash. One is labeled white peony, one is labeled silver needle. So that makes me wonder what the heck this is? So I looked it up.
The best description I could find was on raretea.com:
… a relatively new type of tea, sharing characteristics of both white tea and green tea, and alternatively classified in both categories by different retailers. We classify it as a white tea as a rather arbitrary choice, because our category of white tea has fewer varieties listed in it.According to Rishi Tea, this variety was developed in the 1980’s by blending some techniques from green tea and white tea production. [footnote omitted] It is usually described as having a delicate aroma; the flavor shares attributes in common with Chinese green teas, and lighter white teas.
So maybe that’s what this is.
Like silver needle, snow buds consists mostly of buds, which have a downy appearance. The tea does contain some larger leaf though, which has a bolder green color. Compared to silver needle, the leaf tends to be more curled and wiry.
Not that it matters a ton because of my white tea problem, but at the herbal steeping temp it is less planty and sweeter (more honey like) than other whites I’ve had recently.
Sipdown no. 73 of 2018 (no. 429 total).
I wrote to Leland a week ago to ask whether there is in fact lapsang souchong in this tea, or whether the description is intending to suggest blending this tea with lapsang souchong.
I hoped I’d have an answer by sipdown time, but alas, they never responded.
In any case, this tea grew on me. There was one time, last weekend, when I thought perhaps my interpretation was incorrect. I thought I might have tasted some smokiness which could mean lapsang was in the blend. But I got over it.
If they ever write back to me, I’ll let you guys know.
I had this a couple of years ago and liked it. I had the small canisters. Have you ever seen the large? I wondered if they were worth the extra cost. Nothing tells you how many ounces of tea you get as far as I can find.
I got this through the Cultured Cup. The packet says it’s India black tea with vanilla and bergamot, which is interesting given the “rare citrus fruits and spices” description here.
In the packet, the smell is strongly bergamot, but in a citrusy way, not a perfumy way. I can also smell vanilla, though it is less.
After steeping, the beramot aroma is very dispersed, and the vanilla more pronounced. The tea is an interesting color: a medium-light amber/copper, which is proof (if any was necessary) that the base is darjeeling.
The sharp, piquant muscatel note that I associate with darjeelings is present, but the vanilla tamps it down nicely. Though if that’s your favorite part of a darjeeling, that’s probably not a good thing.
For me it is, as I like darjeeling flavor but don’t love the sharpness.
I don’t know whether it’s my mood, or the fact that I’ve been using zinc to stave off a cold (maybe it’s true that it does a number on your ability to smell), but my experience of this tea is good but not spectacular. It does have the expert blending of the French thing going on, which would ordinarily send me into a happy place. And it does, just not the happiest of happy places. I might have liked this better with a China black tea base.
Flavors: Bergamot, Muscatel, Vanilla
Preparation
The package says to steep at 160-170F for 2 minutes. I’ll try that later, but for now I’m steeping at the Breville’s green tea setting.
The leaves of this one are long and twiggy. They’re a bit coarser and more tubular than those of the Mengding Mountain yellow buds, which were flat and shiny like dragonwell leaves.
In the packet, the leaves smell a little nutty, and also like dried hay.
Steeping at this time and temp may not be enough. I’m getting the white tea syndrome from this. Almost colorless liquor, very little aroma and flavor.
I’ll try again tomorrow using the scale instead of spoons and steeping according to the package directions. We’ll see what that does.
For now I have to rate this low because — no flavor at all, really.
Flavors: Hay, Nutty
Preparation
1500th tasting note!
Sipdown no. 72 of 2018 (no. 428 total).
This had become my take it to work tea as a break from green.
A mellow but tasty tea. Not much to add to my initial note.
It’s kind of exciting. When the 404 error happened, I realized that I have 8+ years of personal history on this site, which makes me think I need to find a way to export all my notes in case something awful happens to the site.
I have had this tea before, as recently as yesterday. I’d intended to write a note about it then, but I got distracted and let the tea get cold. So I decided to give it another go this morning.
In the tin, the dry leaves smell nutty and a bit liqueur-like, with really big almond slices interspersed among the leaves. The smell is the same, but deeper, after steeping. The tea is clear, and a dark amber color.
Just as I find the variations in vanilla teas interesting (is it beany? is it creamy? is it a little of both?) I find the variations in almond teas also quite interesting. This is not a cookie or pastry flavored tea, it’s definitely a liqueur flavored tea. While I haven’t had Amaretto in a while, the aroma of the almond in this tea has a syrupy quality to it that reminds me of the drink. And while it’s not heavily alcoholic, I couldn’t find “liqueur” in the Steepster flavors and scents options, so I settled for alcohol. I don’t mean by this that this tastes of alcohol, just that it reminds me of the liqueur.
So it’s not a substitute for Brioche, which I was kind of hoping. More reminiscent of the Mariage Freres Almond than the Teavana Almond Biscotti, SpecialTeas Almond Cookie, or Brioche, which were all variations of the same idea and all, sadly, no longer available. I am pretty sure I liked the Mariage Freres better. So I’m bumping that one up a tad.
Someone make a substitute for Brioche please!
Flavors: Alcohol, Almond, Nutty
Preparation
I’m a little confused. I think I had shoehorned this tea under another entry that wasn’t exactly the same tea. I think I have it straightened out now.
I steeped this according to label directions. Steeped this way, it is very second-flush like. The dry leaves are dark, but tippy, and they have a sort of a spicy smell — like a gingerbread on first whiff, but that then becomes more winey and earthy.
The liquor is really pretty. It’s the rose gold color that is popular in jewelry for the past ten or so years. Its clear, and smells of stonefruit pits. Peach, I think. And earth. And there’s that pungent wine note that characterizes second flush darjeelings, but without the sharp bite. And weirdly, that gingerbread smell is still there to some degree.
The flavor is smooth. None of the sharpness of some second flushes, but with just a hint of the fullness in some first flush darjeelings that make me feel uncomfortably overfull (what I sometimes think of as a waterlogged feeling). There’s grape in the flavor, and wood, and trees, and peach pits, and just a tiny bit of that unusual gingerbread note.
It’s a solid first flush darjeeling with the qualities I like in teas of this genre. I’d like to taste this one cold.
Flavors: Earth, Ginger, Grapes, Peach, Stonefruit, White Wine
Preparation
Sipdown no. 71 (no. 427 total).
Delicious and different as a cold tea. I don’t think I’ve had a cold tea before that was in part rose flavored. I was rather expecting it to taste like a mouth full of perfume but was pleasantly surprised. While the other flavors aren’t individuated enough that I can pick them out in the cold version, but they tamp down the rose and keep it from being soapy.