244 Tasting Notes

65

Does ginseng have a fragrance? I do not know. This CB&TL tea’s dry leaves have a pretty subtle fragrance. They have that fresh, clean, green tea smell, but much of green tea’s usually vegetal aroma is missing, perhaps because of the lemon.

I haven’t had the greatest luck with bagged teas, lately. It seems like no matter how long I steep it, it still ends up tasting pretty weak. This tea is no exception, and I used two bags for my 16oz. mug. The flavour is actually really pleasant, and I would have rated it better if only there were more of it.

In spite of how long I steeped the bags (I meant to do 5-6 minutes, but forgot and left it for about 12), there was no bitterness, which was nice. But the dry mouth factor is middle of the road, a little bit more than my comfort level.

This is one of those teas that I won’t mind finishing, but that I won’t be buying again.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 8 min or more

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drank Rooibos Chai by Teavana
244 tasting notes

Just a quick note on second-steeping this tea. On the second steep, it’s very cinnamon-y (blech). It’s unfortunate that I don’t have a cinnamon-loving housemate who could enjoy the second steep. I’m going to have to remember this and stick to just the one steep from now on.

Preparation
Boiling 8 min or more

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drank Rooibos Chai by Teavana
244 tasting notes

Oh, gosh. Steepster tells me that I last logged this tea almost two years ago. How can that be? Honestly, this rooibos chai is like that tattered, reliable, security bankie that’s always there for you. I’ve had quite a bit of mediocriTEA (c’mon, I had to) of late and allergies have been kicking my butt, leaving me hacking like a cat to scratch my throat. All in all, things have been just that side of miserable.

I wanted a caffeine-free, flavoured tea, preferably something with ginger in it. I’ve been making my way through the Golden Moon sampler set, and the few samples I have left are caffeinated to varying degrees and none has ginger in it. For the first time in ages, then, I looked into my stash to see what else I have, and happily discovered a pouch of this tea.

Teavana don’t, in general, blow my mind with their teas, but sometimes they come up with some really great blends. One such blend is their rooibos chai. The dry leaves smell heavenly: rooibos, ginger and other spices, and, um…okay, this is a bit strange, but…a touch of Tiger Balm. I’m not really sure where that comes from, but I swear, I get a whiff of it every time I inhale. The fragrance of the steeped tea is all that, minus the Tiger Balm, which magically disappears.

Mmmm… Every sip of this tea is just what the doctor ordered. The ginger soothes the throat without burning, the rooibos calms the nerves, and delivers warmth to every part of one’s being. If you don’t like rooibos, stay away; but if you do, and you like chai, you should love this. Both rooibos and chai can be tasted and experienced separately, but together. Each retains its individual profile but complements the other perfectly.

Preparation
Boiling 6 min, 0 sec

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51
drank White Ginger by Golden Moon Tea
244 tasting notes

Golden Moon’s White Ginger tea is right splat in the middle of the road. Really, all it needs is some oomph to be a lovely, gingery, white tea. Sadly, it is oomphless. It smells like white tea, with a very slightly sweet note on the end that made me think of candied ginger. It tastes like white tea, with a very slightly gingery prickle in the throat as you swallow. If you like ginger, this tea will leave you far short of satisfied. You may be able to give it a bit of oomph by grating some ginger into your infuser, but with so many ginger teas out there, I’m not sure it’s worth it.

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 4 min, 0 sec
Terri HarpLady

I love ginger! Most of the time if I want ginger tea, I just grate a bunch up & add hot water!

Nik

That’s the way to go, Terri. I do, however, also enjoy flavoured teas that have ginger in them as one of the ingredients. In this case, where it was just the tea and ginger, I would’ve been happier grating some ginger into it.

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19

I actually tasted this tea yesterday, but I still don’t really function very well on 11th September, so I wasn’t up to writing a tasting note.

There are only a few samples left from my Golden Moon sampler set. I’m very much a “save the best for last” kind of person, and the idea of white tea infused with melon was so enticing that I immediately put it aside so it could be one of the last ones I tasted.

Imagine my disappointment, then, when I cut open the packet, inhaled, and crinkled my nose in displeasure. The dry leaves smell like stale bread. I persisted, and after a few breaths I could discern a vaguely melon-y aroma. But when I reset my sense of smell and went back to the tea a couple of moments later, there it was again: stale bread. Unpleasant.

As off-putting as the tea’s aroma was, I couldn’t just pour it out without tasting it. And who knows, sometimes the taste is a surprise, y’know? Sadly, the tea tasted like a wilting flower. Other tasters have mentioned alcohol, overly ripe melon, a sort of fermented smell, but the one thing I took away from both the smell and taste of this tea is, “spoilt.” The smell of stale bread and the taste of a wilting flower’s sickly sweet smell. Blech.

As with the aroma, continuing to sip for a while improved the experience ever so slightly, but putting the mug down for a while and coming back to it after a few moments pushed the reset button so that I had to endure the whole stale bread, wilting flower thing all over again. That’s just too much work to try and enjoy a nice, hot cup of tea.

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 4 min, 0 sec

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57
drank Orchid Temple by Golden Moon Tea
244 tasting notes

Underwhelmed. Mehness. The flavour of this tea does not live up to the promise made by its fragrance. It smells really nice, but the flavour is a bit bland, a bit weak. The fragrance is mostly that of green tea: fresh-smelling, a bit vegetal. There are also some floral undertones here. Given its name (and given that I read only the name, and not the ingredients), I thought I’d get more orchid (I love floral teas), but that’s not the case. There is only the most subtle of floral hints in the fragrance, and even these are mostly absent from the flavour.

I like less subtlety in my tea, so found this a mediocre offering. Next, please.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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83

I steeped this sweetened sampler a second time, adding more sugar, steeping it for hours (like, 12 or something), and finally adding ice. I’ve never made iced tea with loose leaves before, so I don’t know if I did this the “right” way, but it worked. It’s excellent as iced tea: a little mango-y, a little peachy. I didn’t get even a hint of the floral things that are on the list of ingredients, like rose and such; it’s just a really refreshing, sweet, tropical iced tea.

This tea is definitely better iced than hot.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 8 min or more
Daisy Chubb

Making iced tea is full of fun experiments! I’m still perfecting my method – sounds like you did just fine :D

Nik

Thanks, Daisy. It certainly turned out yummy. There was initially a little bit of bitterness and I panicked for a moment, thinking I’d left the tea steeping too long, but then I remembered that I’d just brushed my teeth. =)

Daisy Chubb

ah! tea and toothpaste, I know that taste well lol

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83

I love that my sample of this blend was sweetened. I sweeten my tea, anyway, so this saved me a step. I get a bit nervous whenever I see a long list of ingredients—I worry that I’ll end up tasting nothing.

The dry tea smells like candy! I’m not sure what kind of candy, but candy. Some kind of hard candy, like. It’s a very sweet fragrance, and has citrus notes, but it’s more like a punch. Not fruit punch, but the tropical punch that has papayas and mangos and things.

The tea tastes like a Jolly Rancher. Not of any flavour that I’ve had before, mind you, but it tastes how I imagine a tropical punch Jolly Rancher would taste. =) I prefer spicy, nutty, chocolatey notes in my tea, or floral ones. I’m not really a fan of fruity teas, so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

As nice as this first taste was, I’m going to see if I can get one more steep out of the sample. I think this tea would be really lovely iced. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get the full flavour out of a second steep, especially iced, but I’ll give it a go.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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83
drank Pu-erh by Golden Moon Tea
244 tasting notes

Oh, so this is pu-erh. I just realised that I haven’t had it before, and that I probably should’ve tried this before drinking Golden Moon’s Pu-erh Chai1. After tasting this, I have a much better understanding of all the different flavours swirling around in that pu-erh chai.

I didn’t know what to expect here, but the packet says “earthy.” From the dry leaves what I got is a fragrance that I’d describe as more fruity than earthy. The tea itself is a different story: I definitely got earthy from the first whiff, but upon exhaling and inhaling again, my first thought was, “sandalwood.” Sandalwood! I am mad about sandalwood. I have incense. I have soap. I have talcum powder. And I’m very, very picky about my sandalwood, too, much like I am about my rose2. And what I got from this tea was the hint of some really lovely sandalwood.

These earthy, incense-y, sandalwood-y, very slightly smoky traits all carried over from the fragrance to the flavour, and the end result is really nice. If this is what pu-erh is usually like, I’m a fan. I quite like its flavour and find it second only to rooibos (my favourite since I first tried it in 2009).

1 http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/128501

2 http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/128096

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec
Azzrian

Mmmm Sandalwood! I have my eye on a sandalwood tea table SIGH its so expensive.

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drank Vanilla Jasmine by Golden Moon Tea
244 tasting notes

The irksome thing about vanilla is that, like cinnamon, you give it a little bit of stage time and it wants to hog the entire spotlight. I love jasmine, but couldn’t smell it in the dry leaves, which smelled entirely of vanilla. I could smell a bit of jasmine in the steeped tea, but it was pretty subtle. The tea itself is kind of weak, and tastes like vanilla; I don’t taste any jasmine. Definitely not my thing, don’t think I’m going to get through this mug. On to the next one!

[Edit]: I removed my rating, which was 13. It’s not the tea’s fault that I don’t like vanilla. I reckon if I did, I’d like the tea better in spite of its weakness and insufficient jasmine presence. In any case, I didn’t want to pull its overall rating down with my biased score.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec

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Profile

Bio

2012.10.07: I hear people like to understand other people’s ratings, so here’s a loose guide:

01-29: Dear God, why.
30-49: I’ll finish this cup, I guess, but no more.
50-59: Meh.
60-69: Decent. Maybe I can blend it with something else and make it better.
70-79: Heeey, this is quite good!
80-89: I love it, but I’m not in love with it.
90-100: Permanently resident in my Happy Place.

Update: I have steeped, and it was good. =] Still a tea-ophyte, though.

This is a tea site, so I feel like “well, I’m Indian” should be enough of an introduction. Because, I mean, it’s kind of in my genes, right? But the fact of the matter is that I’m an absolute tea-ophyte.

I’ve just discovered a world beyond Celestial Seasonings. I’ve just discovered “sachets” instead of “normal” tea bags and bought my first loose tea sampler. I don’t get the whole water temperature and steep time thing yet, nor that if I want to get a yixiang tea pot, I’d need one for each type of tea. I have this infuser ball thing, but I haven’t used it yet.

Don’t cringe, but right now I’m still just boiling water and pouring it over a teabag, adding some sugar, and drinking a nice, hot cuppa. I’d like to learn more, I think, and I’d like to train my palate. I figure participating in this community is the best way to do that.

So ya. Hi!

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