Health&Tea

Philadelphia Coffee & Tea #13

After trying the GABA oolong, the vendor offered me a sample of the Four Seasons Oolong, to cleanse my palate, I think. This is a nice oolong, smooth and buttery with floral notes. It’s lighter than I tend to like my oolongs, however, and I either would have steeped it longer or used more leaves to see how that changed the flavor.

Always happy to try new oolongs!

Philadelphia Coffee & Tea Festival #12

Hooray! I finally got Steepster to add this tea. It kept giving me errors, and I eventually realized it was because their database didn’t like “Health & Tea” with spaces.

This was an interesting tea. I’d never heard of GABA before, and I was intrigued. I love oolong and am always up for new oolong experiences.

So I don’t know if this is true of GABA as a whole but the entire taste of the tea was just wrong. It did not taste like oolong, instead tasting more like black tea. It had the sour and bitter flavor notes I associate with black tea, and none of the buttery notes I love and adore in oolong. So disappointed.

Stephanie threw this into our swap as a bonus! Yay! Thanks, Stephanie! I’ve had a ruby black before and at the time it tasted like artichokes to me. The minute I got a whiff of this one, I definitely got that artichoke scent again, and unsurprisingly, it tastes like artichokes too! So weird, but kinda good, actually. ;) This tea also had nice malty notes and I think a fruity note as well. Very enjoyable, especially if you like artichokes! Ha!

I first tried this tea at a friend house and it was a wonderful surprise. Usually I don’t look forward to drinking black tea but this tea is changing my perception. It is really smooth with honey tones and incredibly captivating aromas. I had to smell the tea before each sip. This tea is simply delicious.

I drank this a couple days ago, many thanks to boychik—I love that she thought to send me this given my fondness for Golden Moon’s Honey Orchid Black and honey dancongs in general. And yep, this had those delicate, lovely qualities I so enjoy in them! It was pretty late at night, alas—but I have enough for at least one more go so hopefully I will write a better note. So much tea, not enough words!

Backlog from yesterday!

I spent most of the day yesterday outdoors, cleaning out the garden beds and prepping for spring planting in a few weeks. Then in the evening it was Walking Dead and Cosmos time! I drank teas but didn’t take the time to log any.

Thanks to boychik for this sample!

Ruby blacks sure have a unique taste among black teas. My only other experience with them was from Mantra tea. This one is a little richer and more malty, with slightly less of a bright fruity taste. Very enjoyable.

Due to bad head math I screwed up my normal tasting proportions, but hey, here ya go:

This is green-yellow in first hot taste. I absolutely cannot think of what food it is that it tastes like, but there is a specific one it hits pretty much exactly. I’m sipping and trying to find it in my memory. The green tones are almost a light asparagus flavor but asparagus isn’t the full thing… those yellow and somewhat golden tones round it out to something else that I just can’t name! Total brain dump.

As it cools it gets to be a darker green with a gentle, gentle bitter to the back of the tongue where it meets the throat.

The finish is sort of flat and rests mostly like a layer over the tongue.

There are zero sweet tones to this tea, but it’s also not strongly vegetal. As said, the greens and yellow are a mix that I can’t place and the green isn’t dark.

I’d not buy this again, but I do think others may like it.