Kiani Tea

Sipdown (2383)!

I feel a little bad that I’m only just now getting to this sample since Kiani sent it out as a replacement for their advent calendar (two years ago???) back when we all opened this day and felt like it didn’t taste smoked at all. They had confirmed it was the wrong tea packaged for the day…

Anyway, I made it as a mug today and I really enjoyed the intense bold body of the black tea. It still didn’t feel like it was all that smoky for what is intended to be a smoked lapsang, but credit where credit is due that it was definitely noticeably more smoky than the tea I had previously tasted under this name. Quite sweet – like, surprisingly so. It reminded me a little bit of the Lapsang Souchong that Camellia Sinensis carries that has such a beautiful note of anise/licorice. Not for everyone, maybe, but I love it. Also a slightly jammy red fruit undertone to this tea.

25th and final day of the Kiani advent calendar. It’s labeled “glamorous earl grey” but I’m pretty sure it’s the same as this one. This tea is suitably festive because it’s glittery and I won’t pretend to mind. I’m a sucker for the entrancing, shining, sparkling swirls that glitter teas make in my mug. Definitely a trend I’m not sick of yet. Otherwise, though, this seems like a pretty standard earl grey. Which is… fine? Earl grey just isn’t my favorite kind of tea, so I don’t really feel that I can speak to a specific blend’s relative merits with a whole lot of nuance. The bergamot here is definitely strong but not overwhelming or alcoholic. For a blend that I’m not super fond of, I did manage to finish the mug and even finish off a second steeping, though that was in significant part because I was more interested in the sparklies. Still, if the tea itself had been appallingly bad, I wouldn’t have been able to drink it no matter how pretty, so there is that to commend it.

I’m glad I tried this advent calendar, but I probably won’t do it again. The teaware was fun but I have that now! I never even opened or used the matcha scoop because I already have one and I rarely drink matcha that fancy (if anyone wants it, it’s yours free, just let me know). A pretty significant disadvantage of this advent is that it only provides enough leaf each day for exactly one serving, so it’s hard to experiment with optimal brewing methods and preparations.  While many of the teas were tasty, some would have benefited from gong fu brewing vs mug steeping, or vice versa, and I just wasn’t able to test that out. I was most intrigued by the Iranian teas, so if I order from Kiani again in the future it will probably be to just get more Iranian tea rather than an advent.

It also took me almost a year to finish the nine advent calendars I got in 2022! That’s too many! This year I only got three that I’ll be opening in December, so hopefully that will be much more manageable. 

Circling back to Day 1 of the Kiani advent calendar so I can finish it off. My partner drank most of this because black tea often doesn’t agree with me, but I tried a little so I could write it up. It was surprisingly smooth for an English Breakfast! A bit dry, sure, but more bready, sweet, and comforting than aggressive like I tend to expect from breakfast teas. Plus, glitter! Totally unnecessary but always fun.

Day 24 of the Kiani advent calendar. I accidentally oversteeped, so added just a bit of water to cut it. I like this one! It’s malty with a touch of sweetness – cocoa? honey? both? Very pleasant cuppa.

Day 23 of the Kiani advent calendar. For some reason, based on just the name I assumed this would be a straight mint tea. Which, there already was a straight peppermint earlier in the calendar, and I would have remembered that sooner if I hadn’t taken almost a year to finish this! Once I opened up the packet, I realized that it’s a mix of peppermint and cacao shells. I had no idea that After Eights are a specific thing – apparently a British mint chocolate candy. So I can’t judge how close this blend is to the flavor of the candy it’s named for! I am enjoying the pepperminty-ness of it, though I wish the cacao shells had a more potent taste. It’s not just a matter of age; I went back and looked at my note for the straight shells 11 months ago and found those weak too. 

Day 22 of the Kiani advent calendar. Hoping I can finish this by the end of the week.

I had to steep this gong fu because all my Western-style steepers were in the wash and I didn’t have the energy to hand-wash them. The dry leaf smells like prunes and very jammy, with maybe a hint of chocolate. Steeped up, it tastes of prune and jam. It’s tannic, astringent, and dry on the palate. This isn’t a flavor profile I typically reach for, but it’s interesting and it works well on a cool, overcast day. By steep 3, it’s still a bit dry but the astringency starts wearing off while a woody note comes peeking out. Didn’t count exactly how many steeps I got, probably around five?

Still chipping away at the last bits of my advent calendars! This is Day 20 of the Kiani advent calendar. I made it in a ceramic gong fu teapot and got 4? 5? steeps out of it. At a certain point I stopped counting.

The prominent notes were definitely malt and cocoa, especially in the early steeps. It was a very smooth sip, with no astringency except for a smidgen in the second steep. A strong cinnamon note joined the party starting in the third steep, which was a pleasant appearance. Overall, this was just an enjoyable Saturday afternoon tea.

I thought my smell/taste was sufficiently recovered to circle back to unflavored teas, but maybe not? I’ve been enjoying the occasional favorite oolong and plenty of flavored teas, so it seemed like today was a good day to chip away at the Kiani advent calendar. Day 19 was a bamboo matcha scoop. Day 20 was hiding when I was looking through the box so I thought I had already drunk it and went right to Day 21, which is this tea. I’ll have to circle back to Day 20!

The dry leaf smelled like fresh cucumber and honeydew. Once I brewed it up Western style, though, I couldn’t smell or taste much of anything except to note that it had a medium mouthfeel and a slight dryness to it. Maybe it was because there were only 3 grams of leaf in the pouch and I used too much water (though I specifically didn’t fill my mug all the way because of that). Maybe it’s because this advent calendar is now 7 months old and the leaf is starting to show its age (though I have green teas that are even older and typically still have some kind of flavor). Or maybe, even though I’m mostly recovered, I haven’t gotten back the full sensitivity that I had before. Alas.

Day 18 of the Kiani advent calendar. I brewed this up in one of my little ceramic gong fu teapots. I find it interesting that the flavor changed quite a bit between the first and second steeps. The first steep was naturally sweet, with vegetal and sweet pea notes. The second steep still had some of that sweetness, but a strong smokiness came out. Not lapsang souchong strong, but strong for a green tea. That smokiness continues for another couple of steeps before the leaf starts to lose flavor. I really liked this one! 

ETA after seeing last year’s tasting notes: duh, of course this is a gunpowder green, I don’t know why I didn’t place it while drinking it except that I don’t have them very often!

Day 17 of the Kiani advent calendar. It’s not a big deal, but I find it mildly annoying to call things that aren’t matcha, matcha. It’s fine to just call it dragonfruit powder, white tea powder, and pigeon wing/butterfly pea flower powder! That would be simultaneously more accurate and less confusing. But by this point in the calendar I know to look things up on the website for more detailed information and instructions (which, to be fair, I would have had to do with the DavidsTea calendar too except that those were all herbal blends and I gave them all more or less the same treatment).

I mixed this up as an iced oat milk latte. Flavor-wise, I find this a weird choice for a powder, in part because I find it a weird choice for a straight tisane. The website explains the ayurvedic health benefits, which is all well and good, but not generally why I drink tea. It’s earthy but also mild. The creaminess of the oat milk at least adds some heft and substance to the cup, but I wonder whether it’s not also drowning some of the flavor. Which is maybe not a bad thing.

Day 14 of the Kiani advent calendar. I steeped this up gong fu style and got three steeps. The flavor was enjoyable, but not what I normally expect from a phoenix honey oolong. The first steep had a slightly drying, almond-like bitterness and wasn’t as sweet as I was expecting. The second steep had a strong note of stone fruit with the pit, or maybe red grapes (don’t ask me why those are next to each other in my mental index). For the third steep, I tried a shorter steep to see what would happen. I was finally able to place a note that had been having trouble identifying – a mineral sort of note reminiscent of rock oolongs. The short steep did bring out more sweetness, though I’m still not sure I’d call it honey-like. I don’t know why I couldn’t coax the right/expected flavors out of this tea, alas.

Day 15 is really cool – it’s a wooden cup! I have a fairly large teaware collection, but I didn’t even know that wooden teaware was a thing! So I loved learning about the existence of a new type of thing I didn’t know about, and I really like this particular cup. It just fits in my hand perfectly and is very well-balanced, so it’s super fun to play/fidget with. Since it requires special care, I have not used it yet, but am looking forward to testing it out!

Day 13 of the Kiani advent calendar. I steeped this one nice and long to get as much flavor from the cocoa shells as possible. I even used a small mug, so the leaf-to-water ratio would be better than it was when I made the shells for Day 2. This came out tasting chocolate-y, with a hint of orange, but somehow still not as robustly flavorful as other cocoa shells I’ve had in the past. Halfway through the mug I added some oat milk in hopes of getting a chocolate orange latte situation going, but it didn’t really work – the creaminess of the oat milk drowned out a lot of the chocolate. If I had this again, I’d definitely keep the long steep, but use even more leaf/less water. One of the disadvantages of this advent calendar is that it only provides enough leaf for exactly one serving, so it’s hard to experiment with optimal brewing methods and preparations.

Day 12 of the Kiani advent calendar. uh… I was not expecting this to be glittery? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed watching the glitter swirl, I just wasn’t expecting a straight tea to be coated in glitter. I’m generally not a fan of smoky lapsang, but I powered through for the sake of completeness. My first thought upon sniffing the dry leaf was that it smelled like BBQ Bissli, which has long been one of my favorite chip-type snacks. So I brewed it up, watched mesmerized as the glitter swirled, and took a sip. And it was… smoky. Sort of a medium smokiness, but more than my personal preference. But then I ordered spicy Chinese food and paired the smoky tea with the spicy food (cumin layered tofu & onions). Perfect pairing. The smokiness and the spice were just a beautiful combo, each taking a bit of the edge off the other. I even made a second steep to go with the rest of my meal, something I’ve never done before with a lapsang. Not a tea I’d keep in stock but one I did unexpectedly enjoy!

I’ll note that this is from the 2022 advent calendar. Folks who had it in the 2021 advent calendar apparently found it totally un-smoky! So my guess is that one of three things is going on: something about the processing of the tea changed from year to year, the source changed, or my palate is more sensitive to smokiness than other people’s because I don’t often drink LS. But I don’t know which of those things it is!

Day 11 of the Kiani advent calendar. The instructions say to mix with heated milk, but after how things went with the dragonfruit matcha, I decided to use water instead for fear that the milk would overpower the flavor of the tea. Although the tea is described as floral, I’m getting more of a hay flavor with some sweetness. As it cools, the floral comes out a little bit, reminiscent of chrysanthemum flowers. I’ve never had a powdered white tea before, so I don’t really have a metric against which to measure this except loose leaf white tea. On that scale, it’s neither the best nor the worst white tea I’ve ever had. But I’m also not sure that it’s the right frame of comparison…

ETA: This is my 900th tasting note!

Day 9 of the Kiani advent calendar. I brewed this up gong fu style in a pretty floral ceramic gaiwan I’ve been wanting to test drive. I didn’t count the number of steeps but it was somewhere in the 5-10 range. Somehow it was never as strong as I wanted it to be, even when I used less water and longer steep times later on. Mostly I got a malty, bready flavor at the front of the sip and a lingering cinnamon note. Earlier steeps had a caramel sweetness that mostly faded away in later steeps (though I got some honey in the final steep, which I made using very little water and brewing for 5 minutes). This is another one of those times where I just wish I had a little more leaf to really get to know the tea and decide how I feel about it – I suspect it’s a pretty tasty brew if you can get the parameters right and get it not feeling quite so thin.

Day 10 is a black Kiani tea canister. It’s not airtight so I wouldn’t actually use it to store my loose teas, but I deconstructed it and put it to use. The lid is made of wood, very cute, and about the right size, so I repurposed it as a coaster. The container itself is now holding some little tea samples.

Day 8 of the Kiani advent calendar. I was so confused by the neon pink color of this! The name made me think that this is a dragonfruit-flavored powdered green tea, and a bright pink green tea is kinda shocking. But no! This is powdered dragonfruit! There was only enough to make one cup, and I kind of regret that I made it according to package instructions, which say to mix with heated milk of choice. All I could taste was hot oat milk and a little tartness. This might have been more successful, flavor-wise, as a cold drink. On the up side, because it’s not powdered green tea, it didn’t count towards my caffeine budget for the day. I wouldn’t mind trying powdered dragonfruit again at some point in the future and playing around with the parameters to see what it actually tastes like.

Day 7 of the Kiani advent calendar. I wasn’t expecting these to be whole leaves – I know some places sell peppermint that way but I can’t remember the last time I bought loose leaf peppermint that wasn’t cut up into bits, even from nicer companies. So I was really excited when I saw the whole leaves and smelled that nice peppermint scent coming off them. Brewed up, the aroma and flavor is a sweet peppermint that’s slightly medicinal, but not in a bad way. I see “menthol” tagged as a flavor note on this page and I think that’s right, and the thing I’m connecting in my mind with “medicinal”. This is easily one of the finer peppermint teas I’ve had. I was careful not to oversteep because I’m hoping to get a second mug out of it and add some honey to that. Great for a rainy, exhausted night.

This is Day 4 of the 2022 Kiani advent calendar; looks like it was in last year’s calendar too. This tea makes me feel like Goldilocks (putting aside the incredible weirdness of that story – Goldy is awfully picky for a burglar and poor Baby is probably still in therapy). The first steep was too confusingly smoky; the second steep lost its creaminess; but the third steep was jusssst right.

I followed packet instructions for the first steep and brewed this up at 70c/158f, Western style based on the suggested steep type. The packet says 3 minutes, though. and I accidentally overbrewed by about 40 seconds. I suspect this accounts for some of what happened with the flavor in this steep. The brewed leaf smelled buttery and very green, so I was completely unprepared when I took my first sip and found an unexpected flavor that I couldn’t quite place. Almost smoky, but not as smoky as a smoked lapsang. Reminiscent of wintermelon without the sweetness. Before I knew it, I was more than halfway through the cup and still hadn’t placed the flavor. I even pulled out my ITMA Tea Aroma Wheel, but that didn’t help either! By the end of the cup, the best I could conclude was that it was creamy and gently smoky, but the smokiness was such an ongoing surprise to the system that I had trouble picking out the underlying vegetal notes.

For the second steep, I watched the clock a little more carefully and brewed at 160f for 3 minutes 30 seconds. It wasn’t as smoky, having more of a mineral note instead. It was also less creamy than the first steep. This allowed the green notes to shine through more and I was finally able to place them – green beans! But I missed the creaminess!

Enter steep 3. I opted for a longer steep at the same low temp – a little over 6 min at 160f. This steep finally brought out the right balance of flavors from this tea. The smokiness was faint at first and dissipated entirely as it cooled, replaced by a gentle sweetness. Against that backdrop, I was able to truly enjoy and savor the butter, green beans, and slightly mineral notes of this steep. Like the others, it had zero astringency but was slightly dry at the end of the sip in a way that just let you know it was time for the next one – sort of the function famously performed by pretzels at a bar.

Once I got the balance right, this was a really tasty tea. It’s just a little finicky.

Day 3 of the Kiani advent calendar! I brewed this up in a cute little blue and white gong fu teapot. It’s sweet, slightly floral, and just a touch savory. I’m getting a strong note of freshly sliced Persian cucumber. Really, the more I drink it, the more I get spa water vibes. Further steeps bring out the same flavors, light and savory all at once, with that persistent cucumber note. It’s absolutely delightful.

My Kiani advent calendar arrived last weekend and I’ve slowly been getting caught up! It’s so pretty! Each day’s packet comes with a beautiful quote tucked inside. I’ve put aside Day 1 because it’s an English Breakfast blend and my partner likes those while I don’t, so I’m starting my notes with Day 2.

Day 2 is this cacao tea, which smells wonderful. I think I used too much water in brewing it, though – if I were going to do it again, I’d use a higher leaf-to-water ratio. It came out tasting delicious but just a little more watery than I’d ideally like. Basically like watery hot cocoa, which admittedly is what cacao tisanes always taste like, but I got the distinct impression that there was more flavor to be coaxed from these beautiful shells by playing around with them more.

2 month backlog: I got a whopping 50 grams because I wanted higher end silver needle. I should add the tea to the database, but I want to write a quicky note. Don’t worry, I’m not writing a book or a novelette.

I like it. Jasmine and the cucumber, stone fruit, and light tea base are really well balanced, the needles are super furry. It makes a decent western or tumbler style tea, but best gong fu so far. You really have to abuse it for bitterness. Oddly enough, it became more bitter with sugar after a western steep for my mom, so there’s more to explore. I am a tea purist, but I’ve rarely had that happen.

A part of me wishes I got a little bit less of it, but I won’t have a problem sharing it and drinking it down this spring.

….
Back to the present, jasmine, nectarine, and cucumbers are heavy in flavor, especially stonefruit finish. Digging it, but I have to be soooo careful. It is forgiving, but not as forgiving as I used to think. I do like it a lot, but for some reason, I’m not in love with it.

Sipdown (1640)!

Something different for #matchamonday today! Even though this matcha wasn’t super frothy post whisking, it still had a very silky and smooth mouthfeel with a strong aromatic rosey flavour! Let me go on record and say that while I am fickle towards floral teas in general, I am a MASSIVE fan of rose flavoured, scented and infused things so this explosion of thick, heady roses was completely up my alley! I would definitely advise people more on the fence about rose tea or floral tea in general to steer clear though, because this one doesn’t mess around!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ccx5prNuoaU/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5GsakksP7w&ab_channel=Case

Probably not the same tea since mine is the standard white one without glitter, but I got a whopping 50 grams because I wanted higher end silver needle. I should add the tea to the database, but I want to write a quicky note. Don’t worry, I’m not writing a book or a novelette.

I like it. Jasmine and the cucumber, stone fruit, and light tea base are really well balanced, the needles are super furry. It makes a decent western or tumbler style tea, but best gong fu so far. You really have to abuse it for bitterness. Oddly enough, it became more bitter with sugar after a western steep for my mom, so there’s more to explore. I am a tea purist, but I’ve rarely had that happen.

A part of me wishes I got a little bit less of it, but I won’t have a problem sharing it and drinking it down this spring.

Not quite sure what to rate it, but Gong Fu seems to work best. I get more dimension in the malt notes as it cools down and with each flash steep. Sometimes I get chocolate, sometimes I get rye, bread, yeast, and so on. Rich, dense, yet balanced and easy going. I easily see adding cream and sugar to it, but I it’s really more of a work recovery tea.