Shantou Tea

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Recent Tasting Notes

22
drank Ti-Kuan-yin Tea by Shantou Tea
477 tasting notes

Trying this again at home. The smell is stewed spinach, and really isn’t all that appetizing. The colour is much lighter, a sort of pale gold.

To reiterate, last time there was a horrible gas aftertaste (yes, GASOLINE). I think I smell it again, but it mixes well with that vegetable smell, so I can’t know for sure. I’m really rather afraid of trying this again. I think the smell is giving me a headache.

Hold on, give me a few moments. I can do this.

The taste isn’t anywhere near as strong, luckily. Tastes like vegetables.

I think… I don’t know. I THINK I can still taste something akin to the smell of gasoline when I breath out, but not much. Getting a weird taste on the tip of my tongue.

There’s somewhat of a baked, bread/yeast taste to it as well. Almost.

Still getting a headache, though.

It’s ALMOST enjoyable… I don’t know what to think. It’s a HEARTY tea. It doesn’t taste faintly of steamed vegetables, it’s like vegetables fresh from the pot, broccoli and asparagus and then with spinach. And I didn’t INTENTIONALLY make it strong, I made it with a good amount of water (in my huge beer mug, again).

Hrm.

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 2 min, 30 sec

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22
drank Ti-Kuan-yin Tea by Shantou Tea
477 tasting notes

Drank this on-campus, away from computers, but I carry a little notebook exactly for this reason.

The teabag had a sort of dusty, maybe… fishy? Smell, with that greenoolongblack smell. Wet, it smelt… spinagy green. As did the tea, a bit. In an ‘oversteeped green’ way, maybe. Steeped to a dark greybrown with a green layer over top. Smells fairly vegetably, green, though darker.

I almost didn’t want to drink it because it DID smell a bit… off on top of the very strong green smell. Took a sip when it was still quite hot and got a very green taste. I returned to work, and after a minute or so got this HORRIBLE gas after taste. What.

Let it cool, and tasted it again—this weird vegetable taste. Just sort of off. But also oolong in that it reminds me a bit of the oolong I got from Murchie’s. Just stronger. Gas aftertaste again. Disgusting. I don’t know if it’s the water I used (free water on-campus put in a mug then microwaved until it started boiling). Around this point I didn’t want to finish it.

Continued to sip it though, and the gas aftertaste lessened, and it reminded me more of the magnolia oolong. Just stronger, and the tea was darker. I steeped at the recommended three minutes on the package, but I think this would need a shorter steep time than that.

The strength and the weird aftertaste was enough to make me toss the cup (or rather, go outside and dump), and I did use more water from the campus (boiled in the microwave) to make other teas, and there was no gas aftertaste, so maybe it WAS the tea. It was cheap though (1.20). But I’ll try different steep times in the future or something. Yick until then, though.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec
Jillian

The few Ti Kwan Yins I’ve tried were sort of characterized by a sort of baked, spinachy-bready flavour – this just sounds icky!

AJ

There was definitely a spinachyness in there, but no bread/baked taste that I could tell. Maybe it was just cheaply processed (/located near an oil refinery?). Who knows. All I know is, it cost a buck, and I’ve still got nineteen teabags left.

Jillian

Garden compost, maybe? I suppose the saying that you get what you pay for might be true in this case. Still I’ve found a few gems in the foreign food sections of grocery stores. I got a 225g tin of an excellent jasmine green for only $4.

AJ

Lucky! I just wandered into my local asian market and was faced with a WALL of teas, most of which I couldn’t understand because they were only marked in characters.

There were a few with a bit of English, or the names written out in the Roman alphabet (like this one), or ones that were kind enough to show a picture of the tea on the front (a SEVERAL-pound bag of genmaicha, for example, which I wasn’t about to buy). I decided to go with something cheap(er) that I wouldn’t feel horrible about if I didn’t like it (although I suppose I could have always traded it).

Ahwell, I’ll probably fool around with it a few times (maybe microwaved water just brings out crazy flavours in it?).

Jillian

I’d advise not using boiling water since this type is one of the greener oolongs. Maybe start somewhere around 80-85ºC.

AJ

I should know by now not to listen to package brewing instructions. I’ll try that temperature next time.

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