What-Cha

Being forced to be in the family room to do my computer work is really sapping my inspiration, you would think a bright room with lots of windows would make me happy, but nope. Not sure why but I have never liked this room and I avoid it at all costs, soon, my power cord will be here. Sadly that is all the intro I can muster today, so on to tea!

So, it is Wednesday, meaning that my journey to try all of What-Cha’s teas continues! Today we are looking at Nepal 2nd Flush 2014 Silver Needle White Tea, a fuzzy tea after my own heart. What can I say, I love fuzzy teas, be they gold or silver! This particular tea comes from the high mountains of Nepal, specifically the pesticide free Greenland Organic Farm, this is one of several teas I have had from this farm, and I can say from the past teas that they all have a distinct mountain air taste and feel to them. I am completely ok with admitting that might be a ‘mind over matter’ thing, knowing the teas come from such a mountainous place. Like a little bit of the spirit of the place has entered the leaf and come along for me to enjoy, a mini vacation in a cup. The leaves have a subtle sweet and green aroma, blending a bit of fresh hay and sweet corn with distinct herbaceous notes of sage and lettuce. It is dominated by the more herbaceous note and finished with a tiny note of tomato leaf. The aroma reminds me a bit of a blend of the more traditional Chinese silver needle and Kenyan silver needle, which is pretty neat.

Whoa! After a steeping in my gaiwan, the aroma of the leaves did a massive transition to sweetness. The aroma is a blend of sweet grass, fresh hay, apricot, a tiny touch of sesame nuttiness, and a finish that is some intense mouthwatering honeysuckle. The liquid also pretty sweet with dominating notes of honey and apricot, with a backup band of hay and sweet sesame paste.

Ah, I love the first steep of silver needles, and fuzzy teas in general, they always tickle my mouth ever so gently and it makes me giggle. Trichome power! Fuzziness aside, the taste is a pretty neat blend of sweet and leafy, there are notes of honeysuckle and sweetcorn along with sage and lettuce. The finish is a distinct juicy apricot that lingers for while between sips.

Second steeping time! The aroma of this steeping is sweet and fruity with notes of honeysuckle and apricots and a pleasantly refreshing sage finish. The taste starts off with cooling and slightly dry notes of sage and lettuce which transitions pretty cleanly into sweet corn and sesame seeds. I say transitions cleanly because really the transition is crazy smooth, none of this early 2000s era Power Point checkerboard transitions, this is straight up sideswipe…ok, that got a little weird, but hopefully you can see my point. The finish of the second steep takes the same path as the first steep and finishes with sweet and juicy apricot. I said at the beginning of my rambling that this tea is like a blending of Chinese and Kenyan silver needle, and after tasting it I certainly stand by that, it blends the notes from both teas in a really tasty way, I like!

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-cha-nepal-2nd-flush-2014-silver.html

Good evening! Trying another one from my What-Cha order tonight. I’m glad that I ordered such a variety of tea types, since that means I can keep trying new teas even when it’s too late to drink high-caffeine varieties. I’ve really enjoyed the lightly and moderately roasted rolled oolongs I’ve tried so far, and this one is reasonably priced so I added it to my order. The pellets are somewhere between green and brown in color, with a warmish hue. The dry scent reminds me of autumn leaves and nuts with a sweet edge. I followed the package instructions and steeped this at 185 degrees even though I usually go up to 200 for roasted oolongs.

Yum, this is a tasty one! Definitely one of the best roasted oolongs I’ve had thus far. The roasted nut notes are strong, and I would describe it as pecan. There’s also a nice caramel flavor mixed with sweet and slightly floral honey. Just a little bit of autumn leaf flavor that can sometimes dominate this type of tea. I can also taste a bit of that “ripe fruits” from the description, and I would describe it as plum or fresh grapes. Overall, it’s very tasty! Love those honey notes.

I have pretty much avoided Assams. Back in my early teabag days, Assam is the type tea I held most responsible for stomach burn. Besides, it tasted like, well, tea. So it was a real pleasure trying this one. The malty fruity aroma is definitely sniff worthy. The sip is likewise malt with hints of fruitiness. Mostly what impressed me was how smooth this was to drink. I steeped for two minutes and there was no bitterness. There is a bit of dryness but I’m ok with that. Grocery store assam almost ruined this type tea for me. I know better leaf means better tea. This is a prime example. If you have been avoiding Assam, this is a good one to rethink that move.

I’ve been having mixed feelings about Darjeelings lately. I’ve been sampling a lot of them, and some I really like, and some are more of a miss, but I’ve been finding a common thread amongst them has been a kind of ashy, char, mineral note, which I’ve not been wild about.

This one fortunately is a bit different. There’s still a distinctive Darjeelingness to it, but it’s primarily got a lovely, sweet muscatel flavour, with just a hint of minerality. I catch a wisp of citrus on the finish, but it’s incredibly subtle and brief.

All in all a very tasty Darjeeling. Interesting, that Darjeeling oolongs and blacks seem undifferentiated to me. Though perhaps, given the less than complete oxidation of Darjeeling blacks, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Woo, I’m so glad to keep finding more Chinese black teas in my untried box. I’m not sure how I kept missing this one, but I’m super pleased to have it today.

Opening the packet, the dry leaf smell immediately evokes chocolate and salted caramel. I’m not exactly sure why the salted part, but that was my impression. The leaves are small, dark and twisty.

Steeped 1tsp for 2:45 in 95C water. The smell is very potent – my one cup scents the air. Still a bit of caramel and chocolate, but now there’s a lot of frutiness in the forefront. Rich fruits, like dates and prunes. Hint of smoke, but not a lot.

The flavour matches the smell – prunes, dates, chocolate, caramel, touch of smoke. This cup has good body and a very mild astringency.

So very tasty.

Woo, I got my What-Cha order! I forgot how many samples I ordered, and taking them out of the box made me feel a bit like Mary Poppins because they just kept coming. There was a little village of pouches on my coffee table by the time I was done unpacking. Thanks to Alistair for including two bonus samples and a lovely handwritten note! I admit, I ordered two Vietnamese teas mostly because the names were so epic! Seriously though, Wild Boar and Red Buffalo? Too awesome. The leaves of this tea are large and twisty, and there are a few golden tips included. Dry scent is malty and sweet but also savory in a way that I can’t describe.

The steeped cup smells rich and malty. Hmm, this is a simple but yummy tea. Definitely quite malty, and the texture is very thick and rich. I can definitely see a comparison to unsweetened dark baking chocolate or very dark cocoa powder. I have a hard time tasting chocolate when there’s no sweetness, but since I already read the description and know it’s supposed to be there, I can taste it. There’s perhaps a tiny bit of dried fruit flavor? Overall, it’s a strong tea with Assam-like intensity but without bitterness. Perhaps the tiniest touch of astringency?

Mmm the smell of the dry leaf is quite heady – full of malt and almost boozy. The leaves are black and gold, small, twisty and dusted with orange dust.

Steeped, this smells delicious – lots of sweet potato. The flavour is more interesting than I was anticipating. Sweet potato, malt, sweetness and a hint of smoke that melds with the sweetness to create a rich fruity taste, reminiscent of dates and very ripe plums.

The mouth feel is quite smooth, only the faintest drying sensation that appears about half way through the cup. Medium heavy body.

Sipping this one fairly cool too.

God, I love Chinese black teas. So so good.

The leaves of this tea are huge and fluffy. Two leaves and a bud, not twisted or rolled to make them more compact. The leaves are a mixture of medium brown and green colours, and smell faintly malty.

The directions say to use 3-4 teaspoons per cup, but good luck measuring this tea with a teaspoon. I pulled 3g of tea out of the bag with my fingers, and put it into a 1oz tea cup for weighing. There was a little mountain of tea in that cup, and the leaves were poking up from the top of my medium Finum brew basket.

Steeped the liquor is golden and clear. It smells faintly boozey, like a white wine, but very delicate, with a touch of malt and apricot.

I initially steeped for three minutes but ended up going for four and a half. Hot, there’s not much flavour. It gets better as it cools, with a slight fruity note and a “tea” flavour, all very mild.

All in all, I’m left really wanting more from this. I think perhaps a longer steep is in order – a blog review recommends 7-8 minutes, which I will try next time, since I bought 25g of this.

It’s awesome to be able to try teas from new regions, but this one was a bit of a disappointment.

Backlog:

I really loved the various teas that I tried from What-cha. This is a top-notch company, and if you’re looking for good pure teas (and who isn’t?) you should really check them out.

To get my full thoughts on this tea, please check out my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/10/29/assam-2nd-flush-2014-silver-needle-white-tea-from-what-cha-tea/

Sweet, delicate (but not as delicate as a Chinese silver needle), with distinct hay-like notes. Notes of malt! Calming to sip. No astringency. Gentle notes of fruit and flower. I would add this to the “must try” list from What-cha.

Not bad – muscatel, minerals, a touch of floral, maybe slightly peppery? With that distinctive Darjeeling note that I sometimes associate with char and sometimes with minerals.

Not as grapey as many Darjeelings I’ve sampled.

I feel like none of these What-Cha teas are what I’m used to. I don’t really expect them to be how they are. Don’t take that in a bad way, for the oolongs it was a bit disappointing. But for these black teas, It’s kinda a pleasant surprise.
I’m expecting them to be more like the black teas I’ve had before, but they’ve proven themselves to be different. My What-Cha order is beginning to be quite the experience. xD
I think i was expecting this to be more like honey and that’s about it, but I was wrong. The stronger flavor of the two I tasted was malt, and the weaker one, honey. But not the kind of really sweet honey that would almost give you a sweet potato flavor. It’s the kind of honey that is just sweet enough to not make it all just thick and malty. If that makes sense xD
I really enjoy this one. This was the last tea I bought 50g of. And again, definitely not a waste of money! :D

Okay I like this a lot. Today’s cup was super juicy and cooling – lettuce, cucumber, hay, and spices. Very similar to a Darjeeling white tea.

Well, I totally screwed up my first cup of this. I made a travel mug to go, for running errands – oolongs are usually a good choice for me for travel mugs. Well, first issue is that either my mug or steeping basket wasn’t properly rinsed. Steeping, the dominant note was soap. Uh oh. I was hoping that maybe it would still be drinkable, so I stuck the lid on and ran out the door. On my first sip I was greeted with the over powering smell of chocolate and coconut from the last tea I had in that travel mug. And then to top it all off, I put on chapstick, so all I could taste was chapstick, chocolate, coconut and dish soap. Bleh.

Tried resteeping the leaves when I got home, but the cup was still a touch soapy and bitter. Down the drain it went.

So let’s try this again. Fresh leaf, clean mug, well rinsed steeping basket. 1 heaping tsp, 80C, for around 3 minutes.

Muuuuch better. Very interesting. Hay, floral, mineral, a touch of citrus. If I’d had to guess, I would have pegged this as a white tea, not an oolong. The liquor has a hay, lettuce fragrance.

I like it, but I’m going to withhold rating it till I’ve had a chance to have another cup.

This is another tea that surprised me! But in a good way finally! XD
I picked up 50g of this tea in my first What-Cha order because I was sure I’d like it! Well I was finally right for once. xD
So the steeping aroma smelled pretty malty, which is always exciting!
When I began to drink, chocolate and cocoa notes emerged from the tea. And better yet, there was a soft undertone of sweet potatoes. All four amazing flavors in one!
I was honestly not expecting it to be that complex. I really enjoyed the layers of this tea. I really didn’t expect it at all.
It’s not very sweet, probably due to the chocolate, cocoa, and malt notes combined. But it still is quite nice. Really happy to have gotten 50g of this-definitely worth the money! :D

So, I’m kinda disappointed in this oolong. I have tried a couple other “jade oolongs”, and most of them had a light floral taste and other light notes that I don’t remember. xD But nothing super strong.
I went into this one thinking that it would be like the others, but that was a mistake.
The dry leaves and steeping aroma smelled slightly of floral, which I had expected. But then when I went to take a sip all I tasted was butter. D: Like a lot of butter, not even mixed with anything else. It wasn’t as thick as some buttery teas are, but it was just enough for me not to want to finish the cup.
Ah buttery tasting teas are killing me lately xD This one was rather deceitful though, if you ask me. :P Not even a touch of floral in the taste.
So yeah, all that to say, I’m pretty disappointed with this one. Hoping that the black teas I ordered will make up for the oolongs that weren’t super amazing. I have a good feeling that they will though!

Man, did I need caffeine this morning. So of course that means road blocks at every turn. The biggest hurdle was getting the CTC from yesterday out of my teapot. That won’t happen again.

So this smells malty, dry. It smells malty, and a little baked brownies, steeped. It tastes lightly malt and unsweetened chocolate. There is a much desired, by me this morning, briskness to it that starts at the front, early in the sip, and expands around to the sides. It drifts into a sharp finish. Along the way I sense a fruity taste like the Muscat of the Darjeeling I had a couple days ago.

Not a one note tea by any means but not super complex either. Perfect for my first couple cups of the morning.

Backlog:

This was the first tea I got in my What-Cha order! :D I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a plain Four Seasons tea before. I have only tried an aged one and one mixed with another oolong. So those don’t really count.
I’ve really wanted to try one though, so thought I’d pick up a sample of it!
Not as good as I hoped it would be. At first I only tasted butter. Wasn’t overly strong, which was good. And it not being overly strong made me keep drinking the first mug of it. About half way through the mug I started getting floral notes. By the end of the cup there was a nice balance of both butter and floral. Wish there were more floral notes in this, but I’m glad that I didn’t give up after two sips. I think that I will enjoy the rest of my sample when I don’t want a super strong floral oolong. But I wouldn’t buy it again. Happy to have tried though! (:

Being the only person in the house with a restricted diet is a nightmare! When I was visiting my mom, I forgot how hard it can be, she is not Gluten Free and plagued by multiple food allergies per se, but she feels better avoiding certain foods, so it was not constantly in my face. Since I have returned home I am bombarded with baking bread, loaves everywhere, massive pasta dishes, pies, cakes…it is not very fun leaving my bedroom. Luckily my mom gave me an awesome simmering potpourri, one which I am using to make my room smell like pine trees, anything to keep the bread away!

First off, my computer ate the usual first photo of the dry leaves for today’s tea, What-Cha’s Nepal 2nd Flush 2014 Dew Drops Green Tea, so I must substitute it with something random. These adorable little tea balls resemble Gunpowder Green in their shape in size, hailing from Nepal’s Greenland Organic Farms in the shadow of the Himalayan Mountains. The aroma is a bit sweet, a blend of toasted sesame and freshly cut grass, a bit of distant floral and a touch of mineral at the finish. The tight little balls did not give up their scent easily, it required much sniffing, but the aroma that did come off of them was light and clean.

Brewing the little dew drops of tea brings out more of the aroma hiding away when they were dry, it is a blend of light floral nectar, nutty undertones, and a nice spinach greenness that overshadows all the other notes. It is the aroma of fresh spinach leaves rather than cooked spinach, reminding me a bit of a salad. The liquid is a blend of honey sweetness and green notes from spinach and greenbeans. There is a touch of a sesame note at the finish that adds some nice nutty notes, again the aroma is clean and light.

The taste of the first steep is so green! Like a mouthful of fresh spinach with a distant hint of floral and a touch of citrus. It is neat, there is a peppery and almost salty quality that blends really well with the citrus and spinach, like a mouthful of fresh salad. Just like the aroma, the taste is refreshing and clean!

The aroma of the second steeping is a neat little blend of floral sweetness and savory green notes. With notes of spinach (cooked this time) wildflower nectar and a general vegetal greenness. The taste is mostly green, with a buttery taste and mouthfeel, it tastes like greenbeans and spinach sauteed and butter with a hint of pepper. At the end there is a bit of grass and mineral,

For the last steep, the aroma is a nice blend of savory in sweet, but this time it is more floral and honey than vegetal. This time around there is no saltiness, buttery notes, or really any savory notes, it is all sweet and fresh. Like wildflower honey, flowers, toasted sesame, and a touch of fresh spinach at the finish. Overall this was a refreshing green tea, I liked the blend of sweet and savory, they did not clash.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-cha-nepal-2nd-flush-2014-dew-drops.html

Kind of light for a tea this early in my day, maybe 3 minutes with 7g wasn’t enough? I definitely taste the honey notes, but the woody notes taste more like a ricola original cough drop, MINUS the menthol, to me. I can see this being a good “sore throat” tea.

When I opened the sample it was like spring bouquet with cinnamon and clove or maybe cardamom added. I tend to like green oolongs far more than the roasted ones. This is nicely green. The steeped leaf is even more fragrant. What is interesting to me is the first thing I notice when tasting is this is creamy. With the next sip I start thinking creamed corn. Then I notice the floral notes that usually get described as orchid. The aftertaste is leafy, vegetal, and makes me think geraniums. That is my go to descriptor for that green oolong aftertaste. The aftertaste does not drift into latex as with some overpowered teas. I was not disappointed in the taste. For me if it were more floral it would be too much. For me this is the perfect levels of floral and green.

It reminds me very heavily of Haagen-Dazs’ green tea ice cream. In fact, it reminds me of having the same flavor of most MATCHA based drinks and baked goods. It is, however considerably sweeter than matcha, and that must be taken into account. A VERY short steep time is vest for this tea, I have found, with very mildly hotter water than is shown on the package.

Yet again, another stellar tea from what-cha.

This tea did not knock my socks off the way most of What-Cha’s teas have done. That is not to say it is not a good tea. It certainly is, but in a comfortable way. To me this is a very solid everyday darjeeling. Dry it has a Cheerios and malt aroma. Brewed the scent is fruity and lightly malt. The taste is similar. Very smooth and easy to drink. There is no bitterness or astringency that I notice. Late in the sip it picks up a spicy bite that really makes the cup come alive. I felt no need for additives as this leans a little sweet. This tea stood up very well to a sandwich. Certainly a nice tea on its own, that goes great with food, and the price is right to make this a good everyday tea choice.