1682 Tasting Notes
From mrmopar <3 Hope you’re well!
This is a major backlog from nearly a year ago as I uncovered a trove of empty baggies sitting on top of an old tea journal on my bookshelf. Recollection is that I greatly enjoyed this sheng puerh.
Developed aroma of dried fruits, warm orchard, syrupy-bitter, horehound, menthol, mugwort, yeast roll. Lots of saponins evidenced by sudsy lid.
Taste- viscous and syrupy, disappeared quickly down throat and left tongue numb. Menthol- distinct in chest. Bitter. Tasted like a menthol cigarette in a good way. Difficult to keep mouth closed; it wanted to be open. Tastes and textures remained mostly unchanged through the steeps, only lightening in character.
Several steeps in I had to eat bread and butter. By the 6th steep, I had hit my saturation level and brewed the leaf out the following day. Overall, it reminded me of Hai Lang Hao Lincang Impression, I think due to its cooling, heavy and grounding character. This was a strong tea with surprising complexity. Definitely worthy of trying again.
Flavors: Alkaline, Bitter, Bread, Cooling, Dried Fruit, Heavy, Herbs, Menthol, Peach, Plum, Sweet, Syrupy, Tobacco, Viscous, Warm, Yeast
Preparation
Not my flavor profile as this tastes like cleaner, probably from the makrut (aka kaffir) lime oil. The citrusy-green intensity of the oil goes a long way, and combined with piney yuzu, to me, does not create a fluid taste when paired with the equally intense turmeric and ginger. Muddled tropical fruit taste — neither clearly mango nor pineapple, but a slight to moderate fruitiness overall. Rishi claims top notes of jasmine but there was so little jasmine green tea in the bag that I didn’t pick up on any florality.
Turmeric Mango did not interest me at all as a hot beverage. Cold-brewed overnight with a heavy hand was tolerable and a much quicker way to sip down. This tisane was a conceptual winner but due to its lopsided presentation, it is not something I would buy again. Points for freshness, though! Rishi does do very well with that facet of tisanes.
Flavors: Citrusy, Earthy, Fruity, Ginger, Lemongrass, Lime, Mango, Pine, Spicy, Tropical, Turmeric, Yuzu
Like the box says – bright, aromatic and lemony. Pretty mild herbaceous-rooty taste. Definitely needs 2 bags to a mug.
Yaaaaaaay, derk! I haven’t seen you in forever! I miss you!
Yes, it’s good to see you back on Steepster! :)
Hello, friends :) How are you? What’s the most memorable tea you’ve had lately?
Because of Leafhopper’s high praises, I splurged on several green teas from Seven Cups this year and have been making my way through those. The Meng Ding Mao Feng (Feather Peak) really stood out to me and I hope to review it soon enough. I’ll be roadtripping to Arizona in October for a wedding and would love to stop by Seven Cups’ physical shop in Tucson.
I have 2 kittens on my chest as I type this!
Been missing you!
Kittens??? More about kitties, please!
I’m doing okay. My most memorable teas this summer have been the Gu Zhu Zi Sun from Seven Cups and some green teas from The Sweetest Dew. I also bought two teas from Meng Ding, a green and a yellow, but I forget what they’re called. The Meng Ding Jin Jun Mei from Camellia Sinensis was also quite good. I’d spend way too much money if I ever ended up in the Seven Cups store!
Congratulations on your new kittens!
Kittens?! Picks or it didn’t happen. :-)
My mother was recently gifted by the Cat Distribution System, and said cat turned out to be a nursing mother (likely dumped in the forest near my mom’s yard for being preggars). She only brought around a single kitten (probably the only survivor of the litter) so my mom decided to take in both momma and son. They sure are stinkin’ cute.
My old lady has been prescribed liver meds and since I live alone and have no friends or family nearby, trying to medicate her by myself has proved an impossible task. Every day is a battle. Anyone out there want to come to Southern Idaho to hold a cat? Can pay in tea.
I am happy to see you here again! Sumibi Houjicha that you shared with me stands out of the teas I had recently. As I am working recently late and come home late, I prefer to drink caffeine-free teas or herbals and I have a plenty of Basilur fruit infusions with me and they are also great.
The taste of the main ingredient, pyrrosia leaf (a fern species), is very mild and lightly tannic-spicy. It is similar to rhododendron, Labrador tea, or uva ursi (all genus Rhododendron), however more leafy and not as red-barky tasting. Pyrrosia leaf also feels gentler in the body than any of those. This tea is a mild diuretic.
Finally, a Bigelow tea that performs. Fresh and very spicy ginger countered and smoothed by equally strong honey and grounded by red rooibos. Fennel isn’t distinct but probably rounds out the taste and nausea-calming effect of ginger. If Mastress Alita had a whole box of this, I’d gladly take it off her hands. How much zinc is actually in this?
One bag makes a full-flavored 8-10 oz cup.
Tea Plant News:
This year’s tea seed germination rates were very high for the 4 varieties I started. The sprouts are the healthiest yet, probably due to a strangely cool and foggy July. A few years ago I bought 3 or 4 varieties of seed, most of which turned out to be duds, including a variety from Taiwan. I think I have only a few surviving plants from those batches. Glad this years seeds are taking off!
The surviving tea plants from years past now in nursery pots do not like our normal dry season of unrelenting sun and can get sunburned easily if in the wrong spot during peak UV hours. They’re now doing well under the shade of a California coast live oak in one corner of the backyard, all grouped together.
Certain tea plants probably with very high sugar content seem to attract aphids twice a year, more so when the land is fully parched in September and October. Leaf curl and drop ensue. I had given up trying to control the aphids and now that the plants are bigger, they seem to bounce back easier from the biannual infestations. This is good. I can’t imagine how much stronger the 3- and 4-year-old plants would be if I had them in the ground. Why have I been dragging my feet on doing so for the past few years? The plants need to grow!
The original assamica plants did great for 2 years and then didn’t take well to transplanting from large planter boxes into nursery pots when I moved last year. The original Black Sea sinensis plants were very slow to grow the first few years but are now certainly outperforming the assamica, which I wasn’t expecting given our climate. Next year, I would like to try pruning for the first time and cloning the strongest Black Sea plants. I’m glad Camellias are patient plants since my green thumb isn’t the most saturated.
Flavors: Earthy, Ginger, Honey, Medicinal, Red Rooibos, Spicy, Sweet
Preparation
I am glad to hear that your plants are still doing great… although it seems that assamica not much.
How exciting!
I was thinking those aphids might eventually give you bug-bitten tea, but maybe green leafhoppers are a different kind of bug. It’s fun to hear about your experiments in tea growing!
Got a mixed package for Christmas of the 3 Catspring’s varieties of loose leaf yaupon. This extra teabag was in the box.
I’d be fooled if somebody told me this is a lighter roast houjicha. Hit all the right notes this morning with a summer fog that was sprinkling fine mist on every surface. Mellow and smooth and sweet. Decent caffeine kick to boot.
Will come back to this for tasting note details when I break open the looseleaf :)
