1557 Tasting Notes
Spring 2020 harvest.
Dark, damp earthy aroma mixed with a darker milk chocolate.
Malty and juicy, bitter flowers like lavender. Catches in the throat on the way down and leaves a sweet mineral finish. Salivary glands tingle – salty. Peach and orchid bloom from the throat while a vaguely minty and fruity wild blueberry persists in the mouth. Floral bittersweet and woody bite is ubiquitous from 4th steep on.
It was nice but… but what? Maybe the throat catch turned me off a little? Am I sad that the spice notes of the rinsed leaf don’t come through in taste?
Flavors: Biting, Bittersweet, Blueberry, Charcoal, Cinnamon, Coffee, Compost, Dark Chocolate, Fennel, Forest Floor, Juicy, Lavender, Malt, Malty, Milk Chocolate, Mineral, Mint, Orchid, Peach, Salty, Spices, Stonefruit, Woody
Preparation
April 2022 harvest
Chicken soup, sweet chestnuts and grassy. Viscous, round, bright and juicy. Good aroma, taste and texture. Not a delicate tea — it can handle 200F water just fine, creating a slightly different taste profile compared to the recommended 185F. More of a refreshing, brisk character prepared in a porcelain cup with steeper basket compared to a glass gaiwan.
This tea is over a year old and it is starting to get that dry grassy taste of aging Chinese greens but the overall flavor profile seems like a mix between regular green dragonwell and a yellow tea.
Interesting tea for sure and good but it never fully commanded my attention and appreciation. If this tea appears in Song Tea’s fresh harvest catalog next year, I might buy another bag to see how it tastes at peak freshness.
Flavors: Anise, Bright, Brisk, Chestnut, Chicken Soup, Chrysanthemum, Dry Grass, Earthy, Ginseng, Grassy, Juicy, Nutty, Roasted Nuts, Round, Savory, Sweet, Toasty, Viscous
Preparation
Spring 2022 harvest
Soft and nectary sweet gives way to dry feeling and tartaftertaste. Subtle and complex character. Main vibe is tropical fruity-nectar, floral like Angel’s Trumpet and slightly vegetal cucumber mixed with spicy-dry pastoral associations — so many nuances once could pick the tastes apart as a hundred different variations. This is a really nice silver needle. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t contain caffeine or contains very little though I’m not positive.
I most enjoy going very light on leaf in a glass gaiwan. A good tea to mix with blue lotus flower in a large glass pot.
Flavors: Bark, Cream, Cucumber, Drying, Eucalyptus, Floral, Flowers, Fur, Honeydew, Hot Hay, Leather, Lemon, Lychee, Marshmallow, Mushrooms, Musk, Nectar, Nuts, Oats, Pear, Soft, Spicy, Sugarcane, Sweet, Tart, Tropical, Vanilla
Preparation
Random teabag pulled from my aunt’s stash.
Groggy first cup of the day earlier this week so I don’t remember much. It was good. Not great, but solid. Lemon myrtle is my favorite ‘lemony herb’ compared to lemon balm and lemongrass. It doesn’t have whatever lemongrass does that can sometimes downright turn me off. This tastes of a high, green, lemony note and is ginger spicy and echinacea-y (if you know, you know). Full body from the echinacea and sweet licorice root but ultimately gulpable.
Flavors: Citrusy, Ginger, Green, Lemongrass, Licorice Root, Roots, Spicy, Sweet
Preparation
2021 harvest so 2 years rested.
Sharing a pot on an overcast, cold and breezy morning. Like a glass of heathery, smokey scotch for breakfast. It takes me places but also grounds me right here. This is an expertly smoked tea made with high quality leaf.
Flavors: Apple, Campfire, Cedar, Chamomile, Floral, Leather, Orchid, Peat, Pine, Scotch, Smoked, Wet Rocks
Preparation
2020 harvest freshly opened is smooth but for someone who likes to be shown strength in one or more facets, it is ultimately nothing memorable. I was hoping for more of a caffeinated yancha before heading into a mandatory work meeting tonight that starts in 12 minutes…
Flavors: Charcoal, Cream, Floral, Honeysuckle, Mineral, Peach, Plum, Roasted, Smooth, Spices, Sweet, Tangy, Wet Wood
Preparation
SWEATY MUSTY FEET and HERBS and LICORICE ROOT
why do i torture myself
in other news, I’M GOING to CHINA!
Flavors: Earthy, Herbaceous, Licorice Root, Musty, Sweet, Tangy
Yeah, valerian is gross. It also gives me weird dreams.
That trip sounds really exciting! Which parts of China will you be visiting? If I went to China or Taiwan, I’d toss out everything in my suitcase at the end of the trip and bring back as much tea as I could carry!
Literally we brought four suitcases to Taiwan and three of them were empty. They were all BURSTING on the way back, and there’s definitely still stuff I would have gotten if I could.
Tea will for sure be coming back with me as the whole month there will be spent in tea fields in in Hubei province. One River Tea sent out a mailer for a summer volunteer opportunity that I’m taking advantage of while I can.
OMFG! derk!!! Ahhhhh, I’m so so so excited for your experience and learning and heart. Yaaaasssssssss <3
Thanks tea-sipper! I’m about 3 weeks away from departure. I’m concerned that my visa application will be denied. Since re-opening to international travel, China has created a stringent application process for Americans (and maybe others?). Guess I’ll find out early next week! It’s been a very stressful process!!
I was a little worried something like that might happen BUT I hope everything goes as smooth as possible so you can visit some awesome tea gardens!
This 2022 is now the third harvest I’ve had of this tea. I don’t know why I go through infrequent spurts of buying Assam blacks. Probably a desire to want to like them and understand them. But they’re usually too strong for me.
This is a great tea, one I would definitely recommend for Assam tea lovers. Balanced heft and smoothness with deep, rich flavor that’s lightened by complementary astringency and tiny prickles of bitterness. Tangy fruity, leathery, dark woody and smooth malty. Soft chocolate-hay-peanut aroma. Overleafs well. Glad I tried it again but also not upset to see it go.
Flavors: Brown Toast, Chocolate, Cream, Dark Wood, Dried Fruit, Fig, Hay, Leather, Malt, Molasses, Peanut, Red Currant, Rich, Smooth, Tangy
First ever tamaryokucha style green tea, and I believe it’s 2023 shincha, courtesy of Thés du Japon. Thank you!
This morning’s cups were damn near perfect. Half the sample – 4g – went into the steeper basket with cooled water from the work dispenser, steeped for maybe a minute. White beany and vegetal, full-bodied and round with sweet umami, not a lick of bitterness or astringency. Refreshing and engaging but mellow. Second much like the first. Third steep, brewed without cooling the water, was dark and cloudy; it tasted like the smell of the clumps of young, wet grass that stick to the bottom of the lawnmower. Wow, those were some great cups of tea. I have the rest of the sample set aside for brewing in a small pot.
Like gyokuro-lite. I dig this much more than gyokuro. More balanced.
Flavors: Beans, Freshly Cut Grass, Round, Sweet, Umami, Vegetables, Vegetal
Preparation
Another tea from a bazaar in Istabul, this one clearly written in English as “Relax Tea.” Looks similar to this https://www.grandturkishbazaar.com/product/turkish-relax-tea-mix/ but a little different. Contains whole hibiscus flowers, red/pink/white rosebuds, lemon verbena, orange peel or lemon peel, chamomile and rosehips.
Anything with hibiscus for me is not relaxing because of the sour flavor, though I do enjoy it on hot afternoons. I suppose in that context it is relaxing, but before bedding down, notsomuch. I’m not too keen on the mix in general, aromawise. Rose can either be heavenly or irritating, and I think I finally figured out why: I like rose to be tempered by warm spices or mellowed by creaminess, for instance, being incorporated into milk oolong. This herbal tea is too high-note, too perfumey. The hibiscus amplifies the citrus peel and I simply don’t enjoy that whole combination with all the rosebuds.
Mmm, that feeling when the bottom falls out.