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Green March! I recently put in a big order with Yunomi, and I was just shy of qualifying for free shipping and didn’t know what I wanted, so what better way than to drop some mystery tea onto the order? What I ended up getting was a May 2017 harvest of Kabusecha Saeakari from Marushige Shimizu Tea Farm. I’ve never tried (and I’ll admit, even heard of) Kabusecha before. From the description it seems to be a bit of a fusion between sencha and gyokuro, but the preparation instructions are definitely more like that of gyokuro. And I’ve never tried gyokuro before, so I was expecting a little wobbliness in preparation making this for the first time.

I was mainly concerned getting the right temperature. I don’t own a food themometer, and the lowest setting on my temperature-control kettle is 160 degrees F. The recommended steeping temperature for this tea was 122-140 degrees F. And while I do own a small porcelain Japanese teapot, I don’t have a fancy gyokuro-style set with the water-holder dishes and whatnot. So, I winged it. I used the lowest setting on my kettle, poured that into my teacup, let it sit while I measured out 4 grams of leaf to put in the teapot, then moved the water to another teacup just before dumping it into the teapot, hoping by that point it would be in the proper temperature zone. While I’ll never know for certain, after my cup steeped for the recommended two minutes, the resulting steep certainly didn’t feel more than just a little above tepid to my tongue, so hopefully it was in the ballpark?

The first thing that struck me was how much of a salty aroma the tea had! The flavor was very strong; I didn’t find it unpleasant, but was not used to such a strong savory taste from my tea having never had it before, and I had to sip through the infusion very slowly. It did have a thick umami profile, with salty notes and vegetal seaweed flavors that reminded me of a seafood taste similar to shrimp. There was also a bit of grassiness and a sweet finish that comes with nice green tea. I didn’t get any astringency from the cup at all; it was very thick and smooth.

The second steep brought on more of a sencha flavor, with a more prominent grassy taste, but notable deeper, umami seaweed notes in the finish of the sip. By the third steep, the umami notes had waned from the cup, but it still had a pleasant vegetal flavor and made for a relaxing cup of green tea.

The first steep was certainly the most unique, but I think it’s going to take a bit of adapting to get my palate used to those strong umami notes. (I’ll get there; once upon a time, I used to not be able to drink bergomot, and now I have more earl grey blends in my cupboard than I care to count). So at the moment that second steep was my favorite, which brought out more of a blend of the new flavors and old, familar notes. I’ll have to continue to work with this tea… apparently the flavor can change a lot depending on temperature and steep times, and I’m especially curious to try it iced!

Green March! Well, I’m finally able to drink tea again, after a lovely bought of food poisoning from my birthday dinner. Still dealing with the fall-out migraine from the ordeal (which is now on it’s fourth day… meh) but I’ve moved from Gatorade and mint and ginger teas to other liquids now. I still haven’t had a very large appetite, but have always found Genmaicha tea quite nice at breakfast time… sort of has a Rice Krispies cereal-appeal, while being light on the stomach and warm and comforting, you know?

This genmaicha is a standard mix of bancha leaf and toasted rice, though I have to question if The American House knows anything about genmaicha, since they actually list “popcorn” on their website’s ingredient list (are they actually adding popcorn to their tea, or are they really just so daft they don’t realize the “popcorn” looking bits are just popped bits of rice from the roasting process? If there is one thing that rankles a library cataloger like me, it is listing inaccurate information, ugh.) But the tea is good, with a smooth vegetal flavor, and nice nutty overtones from the roasted rice. It’s a fairly balanced genmaicha between leaf and rice (and doesn’t include nearly so much popped rice as the image on their website would lead one to believe!), that produces a tasty tea, though I’m sure there isn’t anything special about it. Even if it’s just a simple run-of-the-mill genmaicha, it makes me happy. I think this will always be one of my favorite teas.

Green March! This is the only matcha in my collection; I ordered it from Matcha Outlet, but from what I can tell, they used to be Red Leaf Tea. I don’t have any “proper” matcha gear yet (I finally ordered some today with my b-day funds!) so I’ve just been frothing it up in my milk frother (eh, it gets the job done in a pinch). I like it latte-style, so usually I froth the matcha up in a bit of water first, move it to a mug, and then froth up the milk and add it second.

The matcha is quite thick, rich, and very grassy in flavor! I find that it has some sweeter floral notes just beneath the grassy taste, and a very subtle fruitiness, with a bit of a vegetal astringency on the finish. When prepared as a latte, the almond milk removes that astringent bite on the finish, and brings out more of the sweetness in the cup, as well as adds a lovely creaminess, and since the grassy flavor is very rich and strong, it holds up well through the almond milk.

This was a beautiful, rich creamy green cup on a rainy St. Pattie’s Day!

(For the record, this matcha also makes a delicious pumpkin spice latte during the winter months, too!)

Full Review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/tea42/

Top o’ the Mornin’ to ya! It’s my day off, it’s my birthday, and I’m pretty content to just sit on my butt and drink tea all day, quite honestly. And what better way that to start off the day than with some Irish Breakfast?

I don’t keep many Irish/English breakfast blends around because they aren’t my favorite, but last winter I picked up an amazing deal on a bunch of T2 samplers, so I decided to make the Irish Breakfast one this morning. The only other Irish Breakfast blend I’ve ever had is Twinings of London’s bagged blend, which I had to take with milk and sugar because it was that sort of black tea that was just a bit too strong and astringent for me otherwise. Surpringly, I am not having any troubles with this one; I’m not sure if my palate has simply adapted to blacks since then, or this blend, having only Ceylon teas and lacking Assams is just more to my palate’s liking. So far I haven’t felt the need to immediately go running for the milk to take some of the bite off. I did only steep at the lower end of the spectrum, for two minutes instead of four, so maybe that’s the secret for me when it comes to these stronger straight black teas.

It has a pleasantly malty taste and a thick mouthfeel, with a mild astringency in the finish that is not biting, bitter, or unpleasant. I’m picking up on some subtle flavor notes of baked bread and citrus. This tea could certainly take milk or sugar, but the fact it doesn’t need it for someone who typically has a hard time with straight blacks like me speaks volumes.

I’m quite enjoying this sampler sipdown with my sugary apple fritter. Tea and donut… a breakfast of champions!

Pre-birthday cuppa. My long-time friend who is now also a coworker makes the best cookies, and he knows my love affair with Nutella, and always uses it as an ingredient in the batch of birthday cookies he makes me and brings me at work. Today is birthday cookie day (this year are some yin-yang peanut butter-Nutella cookies! Mmmm!), since this Saturday (St. Patrick’s Day) didn’t fall on my Saturday schedule. So I grabbed this chocolate hazelnut sampler I picked up from Citizen Tea to accompany!

It’s good! The base is chocolately, but has a warm nuttiness to it, too. It’s very smooth and sweet. I think my only issue is it that I wish the tea felt a little fuller and the flavor a little richer; I’m getting the impression that I’m going to have to double-leaf this to get the kind of experience that I’m currently craving out of this, based on my initial cup. Some decent flavor notes are there, they just aren’t popping enough to really wow me, and the base feels a little weak. I’m of the personal opinion one shouldn’t need to use extra leaf for an average cup, so I’d say that’s my one complaint with this otherwise tasty tea.

I got a free sampler of a tea called “Vietnam Vanilla” from tea web vendor California Tea & Herbal when I ordered from them a while ago (they had a few of my favorite blends stocked in 2 oz. sizes, and I was having a hard time finding other vendors having anything smaller than 4 oz. available; I just don’t need that much tea on hand, storage space is an issue and it takes me forever to drink a quarter-pound of tea!) After a bit of research, I’m fairly certain that their “Vietnam Vanilla” is actually just wholesaled “Colonille” from SerendipiTea; I could be wrong, but I found at least one other black tea blend in their line-up that matched another of SerendipiTea’s blends, which makes me pretty confident I’ve found the right tea. It however may be an earlier version of the blend, since the ingredients listed are just Vietnam black tea and (presumably artificial) French Vanilla flavor, which differs from the updated Kosher recipe of Colonille which now includes vanilla beans and natural vanilla flavor.

Old recipe aside, this tea is amazing! The base is super smooth, and almost has a chocolately richness with a slight honeyed sweetness to it, and just a hint of some cherry notes. The vanilla flavor just gives it this sweet, creamy taste that is really divine! It somehow makes me think of Neopolitan ice cream after it’s all melted together at the bottom of the bowl; a little cocoa, a little cream, and a hint of berry sweetness. Fantastic dessert tea! This is proving to be an all-too-enjoyable sipdown while I patiently wait for the RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars S3 finale digital release from Amazon to finally hit my inbox.

Green March! This was my first time trying a jasmine-scented tea, and as much as I absolutely love floral teas, I learned pretty much immediately that jasmine just… isn’t my cup of tea. I almost felt guilty about it, and tried to deny it, and for weeks I tried to force myself to finish off the sampler while my coworkers asked me why I was trying to force myself to drink a tea I was obviously hating by the nasty expressions on my face. “It’s so popular, everyone likes jasmine tea!” I tried to convince myself… but I just couldn’t shake the fact that to me, this tea just smelled so overwhelmingly of heavy perfume. The sort of perfume that gives me migraines. The sort of perfume that my grandma wears. And then I just couldn’t get over the fact that I was drinking grandma perfume. Bleeeeeeeeech. “Don’t drink it anymore, Sara!” my coworker begged me. And in the end, I finally tossed the sampler.

To be fair, I have no doubt this tea was quality tea. It unfurled nicely, and had very quality-looking green leaves. It had a very strong aroma, and was very naturally sweet. For the denizens of tea drinkers out there that actually like jasmine-scented teas, I’m sure they’d find no fault with this tea, which makes me feel bad that I’ve rated it so lowly. But what can I say? There wouldn’t be the saying “Not my cup of tea” if there weren’t some truth to it!

Full review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/tea20/

Green March! (Because despite the lovely brown color of the tea leaves and steep color, this is a green tea and thus counts in my book!) This is a tea that TeaSource offered during winter 2016, but then discontinued. It’s a shame, because I really like it… fortunately my friend bought a pound of it and shares with me when I get hard up. My stash has gotten a bit descented and I may have to be hitting him up for a fresher batch sometime soon, but it is still drinkable, if not as amazing as I remember when I first tried it. (I remember when he first brought me some, the maple scent was so strong our hotel room absolutely reeked of sweet maple! Aah, it was so nice… now, this just has a light, ghost-scenting of it left behind… so sad…)

I really like this tea as a breakfast tea because of the flavor, but its light caffeine-content makes it a handy evening sipper, too. The flavor is a bit like roasted nuts, with earthy notes of bark, and a sweet finish with some subtle caramel and molasses hints that linger on the tongue. This particular blend has added almonds and maple flavoring, but since my tea was descented, these flavors are a lot more subtle than they used to be; there are still some warm maple notes in the scent and a slight maple flavor and sweetness that lingers in the finish, but mostly what remains is the taste of the houjicha itself. The houjicha appears to be of good quality and has a nice flavor that holds up on its own. The tea itself has such a naturally nutty flavor, that the almonds don’t seem to add much here.

Full Review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/11/28/tea48/

I figured that I haven’t revisited one of my old bagged teas in a while, and I used to drink Mint Medley for migraine nausea before I switched to loose leaf and got a nausea blend with whole leaf peppermint, ginger, orange peel, and cinnamon in it. I always remember it worked well and I liked the taste well enough. I decided to make a batch of it iced for this revisit, by doing a warm steep and then chilling in the fridge overnight.

Now, I certainly don’t remember this tea being red before… and all the mint loose leaf teas I drink now are always caramelly color, which immediately turned me off from the tea. It smells like mint, but… red? Really? Then I saw the ingredients… rosehips and hibiscus in mint tea? Now, I am a big fan of rosehips and hibiscus (from reading the reviews on this site, I may just be the only one!), and I’ve certainly seen some very effective mint/hibiscus blends. But those are usually advertised as such. When a tea is called “Mint Medley,” I kind of expect to be getting a mint tea, not a mint tea with a bunch of odd additives. Why would I want my mint tea to be red?

The tea does have a very minty flavor, but it just has this sort of off-putting aftertaste. It’s a little hard to describe. It starts off with a very brisk, minty flavor, but then sort of ends with this odd, flat, kind of metallic stale taste that lingers on my tongue (and I checked my box; this tea should be fine until May 2019 according to the packaging, so it certainly shouldn’t be stale). Is it the extras in the blend? I don’t know, because it doesn’t even have the tart/tangy sort of flavor that rosehips/hibiscus/lemon peel should leave behind (if it was a tart finish, I’d actually find that quite pleasant, as that is a flavor profile I personally quite enjoy). It’s just this weird sort of taste that I don’t get when I drink mint in loose leaf blends. If I get my hands on any other bagged mint teas I’ll have to compare to see if I get that same weird taste to see if it is indeed from the rosehips, hibiscus, and lemon peel added to this particular tea, or if I’ve just lost my taste for bagged mint tea in general now.

I recently tried a sakura-flavored green tea, so I decided to sample a sakura-flavored black tea this morning! (What can I say, the spring-like weather has me in the mood, even if we don’t have cherry trees in my area). This tea is made by the Japanese company Creha Tea, but I ordered it through Yunomi.

The first thing to note with this tea is it does use some flavoring, unlike the green tea I sampled recently, so this tea has a much more prominent flavor — having a black tea base, I don’t think there would be any flavor at all without it, given how subtle the sakura taste was on its own when I tasted it in the green tea. But this does give the tea a far more pronounced cherry flavor rather than a subtle floral touch; I imagine for some that will be far more to their liking, and for others, it may be far more disappointing.

The base of the tea is not an extremely strong black, so it isn’t overwhelming to the flavor. More of light-to-medium brew that takes the flavor well, and it’s very smooth. I find no astringencies with the tea, a light maltiness, and a very subtle leafy or woody note. It’s very pleasant. The finish of the sip has this sweet cherry taste, but it isn’t like the cherry flavoring i often find in American blends, that is syrupy, strong, and overbearing. This has a light delicateness to it that really does make me think of cherry-flavored mochi or marshmallows — something soft, fluffy, and sweet, but not overly strong with the flavor. The tea base itself shines through a lot on this, with a softer and more rounded sweet hint of cherry at the end of the sip. It certainly doesn’t have that off-putting “cough-syrup” taste like many cherry teas, and would be a good choice for someone looking for a tea with a subtle and sweet cherry flavor lacking those nasty overbearing medicinal notes.