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Sampler Sipdown September! I’ve actually managed to sipdown a few older teas that were larger, multi-cup sipdowns recently and I’m pretty happy with that progress; getting some things out of my cupboard is a good thing! But here is another of the small two-serving T2 samplers from the T2 sampler pack horde. The first serving I made at work yesterday, and it was terrible, once again having that weird taste to the water; absolutely nothing I do seems to fix the issue, and I’ve washed that kettle so thoroughly (even soaking it in vinegar overnight) that I’m simply beside myself. It never used to have this problem, and the kettle is pretty much identical to my home kettle in design, aside from being a different brand. So frusterated with the weird burnt rubber/metallic/musty/wrong taste of the water, I’ve finally given up and am simply getting rid of the functioning kettle. I decided to upgrade my home kettle since Bonivitas were on sale on Amazon, and when it arrives, I’ll take my home kettle to work, since it still makes fine tasting water.

So, I used up the second serving of the leaf at home, so I could actually taste the tea properly. This is a black tea spice blend, and I like this one a lot more than many other black tea spice blends I’ve tried in the past, such as TeaSource’s Winter Spice tea. There is no clove in the tea, but the spices create a very clove-like flavor, and it comes off quite natural. I’ve had a lot of chai that is packed with clove and it is really biting and too heavy, or extremely cloying with that artificial clove flavor. Here the cinnamon and ginger just sort of create the same sort of flavor to me without it being overbearing, and I really like it! There isn’t a strong, gingery taste or a hot, spicy flavor, the ginger and cinnamon really do sort of balance each other out into a spicy-sweet clove taste, with a bit of cream and orange citrus flavors coming out on the finish.

So, a migraine I had a few days ago returned on me today, and I ended up using my last triptan (I have no idea if the pharmacy will let me refill so soon either, crossing my fingers they will tomorrow, but for today they are closed, sooooo… nothing I can do but hope this one works and sleep it out). It takes a while for a triptan to work even if it’s going to, so to try to get myself drowsy for a nap I figured I’d drink this lavender and mint blend that I got from the last Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox (thanks tea-sipper and all who participated!) Lavender is (tasty!) quite relaxing and mint and cinnamon are quite calming on the stomach.

The smell is wonderful! It’s minty, with a rich cinnamon aroma, and a touch of floral lavender. The flavor is incredibly relaxing. It’s subtly minty, so it doesn’t have a strong menthol cooling sensation. A lot of the minty note come out in the lavender flavor, which is pretty strong, and quite nice since I’m a big fan of lavender. There is a really nice sweet cinnamon note that comes in late in the sip and settles into the aftertaste at the back of the tongue. There is also a slight citrusy note to the tea. I never really thought lavender and cinnamon could work so well together, but they do; this is one of the nicest herbals I’ve had in some time. When I’m no longer on a self-imposed tea-ordering hiatus (seriously, my cupboard is waaaaaaay out of control at the moment!) this is definitely a blend I’d happily restock from Simpson and Vail.

That nap was bomb, too; when I woke up my stomach still felt nasty, and all I wanted was another cup of this.

So, I will preface this by saying I have very little experience at all with pu-erh. I’ve mostly just had pu-erh as the base in flavored blends, but have only had a few generic undated shous from various vendors that I only ever steeped western style. I’ve never really dabbled in pu-erh, certainly not the way the real pu-heads do. I have no knowledge of what is considered good, or expensive, or rare, and what isn’t. That’s why I signed up for Liquid Proust’s really awesome pu-erh sampler program this year. I really don’t need any more tea right now, but it is the one tea (followed by whites) that I just haven’t really tried much of and have any opinions on. So thank you so much to Liquid Proust (and the group of volunteers that helped break up cakes and package up the tea)!

This is the first sampler from that lot I’m trying. None of the samplers had any detailed information about the names/places the tea came from (I think that may have been intentional?) so I’m just going to log all of these under the Random Steepings rather than guess on anything and log something under the wrong pu-erh/vendor record. But hey, if someone actually knows for a fact on one of these (LP or co. wants to come forth and identify one) feel free and I’ll gladly move the review to the proper place!)

This one was simply labeled as “Cheap.” Yup. Just that. No year, no sheng/shou differentiation, but I guess whoever got this didn’t pay much for it! Fair enough. I never judge a tea by it’s price anyway. Taste is what’s important!

So, being new to gong fu, and pu-erh, I ended up having to do this one twice. I typically always use the OCTea app website for my tea-to-water ratio measurements, but White2Tea suggested much higher ratios for brewing pu-erh, and everyone loves White2Tea, right?! So they couldn’t be wrong! So I decided to go with their measurements, aaaaaaaaaaaand… yup. Overleafed. SIGH. Why do I always end up with overleafed, bitter, deadly-astringent gong fu on my first try? So frusterating…

So my first go used 3 grams of tea in my 50ml baby gaiwan. I went through 6 steeps before I ditched that session and started over, so what I ended up with was the following:

2.5g / 50ml / 212F / Rinse|5s|10s|15s|20s|30s|40s|45s|50s|60s|65s

The tea aroma was that of wetlands and char and smoke. When I had overleafed, the first steep was pretty much unpalatable for me; it was so heavy in a tobacco smoke flavor, with an extremely bitter sharp vegetal astringency left on my tongue following the sip, that even that tiny cup of tea was daunting. When I restarted the session with less leaf, the smoky note had been tamed back, and more of the wet earth flavor was present, and the tea only carried a mild astringency. By the third steep the aroma started to smell a little spicier, reminding me of the lingering scent of incense in the air, especially with the subtle smokiness present, and I noticed a slight spice note in the finish. By the fourth steep the tea was starting to mellow out for me, the smokiness started to taste less like that awful tobacco note that I hate and more camp fire or BBQ-like, the wet earth flavor started to become more of a rainy petrichor note, and the astrigency following the sip was noticably fading. The smoke and astrigency continued to fade while the wet earth/petrichor continued to build in subsequent steeps. Around the seventh steep I started to taste vegetal notes like cucumber, celery, and watercress.

It took later steeps to push flavors out of this that I personally preferred; the reason why I knew I needed to ditch my first attempt is it just kept getting worse and worse (it was getting ashy, tart, and sour, rather than improving at all). I felt a bit sluggish/tea full by the time the tea picked up for me, and didn’t really want to keep up with the session by the time I was starting to finally like where things were headed. I can also see myself not really looking forward to having to get through the unpleasant smoky early steeps in the future to get to more mellow vegetal/petrichor flavored steeps later. So all in all, I don’t think the mysterious “Cheap” pu-erh is my cuppa.

I am definitely glad I started here though, since it allowed me to experiment with leaf amounts in the baby gaiwan and find my sweet spot with a pu-erh I’m not very impressed with rather than potentially waste leaf from a sampler that might be freaking amazing. I’m on a big learning curve here!

I rarely leave a tasting note for a tea a second time, even if it’s been a while since I last drank it, or I decide to prepare it in a different way. Usually I only leave another note if my opinion somehow changes (either for the better or the worse) since my initial tasting note, and instead I just focus on writing tasting notes for all the teas I’m trying for the first time. But I felt inclined to leave another note on this one only to mention that I recently cold brewed it in lemonade (leaving about 4-5 teaspoons to steep overnight in a quart of lemonade in the fridge), and the result tastes shockingly similar to the classic birthday party/office party quick punch option of mixing fruit punch with Sprite. It’s just lacking the carbonation, and isn’t quite as sickeningly sweet. I have to say that quart of iced tea didn’t last in my fridge very long!

I need to brew up some of my black tea/sage hair rinse and since I’ve cleared the crappy Lipton out of my cupboard (good riddance), it’s time to start using up the strong breakfast blends I rarely drink. But unlike bagged Lipton, I’ll still at least have a cuppa of my nice breakfast loose leafs first while the leaf is still around. So, breakfast first, shower after.

This generously came from Meowster’s cupboard de-stash, thank you Meowster! The brewed cuppa is a nice coppery color and smells properly malty and just a little sweet, too, like molasses or brown sugar. It’s a really nice aroma.

I admittedly do try to hold back a little on my breakfast blacks compared to some (I used 2.4g of tea to 350ml 200F water steeped for 3 minutes) and this one wasn’t quite as scathing as I was expecting, being a blend of Assam and Ceylon, which is pretty much my two most disliked blacks for their tendency toward bitterness and astringency. The black tea was full-bodied and highly malty, with a touch of breadiness, and medium astringency after the sip. The astringency was a bit much for my palate, so I did have to add a bit of local Farmer’s Market honey, which was quite nice.

Sampler Sipdown September! Getting closer to finishing off my T2 samplers… and I think this is at least the last Chinese green from the green tea sampler pack. I’m not expecting their Dragonwell to be anything like the one I had from Dazzle Deer, but compared to the last few green teas I’ve had this week, this has got to be an improvement! Right now, I’m just craving a decent cup of green tea, really.

The dry leaf smells like dry grass, pepper, and smoke. The yellow brew smells like vegetables sauteed in a bit of pepper. Lord, yes. The flavor doesn’t have as much depth as the version I remember trying from Dazzle Deer, but it is still really nice, especially compared to all those mediocre cups of green tea. I’m getting a very smooth tea without any astringency, with a mild grassiness and strong beany vegetal taste, a buttery body, and this delightful peppery finish. Solid.

Sampler Sipdown September! Another of my T2 sampler stash, from the green tea sampler pack. I’ve had such a run of green teas I’ve been underwhelmed with, why not keep it up? I don’t hate Gunpowder Green (I actually don’t mind it as the base in Moroccan Mint blends), but it is definitely my least favorite green tea I’ve tried so far, so… may as well get this sampler out of my cupboard and be done with it.

1.8g in 350ml 175F water, western brew. To be fair, this is probably the least smoky gunpowder green I’ve had (as in, I’m not getting that note at all for some odd reason!), so depending on your preferences, that could be either a good or bad thing. I wonder if I just brewed it on the light side? Personally, that’s a good thing for me, as that is typically the reason why I don’t really like them… reminds me too much of lapsang souchong, I don’t mind subtle smoke notes, but really don’t care for a strong smoky flavor, especially if the tea flat-out tastes like tobacco. Having this tea right after the Young Hyson from yesterday, I can really see how the Young Hyson was very similar to Gunpowder Green, despite not being a pellet tea. This one also has that sort of dill pickle fermented vegetable taste to me, which I noticed in that tea, and the Young Hyson had the smoky finish of a Gunpowder Green (still not sure why I’m not getting that here…). I think there is something about that pickley taste that is coming off as “musty” to me, because I’m getting it here too, and this tea is still pretty fresh; not a year old yet, at least based on when I purchased the tea. So perhaps age wasn’t the problem with the Young Hyson, and this is just a flavor that reads as off to my particular palate, the way mango flavoring in teas tend to always taste oddly metallic to me. That said, this tea is still way better in comparison to the Young Hyson I drank yesterday. I still don’t particularly like it, but it is far more palatable. The musty-taste I get is less musty, so the grass and hay notes are stronger, and the absense of smoke is always an improvement for me. But despite being a huge pickle fan, that fermented pickle/dill taste in teas is just musty and gross to me.

Well, now I have Bi Lo Chun and Lung Ching samplers left in the Chinese green sampler bag. The worst is over.

Sampler Sipdown September! This is another tea I pulled from the last Here’s Hoping Teabox, so thanks to tea-sipper for organizing and those who contributed to the box!

I’ve never tried a Young Hyson (that wasn’t in a blend), and I’m going to try not to judge all Young Hyson tea based on this one, because… it smells odd. The brewed cup has a slightly musty sort of scent? Also a little of that smoky aroma, but that I’m at least used to, from gunpowder green, and the Azerbaijan Azercay green I sampled the other night.

The flavor is really unappealing to me, like something fermented (I’d say pickle brine, though not as acidic/tart), with a flavor that I can only equate to “musty attic,” and a slightly smoky finish. I’m getting a bit of a metallic aftertaste as well. There is possibly some mild grassiness there, but the “off” flavors detract from it too much. I can’t imagine it used to be like this, so I’m thinking that this is a case of green tea well past its prime; pure greens don’t exactly age gracefully. If that isn’t the case, then my palate is just picking out some rather odd flavors here that aren’t working for me.

Sampler Sipdown September! Sipping down another of my black tea T2 samplers, this time the Good Evening sampler. This is another discontinued flavor, and is a black tea/green tea blend, but since it’s been discontinued, I can’t get any information on the teas. The floral aroma from the dry leaf leads me to believe the green tea used here is a jasmine green tea, and the packet describes the tea as having a “soft astringency”; the black tea leaves are full, rather than CTC like their Assam and Ceylon tended to be in their other blends (there were perhaps a few CTC leaves in the blend, but the majority were full leaf), so maybe it’s a Chinese black? Though I suppose it could be a full leaf Assam or Ceylon used in the blend, though I never associate those in my head as having “soft astringency.” Not really sure what the blacks may be in this one.

The tea has a malty and floral aroma. This is surprisingly nice; I don’t like jasmine green tea (the aroma is always too strong for me) but this is such a subtle amount blended with the black tea that there are no aroma issues for my sensitive migraine-head at all, so I can just enjoy that slight floral touch, which actually gives the malty flavor of the black tea a pleasant hint of sweetness. I’d say the base is medium-bodied, with a slight citrusy note, and just a little bit of smokiness on the finish. The tea is a little more astringent than I was expecting from the description, though; I think the floral taste made me expect something a bit more delicate, but it was quite tannic and drying on the tongue. I think the heavy astringency was the only part of this one I didn’t care for.

This one surprised me a lot; I didn’t think I’d like it much when I realized the “green tea” in the blend was jasmine green, but the fact they went real gentle on the jasmine green worked just perfect for me. I’m a bit sad this tea is discontinued now.

Sampler Sipdown September! This is a sampler I grabbed from the last Here’s Hoping Teabox, so thanks to tea-sipper for organizing and to all who contributed to it!

I only kept 1.5g, so I just steeped it western style in 300ml for a quick minute. The brew was a pretty pale yellow a smelled a bit like tobacco and mint; it reminded me of gunpowder green tea or yerba mate in aroma. The flavor of the tea had dominant dry grass and hay notes, followed by a light spearmint sort of taste (while completely lacking that cooling menthol sort of effect to the mouthfeel), with a slightly smoky finish. It gave me a strong deja vu to the one time I tried an unflavored yerba mate, though was completely lacking the astringency I got from the mate; this is a very smooth green tea.

It’s all right; it has a lot in common with gunpowder green, which is my least favorite green tea, mainly because the smoky notes just aren’t really my thing. The smoky notes are lighter in this, and I do like the grassy flavor and subtle minty notes, so it’s pleasant enough for a single cup. Not the sort of thing I’d care to keep around on my own, but I certainly am glad I got the experience to try it!