41 Tasting Notes

92
drank Peppermint by Adagio Teas
41 tasting notes

How to survive summer:

Place about 3 Tbsp peppermint tea in 1 L hot water (80⁰C or so). Brew for, say, 10 minutes, or until you remember to take the tea out. Then add another liter of ice and/or cold water. Drink. Repeat until autumn.

Preparation
Iced 8 min or more

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

64
drank Oi Ocha by Ito En
41 tasting notes

The calendar may not yet quite agree, but it’s summer. Today it’s ‘only’ 23⁰C, but it has been upwards of 30⁰C for the past week and the last thing in the world I’ve wanted has been hot tea.

There are, however, remarkably few unsweetened drinks in the refrigerator at the health food store. But what’s this? Unsweetened green tea, claiming to be “Japan’s #1 Green Tea”, whatever that means. Suitable not just for drinking but also for logging to Steepster!

I don’t want to insult Japan or anything, but this is not the #1 Green Tea I’ve ever had. But it is reasonably decent and somewhat complex, especially given that I didn’t even have to think about hot or boiling water in order to drink it. If I’m again in the mood to pay $2 for 20¢ worth of tea and the convenience of having it already brewed and already cold, then I’ll pick up another bottle.

Preparation
Iced

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

78

Hello again Steepster,

I haven’t been logging many teas of late because as the weather warms up, I’ve been drinking less tea, and because most of what I have been drinking has been stuff I’ve already logged.

But apparently I haven’t logged this tea yet. Which is sort of a shame, because it’s a nice tea. It tastes pretty much exactly like an archetypical jasmine green tea. Are you familiar with jasmine teas? If so, imagine a nice jasmine tea in general without imagining any specific jasmine tea. Then add a little bit of extra jasmine flavor. You will then be imagining this tea.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 3 min, 0 sec
Cofftea

Then log it again:) Except for my current streak I’d be a lot less active on Steepster if I only logged my teas once. I have lotsof favorites :)

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

86

Normally I like green teas better than black. But this is seriously good enough to override that. It’s smoky and warm and lovely and says “WAKE UP!” when I drink it.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

The dry leaves smell like nothing so much as genmaicha. The wet leaves post-steep smell like seaweed. The brewed tea itself is like neither of those things.

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 3 min, 0 sec
Cofftea

So then what is it like? Inquiring minds want to know:)

mlc

Like a koan.

Cofftea

What’s a koan?

Cofftea

Um… how can something taste like a koan?

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

50

I bought a bunch of samples from Upton, and this certainly seemed intriguing. I used about half the 6g sample packet in a mug of 100°C water, steeping for 8 minutes.

Given that this is just an unblended single herb, the aroma is incredibly complex. There are notes of mint, cinnamon, and other spices. Brewing the tea mellows it out somewhat, melding these different notes. It’s an okay evening brew, but it won’t be replacing peppermint tea in my cabinet anytime soon.

I’m going to try the other half of the sample with some sugar to see how that works out.

Preparation
Boiling 8 min or more

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

First time trying yellow tea. It was sufficiently different from other teas that the sample wasn’t big enough for me to form an entire opinion.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 3 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

59
drank Mandarin Silk by Art of Tea
41 tasting notes

I was right: to extract any flavor from this, you have to use a lot of leaves. I’m at 1 Tbsp per 12oz cup. This is sort of sensible: because the leaves are so big and fluffy and loosely packed, maybe this is actually less tea by weight than I use with other teas. I don’t know.

So the most amazing thing about this tea is still the smell of the dried leaves. It’s all vanilla-y and some citrus and wow. The tea, once brewed, tastes pretty much the same, albeit less so.

Maybe I’m still being unfair because the dried leaves smell of such promise: if someone just gave me a prepared cup of this tea, perhaps I would be more impressed, but as it is I’m still not loving this as much as some of the other folks here. Still, it’s not like it’s undrinkable or anything.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 4 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

75

So, yeah, I’ve been drinking this, and I think I like it best when it is steeped for just a minute or so. Steep it longer and the tea starts to compete with and overpower the rice, which maybe some people would prefer but for me defeats the whole purpose of drinking tea with toasted grains in it.

It’s good on resteeps as well.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 1 min, 0 sec
jessica

Genmaicha is my favorite type of green tea…
the popped rice always reminds me of a barley tea i had when i was little.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

75

I’d been meaning to drop into Porto Rico and check out their teas for a while, but as I was passing by today I saw a sign in the window that said “Tea Sale.” Apparently the sale has been going on for a couple of weeks but ends tomorrow.

I managed to escape only a few dollars poorer with just a few ounces of the Genmaicha. I’ve been craving genmaicha for a little while, so it was an opportune purchase.

What to say about it? It’s good. It tastes like green tea with toasted rice. There’s also some corn in here, but although it’s pretty, I don’t know how much it affects the flavor.

I think two minutes might have been a bit long for this tea. The woman in the store told me she steeps for up to seven minutes (!) but that seems crazy.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

Profile

Bio

hi there. I live in New York, where I (among other things) develop websites.

Location

New York, NY

Website

http://vermicel.li/blog/

Following These People

Moderator Tools

Mark as Spammer