New Tasting Notes
Well this tea bag wrapper I have is saying it contains Chinese green tea and temperature 85°C.
The bag smelled mostly after cardboard and hay, which wasn’t too promising, but tea itself is luckily just hay. In taste it is like a tea for jasmine green tea; but without the jasmine, grass seed and cut grass, but not hay yet.
Pretty okay-ish, keeping my old rating 69.
Preparation
For this one, I used a gaiwan and I admit I tried something a bit weird on this one, 80C 4g/100mL for 3min on the initial steep (then thrown) and then constant 10s steeps.
This, retroactively not so smart idea, caused the following results:
- 2nd steep: plenty of jasmin upfront, strong clove-like taste too and some floral notes. Unfortunately, it is ruined by the incredibly bitter aftertaste…
- 3rd, 4th and subsequent steeps: A lot more floral, the jasmin is now dominating completely, letting no room for any other aroma.
Obviously the first steep is the cause of such strong bitterness in the 2nd steep, and I expect actual proper gongfu style brewing to allow for better results, taking that into account (and the fact this was a sample) I cannot wait to try it again and maybe edit this comment !
Overall though, I definitely appreciate this blend, the second steep had, appart from the bitterness, a lot of complexity and that’s not something you can say about most teas. Very pleasant.
Flavors: Clove, Floral, Jasmine
Preparation
Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – April 2024 Tea #6 – April 22 – Earth Day
Had this yesterday! I only forgot about an Earth day tea until after I steeped up some tea for the day. However, I’d like to count this anyway, as I think green teas make me feel most connected to the earth. Both in how fresh they taste, and in their appearance. This one especially — it looks like the finest of mowed grass clippings. Yum.
This one is quite a shocker for me, mostly because my experience doesn’t seem to fit that I’m reading around here.
It’s sweet and subtle, both traits that are important for a tea that describes itself as inspired by oriental hammam’s sents.
Here’s my issue, out of the four elements of the tea, only two seem to be noticeable with one overpowering the other, the green date (aftertaste) and the rose (subtly at the front of the taste).
The green date is something I never expected in a tea and it’s a very refreshing form of sweetness, the rose is very hard to get but it’s a nice touch that add for that Hammam-like taste — but no signs of orange flower water or red fruits.
This is a recurring theme in PDT flavored teas, they’re too perfumy, lacking much needed substance, they proved multiple times that some recipes of theirs can hit that note well but this isn’t one of those cases.
I have tried this tea twice, once in a gaiwan, 30s steeps at 75C and 2.5g/100mL and once in a teapot (6g/300mL, 75C, 3min) — both have been disappointing so far.
I am sad because I deeply wanted to love this tea, but for PDT teas I think I’ll just stick to their pure teas.
Flavors: Dates, Rose
Preparation
I just finished another 50 g pouch of this ethereal Tie Guan Yin. It became a little softer with age, but the gardenia, orchid, and violet florals were still lovely, as were the hints of apricot, pineapple, peach, green apple, and cream corn. The longevity was still good, though the later steeps were grassy as expected.
Kudos to Sipscollection for finding a beautiful Taiwanese green Tie Guan Yin! This tea may be getting too old to buy another bag, but I’m thinking about it.
I couldn’t remember exactly what this tea was called, so in my notes I have it written as “stalactites” which isn’t the furthest off! It’s lightly fruity and a little coconutty. I love a lemongrass-heavy tea. It’s really refreshing cold! I remove the butterfly pea flower so I don’t have to taste that flavor. Frustratingly, the coconut is starting to turn already.
I love this tea so damn much,
The peach is clear, and yet it does not overpower the Elderflower which is also very noticeable.
I went for an initial 95C for 2min steep, then consecutive 30s/1min steeps, 2.5g in my gaiwan for a bit less than 80mL.
Point here was to try how concentrated the taste could be, and it was worth it.
Very subtle, yet very distinctive taste — could be a perfect morning brew.
Flavors: Clear, Elderflower, Peach
Preparation
April Sipdown Challenge – raise your cup to the tea farmers for Earth Day – bonus points for an earthy tea! another sipdown prompt for same tea. It is allowed?
Anyway, I am raising my cup to tea Georgian tea farmers as they are definitely closest region where tea is grown for me; so minimal carbon footprint for this tea as well. And as I have mentioned many, many times, I just have a soft spot for them. But also, raising a cup for all other tea farmers including the small growers.
I am, however, very furious for reasons I don’t want to share in public (work-related), so a pleasant tea to the help.
Malty and sweet. Yum. Rye bread background.
Preparation
April Sipdown Challenge – raise your cup to the tea farmers for Earth Day – bonus points for an earthy tea!
I didn’t add this to my cupboard because it is a sample that I received as a gift from Whiteantlers. Many thanks, and I miss you!
I decided to go with ripe puerh for this prompt because most of them have some earthy notes. Little did I know I was about to drink the earthiest puerh I have ever had.
Dry aroma was pure dirt, in the best way possible. I love the smell of freshly plowed fields and of petrichor. We live on the border between the Sandhills of NC and the Piedmont. Our soil is sandy and dry, and this puerh smells like when I crawl under a house into the dry, undisturbed crawlspace. (Yes, I have had to do this quite a few times as the elderly ladies on the street used to call on me to hit the reset button on their oil furnaces. Ha ha!)
There is no fishiness and no real aged manure/horse barn scent here, other than the dusty smell of a barn with an earthen floor. There is no mushroom scent. There is a strong minty or camphor tingle that builds as you drink but dissipates fairly quickly. Pleasant.
I have had four steeps thus far and will be having more throughout the day. I am glad I tried this one. It is a very enjoyable ripe pu.
This is my first pu’er and maybe my last dark pu’er for a while,
I’m only starting in tea but it’s a though one for me, perhaps my steeping was wrong but while the earthiness wasn’t too strong and I could distinctly sense the typical puer aroma, I admit it’s just too out there for me.
It is, however, an overall good tea that needs to be tried.
30s steeps, 4g/100mL, it’s okay.
Flavors: Earthy, Viscous
Preparation
Sometimes I have to let a puerh “air out” for a few hours or even a day or two if it has strong fishy odor but otherwise has potential and good flavor. That might help make this one more enjoyable! I just take out as much as I think I will use in the next session rather than the while batch, unless it is SUPER fishy. Then I will air the batch a while and put it back in its container or wrapper.
Sipdown
This is a public service announcement. Lupicia has posted their line up of Mother’s Day teas, floral special edition tea tins, and cherry blossom/cherry flavored teas!
I was hoarding the last bit of this and planned to have it with Ashman for afternoon tea today. There was less in my tin than I thought so we had Decaf Muscat instead and I made this to go with ice cream tonight.
The aroma is pure Luden’s cherry cough drops. I love it. But I will admit that it did not go as well with ice cream as I thought it would. I usually have lapsang, hojicha, or a plain black tea with ice cream and this one got a little lost because it comes off sweet and the ice cream was sweet, of course. Not enough contrast.
I will admit here that I have already ordered two new bags of this. I am a little ashamed to admit I also ordered two new-to-me teas to try but one of them is for Ashman really so maybe that makes it a little better.
Ahhh….tea with quiet on top! After a rather rowdy afternoon (more on that in a minute), I grabbed the first viable pouch of decaf in the bin. While I won’t repeat it, because the only pecan I’m getting is in the scent, the roo is mild and the additives are smooth, if not flavor accurate. I wrote in a previous review that it’s more fruity than nutty and I’m sticking with that.
Nutty—that was the afternoon. Field trip to a new local entertainment center with 11 preteens. Half bowling alley, half indoor playground for bigg’uns (I am going to walk like a gorilla tomorrow morning), I bowled, climbed, slid, and lifted a two-year-old (my teaching assistants’ little one). Probably none of that was advisable, all of it was just goofy fun. Come with us next time.
