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Ohhhh man. This was so worth the horrible exchange rate, and paying extra for shipping so I could get it sooner. YUM. I tend to be pretty “meh” about green teas in general, but this is my first time trying a really fresh green tea (and a Dragonwell, at that) and wow, does it ever make a difference.

I went with 3g of tea in my 100ml gaiwan. 80C water, initial steeps pretty quick, like 5-10 seconds. The first steeping was clear like water, subsequent ones were a pale yellow. The scent of the dry leaves when I first opened the bag was amazing, and the scent of the wet leaves is even more amazing! Rich and sweet and vegetal and… spring. The taste of the tea is amazingly sweet, with light vegetal notes and a lovely creamy mouthfeel. Ugh, soooooo good.

This one is from a Tea Sparrow box a few months ago. I’m sure I’ve had it hot, but I guess I didn’t write a tasting note. Anyway, cold steeped this one overnight and it’s pretty delicious. The strongest flavours are the sencha and coconut, with just a bit of nuttiness. Now I need to try it again steeped hot so I can compare properly. :)

Thanks to Anlina for the sample, but this is definitely my least favourite of the lot. I’m finding it really bitter and chemical-tasting, and making it into a latte with milk and sugar didn’t really help. Probably 1tsp of “robust”-flavoured matcha was too much for a 12oz latte, but still. Oh well, can’t win ’em all. :)

Sample sipdown – thanks to Anlina for the sample!
This is pretty good. The dry tea has a really intense toffee aroma, which is there but much lighter in the brewed tea. The base tea has a light, vegetal, sightly sweet flavour. I’m getting mostly cucumber notes from it, actually. I like both the base tea and the flavouring, but I’m not totally sold on the combination. I think the toffee flavour might go better with a sweet Chinese black tea, maybe. Having said that, I’ve slurped back the whole cup while typing this review, so I can’t complain. :)

This is an interesting tea. I know I tried it western style before, but I think I was distracted while drinking it so I didn’t write a tasting note. This time I decided to make it in the gaiwan. 4g of leaf in a 100ml gaiwan, and it almost filled it, it’s such a fluffy leaf. The first couple of steeps were 30sec and then 60sec with 80C water. Then I tried 60sec and 30sec with 90C water. I’m still trying to figure this out. :)

The dry leaf smells kind of grassy and musty. Wet leaves smell like, well, wet leaves… like a pile of autumn leaves that has been sitting for a while and starting to decompose. The tea brews up a lovely golden colour.

The mouthfeel is almost syrupy, and there’s a slight nectar sweetness. I spent quite a while sipping and trying to decide what this tastes like, because it’s an odd blend of musty and grassy and slightly floral. Eventually I decided that it reminds me of alfalfa hay that has been sitting in the barn for a while. Like, that aroma when you cut open a new bale of hay and pull off a couple flakes, and you’re slightly jealous of the horse/cow/whatever you’re feeding because it smells so good.

I got this from the terribly overpriced Cha subscription box. It’s actually an ESP Emporium blend, I think. Anyway, I’m surprised I didn’t write a review back when I tried it the first time but, I remember thinking “Hey, not bad! I bet it’d be great iced.” So, finally got around to cold steeping the rest of the sample and yeah, it’s pretty tasty – fruity and refreshing. Now to find somewhere to buy it that isn’t Herbal Infusions…

Tried this cold-steeped (are you noticing a pattern here? I am, in fact, trying to get rid of tea samples I was less fond of by cold steeping them). This is still just the weirdest flavour combination ever. It smells and tastes quite spicy, lots of ginger and also some cinnamon. But then there’s the tartness of the hibiscus, which is just a really odd thing to mix with those spices. I don’t detect any maple, and the honeybush is also pretty mellow this way. Weird weird weird. Anybody want the rest of this sample?

Tiny 3.1g sample in my 100ml gaiwan, and I tried not to fill it up as much as usual. 90-100C water. First steep 60sec, second 80sec, still going. :) The aroma of this is really cool. The wet leaves after the rinse were had a sweet, floral scent, but after subesquent steepings smell like spinach or seaweed, rich and green. The liquor smells sweet and floral in the first steep, with vegetal notes emerging in subsequent ones. The flavour is very crisp and refreshing, lightly vegetal like cucumber or fresh garden vegetables, with a creamy mouthfeel and a long finish, and floral notes in the aftertaste.

This one is also better cold-brewed. It’s still pretty much all hibiscus tartness… if anything, I’m getting even less of the peach scent than I did with the hot tea. But the tartness seems to work better as a cold drink. And the colour is pretty awesome. Now I want to try cold-brewing everything in my cupboard that has hibiscus in it. :)

I cold steeped this one overnight, and I definitely like it better this way. It’s still mostly peppermint, and I have to really concentrate to taste the ginger and green tea, but it feels a little bit more balanced. And cold steeped, it’s more just pleasantly refreshing as opposed to overwhelmingly minty. I strained it through a small kitchen strainer into my glass, and there’s a bunch of little bits/debris that settled to the bottom, which is a bit annoying but mostly just means I’m not going to drink the last 20-30ml. Note to self: strain through something finer next time. Bumping up my rating a bit because it’s actually pretty pleasant this way, though I’m still not sure it’s substantially different from straight peppermint.