381 Tasting Notes
A Taiwanese Assam! Cool. :) The dried leaves are super cool looking, all long and twisty, and very aromatic. The brewing tea also smells amazing, malty with a bit of fruity baked goods? For a non-flavoured tea, this one certainly has a lot of flavours going on. Very nice.
Preparation
Trying some Assams this morning – tasting this one along with “Black Beauty” from Tealux. The dry leaves are small, with lots of golden tips. The scent has a lot of floral and fruity notes, and some buscuit maybe? The scent as it brews is actually quite mild, and the taste is smooth and balanced – no one flavour is really jumping out at me. There’s a slight hint of bitterness, but I think I probably just haven’t figured out the ideal way to steep this yet.
Preparation
So as far as I can tell, this tea is pretty much identical to The Tea Spot’s “White Wedding Tea”. Which is pretty much what I was hoping for when I ordered it, so yay? Anyway, it’s quite lovely: light and sweet and caramel-y (from the chestnut flavouring). The jasmine flowers are there, but I don’t really perceive any jasmine flavour. It’s yummy.
Flavors: Caramel
Preparation
I was in the mood for something a bit sweet after dinner, so I brewed up a cup of this. I added sweetener (xylitol – does anybody else use that in place of sugar?) and milk, and it’s hitting the spot quite nicely. :) I get caramel and vanilla from this – not really any fruitiness, but maybe that’s because I added milk right away. It’s nicely flavoured, not too strong or overwhelming.
Addendum: I stuck my nose in the bag while waiting for the water to reboil, and yeah, the scent of the dry tea is definitely fruity! Smells like chocolate-covered cherries. The 2nd steeping is pretty light and I’m drinking it straight. It still has a subtle sweetness to it.
Flavors: Caramel, Vanilla
Preparation
Working my way through the Tea at Sea samples. :)
I steeped this western style because I didn’t want to use up the whole sample in one go! So 2.5g, washed once for about 10 seconds, then steeped in 8oz of just-off-boiling water for 3min. I love the rich red-brown colour of this tea! It smells and tastes earthy, like walking through a shaded forest after a rain.
Flavors: Bark, Mushrooms, Wet Earth
Preparation
Mmm, this is a very nice end-of-day tea for me (here’s hoping it doesn’t have enough caffeine to keep me awake!). The scent is a little sweet, a little woody, a little floral… I was amused that “hot hay” is an option in the list of flavours/scents, because that’s what I was thinking about – fresh hay that’s been warming in the sun all day. Honey, bread, grassy, floral… smooth and gentle, with bit of astringency at the end of the cup. Nice.
Flavors: Bread, Floral, Honey, Hot Hay, Wood
Preparation
This came in my October Tea Sparrow box. It’s a pretty simple rose flavoured white tea, nice enough but not my favourite rose-y tea by any stretch. I just got a little gram scale for weighing tea, and was amazed that 3 generous teaspoons of this only amounted to 2.8g – so I’m beginning to see why Tea Sparrow recommends 1 tbsp per cup!
Flavors: Rose
Preparation
I’m doing a head to head tasting of this with the “Ceylon Pekoe” from the same company. It is also a smooth, woodsy tea but not quite as rich as the Pekoe and there is a really distinctly different flavour that I’m having trouble identifying. It’s kind of floral, and kind of grassy or grainy? Anyway, it’s very nice but again, I don’t think I love it enough to want to buy more of it. Luckily the sample packages have enough that I can give it a couple more tries before making a final decision. :)