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Another Sample from the great and powerful Miss_Phi!

I like the combination of black and silvery green leaves. It combines the look of a white peony and a silver needle. I brewed this in my glass gaiwan at a lower temp, and it was really fun to watch the leaves do it’s thing. The light gold liquor produced a rich bouquet of flavors. I got a rice and fragrant floral, like lilies and orchids. I also got that cold inhale from what I must guess is camphor. I am really surprised by how all around pretty this tea is. It looked pretty, it smelled pretty, it tastes… pretty. It seems ever so slightly girly if that makes any sense to anyone.
I have had a handful of samples from Puershop now, and this may be the straw that broke the camel’s back. I may have to put in an order sometime in the near future. idk why I was apprehensive before, part of me looked at the site and thought to myself, ’wow, this looks terribly spammy!"
Now I know not to judge it by it’s cover!

Got a brand new teeny tiny Kyusu from Yunomi today! It is perfect for me and my tiny tea needs. Pictures forthcoming!

I used this tea to introduce my new teapot to the world. I couldn’t find my Lotus Farms sincha so, this is one that I chose at random. It was a part of the ‘spring sencha’ sampler pack from Yunomi’s Obubu tea section. And by the way this one looks and tastes, I am real excited to try the rest. The tea was savory and rich. Just like biting into a fresh Napa cabbage. It is slightly nutty, and still really fresh, despite being a sample from tea harvested almost 10 months ago. I can’t wait until the 2015 spring harvests, I hope a newer version of this tea shows up, I would love to taste it side by side. I like my greens on the savory side, and this one is a really good balance between a touch of vegetal sweetness and all out salad buffet

Cold-brewed the last of my sample. It was much better this time around than hot. The coconut became more present and the cinnamon and citrus hung out in the background.

Thanks Miss-Phi for the sample!

Miss Phi, you have the smallest handwriting that I have ever seen! Somehow you managed to fit the whole name of this tea and the company it came from. I would kill for your fine motor skills, my dear!

Ah, yes. This is my kind of black tea. tippy, more golden fuzzies than not, the leaves are long and skinny and twisty and fun. After the leaves were spent, they were like little leaf noodles in my gaiwan.
The liquor was richly red and brown. The nice and thick malty quality is quite nice. I get some starchy sweet potatoes as well as some light dusting of cocoa powder. It is like some wonderful and delicious monster of sweet potato bread baked with chocolate-covered cherries in the center. So… Yum? Yes. Yum.

Got this tea as part of Marzipan’s tea stash sale!

This was a tiny pouch from 52 Tea’s 12 Days of Christmas advent calendar. I should have read the reviews of the reblend, because they were totally right. This reblend is a no go.

I like savory teas. I could even say that I really like savory teas. But each sip of this tea was followed by a ‘huh.’ First two sips all I could taste was strong tea and cumin. As it began to slowly cool, all I tasted was cumin. It was like licking an old jar of spice. I didn’t even get anything remotely like chai spices.

Ew. Sorry Marzi. This one is not for me, but maybe for the rubbish bin.

I don’t think I could properly give this a rating. I was so disappointed by the way the meeting went that I could not remember enough to put a number to it. I hate to admit it, but all of the steepings were awful. The bitterness and astrincency were so prominent that not much else was trying to get through. We did discuss it’s potency and earthiness, we even agreed on the strong black coffee and tobacco notes. The other teas we tried went the same route. sigh.

http://miss-tea-rious.tumblr.com/post/113255134405/little-gold-melon-shu-tuocha

I cold-brewed this sample from Ros overnight to take to work today. I feel like I should have doubled up on the tea, or used the whole sample to cold brew, because this tea was a little light for my preferences. I did like that I could distinctly taste the prickly pear, as well as a strong addition of pineapple and the bright lemony zing of the lemongrass.

I don’t usually think upon cactus very fondly (too many memories of stepping on/sitting on/having to pull out of pet fur), but I have always been a big fan of it’s fruit. Whenever I would visit my family in New Mexico, they would always have prickly pear jam in their pantry, as well as sweet tamales with said jam and shredded coconut. It was a specialty of one of my great Aunts’. I found the fruit in a Latino grocery store once and tried it fresh, there was not too much flavor to it. But when sugar is added, it transforms into a watermelon-ish/pineapple-ish/fresh and tasty thing that I would eat on toast.

I am glad to have tried this tea, it has been in my wishlist for some time now :P I like this blend for purpose of cold brew, so maybe I need to add this tea to my rotations!

Thank you Roswell Strange for the sample! I set this tea up in my ingenuiTEA to brew in the morning, and I didn’t check to see what kind of tea it was so I used just boiling water. Which could be worse, considering it’s a darker oolong and can take the heat :P I got a nice big hunk of orange in my sample from Roswell that I threw in. There was such an odd myriad of potpourri ingredients tossed in, rose, coconut, orange peels… I feel like none of them stood out to me. It was like drinking the inside of a craft store. There was not enough mouthfeel or ‘why hello, it is I, tea!’ kind of sensation I usually get. Ah well, you win some, you lose some.
Sorry, this one just isn’t for me.