234 Tasting Notes
I felt like something sweet this morning, which I typically don’t in the morning. But today my desires drove me to Honey Pear tea, which is one of the sweetest teas I have. The delightfully sweet smell of succulent ripe pears rises from the cup and fills the room with sweetness. The honey smell and taste is somewhat overwhelmed by the pear taste, but notes are there. The black tea at the base is a good non-bitter, non-astringent black. Nice.
Preparation
It brews up into a pretty brown tea with a sweet cranberry fragrance. Surprisingly, the tea taste is paramount and the cranberry and fruit tags along to add flavors, but they’re just side dishes. I can definitely see serving this on Thanksgiving with the pie.
Preparation
The dry leaves and flowers are beautiful and they smell like old fashioned orange rind candy. The chamomile adds a honeyed note. It is not all that different in the cup. It brews up into light liquor with a sweet citrus smell. It tastes strongly of orange with notes of chamomile peeking through. There is a very slight hibiscus note, but I wouldn’t have noticed it unless I was looking for it. I can’t say that it makes me sleepy, but it is a nice relaxing cup of kindness before bed.
Preparation
It’s an interesting looking tea. You can really see the different components: the long green leaves, the short brown ones, and the tiny dark brown leaves. Once wet it looks like fall leaves in my strainer.
It brews up into a red-brown liquor with a pleasantly sweet mixed with a lightly smoky fragrance. The taste begins with the light smokiness of an English Breakfast tea with the addition of a floral aftertaste and a slight toastiness. It is a surprisingly complex tea but without any astringency or bitterness. Very nice. Much thanks to takgoti!
Preparation
This was one of the first teas I tried before I learned that time and temperature were important. As a result I steeped it for a long time in boiling water and I hated it.
I decided to try it again. It has a pleasant sweet fruit smell like warm fruit punch and light sweet taste. There is a slight amount of astringency but no bitterness. The liquor is golden with small suspended particles. I like it now. What a difference time and temperature make!
Preparation
In all honesty, it’s difficult to find a Genmaicha with Matcha I don’t like. I love the toasty smell and taste, the sweetness of the matcha, the cloudy green color. This one is slightly better than Holy Mountain’s and Upton Tea’s but only slightly. In fact, I’m not even sure it isn’t exactly the same. Clearly I need to do a Genmaicha taste test and comparison. But that will have to wait until after NaNoWriMo. Meanwhile, I’ll just say “Mmmmm! Genmaicha with matcha!”
How does it work for more than one infusion? I’d think the matcha would all go into the 1st cup?
I don’t typically do more than one infusion with most teas except the first or second time as a discovery method. The one time I tried a second steeping with genmaicha it was disappointing (for exactly the reason you mentioned). I haven’t tried it with this particular genmaicha.
You don’t??? That’s such a waste of tea and money! I’m on infusion 6 of a green and get 8-10 w/ some oolongs.
The problem is that I typically don’t drink more than a cup at a time and then I want a different tea or no tea at all. If I were staying put and drinking the same tea throughout the day I would re-steep, but since I don’t, it seems unsanitary to keep wet leaves more than a short time. How do you handle this?
As long as the tea leaves do not mold, you’re fine! I do happen to drink one tea til the leaves are dead, but if I do want a change I either just set them aside (I always use Adagio’s ingenuiTEA) and steep something else in a paper filter or you can dry the leaves on a paper towel on a plate (as long as the plate isn’t paper). Even leaves in a paper filter can be saved, just set them aside in a cup or on a saucer. They don’t have a real long shelf life, but will definitely last til the next day at least. There are several times where I have leaves that just refuse to die so I finish them in the morning.
Hmmm. Perhaps I’ll try putting them in the refrigerator then.
There is no need. DO NOT put them in the frig. Just leave them on the counter out of your way. Chilling them damages the flavor.
I live in buggy Memphis. In the period between winter and summer the outdoor bugs crawl under my door looking for warmth and food and we fight a constant battle with them that won’t be over until March or April. The ants activate in October and continue through January (and we fight a war against them). Part of our side of the war is that nothing that is not perfectly sealed and dry is ever left on a counter where it could validate the bugs’ perception that it is possible to find food here. (We have other more aggressive tactics as well, but it is pointless to carry out aggressive actions if one does not shore up one’s defensive lines.)
You must trust me when I say that bugs are different in the South. There is no real winter to kill them off and the constant moisture provides them with perfect nesting and breeding grounds.
I suspect that you are thinking to yourself that there are bugs in Wisconsin as well or that I must be a terrible housekeeper or that I must live in a slum. I used to think the same when I lived in Columbus, OH and Denver, CO. It was possible in those places to defeat the bugs. Here in Memphis even the best houses and the cleanest people must fight the bug battle. It is a way of life.
I would not dare use tea leaves I’d left out for an hour and didn’t watch over. It wouldn’t be sanitary. So if they can’t be refrigerated, I won’t be keeping them for a re-steep.
as long as they are cool (so steam doesn’t form) they can be in an air tight container.
Basically I’ve been living on Sinharaja. It provides me a warm, comforting cup of tea that says, “It’ll be ok. The words will come” as I work through NaNo. It’s not that I don’t want to drink other teas. It’s that this one is easy on the tongue and easy on the mind. I don’t have to worry about temperatures or time and that leaves my mind available for writing.
I’ve had the flu and been unable to write and without an appetite for much of anything, including tea. Today I feel almost human and I’m celebrating with this delicious lychee tea. Lychee is one of my favorite fruits and this tea does a reasonable job of bringing the lychee flavor to this mild black tea. Overall it is quite nice.
Does this pear lean toward tartness or sweetness?
Sweetness. Very heavy on the sweetness.
When I get around to putting an order through with Golden Moon [I 100% blame you, by the way] I’m so getting some of this.
They have really good quality tea, I think. I gave my mother a Tea of the Month Club from them, which she has really liked. She enjoys trying the tea and she gives away the ones she doesn’t like as much or keeps them for guests. Each month she thanks me again (which is somewhat embarrassing) so I think it is one of my more successful gifts.
Way to whet my appetite! I’m going to have to get some of this. Sounds wonderful. I’d rather have overpowering pear than just the suggestion of pear.