1202 Tasting Notes
I tried this tea again today. I found myself thinking about it the past few days and wanting more. The first steep was yummy and filled with subtle cherry goodness, again with no sugar. I think this may be a good tea to scale back my sweetener usage with. The second steeping had no cherry taste that I could pick out. I’m not sure if my taste buds are off today or what, but the second steeping was dull. Even so, I’m finding I like the first steeping of this tea a bit more than I initially did. I think it is growing on me.
I LOVE jasmine tea and this tea in particular has a sentimental spot in my heart. Years ago there was an amazing guy I had casually mentioned my love of jasmine tea to. Being the thoughtful man that he was, he picked out a bag of this jasmine tea for me on a visit to the Tea Embassy and gave it to me on our first date. I had forgotten that I had said anything about it and was impressed that he made note of such a small detail in our conversations. I remember that tea tasting better than any other jasmine I had experienced. It was clear and crisp and strong. Such a pure jasmine taste and I believe it was my first loose leaf tea experience too!
Recently I went to the Tea Embassy and picked out a bag of that same tea. I took it back to the home I share with that man, who I still think is just as amazing (if not more) and the family we now have. I’m excited to try that tea and see if it holds up to my memories of it.
When I open the bag, the dry tea has such a strong jasmine smell to it almost like I’m sticking my nose in a flowering jasmine bush! The instructions on the the bag say to steep for 2-5 minutes and I did only two for the first steep. Wow, it’s still just as bright and crisp as I remember. I can’t taste any tea, just jasmine. It almost borders on the line of soapy in it’s intensity, but I have always like over the top floral flavors. It isn’t bitter like some jasmine teas I have had, but now days I’m much more careful and aware of over steeping unless I have to walk away from my steeper for a while (which is what happened on the second steeping). Second steeping was a little tongue puckering in it’s intensity, but adding cream and sugar made it an enjoyable drink again. I adore this tea and am glad to be reunited with it! To me, this tea is love.
This smelled fantastic in the bag! I may have brewed it a touch too long. When I first sipped it I was ho hum about it. A little bitter with pumpkin. I added some sugar and the cheesecake taste came out. Added a little more to see what would happen and the cheesecake flavor was even more pronounced with a pumpkin taste lingering. Even with the flavors being more pronounced than the initial few sips, the taste is not a full mouth assault and I kind of like being assaulted by my tea. Oh god! My second steeping I managed to murder with some soy milk. Yuck! I think I need to try this with some real cream. Trying with real cream… nope, that doesn’t work either. I seems like any cream kills the pumpkin flavor. This one is best with just sugar. Unfortunately I have gone through the whole sample now.
This tea sounds delicious, but the taste ended up being quite subtle. I didn’t like it the first time I tried it, so I brewed it much stronger this time. I am now able to pick up on the nuttiness of the pecans on the sip which is followed quickly by a brief raspberry taste. Adding sugar brightens it up a bit, but I’m still not impressed. I’m glad I bought only a sample on this one.
I think I like this one! It smells and tastes very cinnamony, but not in an overpowering way that will give me heartburn and curdle my tongue. I get a hearty full base flavor that I like. Could it be the pu erh? I can’t detect chocolate when the tea is hot, but maybe that is part of the base I am tasting? When it cools, I think I can pick out the cloves and cardamon as well as chocolate on the aftertaste, but cinnamon is still the predominant flavor. I do wish there was more chocolate.
I had never tried Della Terra teas before, so I ordered two of the pick your own sample packs and this was one of my picks. Those things are brilliant and I wish every company would give you a trial option like that! I can smell cinnamon, oatmeal and raisins when this tea is dry and a strong cinnamon scent when it’s brewed. When trying it plain I can’t pick out much flavor on the sip, but the aftertaste is very much like I just had an oatmeal cookie in my mouth! Next I added what may amount to a little too much sugar – whoops. The cinnamon is much more pronounced on the sip and the cookie aftertaste is stronger too. Now I’ll try it with cream! The cream tones down the cinnamon which is nice because it was being a bit of a stage hog. The scent is more even too and I can pick out the oatmeal taste at the end of each sip as well as after now. My first impression is that this tea is yummy and interesting, but it isn’t awing me either. What it is doing is making me want to bake oatmeal raisin cookies. I wonder if that is the result of a flavor association in my brain. My mouth tastes oatmeal and my brain expects my stomach to feel full? Strange!
I received some of this from Chuckieroy in a trade that was far more generous on his end, so thank you to you sir! I would not have chosen this tea had I seen it for sale and I would have missed out on something good. I find candy sprinkles in my tea amusing yet foreign and distrustful, something that I am slowly overcoming. It’s really quite stuffy of me! The dry tea smells exactly like what I remember Mighty Leaf’s African Nectar smelling like; a tropical fruity rooibos. It also tastes like what I remember that tea tasting like and I loved that tea… until I tried it again recently and found it fell short of the nostalgic pedestal I had placed it on. This tea is what I wanted when I bought a box of that other tea recently and I’m guessing by the name that I’ll have to wait until next Halloween to get my hands on more. Just another reason for me to love Halloween I guess!
I did a little local self guided tea tour the other day and Zhi Tea was my first stop. The cherry part of this tea caught my eye, so I got a sample. I love sample sizes! Dry, this tea smells like rich cherries. I can just barely smell the green tea behind it. The taste is pretty smooth and subtle compared to the loudly flavored teas I am used to and love. I can pick out some cherry on the sip, but most of what I am getting is on the after sip. There wasn’t any bitter or tart edge that needed to be balanced out, so I opted not to add sugar for most of it which is unusual for me. So far it has been equally good for two steepings and at the end of the second cup I added a little sugar which actually kinda killed the cherry. I like it, but it’s not the party in my mouth level of flavor that my favorite teas have. It feels like a more mature taste. I’m not crazy about it, but I feel like I need to explore this one some more before rating it. It has me a little puzzled.
This is the first flavored matcha I have tried. The smell of pumpkin pie (predominantly nutmeg) hits me as soon as I open the bag. I have drunk it a few times already and have been playing around with the ratios and reading about people preparing it as a latte. So today I used two spoonfuls of matcha, one teaspoon of sugar and a scoop of powdered goat milk in a regular sized mug full of hot water. If you don’t mind that distinctive goaty taste (which I don’t), it’s pretty good that way! The creaminess of the milk works really well with the pie flavor. Through half the cup, each sip had a wave of bitterness on the sides of my tongue which crept close to the line of unpleasant and quickly receded back. As it cooled that bitterness was more mellow, but lingered more. I kind of liked it. With so many pumpkin pie flavored things (this tea included) I have a hard time figuring out if I’m actually tasting pumpkin or if they are relying on the nutmeg and other spices to carry the assumption of pumpkin. Looks like I won’t figure it out with this cup because I finished it already! I liked this tea, I’m intrigued with the whole flavored matcha idea, but I don’t know that this one was something that I’m crazy about. I’ll have to try it a few more times to be sure.
I am plowing through this 2oz bag I got! It smells very similar to the Tea Embassy’s Almond Cookies Green tea, which is also being drunk at record speed. Both have a powerful almond and coconut smell and that strong smell carries through to strong flavor once brewed. Both are quite delicious with this one being non caffeinated! I didn’t understand why it was called Wedding Cake until I went to a friends wedding the other day and had a slice of cake. I was floored by how similar the cake tasted to the tea! My friend said it’s vanilla cake with almond frosting. It was delicious, just like this tea. The rooibos is a bit drying as it tends to be, but the fantastic taste distracts me from that most of the time. I think I’ll make a permanent spot in my cupboard for it in the non caffeinated section.
