Mercuryhime select Send Message

I once went on a camping trip where I took a guided tour of the nearby woods. The guide cut up some branches of a young tree and told us that this plant was what root beer originally came from. Then he gave us each a bit of the branch and told us we could make tea with it. Well, I was impatient and just gnawed on my branch instead. Wow! Root beer! Ever since then, I’ve always associated root beer with wood.

Because of that association, the woodsy flavor of rooibos makes a perfect base for root beer flavored tea. This is good both hot and chilled. Unlike most people, I actively dislike fizzy drinks. So this flat root beer is just perfect for me. I also love that it’s not sweet. I don’t like sodas because they are too sweet. Overall, this is better than root beer in every way. I don’t really get the float thing though.

Thank you for sharing this with me DaisyChubb!

Has anyone else ever had dried bok choi? It’s a chinese ingredient rarely seen outside a traditional Chinese kitchen. Even my mom doesn’t cook it much since she believes that fresh vegetables have more nutritional value.
Well, if you’ve had dried bok choi, you’ll know what the fourth steep of this tea tastes like.

Fifth steep is a little less vegetable with some creaminess making a come back. The flavor is still strong.

I just pulled out a stem with three leaves and a bud attached. It’s about 2 1/2 inches long. How did that get rolled into a tiny little ball? Magic.

Steep six was over-steeped. I walked away to do something else and totally forgot about it for a good 15 mins. Tastes very strong and a tad bitter, but that’s entirely my fault. There’s a strong coconut flavor now. Nice! What will this taste like next?

Yum! This really is milky! I’m impressed that the sample packet came with a little oxygen absorber to keep my tea fresh. Then I was worried that it was going to absorb all the oxygen in the world and we’d all die. How do these little things work?

First of all, this is supposed to be a flavored milk oolong, which is fine with me. I was really in the mood for something creamy but I don’t have any milk like products right now. Brewing this gong fu style. I rinsed the leaves, as I generally do for oolongs, but then I remembered that this was flavored. Did I wash the flavor away? As it turns out, no, I did not. The first steep is smooth and green and creamy. It evens clings to the tongue the way milk does. It’s slightly roasty and slightly mineraly. It tastes like I poured some cream on top of some quality green oolong.
In the second steep, the clinging to the tongue quality is gone, but still tastes milky and sweet. The oolong flavor is coming stronger now. How I love Taiwan green oolongs.
Steep three. I used a higher temperature. This resulted in a stronger cup. The milky flavor is faint now. It tastes more vegetal. Like cooked watercress. It’s funny…I think I was just dreaming about eating cooked watercress last night. The leaves have also expanded tremendously. Wow.

More steeps coming later. :) I can’t wait to try my other samples. I’m gonna miss this one though…

So tasty! This has everything that I love about Chinese green teas. The leaves are bright green and fuzzy and lovely. They also smell fabulously like sweet hay and nutty green aromas.

The taste is buttery sweet and sun warmed hay. There’s a savory mineraly finish. It all goes down super smooth and comforting. No astringency, bitterness or harshness at all. This is very good stuff.

Second steep: The honey flavor is gone. This cup reminds me of toasty rice at the bottom of the pot. More woodsy. I actually enjoy this steep a lot more.

I don’t know why this tea appealed to me so much. Normally, I don’t like sweetener in my tea. I supposed I was thinking this would taste like honey but not be sweet. This tea fulfills that ideal.

When I opened the packet, I was surprised to see all the little leaf balls stuck together with honey. I thought it would be only honey flavored! But now that I look at the description, I should have been expecting honey covered tea leaves. :) They come in neat little single serving packs. There’s enough in there for a large pot if you’re brewing it western style. I planned to just take a small portion of the leaves to make a small serving, but I wasn’t sure how the leaves would keep since they were covered in honey, so I had to take out my large teapot and use all the leaves at once.

The resulting liquid is a light brown and slightly cloudy from the honey. It brews up quite strong. This seems to be a medium oxidation. I’ve had greener oolongs, but also darker ones. Honestly, it’s a bit dark for my taste, but that’s purely personal preference. It’s still very enjoyable. It’s not sweet at all, and the honey taste is light but pleasant. There’s a sweet toasty hay flavor and something fruity. It’s all very nice and comforting on a chilly day.

I’ve got a bit of a sore throat so this honey tea is probably pretty good for me right now. :)

This is a very nice tea to wake up to. It’s slightly toasty even though it hasn’t been roasted. There’s a nice sweet hay flavor mingling with a light matcha taste. Both savory and fruity. I’m not sure I taste the mango as the description suggests, but there’s some sort of fruit. Yummy. Made two steeps for me.

Rinsed. First steep is light floral and barely milky. Very smooth. This is a lightly oxidized oolong, which is fine by me. Greener oolongs are my favorites.
Second and third steep is slightly more milky, but it is still quite mild. The peachy flavor is coming through more. It is very floral with a slight vegetal finish. Slightly spicy.
Fourth steep is still going strong. The vegetal flavors are winning out now with peach in the background. There’s a bit of plum coming through as well. Milkiness is diminishing but there’s a stronger buttery flavor at the end of the sip.
This can probably go another steep or two.

I love how the floral flavors just linger in your mouth. Tea is probably the best breath freshener.

It is not really all that milky for a milk oolong. I think their regular Alishan Oolong is more milky than this. The peach flavor is quite a nice complement. It is very smooth and and satisfying. I think I’d have liked it more if it wasn’t called a milk oolong. I have another 50 grams of this and I just keep thinking how much my mom would like it. I’ll be bringing her some on my next visit. :)

The leaves are dark and straight. They’re like little 1" twigs.

The brewed leaves smell like…wet fallen leaves…? I’m not sure what it is, but it smells like something natural and woodsy.

First steep was pretty mild and dark tasting. It was pleasant and tasted of stone fruits. 2nd steep was very apricot-y. I had to take a few sips to figure out the other flavors. Mint, anise and campfire. As much as I love the smell of a campfire, I don’t think I like the taste of one. I have never before tasted these things in an oolong. It’s very earthy and well oxidized. These flavors continue into the 4th steep except the minty character. That’s gone now. I’m really not digging the anise and earthy aspect. Normally, earthy is ok, but this is intensely earthy. It’s also very fruity, but the other flavors stand out more to me. I’m sure there are many steeps left in these leaves, but I’m done with it. I kept steeping out of curiosity, but I’m really not enjoying this tea.
Am I brewing this wrong? Everyone else seems to like it.

I’m smelling the bottom of my cup now and it really smells like autumn in the woods with a campfire in the distance. It smells fabulous because I love autumn, woods and campfires, but those are not three things I’d like to eat. hmm…

I’m learning a lot about oolong these days. I’ve always liked oolong, but I never had more than a few different kinds. Thank you Batrachoid, for expanding my education with your generous sample.

Had a sleepless night. My doggie was sick and throwing up. :( I thought I’d have a bit of matcha for the energy. I’ve never successfully made a matcha for myself before. Today was different.
I dont actually have the traditional tools for matcha so I just add the powder and water to a cup and stir with a spoon. Am I a barbarian? maybe a fork would be more whisk-like… Anyway, the matcha is lovely. It’s smooth, vegetal and not bitter all. I love the seaweedy flavor. It’s like a relaxing day at the beach without all the sand.
I’m really just a matcha novice and other reviewers are saying there are way better ones out there, but for me, this was really pleasant.

Thanks for the sample Batrachoid! I had forgotten how much I like Japanese teas. I have all this Chinese tea, which is great, but tea from Japan is truly unique. They are the masters of savory flavors.