288 Tasting Notes
New favorite tea!
Everything about this tea makes me just so happy! The cacao nibs and Laoshan black are just perfect. I love the roastiness added by the rice. And the addition of the oolong was genius. My non tea drinking husband is laughing at me right now; I seriously can’t take a sip without making a sigh of happiness.
Please, please, Verdant…never do away with this tea.
Preparation
Mmmm mmmm MMMMMMM. Den’s really does do genmaicha well. I used a tablespoon of leaf and it’s perfect. The toasty rice flavor is there and the leaves are nice and sweet. No bitterness. I’ve been trying to drink up another genmaicha I have that is going stale; I think it’s time to call it quits on that. Why force myself to drink stale tea when I have this in the cupboard?? I just feel terrible throwing tea out, knowing how much work goes into it…
Preparation
I haven’t had this tea for several months and already it’s living up to my past experiences with it. The dry leaf smells so rich, and the wet leaves so sweet! I can tell my tastes have changed a little though, as I’ve needed to increase my original steep time. That may be however that this is an older sample, and not as fresh. I found this in my sample pile and was so angry at myself for not drinking it earlier. But then again, I’m happy to have it now. :-)
This time I’m picking up on some floral, which I don’t remember from before. The roastiness is still there, and that glorious sweetness that hits the back of the throat. Yay for old favorites!
Preparation
I thought I would go out of my comfort zone of unflavored tea and get this. The dry tea smells pretty decadent! But the actual brew is just bad. It is so chemical to me; it actually tastes like someone dumped a little fingernail polish remover in my tea or something. Just a little. It even smells that way, brewed.
The best use for this tea is potpourri. It smells wonderful dry.
Don’t let this turn you off of this company, though. I’ve tried a few of their teas iced and they were delicious!
Wait a sec. I just brewed another cup of tea to get that taste out of my mouth and now I’m sure it’s the water. Someone else filled my Zojirushi and didn’t use spring water!!! BAD. I will try this tea again when I have better water.
Preparation
This tea is nicely balanced. I think jasmine whites are slightly higher on my favorites list than jasmine greens. It has such a pleasant sweetness, and the jasmine isn’t too heavy. I really think the white tea adds something extra. This tea is probably one of the more lightly fragranced jasmines I’ve had, so if you don’t have any experience with jasmine it may be a good choice!
Thank you again Teavivre for the delicious sample! The people at Teavivre really are exceptionally generous. I highly recommend their company!
Preparation
First, thank you Teavivre and Angel for this really delicious sample!
Wow, I love this tea! The sweet pea flavor is just so refreshing and bright. No bitterness or anything else unpleasant can be found in this tea. It’s even a little creamy, which is my favorite thing to find in a tea. Yay!
Second steep 1 min 15 sec. The leaves smell exceptionally savory this time around. It seriously smelled like pot roast to me. Maybe I’m just really hungry…the tea definitely doesn’t taste like pot roast though. It has more nuttiness this time, and less sweet pea. Still delicious!
I used 2 tsp for 8 oz.
Preparation
I’ve experimented with this a little to find my favorite steeping parameters, and I think 5 pieces is perfect. My favorite part is when it cools; the chocolate comes out a bit. If you like that flavor profile, you will probably like this tea. I didn’t find the cocoa notes very strong, but they were there. I like that this tea is not ‘in your face’. It’s a very pleasant tea to drink for that reason. Thank you Teavivre for the chance to try this tea! I’m very much enjoying finding black teas that I like!
Preparation
I’ve had this tea for quite awhile but haven’t made a note until now because I have a hard time deciding on any sort of flavor profile for this one. There have been a lot of notes on it already, and I find that my tastings of it are different from what others have experienced. I taste roasty oolong with some woodsy and floral notes. The first steep has some sweetness, but I’m not getting any sort of heady vanilla or heavy banana or honey notes. This particular combination of floral and woodsy actually clash for me a little. That said, I do like this tea!
Ahaha, my boyfriend had the same reaction the first time I drank this tea and swooned over it.