117 Tasting Notes
This episode of Sniff ‘n’ Sip brought to you by…Lemon Pledge. For that fresh, lemony scent throughout your home.
This was my first Earl Grey. And a very fine first it was, indeed. Fragrance, dry: Basically, I wanted to strap the packet onto my nose like a horse’s feed bag. Goodness, me, does this smell good. So refreshing. Fragrance, steeped: More of the same, really; I almost burned my nose. Oops.
Flavour: Just as good as the fragrance and exactly as expected. No false advertising here!
Verdict: More, please. I have too much tea to justify buying this right now, but it’s definitely been added to the shopping list.
Preparation
Sometimes I like to read what you say about a tea before I say anything. Sometimes I’m inspired by your words, sometimes I’m inspired to completely disagree with you. =) Sometimes I just borrow some of your vocabulary to avoid getting repetitive. In this case, I gotta tell ya, I’m feeling a bit bad about having read your reviews, because I’m afraid I’m going to pull the average down on this one. I’m really glad you love the tea; I just wish I did, too.
Reminder: I’m a tea-ophyte and especially new to black tea. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a Darjeeling and a Ceylon; until recently, I didn’t know there was one. I read some of your reviews talking about flavour profiles and notes of this and that, as if you were describing a fine wine1, and honestly, I feel like my senses must be dulled or something. =) This smells like black tea. Molasses? Caramel? Sweetness? None of that. About the most nuanced I can get about this tea is that it smelled to me like “green” black tea. This makes sense, if indeed it’s picked from land bordering a rainforest. I do agree that that “green” smells and tastes somewhat roasted.
I like strong flavours and I like flavour infusions. While my most recent foray into black tea (the Nepalese afternoon tea2) left me wanting more, this Sinharaja just made me want to get through it so I could try a different one. It’s not bad for what it is, I think, it’s just not my cuppa, so to speak.
1 I don’t get wine, either. It all tastes like grape juice + rubbing alcohol to me. =)
Preparation
Just a quick update to my previous tasting note1 on this tea. I fell asleep before I finished it, so it was cool when I woke up (not cold, just cool). Turns out, it’s quite nice this way.
Preparation
There’s nothing very special about the fragrance of this tea. Dry, it smelled like black tea, but it smelled really fresh. Steeped, it smelled like more of the same, with a hint of floral undertones. I didn’t get a whiff of sandalwood at all, though, or of honey. So overall, pleasant, but not amazing.
Which is why the flavour kind of bowled me over. The floral notes became more apparent and made this a really yummy, yummy cuppa. Sadly, I made the mistake of letting it cool a bit, at which point I tasted very, very slight bitterness that I didn’t like. Other than that, it was great.
Preparation
Doulton ‘s review1 of this tea pretty much sums up my feelings. I had to really work to enjoy this. I opened the packet and inhaled. The fragrance is light, fresh, green, very subtle. Not green like freshly cut grass, but green like young. When steeped, the fragrance is a bit stronger, but not much. The flavour is like the fragrance. I felt kind of bad drinking it, really, as if by leaving it in my cupboard, it’d continue to mature: so, little tea, what would you like to be when you grow up? I’m thinking my palate’s just not sophisticated enough for this one.
Preparation
Footnotes! How did you do that?
Footnotes: add the footnote number in [ ] brackets. Then, at the bottom, use “fn#” for the footnote. So [ 1 ] (without the spaces) will link to fn1. More info on the Textile reference page at http://redcloth.org/hobix.com/textile/.
Neat! I will remember this. Thank you.
tl;dr: I don’t really like vanilla, but I quite liked this tea. Therefore, if you really like vanilla, this tea may leave you rather…dissatisfied.
Upon cutting open the packet, my first whiff was of a vanilla milkshake. I couldn’t smell any tea at all. Then, I took another whiff, and thought, oh, hey, there’s the tea! I have very low tolerance for caffeine, so I don’t drink black tea very frequently. For me, its fragrance is quite a treat.
The powerful vanilla fragrance died down quite a bit upon steeping the tea, to where it was comfortably sharing olfactory real estate with the base tea. Very pleasant.
As always, I took a sip untainted by milk or sweetener, and it was okay. Then I added some sugar, and discovered that I (unexpectedly) like this tea! It brought out both flavours equally. I do agree with some other folks who stated that the tea is a bit weak, not hitting the palate with enough oomph and not really lingering, either. I was expecting a heavier sip, especially with the added sugar, but it remained very light. Now, as I’m not a fan of vanilla (except ice cream and milkshakes), I might have had an entirely different complaint had the flavour been stronger and longer-lasting. I’m kind of a pain that way. =]
All in all, I’m happy with the vanilla/base tea balance here. It’s a bit too light, and I would like to turn up both the bass and the treble just a little bit, so for that I deduct some marks.
Preparation
Opened the bag and inhaled. Mint and gunpowder smokiness, but pretty light on the smoke. Ignored the instructions to pour boiling water over it and steeped for four minutes in 175-degree water.
I drink my tea sweetened, but do like to take the first 1-3 sips “untainted” by milk or sugar. In my first (unsweetened) sip and in every (sweetened) sip thereafter, I felt that the smokiness in the tea’s fragrance was absent from its flavour. And while I tasted the mint that seemed a combination of peppermint and spearmint, I didn’t feel any of the “coolness” with which mint generally hits the palate…until I swallowed. Then, to my surprise, the coolness spread in my tummy; I kind of felt like there were good little microbial soldiers going to work setting things right in there. While it felt like good things were happening in my tummy, my mouth wasn’t nearly as happy (that sounded so much better in my head, but you know what I mean): I’m beginning to think that “dry mouth” is a gunpowder thing. The gunpowder taste may not be strong in this tea, but it’s a champ at dry mouth. =(
I’m not really a fan of mint tea, so I probably should’ve saved this one for Mum, but it’s late, way past my bedtime, and whenever I blindly reached for a tea packet I kept coming up with black/caffeinated teas that wouldn’t sit well with me right now, so I just went for it. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. It’s kind of uneventful, really. I probably wouldn’t buy it, but if I had more of it, I’d drink it.
Preparation
My first gunpowder. I opened the packet and inhaled. Hmm, smoky, I thought. I steeped. I inhaled again. Smoky, like roasted grass. Or…cigarettes? That was fleeting, and very strange. It sort of put me off the whole thing, but I carried on. The flavour is earthy, not as smoky as the fragrance. There’s a wee bit of bitterness, way back near my throat. And hoo-ee, does it leave my mouth dry. I drank about a litre of water after drinking my tea.
Is this the way it’s supposed to be? I dunno, I guess I’ll find out when I’ve tried some more gunpowders.
Preparation
Thanks, people, for the tip1 on adding our own blends to the “Custom” brand. It’s not a perfect method, but given the state of things, it’ll do.
So, I recently tried Numi’s White Orange Spice2 and Twinings’ Honeybush Mandarin & Orange3. The Numi’s was rather lacking in the citrus department, so I decided to mix the two.
Can I just tell you guys how happy I am right now? This blend is so yummy! The Twinings perfectly fills the orangey void in Numi’s tea. From the fragrance to the sips to, well, even the aftertaste(!), the sum here is far, far, FAR better than its parts. I’m so glad I decided to try this little experiment; now I won’t have to bore you by repeatedly whining about the weak bagged teas I have to get through. :D
A quick note about water temperature: the Numi box (white tea, remember) says to boil the water, which doesn’t really make sense to me. The Twinings box says the same for the honeybush, which does make sense to me, so I split the difference and steeped for 10 minutes. It seems to have worked well.
Preparation
There are some that think that white tea should be steeped with boiling water, and others that think white tea needs a low temperature. I personally prefer the low temperature, I find that the flavor comes through so nicely if it’s low temp and long steep time.
I have tried boiling water in the past; now, I just press the “white” button on my Breville, which is I think 185 degrees. Like you, I prefer the low temperature; I agree that it brings out the flavour far better than boiling water. Thanks for chiming in. =)
The third bagged tea I’ve tried in as many days and, like the others, a disappointment. It’s got a bit of spiciness to it, but no real bite. As Liv said in an earlier review1, it’s pretty flat. I don’t like cardamom and whatnot, so I wouldn’t be sad if the ginger were really strong in this, but it’s not. None of the flavours really jumped out at me individually, nor did they work very well together for a nice, smooth flavour.
I sweetened this cup but added no milk. Think I’ll try it with milk next time and see if that makes it better.
