A C Perch's

A tea with orange/brown color.
Sweet round taste. It smells of cake, of a warm summer night and cream.
I like this tea very much. You could say that this is my “usual” tea, one that I drink more than any other tea. It’s a humble tea, it dosn’t overflow you senses. I like it humble <3

Glad to be back on Steepster.
Looking forward to the year full of tea ;)

A sample from the lovely Angrboda. I agree with her assessment. This is not overwhelmingly bad, but it doesn’t really stand out from the pack. It’s your typical kind of floral, kind of grassy oolong.

Still trying to get through this at work. Our work-selection are still “stuff we would never get around to drinking otherwise.” When first I had this one I thought it was quite pleasant. Now, each time I have it, I like it a little less, and have as a consequence adjusted the points heavily downwards. I’m not sure what is causing this phenomenon, but I know that not all of it is due to the fact that it’s just not a very work-friendly tea, because I had the same experience when we had some of it at home still. But it definitely isn’t work-friendly. We have found that anything that is not black and flavoured doesn’t seem to be going well at work. I believe it has to do with the way we drink it there and the way circumstances dictate that we brew. In a 1 liter thermos, using a paper bag, unable to control water temperature and frequently oversteeping as we just don’t always have time to do something about it when it’s finished. Only flavoured black really seems to be showing up right in those circumstances, borderline abusive as they are. I think it’s because the flavouring of the tea hides the taste of the paper, and non-flavoured leaf is just wasted there. We have found few that didn’t just turn boring this way.

Anyway, what I was saying was that we are still trying to get rid of this one among others. Today I learned that it does not take kindly to being steeped for two hours and ten minutes. It was fine in the beginning. A bit strong, yes, but still okay. Once it started cooling down however… WHEW! Hello, Mr Astringency!

On the upside, though, but the time I got around to remembering to remove the bag of leaves from the thermos, it had turned a most lovely bright orange, which would have amused me greatly in most other sorts of tea. In this one it was merely slightly disturbing if I am to be completely honest. So two hours plus worth of steeping? Don’t do it again, self. Ever.

I was in the mood for green, I decided, because green is good for your eyes. I found this one in the back of the cupboard and it seemed fitting for the mood this evening.

Very nice. Very sencha-y. Me likes.

The real reason, however, for this post is to inform you that the trip report from my holiday is up. Beware it’s image heavy. http://iarnvidia.livejournal.com/2960.html

Finally working out how to pour from the gaiwan into a cup without spilling all over the place has totally revolutionised the way I drink greens! I like greens, but they do require a certain mood to be taken in larger quantities. Even my small pot is a bit on the big side there. This way is so much easier!

Leaf-saving too, because I can get way more steeps out of a smaller amount of leaves. In a pot I rarely do more than two steeps of a green, three if I’m doing a lot, because after that I’ve just become bored and want something else.

So I’ve dived into my stash of semi-forgotten greens and found this one. Very nice. I’m reminded a bit of the Long Jing I had the other day and not just because I’m brewing this the same way, but also on the flavour. Hint of asparagus there but not nearly as bright and bouncy as in dragonwell.

Of course, just like the Long Jing, I have no clue about which number steep I’m on at the moment.

And to think I was on the verge of putting the gaiwan on the shelf as a nice little tea-related decorative item. Now I think I need some more of them. :D

ETA: Without spilling… Ahem. wipes up

This is a Lexitus-tea that I got for Christmas. It’s one that I saw on AC Perch’s site and wanted to try and he remembered that, so yay him.

It’s a very interesting tea for me, this one. My first ever tea from the South American continent so I have little clue as to what to expect taste- and quality-wise. AC Perch’s say it’s similar in flavour to Japanese greens, but I have little experience with them, so it doesn’t help me much.

The leaves are large and very dark, so at first glance it looks like an average non-jade oolong. A fair amount of twigs in there too. The aroma of the dry leaves is fairly typical green. Not overwhelming in strength and sort of leafy sweet, a hint of nuttyness. Due to the leaf size it’s a bit difficult to scoop so I’ve fallen back on the same way I scoop my Pai Mu Tan. For one small pot with farm animals on it: Plenty.

AC Perch’s recommend a steeping time of six minutes, which I thought was rather a lot for a first go, so I’ve given it a little less, and since I can’t empty the whole pot into this cup in one go, I’ll get a second cup with a longer steeping time so I can compare there.

The colour is very light, and it’s one of those funky coloured once that makes you wonder if it might actually be mildly radioactive. A pale yellow greenish sort of glow-in-the-dark colour. You know those white stars? It’s nearly that colour. It has a very special smell too. There is an extremely sweet note to it that if I didn’t know any better, I’d think there was a lot of sugar in it. It’s kind of vanillaish, and maybe just a touch, the slightest little bit of something salty or seaweedish. It’s very very very little though, and the primary aroma note is the vanillaish sweetness.

It tastes nothing like it smells. There’s a typical green sort of nuttyness and not really any vanillaish sweetness. It’s got a good kick to the flavour, a bit more woody than grassy. It’s actually rather nice, but it’s not a tea that you can keep on discovering. What you see is what you get.

The second cup, which had a longer steeping time (longer, probably, than the recommended six minutes) is darker and much more yellow in colour. The aroma is pretty much the same, but strangely enough it’s not even remotely as strong as the aroma in the shorter steeped cup. The flavour has lost much of the nuttyness and gained quite a bit of astringency instead, and a sourish note too. I definitely liked the shorter steep better, but I feel that this bodes well for another couple of steeps.

ETA: Interesting. Second steep, although nearly forgotten and therefore severely oversteeped is actually still quite nice. It’s got a bit of a bite, but nothing like the second round of the first steep. Mostly it’s pretty smooth, I think.

AC Perch’s claim the Queen of Denmark actually drink this blend. Since they deliver to the royal household I see little reason not to believe them. This is a very awesome detail to know for a royalist-to-the-bone such as me.

I’m not really an Earl Grey fan. To me it’s either so citrusy that you could have called it a lemon tea and fooled me easily or it’s rather bitter. Bergamot is, to me, a fairly rough and throat-scratching sort of flavour. On top of that, it’s too common. Tell someone to name the first tea they think of and I would be shocked if most of them didn’t blurt out ‘Earl Grey’. It’s boring and every-day-ish when there are so very many other interesting teas out there.

Still, for some reason I made cup of this today. I think it was because I saw someone make a post about an Earl Grey creme, and of course now I can’t remember exactly which tea it was or who the poster was, but it did inspire me to try this one with a bit of milk in it. Normally I don’t really do milk in tea. 97% of all my tea is taken plain. No milk, no sugar, just tea.

It’s definitely benefitting from the milk. This is a fairly strong Earl Grey so it’s got a lot of the scratchy bergamot flavour and none of the lemony wannabe, and the milk is smoothing it out a lot. I think I definitely like it better this way.

On the other hand the addition of milk seems to have drowned out the Gunpowder in the blend, so it’s really like a two-in-one tea. It seems to me to be very different with and without milk.

Happy New Year Steepsterites.

We’re at about 9.31pm now around here and my dad just called to wish us happy new year. Well. I say us. Mostly they seemed to want to talk to Lexitus. Right. I can see I’m no longer interesting. huffs

Anyway, we’ve just made tea. A brand new addition to my hmm larger than I thought collection. AC Perch’s claim the queen actually drinks this.

It’s got a reddish sort of colour, bit like a dark honey, and the aroma is very Earl Grey-ish. I can’t seem to find any of the Gunpowder there.

The flavour is also mostly Earl Grey-ish, but it’s got some sort of flowery more leafy kind of note to it which I’m assuming must be the Gunpowder. Somewhat astringent too which makes me wonder if it might have been better with a shorter steeping time.

Decupboarded.
Had it standing with some other teas at my parents for a time. They got sick and went “ninja” into my cupboard (I don’t mind really – the more teadrinkers in the family the merrier). Mother swears she had some kind of “highs”. I think she steeped some of my pure herb bags.

Anyway, they tried almost everything until they found my ceylon and my darjeeling. They confessed with guilt when they returned my tea: “We’re sorry, but we drank all of it.” (The ceylon and the darjeeling)

I was almost rolling around on the floor with tears of laughter.
They are really the opposite of me – I couldn’t stand those two cans of ceylon and darjeeling. Father loved the daarjeling from a No-name-brand and mother loved this ceylon from perchs.

… I tend to forget that I don’t like these kind of teas.
It is as if my mind block for bad memories, to protect my naive love for “all teas”…

But I really, really, must admit that this tea does nothing to me.
Literally nothing. It dosn’t smell, it dosn’t taste and the color is kind of blah. I don’t think it’s this brand, that makes it bad.
Maybe it’s just my uncultivated tastebuds. Just call me savage.
It’s very easy to oversteep to me… After three tries, I feel myself giving this tea up.

Maybe I should try this again in two years?

Looks into the can
Yummy berries. Good leafs. Is that strawberry? YUM… and that looks like orange.

Wait.

What’s that?! Is that a… PEARL?!
A jasmine pearl???

Stares

Wonder if it’s part of the blend or a mistake. Found four pearl in total. I don’t mind. I love pearls. There is nothing wrong with the tea either. It’s a fine yellow liquid. Bought a kettle so I can boil the water to precise 80 celcius. Good result… The small dusty things are dancing slowly to the bottom. Some of them stand still for a while.

I like that. It’s like matrix.

Smell of heaven. Sweet and flowery.
The taste is sharp but sweet. Can’t taste the berries, can’t taste the pearls, can’t taste the leafs. Why? Because it’s blended into a symphony. Perch does that a lot – I don’t mind.

I LOVE IT!

I like this tea.
The color is light yellow, It’s smell sweet and “clean”, and then it tastes good.
Sadly enough I overstepped the steeping time. I like to just dip the tea lightly in the water and then fish it out. One of my friends calls it “Sweet water” but this is how I prefer it.
And I normally like my teas strong, so I guess it’s just this tea.

While waiting for my other cup to cool of, I can tell you about the tea I wrote about before “Pukka night time”. I left the teabag in the mug yesterday, only to discover it ripped open with it’s contents scattered all over the table this morning.
To people with cats, please keep the package of this tea out of cats way
… Or don’t. They really seem to love it and it it’s kind of fun watching them roll around the tea.

Now to the tasting notes:
It’s sweet and bitter. I can see pieces of fruits and so, but I can’t taste them.
Maybe it’s so well blended that the different ingredients become one taste. I don’t mind, I like this tea. Guess it’s fitting to drink after a sweet dessert.

Lapsang souchong in the house!

Oh yes! I don’t even know the last time we had an LS in the house, but it has definitely been quite a while. A looooong time. So when I was buying tea for the boss and me at work anyway, I decided to stock up since it was from the same shop. Husband agreed with my assessment that this was a necessity and therefore not a frivolous purchase. So 200g of LS and 200g of two other favourite fruity teas. That should last us a while, and I’m sure you will all agree with me that this was hardly excessive. Nothing new, only old favourites. Unfortunately we are still living in the Age of Frugality. (Although there are good omens regarding the Age of Frivolity at the moment. Well. Better omens than before, anyway. We’re keeping everything crossed here.)

So I’m having the first cup of my Perfect LS in a longer time than I can remember. It’s like an old friend come home and it beats the Lapsang Bohea Husband and I drank at the meeting with Roughage yesterday by several horse lengths. Not that there was anything wrong with that one. It just wasn’t this one.

Actually, while we were there, Husband asked me what the difference was between a lapsang souchong and a lapsang bohea. My initial reply was something along the lines of, “uuuuuhh…”

Eventually I came up with an educated guess that it probably had something to do with the leaf grade as I know souchong refers to the rougher older leaves on the bush. I figured it was possible that the bohea would have been made using younger leaves.

Turns out I was completely wrong in my guess, but the basis for it wasn’t far off.

Regular old LS does use the older leaves (unless otherwise stated, of course), but bohea refers to the Wuyi mountains where the type originates. For this reason lapsang bohea is often more expensive because the growing area is so small and the demand is growing.

So while many do consider bohea superior to any old lapsang (and it probably is too), it’s not really anything to do with leaf grade as such.

So there you see, Steepsterites! The sort of trouble you can get yourself into when you think you’re smart.

Pamela Dax Dean sent me a box of tea. A massive box of tea. And when I say ‘massive’ I mean ‘enourmous’! Like… HUGE!

In other words, I had 68 items in my Steepster cupboard. When I’m done adding all this stuff, I expect it’s probably doubled. Or nearly so anyway. I don’t think my Bits’n’Bops Basket is big enough anymore, it was fairly full as it was.

So, I’m adding stuff now. Given all this new stuff, I probably ought to have made some of it, but I really need something familiar and fortifying while sorting.

Disclaimer At this point let me just say that I officially give up trying to keep track of who sent me what. I know I still have stuff that Jillian and Wombatgirl specifically sent me and some stuff from some of you others as well, but I don’t have the brain capacity to keep track of where this much stuff came from. Forgive me.

Right. Back to work…

EDIT This is NOT the TTB.
And that was 57 new items.

Chi of Tea and their coupons are totally leading me astray! Was that a paypal button? Oh OOPS! :D

This is bad, because finances are a wee bit tight this month, but I’m staying within my weekly allowance, so I can justify it to myself like that. And also the fact that I could have placed a twice as large order, but decided to save some of it for later.

Clearly this calls for a cup of tea, something that feels thrifty, which means we’re delving into the Standard Panel. Smoky is good. Very smoky is very good. Hello Lapsang!

I’ve used plenty of leaf this morning. Plenty. Because I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. Luckily my average steep times are so short that it doesn’t really seem to have made a difference. It’s a little smokier than average but underneath all the smoke there’s plenty of the fruity sweetness.

I’ve had a Lapsang from TeaSpring, which is otherwise a wonderful company, I think, when it comes to chinese teas, and that one didn’t really develop that fruit note until the second steep. I think that’s why I prefer the Perch’s Lapsang over that one. I like that note. And I don’t want to wait for a whole new steep to get it. And I definitely don’t want to steep twice routinely to get one cup of tea. The super-smokyness of the TeaSpring one has other wonderful qualities, of course, like it’s a good one to turn to when in the mood for something seriously smoky, but it’s just not quite enough to make up for the subdued sweet note that I would say it was a better Lapsang than this one.

This one is perfectly balanced between smoky notes and substance for me.

(It’s significantly cheaper as well, which totally doesn’t hurt!)

I slept in until nearly 11am today and now two hours later I’m still feeling rather groggy and unable to get my head in gear.

Therefore I picked a tea that can deliver one of the strongest kicks in the rear that I know of. A smoky. And I used a little extra leaf.

The consequence of this is the feeling that there should be smoke coming out of my mouth when I exhale after a sip. It’s super-duper-prickly today.

Underneath that the sweet fruity base of the flavour is thick and strong.

If this doesn’t get me up and going, nothing will.

Good morning Steepsterites.

This tea was literally calling out to me this morning.

“Aaaang!” it said. “I feel sooo negleeected! Whyyy don’t you driiink me any mooore?”

Poor little Lapsang! Just sitting there in the tin being all lonely and unloved. :´(
I can’t have that, can I? So I made a cup, and I made it extra strength too.

The aroma is all smoke and campfire and coniferous trees. There’s a sweet, surprisingly fruity note underneath as well.

Oh yes. The initial mouthful of smoke. The finish of pure sugar (note that I haven’t actually added anything to the cup. I almost never use additives and when I do I say so). Not even the slightest hint of astringency or bitterness or anything in spite of the fact that I used about a third more leaf than I normally would have. It’s just remarkably smooth on the middle.

I’m coming quite close to deciding on this one for my Perfect Lapsang. TeaSpring do carry some awesome LS and they’re fun to try. But this is what I’ll come back to. It’s awesome, it can totally measure up to TeaSpring’s LSs in my book, and it’s somewhat more cheaper only having to travel from Copenhagen to me and not all the way from China. (Even if I do think it’s a little bit fun to get mail from China)

Oh my little nomsang souchong! Please forgive me for straying!

I’ll be of traversing the Wild Abroads in a few hours. I thought something strong and heartening would be in order.

Well, I say strong, but this isn’t really a strong tea, is it? It’s just the smoke that gives it the illusion of being strong. It looks, smells and sounds like a lion but underneath the smoke, it’s sweet as a fluffy kitten that likes to get its tummy rubbed.

In a moment of distracted lazyness, the water cooled off a little before I poured it on. It’s beginning to seem to me like no matter what the literature says, a large group of blacks, particularly chinese and flavoured, perform best in not quite boiling water.

Right here, what I’ve got is a mouthful of smoke and underneath a touch of caramel-y sweetness. Soft and smooth as velvet. Perfect.

Right. I’ll go and start finishing getting ready. I don’t know if I’ll have computer access much while I’m away, but I’ll return on the 18th, so I’ll see you all then. (and yes, there will indeed be an extensive trip report available upon my return)

I’ve made a tough decision about a few samples I had lying around this morning. I didn’t like them much and I wasn’t likely to ever get around to finishing them off. So I finally got rid of them. It was a hard decision but it felt good and freeing to do it.

I need something to pick me up again after this, and as I have this morning caught up with the follow list, I’m letting myself be inspired by those who had smokies lately. I had almost forgotten I had this nice little Lapsang in my possession and when I opened the tin and saw how full it was I went O.O and then :D

Yummm the smoke fills my nostrils and make them prickle almost as if I was about to sneeze and the aftertaste lingers in my mouth as if I’ve just bitten burnt toast. And yes, these are good qualities.

This newer steeping pattern of mine has brought out the sweet note a little more, I think. There is also a smoothness underneath the smoky prickly that wasn’t as pronounced before. At least not that I remember.

It’s just right.

It would appear that overnight I’ve gone off smokies completely.

In the future I’ll only drink herbal infusions. Preferably with tons of hibiscus in it.

;)

Wait a minute…

Is that…?

Can it really be…?

YES!!! IT’S THE ELUSIVE SWEET NOTE! I’M NOT CRAZY!

confetti