Camellia Sinensis

This 2017 harvest is actually DJ-16, which I think means that it’s a slightly earlier invoice. In the bag, it smells like dried flowers, herbs, and stonefruit. After a 3:30 steep at 195F, these flavours become more prominent. There’s not a lot of astringency, and the peach and muscatel make this tea pleasantly sweet, balancing out the herbaceousness that I think is characteristic of FF Darjeelings.

A five-minute second steep is surprisingly good, though I’ve learned from experience not to push it beyond that to “extract all the flavour!”

I wrote a previous tasting note on the 2017 spring harvest of this Shan Lin Xi, and this one is for 2018. Every year, I get some of this tea, and every year, I run out of it too soon. I need to cave and buy a larger amount. I steeped my last remaining 6 g in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

In the teapot, I get aromas of cherry, wheatgrass, flowers, and honey; it smells softer and more nuanced than the 2017 version. Because it has all the tea bits from the bottom of the bag, the first steep is more astringent than usual, with notes of flowers, honey, cream, grass, and faint cherry. From the second steep, stronger cherry, balsam, and tropical fruit (maybe papaya?) emerge. Like its 2017 counterpart, this tea ends too soon, with the fruitiness and florals disappearing into vegetal obscurity by steep seven or so.

This Shan Lin Xi is a favourite and is great for mindless sipping. Last spring’s harvest had a more distinctive cherry profile, and while I appreciate this year’s honey and florals, that fruitiness is what makes me return year after year. The only thing that’s preventing me from giving this tea a higher rating is how quickly it ends.

I’ve sampled every harvest of this oolong since I started drinking loose-leaf tea in 2015, so you could say it’s an all-time favourite. There are teas that are more complex, last longer, and get more attention online, but I keep coming back to this one because of its approachability.

Just as the description from Camellia Sinensis promises, it hits you with strong cherry, coconut, and wheatgrass notes. (I probably couldn’t have put my finger on the wheatgrass flavour if the website hadn’t mentioned it, but once you know what to look for, it’s unmistakable.) Unfortunately, the tea doesn’t have staying power, usually losing its fruitiness and turning vegetal by around the sixth gongfu steep. Alternatively, I can get three good Western infusions out of it. At $20 CAD for 50 grams, it’s also a decent price for an oolong from this area.

This is a wonderful everyday tea—not so complex that I need to think about it, and bold enough to stay interesting.

I’m transitioning from a day to a night shift sleeping schedule tonight… which means I’m ingesting an alarming amount of tea. I did an all at once side-by-side of a 1st, 2nd, and autumnal flush Darjeeling to get an initial feel for how they compare side by side. Because I’m sleepy and minimally functional I grandpa-style brewed them fairly cool.

This 1st flush was honestly my least favorite of the three flushes! It was the most citrusy and astringent, with a light colored and sweetly fragrant liqueur. I was surprised at any bitterness at all considering the temperature of the water but then again I’m particularly sensitive when it comes to bitterness. I double and triple checked the listing which claims this is a black tea. I haven’t had darjeeling before this experiment but I SWEAR this is a green with its light floral flavors, quick-to-go-bitter tendency and lack of any rounder notes. Is this typical of first flush Darjeelings? Is this just because I brewed it a little haphazardly? Am I going insane in my exhaustion?

A future gongfu session will secure a rating. Until then, I’ll call this one “meh.”

I’m transitioning from a day to a night shift sleeping schedule which means I’m ingesting an alarming amount of tea. I did a side-by-side of a 1st, 2nd, and autumnal flush Darjeeling to get an initial feel for how they compare side by side. Because I’m sleepy and minimally functional I grandpa-style brewed them fairly cool.

I found this to be the most enjoyable of the three flushes. A delightful light-toasty and nutty dry leaf aroma that made a pleasant amber liquid. Tastes like cherries, oak, nuts, brown sugar. Supposedly this one has decent muscatel notes but I still don’t have any idea what that means. . . it’s possible my extremely gentle hand with this brew wouldn’t have extracted that flavor this round anyway.

I’m transitioning from a day to a night shift sleeping schedule which means I’m ingesting an alarming amount of tea. I did a side-by-side of a 1st, 2nd, and autumnal flush Darjeeling to get an initial feel for how they compare side by side. Because I’m sleepy and minimally functional I grandpa-style brewed them fairly cool.

I think this was the most interesting and complex of the three, almost like a blend of the first two! It had both caramel and citrus notes, not competing, almost taking turns on the palate. Very interesting.

I’m wistfully savouring the last of this tea, regretting that I didn’t buy a kilo of it. Since there was a little more than an average session’s worth but not enough for two, I put about 7 g of leaf in my 120 ml teapot. I steeped it at 195F for 20, 10, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

This tea is sweet, rich, and balanced. I get notes of barley sugar, honey, flowers, caramel, chestnuts, cranberries, malt, and wood. There’s a bit of astringency, especially since I stuffed so much tea in the pot, but it doesn’t detract from the deliciousness. By the third steep, notes of orange blossom, citrus, and a bit of cocoa show up, and walnut skin appears in the aftertaste.

For the next few steeps, the chestnut, honey, and fruity tartness are dominant. Even when it starts to fade, it does it elegantly, without the bitter mineral taste that later infusions of black teas seem to have.

No question, this is the best black tea I’ve had in 2017.

This is my first review on Steepster! And, since offbeat variations on well-known tea types tend to interest me, this black tea from Guangdong is a good place to start.

Other than having tart, berry notes and long, twisty leaves, however, this doesn’t remind me much of a Dan Cong, but instead recalls some other Chinese black teas I’ve had. It’s sweet (Camellia Sinensis’s mention of barley sugar is accurate), peanuty, slightly floral, and most importantly, forgiving. It’s comforting and balanced, and I’ll especially enjoy this as an autumn brew.

I steeped slightly more than 3 teaspoons of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain teapot at 195F for 25, 15, 25, 40, 55, 70, and 180 seconds.

I bought this as part of the 2017 Taiwan Tasting Kit. While it’s not the most outstanding tea in the world, it’s well worth the regular price of $10/50g. Like other Four Seasons I’ve had, it’s tangy and floral with hints of vanilla. It also has a spicy note in the first few steeps that is really enjoyable. Unfortunately, it gets vegetal quickly, petering out around steep six. I could see myself restocking this tea, but it’s not a priority.

I steeped 5 grams in a 120 ml porcelain teapot at around 200f for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 40, 50, and 100 seconds.

You can get many better teas for the same price. The flavours are atypical of an Assam 2nd flush tea — I don’t even think this was a “real” Assam.

It was part of our tea tasting at Tea Drunk with my friend Tynan and the guys from Budapest. It was our least favorite tea.

Gongfu!

This is a really lovely aged white tea; the dry leaf is stunning and the steeped tea is a golden yellow colour that verges on amber that makes me swoon. Tonight’s session has a really unique and tasty mix of brown sugar, molasses, golden raisins, tangy nectarine, and crunchy autumnal leaf notes!! I’m so thrilled it’s held up well since I purchased it.

Not sure if this is still carried by CS, but I would be mighty tempted to restock my tin if it still is. The only downside is that this is so incredibly light and fluffy that it takes up A LOT of space to store; space I’m not sure I have…

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CBB9eYfgVjt/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndlb4fic-eQ

Cold Brew, with some added in lemon slices/wedges.

This was really good – cooling and crisp with a mild hay/straw note and a hint of apricot and then, as the lemon slices gradually infused overtime, it became a lot more like a white tea lemonade which was especially refreshing.

You’ll likely notice, as I make my way through this queue of tasting notes, that I really favored cold brews during my week long staycation: it’s HOT in my apartment, so they definitely became a necessity.

First tea of the day!

I’m finding that this is tasting more like a black tea this morning than a white; a malty, full bodied black tea with top and body notes of stonefruits – peach and nectarine. Wicked smooth apart from the tiniest bit of astringency on the top of the sip. Hits me right on the tip of the tongue, but then quickly goes away.

Large Western mug.

This one was at its best when it was just above room temperature. It was just super smooth, with strong sweet malt notes, hints of fresh timothy hay, and a fruity nectarine/peach like undertone that gave it just a bit of brightness. After it had cooled down more than this, though, it just lacked shine. More of a flat hay note.

A reminder to myself not to neglect my mugs of tea.

So, I tried this one with the pumpkin agave too a few nights ago.

I had the idea that a while tea might be a nice compliment to the agave because it would be light enough to showcase the pumpkin notes in a prominent way and what straw/hay notes were present would only sort of add to that overall autumnal feel. I chose this white tea specifically purely because I just have so much of it on hand.

It didn’t really work though, and it came out very muddled and borderline cloying tasting. It’s almost like the taste of the agave was too present and it just ruined the base tea completely. I also forgot that this white tea has some pretty strong stonefruit notes and to be honest they just tasted weird with pumpkin. Pumpkin and peach? Not a strong match up…

It was drinkable, so I finished the cup but it’s not something I’ll be revisiting.

Hot, and Western again…

Even though I’ve only had this tea one time prior to this cup, when I brewed this up it had such a strong familiarity to it – the kind of familiarity that definitely extends past trying it one prior time.

The taste was nice; very smooth with a surprisingly thick and viscous mouthfeel. The taste was a mix of hay, delicate malt, stonefruits (peach/nectarine/apricot), and autumnal leaves. If I had to pick a more abstract way to summarize the flavour I’d say it tasted the way that jumping into a pile of freshly raked, crisp orange autumn leaves feels…

I liked it a lot.

Nabbed this one with my last order because I’ve been curious for a while; and why not try it now? I can’t think of a reason not to…

I suppose what I expected from this one was pretty much your typical Shou Mei flavour but just with a lot more body? In a way, I suppose it is that. It’s got a very thick mouthfeel/liquor, and the overall flavour is relatively full bodied (for a white tea) with a lot of natural sweetness. The top notes and body are both pretty tangy, with some supporting hot hay notes. The finish is much smoother, and has a bit of a wood chip/dried wood sort of taste to it.

For a Western cup, this was interesting with a slightly above average sort of complexity to it. I imagine this would be quite nice and smooth Gong Fu, though my gut feeling is that it probably wouldn’t be a very long lasting session. Something worth trying, though.

Dry stuff is Good ol’ apple-caramel crisp, extra butter.

Infuses in floral Oolong at first, lighter than expected, i’m getting a chalky/powdery vibe and some type of boiled pork or beef from the wet leaves, although, thats probably fancy renaissance bouquet for the educated noses out there, it really smells like the foamy stuff coming on top of a meaty broth.
It eventually releases full roundness and sweetness. Mainly Buttery florals but there is a milkshake thing coming in and out, great stuff.

Thanks Mr. Chang

Geek Steep S1E3 – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

This week on the podcast I got to take a look at a new to me fandom through Marika’s eyes, and it was really cool having this very tailored/curated intro to DS9 to get to form an impression around.

This was the tea that I chose to drink while we recorded this episode, and while sometimes the tea we drink over conversation has significance to the episode we’re recording this was not one of those times. It was just very early in the morning, and I was feeling a straight black tea with a lot of backbone and robustness to it. This came to mind as something loosely in the vein of a breakfast tea – but better. More umami with spice notes like cumin and a woody quality I liked. It was a nice tea to drink over our conversation because it made me feel very grounded and focused, which was important for the topics that were covered in the week’s episodes – a lot were more political or just a bit heavier in tone.

Our Website: https://www.geeksteep.com/
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Listen to us on Buzzsprout:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1286036/podcast/website

DB topic:
https://steepster.com/discuss/42133-geek-steep-a-new-tea-and-fandom-podcast

Gongfu!

Enjoyed this black tea with some spiced gouda & cherry tomatoes, in the late morning!! I’ve always thought that this Columbian black tea had such a beautiful and interesting cumin note, so I really like the idea of emphasizing those spicier notes in the tea with complimenting spices in this cheese, especially the caraway seeds that are mixed throughout it!! The gouda is also very creamy and buttery, which helps to mute much of the astringency present in this black tea. What’s left is a rich, full bodied profile composed of spice, wood, malt, and bitter cacao notes!!

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B9cVc5uABBk/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQfitmjL6U0