Camellia Sinensis

One of the very, very few teas I drank while sick.

I found out a few days ago that I didn’t get have a cold like I thought I did, but in fact I’ve got laryngitis – I may not have normal speaking ability for another week, possibly two. However, apart from still sounding like I’ve swallowed Patty & Selma I feel pretty good. So, I’m excited to get back to drinking tea and writing about it!

Sadly this cup wasn’t very enjoyable – now, to be perfectly fair I was high as fuck on pain medication/antibiotics. In fact, I was so high that I managed to take a photo and post it to instagram with a full caption/list of tags without remembering taking it whatsoever. I just remember that even with a generous amount of added honey I found the steeped tea quite bitter tasting, and unpleasant.

Meh. That’s what I get for trying to be ambitious and make something somewhat nice, in terms of tea…

From last night, with DT’s new Peppermint Agave that we’re doing for the winter.

I was so excited about the peppermint agave when I saw it, but I’m realizing now that it’s going to be a challenge finding teas to use it with that aren’t already minty blends. I thought I’d try it out with this one, a straight black tea, and maybe with a black base that hint of mint would work really well. I wasn’t a huge fan though. It’s just such a powerful flavour; and sure it really brought out the cocoa and malt notes in this black tea but it also really competed against them/drowned them out. I didn’t really love it…

And so, I think the challenge of finding a way to use this agave continues.

This one is actually setting in very nicely as a daily drinking black tea for me!

Normally my favourite straight blacks are Dian Hongs because they’re quite sweet and chocolate heavy – but this years as the seasons change I’ve found myself craving spiced teas a lot more than I normally do. Not Chai though, or straight up spiced teas. This is a really good compromise though, because it’s got lots of spice notes to it naturally: cinnamon and cumin primarily. Also notes of malt and rye.

It’s not an exceptional black tea, but it’s a consistent enough one that it works for a no frills casual daily drinker…

Oddly spicy!

Notes of cumin, cinnamon, and bark and then the more typical notes of malt, and cocoa. If I hadn’t have known better, I almost would have said that the spicier elements of this tea reminded me of a Keemun (without the underlying fruity/jammy qualities) or August Uncommon’s Port of Shadows tea…

Very different compared to the last two cups I had, for sure.

Take #2

I used the same amount of tea leaf this time, but with a shorter steep time. It was an improvement because this was a lot smoother mouthfeel wise, however there was also a faint watery quality to the flavour profile too. I mean, yes it was sweet and malty with honey and cocoa notes but it lacked body/presence.

More tweaking is probably needed still; maybe the same steep time as my first try but with less leaf?

So, I had a Camellia Sinensis order show up today! I actually placed the order not really for any tea in particular but because they were carrying an absolutely STUNNING jellyfish teacup that I just 100% needed to own. You guys don’t even understand; jellyfish have been my spirit animals as of late. They’re these gentle, floating water blobs that zap you when you get up in their personal space – how perfect is that!? Plus, all my good friends refer to me as an “asexual jellyfish”. I don’t know where that even originated, but it’s just a term now. So now I have this equally bad ass jellyfish teacup!

Anyway; while I was ordering I DID pick up some tea too – because you just gotta. That’s how addiction works. I chose this one because I have tried a Columbian Bitaco tea before and I thought it would be interesting to compare the two mentally, especially since this one was a pretty reasonable price.

The dry leaf for this one is really sweet smelling with distinct notes of honey, cocoa, and graham crackers that definitely piqued my interest/curiosity. Steeped up, it’s kind of similar to the dry aroma? I mean, it’s got hints of malt and honey but it’s also pretty brisk and full bodied with a thicker mouthfeel and a somewhat astringent and tannic finish. Also, a bit of a burnt sugar sort of flavour, too.

I mean so far my initial impression is that I like the other black Bitaco tea better it was smoother, and it had this very fascinating anise flavour to it. However, I think some tweaking could produce a very interesting infusion. Either less leaf, or less steeping time would probably fix the astringency and I bet milk and sugar or honey would make for a really nice breakfast tea with some of those honey notes getting exaggerated nicely.

Definitely excited to see where this tea will go.

Current rating is a conservative 69, with the belief that appropriate tweaking will result in a brew deserving of a better score.

this oolong from crowkettle is sort of middle of the road oolong. it’s not really roasted or super green…it’s just kinda…an oolong lol. Appreciate the share crowkettle as i for sure wouldn’t be picking these out myself but i DO like to try them :)

sample from crowkettle. This oonlong is not for me. There’s jasmine hidden in the background making it not all that enjoyable. not sure if it’s flavoured as such or my imagination is wreaking havoc on me but this is on the not so much a win side for me :)

I’m lost when it comes to steeping green oolong. There are so many different methods and parameters (western, traditional, and hybrid) spread across companies for similar to exact same types of oolong, that I don’t know where to begin. I’ve steeped this type of oolong at near boiling for 1min with pretty awesome results, and I’ve also done the same temp and amount for 20s for an equally fine cup. Most commonly, I see a 3min steep at about 90C, which is a coin’s toss for how it works out for me.

Life is hard.

Anyways, Camellia Sinensis recommends a rinse, and then a 4-5min steep at 95C. That never worked for me; I found it made the cup overly vegetal, on the verge of being sour.

For my very last serving I decided to follow a 20s steep time, with a touch and go, 1min range increase after the third steep, and this solved the aforementioned problems I had with this tea. I found that the liquidized floral-sweet qualities and the milk-nut notes of the cup were given more room to breath and take on a silky texture. The marine note I noticed the first few times all but disappeared.

Too bad I hadn’t steeped it like that from the beginning! It makes that that $12/50g tempting, indeed.

Steep Count: 4

(2016 Harvest)

Cup Scent: butter, toasted nuts, flowers, savoury seaweed sprinkles (subtle)

To taste, it follows the precedent set by the scent, making for a savoury cup full of cream, butter, nuts, and gentle flowers. It’s probably the most mild “Jin Xuan,” natural or scented, I’ve had in recent times. It’s nothing special in my books, but it’s buttery-cream profile makes for a comforting cup, with excellent steep value.

I drank up all my other Jin Xuans, so it’s nice to discover I have some left. I didn’t realize what this was or pay too much attention when I initially placed an order online. It took seeing the unfurled leaves to realize what this was. Whoops.

Steep Count: 6

Florals reminiscent of dandelion came out strong on the third steep. It reminds me that dandelion wine is on my “too try” list.

(2016 harvest)

Strawberry, caramel , lilac, lemon marmelade, milky chalky thing. Upfront but thin and somewhat unrefined in flavors. the taste is reminescent of those light roast pourover coffees which bears red fruits and caramel extract notes… i ain’t a big fan of this mix.
But it does packs big flavors at a smaller price.

clean and simple taste: roasted cereals, woody notes, swiss chard and charcoal. Overall it is a pleasant tea with nothing to dislike, yet little to impress IMHO.

mmmm this oolong makes me happy. I’ve set an agressive goal for myself today to get through 15 sipdowns (hello sipdown saturday!). Now i’m not even sure that i have 15 teas in my cupboard to sipdown, but that’s my goal. I’ve got 9 teas inbound and that would mean that even if they were in my cupboard, i’d still hit my sipdown goal haha. And then i can also justify possibly picking up tea in chicago. :)

Really appreciate the share of all these oolongs and green teas Crowkettle. As much as they’re not my jam – having small amounts of them IS totally up my alley :)

Another from crowkettle. This is a tasty one as well – creamy, vanilla, butter, smooth, delicious. Notes of coconut…slight grassy flavour but overall just tasty. I almost get a hint of cinnamon but not quite. glad to be able to have this again.

My favorite oolong from Camelia Sinensis,

I often tend to prefer the roundness of middle infusions in oolongs, but this one starts majestically.

Made in my Hojicha dedicated yixing pot!

My pour yixing pots don’t get enough love, and I feel guilty about that. So I’m going to make more of a conscious effort to give them some love in 2019. Starting with this one, because I’ve been craving those roasty, nutty, caramel-esque hojicha flavours a lot this winter.

I actually made this to share with one of my roommates – and it wasn’t a very long session (because we were drinking two other teas at the same time) but it was a very nice session! Around seven steeps; all quite strong and delicious though. I like the level of roast on this tea; and it’s got such a nice sweet undertone. Like caramelized, roasted peanuts/hazelnuts. Just a hint of grassiness still; but mostly super smooth, delicious roastiness.

Comfort tea in a cup.

Cup from yesterday, with the tiniest bits of added vanilla agave and milk.

I’m on a huge vanilla agave kick right now, for better or worse. It’s like when I get in a “flavoured honey mood” and I just have to experiment and try adding in into everything. It worked really well with this one though! The tea itself is a nice, medium(ish) roast with a lot of sweetness in addition to the toasty quality; notes of caramel and nuts so the vanilla just really, really drew out that sweetness. It felt very much like drinking a super comforting, toasty mug of liquid vanilla hazelnut toffee with such warm roasty undertones throughout the whole thing.

It was a good evening cup too because it was VERY relaxing.

Delicious cuppa at work.

I added a bit of milk and honey to this one; while I love the flavour of straight Hojicha what I was really looking for from this cuppa was something very smooth and comforting and both milk and honey, especially together, seem to really do that for me.

Flavour wise, it was a mix of notes with none of them really being the “stand out” flavour or anything; they all just sort of vacillated in and out of the overall profile. Things like hazelnuts, roasted nuts in general, caramel, cocoa powder, coffee/mocha, barley, generic roastiness, cream. Overall, just a very toasty/comforting and sweet flavour with some serious dessert tea/note undertones. REALLY satisfying.

The most surprising thing about the cup was actually the colour of the brew though. With the milk/honey added it was sort of this weird browny taupe sort of colour? With like purple undertones. I’ve never seen that before with a Hojicha, and I wish I’d taken a picture because it was stunning!

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/41/25/b3/4125b3cc10c80890de44006f235f5f3a—taupe-color-rose-taupe.jpg

If you’re using this grid of “taupes” as a reference though, I think it was something sort of like the deep taupe/medium taupe sort of hues. REALLY gorgeous, and I wonder if it’s something I could replicate…

So, I missed my bus home after work so I’m stuck here another hour. I prepped as much as humanly possible for the opener tomorrow, and now I’m catching up on tasting notes because why the fuck not? I’ve gotta kill that time somehow…

This was my first tea of the day/morning here at work: while I’ve largely purchased this one to be used in my Hojicha dedicated yixing pot I thought it’d be good to taste it ahead of time and sort of get a feel for the flavours.

Hojicha doesn’t seem to vary too much from company to company; you can always tell what it is, the degree of roasting just seems to change slightly and I’ve found sometimes the level of sweetness too. I find this one is actually fairly lightly roasted because I can still get a good degree of grassiness in combination with the roast. It does have that barley/buckwheat kind of cereal flavour to it that the company is advertising, and it finishes with a big of sweetness that lingers for a pleasantly long time on the sides of my tongue. I’m definitely enjoying it, and excited to see what will come of it once it gets brewed in the yixing pot.

This is my go-to Wulong. It tastes wonderful when it’s fresh from the gaiwan, but I don’t have a kettle by my desk so my habit is to brew it western-style in a pot, and take frequent small tastes as it stews. My first taste is before even a minute has passed, and it is quite mild. The liquor is a light, almost fluorescent, green/yellow. The smell is a little grassy. The taste is quite mild: a little toasted rice, a little dandelion, and something sweet like honey. The mouthfeel even so early is quite distinct. You can really feel the oils in the tea coat your mouth and leave a dry kind of feeling well after the flavour is gone. The next taste is around the 4 or 5 minute mark. The colour is much more yellow now, with just a hint of brown. Not much smell, although my nose is pretty stuffy so I may be missing out. The sweetness is still there in the taste, but there’s also something umami. Very slightly like mushrooms. My habit is to keep tasting it even as it stews for much longer, but I don’t want to prolong this note much longer. Needless to say, it gets much more bitter as it sits longer in the water, but I used to be quite a fan of hoppy beers in a previous life so I enjoy a good bitter bomb.

I’m bumping the rating up on this one after I adjusted the parameters and got more than uncooked and unsweetened flower-nutmeg dough, with strong caramel scent.

This time around I actually get a little more of that “hard caramel candy” sweetness,spread through more cups. That sweetness adds more depth to the honeysuckle and jasmine milk-dough notes, and is lightly dusted in nutmeg and almonds slivers. It’s an odd mixture of flavours but it’s interesting enough to keep me steeping!

Steep Count: 4

(2016 winter harvest)

My nose is currently glued to my cup because floral vanilla caramel drops. It’s oolong heaven. First steep is floral cream, with a dash of something richer lightly sprinkled with nutmeg to finish. The heavy cream notes and “seasonings” make this tea feel filling.

Second steep smells like butter, and reminding me vaguely of cookie dough! Cream notes are dominant but a light caramel note is starting to creep into the profile at the end of the sip. The nippy nutmeg also remains. Yep! It’s like cookie dough without the sweetness (pastry dough?). My silly brain is trying to convince me I taste flour now.

The third steep has a floral-sweet aroma of honeysuckle. The floral note carries over to the taste, where it flows into the cream and the ever-present nutmeg and gives a strong impression of almond milk. The finished cup leaves a lingering sensation of mint freshness. This is where I cut it though; there’s only so much raw pastry dough, nutmeg, and cream I can drink this late in the evening!

All in all, not a bad first foray into Si Ji Chun/ Four Seasons Oolong!

Steep Count: 3

(2016 Winter Harvest)

This blerg isn’t half bad. I think i do better when the “cream” is there to cut through the blerginess. Still nothing i want in my cupboard but i did DRINK it…so you know. that’s a win :)