Green Terrace Teas

I really like this one. Unfortunately for me, I just did a breathing treatment and it is covering up a lot of the wonderful subtle notes. Still really nice.

Had to laugh this morning. Got on Steepster and there were 67 spam entries. I noticed they were still being posted as I was viewing. So, I flagged the accounts and it wiped them. Immediately, one of the spammers signed right back up again with the same name and started over. Flagged them again. Hopefully they have given up for the day.

More pointless stories – Yesterday, we walked out the door as the late evening sun shone through under the clouds. The tree line lit up with yellows, golds, and orange. It was one of those WOW! moments. I thought awesome, I’ll take a picture. So I grabbed by phone. That’s when I realized that if a UFO landed in front of me and bigfoot ran out of the woods, I would have no proof because I don’t have a clue how to use this thing. I then couldn’t figure out how to get it back to phone mode. I am so last century.

A lot of times I read a company’s description and wonder, “How did they come up with that?” Here I thought Green Terrace Teas was pretty spot on. The dry leaf smells of oats and honey. I used 3.5 g and steeped 1 minute with 190 F water. The wet leaf is like honey on raisin wheat bread. The taste is similar but adds a wine like note and malt. As it cooled I definitely picked up on the peach and plum in the aftertaste.

Cup two was the best of the four I prepared. The flavors were more pronounced. I also picked up a spicy note like maybe cinnamon apple? Honestly, I never could decide what it was. There is also a lot of caramel present.

Cup three was my least favorite. Too light. I added sweetener to coax flavor out of it. Light honey, mineral, earthy (as in woodsy). The last two were the most interesting as I wasn’t expecting them.

Cup four I steeped 3 minutes. It was still light but stronger than the third. I did add sweetener. This one was a mix of the previous cups. The honey was present from the first along with the spicy note of the second and the mineral/earthy notes of the third. In this cup I decided the earthy was actually more of a nutty touch.

I really enjoyed drink on this one this afternoon and look forward to trying my other samples.

Sipdown! (147)

Yummy, still love this one. It’s all honey, grains, and raisins! This is the tea that inspired me to try other oxidized oolongs. I probably won’t repurchase this one, at least not right away, just because I’ll most likely be trying other oolongs for a while yet. Thanks again to Green Terrace for the round of free samples! Your teas are quite lovely. :)

Another gong fu adventure today! I loved this tea when I tried it western style, and I figured oolongs are generally good candidates for gong fu brewing, right? I was in the mood for raisiny autumn loveliness. I used the same vessels as last time, two 10 ounce mugs, the first one with a lid for brewing, and the second for drinking out of. I used TeaVivre’s parameters for a similar tea, but altered the amount of tea based on TheTeaFairy’s suggestion of 1 gram of tea per 1 ounce water.

The method: 4g tea in 4oz water, 185 degrees F, 10s rinse/30/45/60/70/80/90/100s

Rinse (10s): very light flavor with pastry, honey, golden raisin. A promise of things to come! :D

Steep 1 (30s): light pastry with honey, hint of autumn leaves, raisin (not golden)

Steep 2 (45s): stronger pastry with toasted nuts and honeyed raisins, underlying roasty leaves

Steep 3 (60s): very raisiny with fig, honey becomes molasses, autumn leaves, roasted grain

Steep 4 (70s): very similar to steep 3

Steep 5 (80s): roasted grain changes back to pastry, golden raisin, honey (my favorite steep)

Steep 6 (90s): flavor becoming much lighter, pastry with lightly toasted almonds

Steep 7 (100s): too light, somewhat similar to rinse, reminds me of white tea with its hay notes

I had a lot of fun and I loved seeing the flavor of this change, and then change back to almost the same as the early steeps. Very interesting. And I enjoyed all the permutations in between! I really want to try more oxidized oolongs now, especially if they’re similar to this one.

One question, I noticed a few of the steeps had a little bit of underlying bitterness. Not enough to make them less enjoyable, but I just wondered why it was there. Any ideas or suggestions would be good! :D

I have so much tea to try right now, but I figured I should probably get through the teas I have that were provided in exchange for reviews. Don’t want to make anyone wait! Confession: I have never had an oxidized oolong before. However, I have great faith that I will enjoy this category of teas since they seem similar to some black teas. The dry leaf for this one is very beautiful. The leaves are large and dark, and they’re slightly twisted. They seem so light and fragile in comparison to black tea leaves. The scent is quite mild but sweet, with fruit and honey notes. I checked Green Terrace’s website for parameters, and I used the middle of both temperature and time.

The aroma reminds me of raisins, sweet but with deep and dark flavor. Maybe a bit of dried cherry too, along with some honey. This tea just says “autumn” to me. There’s something about the taste that reminds me of the autumn leaves, kind of woodsy but in a mild and slightly toasty way. It seems so full of dark dried fruits – raisins, cherries, dates, figs… Yum! And there’s a lovely burnt sugar note somewhere in there too.

Such a great experience for my first dark oolong! I have enough left to do some gong fu, so I’ll add this one to that list… Before boychik yells at me! ;)

Thanks again to Green Terrace Teas for providing this sample for review.

Mmm, honey. That’s the biggest note I notice here. The mouth feel is quite thin, but pleasant. I’m also getting a bread-like aroma, and together it’s like eating a piece of fresh warm bread smothered with honey in the morning. I dont know if it because of my method, but I’m not getting much fruit notes, just lots of sweet delicious honey. I was able to get 5 cups out of one serving.

Happy lazy summer Sunday everyone, it has definitely been one of those for me. I have spent the majority of my day sitting at my computer working on various things or watching Babylon 5 with Ben. It is one of those days where just being a lump was an option, and I was ok with that.

Today’s tea is another from Green Terrace Teas, Honey Black Tea, a naturally sweet black tea from Nantou, Taiwan. Well, I certainly like black teas that have sweet notes, so let us have a little bit of tea! The aroma of these long, curly, leaves is indeed quite sweet and very rich! There are notes of honey, beet root, roasted peanuts, tobacco, and a touch of roses. I am not sure I have ever sniffed a dry leaf that was so complex and had all the aromas work together in harmony.

Into the gaiwan the leaves go for a brief steeping. The aroma of the now wet leaves is a sweet and rich blend of roasted peanuts, yams, molasses, and a tiny touch of spice at the finish. The liquid is intensely sweet with notes of cocoa butter, caramel, yams, and a touch of sweet cream. It smells quite decadent.

First steeping, well, that is certainly delicious! The taste starts out somewhat mild with roasted peanuts and a touch of spicebush. This fades into an explosion of rich caramel and molasses sweetness, this sweetness lingers for quite a while as a tasty aftertaste. The mouthfeel is very smooth and velvety.

The aroma of the second steeping is so strong, there are intense notes of molasses, roasted peanuts, caramel, and raw honey. I like that I can smell my teacup from the other side of my desk, it makes waiting for it to cool enough to drink a pleasant experience. The taste is just as rich as the aroma, with strong notes of molasses, cocoa, and spicebush. The finish is honey sweet that leaves a nice lingering sweet aftertaste between sips.

For the third and final steep, the aroma is still pretty rich and sweet, with strong notes of yams and caramel, there is a mild finish of spicebush, giving the aroma warm quality. The taste, while not as intense as the previous steep, is still very sweet and rich. There are notes of cocoa, yams, and molasses. As before the aftertaste is one of honey that lingers. This tea is really quite fantastically sweet, it lives up to its name perfectly.

For photos and blog: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/07/green-terrace-teas-honey-black-tea-tea.html

This is my first time trying a Four Seasons oolong, so yet again, I’m very excited by these samples from Green Terrace Teas. They are vacuum packed in gold foil pouches that are lovely and keep the tea very well stored.

Brewing this Gongfu style in a gaiwan, after an initial rinse, the aroma of the leaves is very rich with scents of honey, custard, cinnamon and apples. It smells a bit like a pecan pie or apple pie or some other delicious pastry. It is heavenly. The taste is mild and sweet with the same qualities.

The second steeping tastes lightly floral with hints of toasted pecans and cream. It has a wonderful warm and mild flavor, quite balanced with the floral and nutty tones on opposing ends of the taste spectrum. By the third steeping, the flavor is more floral, but it is very easy on the tongue and not overly strong. It is still also very creamy and mildly sweet. The lingering aftertaste is very nice. Four steepings in the floral qualities emerge a bit more, still underscored by a caramel-like sweetness. Fifth steeping is less floral and more of the sweet honey and nutty flavors with a bit of caramel apple, becoming once again very mellow. I think this tea is at its best in the early and late steepings when the floral notes are more subdued.

I think this is a wonderful Four Seasons oolong and I recommend it. It has a very clean taste and a sweet and balanced flavor.

I brewed it for 15 seconds in a gaiwan, adding 15 seconds each time at 194F/90C with 4.5g of tea per 100ml of water.

This was the oolong that made me love both oolongs and Gong Fu. I loved the sample I got from Green Terrace and then reordered more, so it probably is going to be a staple.

I had a crappy conference call with the world’s crankiest old man client and it put me in a bad mood, so I shut down work a little early and looked for my zen in the bottom of a teapot. And, it worked! :)

This is starting to be my go to happy tea.

I am either a very lazy tea drinker or very busy one, because I very rarely do gongfu style. Most often I make a big mug full and take it to my desk. But I felt to review this tea appropriately I should set aside some time for gongfu.

I need to get a bamboo tray but haven’t found one yet that speaks to me. I improvised with a large Fiestaware tray (how’s that for mixing cultures) with a cloth on it.

I enjoyed this tea very much, and the 90 minute gongfu session I had with it was both relaxing and rejuvenating. The leaves were dark, darker than in the picture. I prefer oxidized teas and Green Terrace had suggested this one. They were spot on. The first two infusions were caramel colored and fully flavored, almost like a very light black tea. The third through fifth were more golden amber, and with more delicate flavors. It probably could have gone through another infusion but I was pretty full of tea at that point and stopped. A very lovely tea, and a great oolong to try if you normally drink black teas, as I do.

Sipdown! (153)

I’m undecided on this one! It does have a lovely honey flavor, especially in the aftertaste. However, there’s a little bit of floral and it’s leaving me with a soapy taste today. Mm but that lovely creamy honey! Delicious.

I still need to order a round of samples from Green Terrace with my free-shipping-for-samples code, as I really want to try their Li Shan Black. Obviously, it’ll be a little while since I’m on hiatus, but the code says it doesn’t expire so hooray! I may order another sample pack of this tea too, so I can make my mind up about it. :P

Thanks so much to Green Terrace Teas for the free sample! I’ve been excited to try this one since I saw Marzipan’s lovely note about it. :) I now wish I had requested the Li Shan black tea as well! Oh well. This is a Taiwanese black tea, and the only other one I’ve tried is flavored (very well flavored, thanks to Butiki!). This type of tea receives a lot of love around here, so I was keen to see what all the fuss was about. The leaves are black and spidery, perhaps a bit shorter than the other, and there are a few stems. They smell more like maple syrup than honey to me, which is not a complaint! There’s also a strange metallic scent that I think might be from the foil packaging? I did about 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

The aroma is definitely all honey now! There’s maybe a hint of malt and some fruit. Tasting this, I’m unsure how to describe the main flavor besides to say that it tastes like a very smooth and mellow black tea. It’s not malty or bready, maybe a touch of raisin? But in a very light way. There is a definite honey taste, and a tart fruitiness. It’s listed as “peach and plum” on the website and I must say I agree with that description. Tartness from the plum but also a nice juiciness from the peach. I added a touch of sugar to the second half of my cup and it seemed to bring out a floral note? Perhaps I’m crazy! The lovely honeyed fruit taste lingers pleasantly after I’m done sipping.

Overall, very delicious and a wonderful experience for my first (plain) Taiwanese black! Thanks so much to Green Terrace Teas for allowing us to sample their wares for the very low cost of a review! :) I would definitely purchase this tea.

On a side note, I would like to suggest that steeping suggestions be added to the packaging just to make it easier for the customer. Even with a sample, it’s a nice touch and I feel like it wouldn’t be difficult to include. Thanks! :D

What a wonderful tea to have on a quiet Sunday morning. This tea is like the early morning mist in the mountain countryside that creeps in ; giving an awe inspiring view and then slowly slides back out as the bright early morning sun rises.

The beautiful dry leaves smell so sweet and mossy. I had to just enjoy the smell of them before brewing. Brewed at 195F for 1 min. Then I noticed they recommend shorter steeps. On my 2nd infusion I did only 40 sec.

This is the second sample I received from Green Terrace Teas. I chose three oolong, as I feel I haven’t spent enough time with oolong and I do really adore them. This is my third time trying a Jin Xuan, and I already have a personal favorite Jin Xuan so I’m curious to see how this one will sit with me.

The first thing I notice is how subtle the scent of this tea is. After an initial rinse, there’s a very creamy aroma with notes of butter and vanilla. It almost smells like the crust on a creme brulee.

I’ve noticed many of my oolong becoming too flowery and heady a few Gongfu style steepings in, so I’ve cut down my initial start time on them to 15 seconds rather than 30. So far so good. The initial steeping of course is very light now and carries the subtelties of the tea. I’m getting very light notes of cream, toasted sugar, and butter. There’s a very mild floral aroma in the leaves, but it does not come through in the taste (yet).

This tea already differs quite significantly from my favorite Jin Xuan, which is called Jin Xuan Dong Ding because it is grown on Mt. Dong Ding. That variety has fruity notes common to Dong Ding oolong, I am guessing because of the terroir of the region, but the creamy notes of Jin Xuan come through as well since that is the varietal they are growing in that instance. This Jin Xuan from Green Terrace is very creamy, but does not have fruit aromas or flavors. I think it is closer to what Jin Xuan is typically known to be like.

The second steeping is similar to the first and still somewhat light. By the third steeping I am getting a more rich flavor, quite buttery with floral hints and a slightly vanilla aftertaste. Great hui gan. Four steepings in and it’s getting even more rich. I’m expecting at any moment for one of these steepings to fully unleash the creeping floral tones that I keep getting whiffs of, but much to my surprise it stays very creamy and soft while those floral hints stay in the background. It’s nice.

After a full five steepings, this tea is staying flavorful and is not getting particularly stronger or more floral or astringent. In my opinion that is a good thing for a tea that is meant to have a creamy, rich, mellow flavor. The flavor doesn’t really change much from one steeping to the next. It is pretty consistent, but builds on itself in richness.

I will call myself spoiled on the Jin Xuan Dong Ding I mentioned earlier. I really prefer its fruity-creamy blend of flavors. This Jin Xuan from Green Terrace is agreeable though, and I think those looking for a strictly milky, creamy tasting Jin Xuan will not be disappointed.

I have a sad confession, I am currently hiding from my bedroom. Since I spend all my time in my Tea Lair, I tend to ignore my bedroom and just interact with it when I am sleeping. Somehow, it has become a disaster (ok, not somehow, it is a combo of Ben working, it being too hot to do anything upstairs, and me hiding in the basement) and I need to clean it. I really don’t want to clean it, being a responsible adult is lame sometimes.

Recently on Steepster, new company Green Terrace Teas offered samples of three of their teas in exchange for reviews. I of course jumped on it like it was the last Furby on Christmas Eve in 1998, of course when the nice little vacuum sealed packaged arrived trying to decide which one to try first was the hard part. I closed my eyes and picked at random, coming out with Shan Lin Xi Premium High Mountain Oolong, a Taiwanese Oolong grown high in the mountains (1,800 meters to be exact) of Nantou, Taiwan. After my initial glee at opening the vacuum package (the air rushing back in always amuses me immensely) it was time for sniffing. The aroma is a very fresh smelling blend of buttery, a tiny bit of sesame seed nuttiness, mountain vegetation, sweet orchids, and a bit of fresh cream. It smells rich and clean, I do not say that often but the aroma reminds me of clean mountain air, which I should mention is a smell that I greatly miss.

It is no real surprise that this tea is going into my gaiwan, after its initial dance with water the aroma is less nutty and almost all floral. There are notes of orchid and honeysuckle with a surprising finish of spicebush. The liquid, liberated from its soggy leaf friends, is quite sweet! There are notes of honey, sweet cream, a touch of floral and a finish of sesame seeds.

Time for the first steep, and what a light and delicate one it is! It starts out with a very smooth, buttery mouthfeel which matches the sweet creamy taste. This fades to alpine vegetation and then it is like a small explosion of flowers in my mouth. The finish is sweet flower nectar, orchids, and honeysuckle. As with most first steeps of oolongs, I look forward to seeing what kind of journey the leaves will take me on.

The aroma on the second steep is intense! There is such a strong floral presence that I feel like I have stuck my nose in bouquet of fresh flowers, there are notes of hyacinth, orchid, honeysuckle, and a tiny bit of spicebush. Starting with the mouthfeel (because that really does seem to be the first thing I notice when sipping) it is smooth, a mix between buttery and velvety, it fills up the mouth. The taste on this steep is quite rich, it starts with a strong alpine vegetation note, this transitions to a gentle sweetness and floral notes. After that there is a slightly mineral finish that reminds me of rainwater. The aftertaste is sweet, like honey, and lingers.

Third steeping time, the aroma is not as intense, but it is a little more varied. There are still strong notes of orchid, but now we have alpine vegetation and a bit of minerals. The aroma of this tea has a great ‘transportation’ effect, it very much so reminds me of being in the mountains in summer, sitting near a spring, enjoying the blooming flowers. The taste is smooth and buttery, with strong hints of green. It reminds me of fresh growing things. The finish is mineral and a touch of sweet. The mouthfeel this time starts out smooth and fades to a mild dryness at the finish.

For the fourth and final steep, things are winding down. The aroma is a delicate blend of flowers, sweet honey, and a light finish of mineral. The taste is has returned to delicate, it starts off sweet like flower nectar, this fades to alpine vegetation. The finish is back to sweet, but this time it is honey instead of nectar. This tea took me on a pleasant journey to the mountains during high summer, I am glad for the adventure.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/07/green-terrace-teas-shan-lin-xi-premium.html

I couldn’t wait to try some of my free samples from Green Terrace Teas. I never had a Four Seasons oolong before. Dry it smelled like Jin Xuan, very milk and sweet smelling. Brewed for 1 min at 195F. I didn’t brew in my yixing teapot as it’s so new and still sucking all the flavour out of my oolongs. I can’t give a proper review with that teapot until it starts giving back.

Brewed up it was buttery , sweet, smooth, and vegetal. I detected very light floral jasmine notes. An excellent oolong. Thank-you Green Terrace Teas for the free sample.

I am on my second cup of this today. It’s so good and seemed like a nice way to ease into Monday.

If I am being totally honest, I am killing time trying to avoid going into invoicing hell. Don’t get me wrong, invoicing is great – it gets the checks rolling in. But the process is so spork in the eye boring and by the end of the day I am a drooling idiot.

I know I mentioned before that I am totally in love with our new rescue cat, and he loves me too. He is technically my daughter’s cat but when she is sleeping or on her computer we get some amazing cuddle time. I am becoming a ridiculous cat person. No pictures in my wallet but here are a few online!
http://imgur.com/a/Og5b3#4

Funny thing is, I was sworn off of pets until this one came along.

My advice to you is, if you have a sample of this that you haven’t tried, make it right now! If you don’t have a sample, order it.

I made mine western style due to time constraints this morning, but the website recommends many short infusions.

So I was standing at the stove cooking breakfast, and I took the first sip of this tea. My, “WOW” made my husband come running from the next room. It was pretty funny. I had to tell him that it was just a great tea wow, not a something is wrong wow.

An initial sniff of the dry leaf gave me a hint as to what was coming. It smelled like MORE somehow. Some honey, maybe honeysuckle. Some stone fruit. Not just a tea smell. I must admit that I carried the packet around for a few minutes and kept sniffing it while my water was heating up.

This has to be another leafhopper tea, I don’t know how else there would be such an amazing honey flavor to it. I kept trying to pin down what I was tasting, and initially I thought honey, honeysuckle, maybe some peach? Then I started thinking about the next cup before I had finished this one. It’s just that good.

The second (3 minute) steep was still sweet and really good. Usually I only steep black teas twice, but the leaves hadn’t fully unfurled so I might try this a third time just to see what happens.

I love this tea and have reviewed it ad nauseam, so this is going to be more of a personal note.

You know I love tea, and most of you know that I love my cat like crazy.
Here he is in case you don’t know him yet! http://imgur.com/a/Og5b3

So it only made sense last night when tea and cats collided in my dream. I had the funniest dream, where I found this adorable kitten. Instead of regular kitten fur, his fur was curly like bi luo chun. I really want a cat like that!

General update!

First, I love this tea. I have been drinking it a lot this past week because I bought 100g of it…I think it was 100g. Anyway, I had a tin I wanted to put it in but there was too much tea because it was so fluffy. Today I finally drank it down so that it all fits into a tin. Yay!

I haven’t been writing reviews as much in the past month, largely because the site was so kerborken that either no one would see it (the last couple I wrote had no likes…sniff…) or because I was drinking the same old things. The site seems to have largely fixed itself so I’ll work on getting back into the habit. I’m also sad that the forum is so much slower than it used to be. But hey, chat is still hopping after about 10 am every day. So you should go there!

In other news, I have been working on a solution to storing my teas, and I think I’m there. You know I love tins, and I have a big shelf for all of the tinned teas that I have. But what to do with all of those little packages everywhere? Well, I repurposed one of those cube storage things from my daughter’s room – she is grown up and moved out and didn’t want it – and bought new fabric cubes this weekend and now I have six cubes of sorted teas. The only down side is that when I was moving the tea into the thingie, I realized that I have….so….much…tea. And yet I keep buying it. Oh well, more for you guys.

This is a delicious tea. It reminds me very much of the other beloved “leafhopper” teas that develop such a nice, honey flavor due to the leafhopper bites. I woke up this morning with a sore throat, and had already picked this out as my morning tea. It was packaged in a vacuum packed foil package so I imagine unopened it would have a really good shelf life.

The leaves are long, it’s one of those that is hard to measure in a spoon so I sort of eyeballed it to get to where I thought it should be. I really enjoy watching leaves unfurl, and this one did not disappoint. I went three minutes but it looked like the leaves were still wanting a little more, so the total was maybe 3:20.

There were several stems in the tea, and that surprised me. I had to go read up on it and read somewhere that many Taiwanese teas have the stems in the tea as well. Also the photo on the website shows a couple so I figured that’s how it was meant to be.

It’s not malty at all, just a lovely medium bodied black with a nice taste of honey. The second infusion didn’t disappoint either. I wouldn’t hesitate to order this again.

I am re-visiting this review to say a couple important things. First of all, I love this tea so much I have a $115 dollar yixing pot dedicated to it (I occasionally let some other fruity/floral unroasted oolongs in there, but not often). The seasoning on this pot just keeps getting more deliciously sweet and rich. It smells like caramel and fruit when I open it up. Secondly, LYCHEE!!! I had some trouble putting my thumb on what the flavors of this tea are the first time. I kept thinking apples and roses/magnolias… then I had a lychee fruit beverage yesterday and suddenly it hit me. Lychee has a really floral kind of fruitiness to me, and it is almost identical to the flavor of this tea (Lychee flavored Calpico is the drink I had, FYI, which is a creamy non-carbonated soft drink from Japan).

All that said, here is my original review from several months ago when I first tried it:

This is my first bug-bitten oolong! I’m so excited! I received this as a sample from Green Terrace Teas, a new company based in Taiwan. The samples were vacuum sealed in attractive gold foil packaging and labeled elegantly and clearly in both Chinese and English. I am very impressed by how professional these samples are presented!

After a quick rinse of the leaves, I am totally enamored by the aroma of this oolong. There are notes of apples, cream, butter, warm honey and magnolias (or roses). This is unlike anything I’ve encountered; the smell is so wonderful I sat and smelled it for a strong minute or two before brewing the first infusion.

Despite an even more floral aroma after a quick 30-second steep, the gold liquor yielded by this tea tastes very sweet and mellow. I primarily taste subtle notes of apples, honey and flowers. There’s a very evident hui gan. The taste is surprisingly mellower than the aroma.

The second steeping has all the same flavors. It is exceptionally mellow and honey-like with crisp notes of apple and floral magnolia tones coming through. The brew is a deep yellow color.

As the brewed leaves unfurl completely, they are gorgeously green with red-brown edges. The tiny holes from leaf hopper bites are quite fun to look at, and the tea has become noticeably more floral. By the third and fourth infusion, it is still sweet but more floral. I can see this tea lasting a good many steepings and I intend to sit and enjoy them without thinking and focusing on describing the tea, so I will end my review here. I’ve become rather tea drunk from this one tea. I feel like I’ve become flowing water.

This really is an incredible tea and one not to overlook.