Liquid Proust Teas

GCTTB DAY 3

Unfortunately I haven’t had the time to try many teas today, but hopefully I can get at least one more in before bed. It’s already 6pm and I’m just sitting down for the day so it will have to be a tisane, but I’ve got a few lined up that I want to try. :)

I’ve heard so much about rummy pu and have definitely stalked it’s Steepster page before that when I saw his in the box I knew I had to try it. Hard alcohol and tea are my two favourite things, and this tea holds them both up surprisingly well! I have no idea what it is about puerh tea that allows it to produce this flavour but it is intriguing, and also quite pleasing. It has a strong body, with a slightly stinging aftertaste that reminds me of the liqueur. It smells and tastes slightly sweet and faintly earthy (puerh type). Puerh is still not a tea I can see myself reaching for very often, but as far as puerh goes this was so far the best one I’ve tried. I steeped it with a teaspoon of leaf for 3 minutes in just under boiling water.

Iced this while packaging teas and it is roasty rice and grass. A nice enough genmaicha but no berry flavor here today.

I love flavored genmaichas and mostly when I say that I am thinking about a 52 Teas flavored genmaicha since they have the most variety to offer. However, now that I am sipping on this one, I think that could be generalized to all flavored genmaichas. This is definitely different than a 52 Tea’s blend as it highlights the base tea and the berry comes through more in the aftertaste. Also contrasted to the sweet and dessert-like 52 Tea’s blend, this is definitely truer to the fruit itself. Both good in different ways :)

Sample pulled from the Pu’erh Plus TTB.

Brewed in a test tube steeper. I’d call it Western method because I had little leaf (going by what is suggested on the website) and did long infusion. 3 minutes, 10.

It’s a given that the leaf smells of rum (dark rum specifically), but it’s worth note that even after the leaf is spend, I can still smell rum. And from the shou, I pick out sticky rice. The liquor is cloudy (unexpected but not unexpected, considering) and full-bodied. Note: I strictly drink wine and beer, no hard liquor. Not to my taste. That includes both kinds of rum. Maybe in baked goods. I pulled this tea from the box out of curiosity. I can definitely taste the rum and in know way it is overpowering or overwhelming. It works very nicely with the shou, which itself is excellent and adds an earthy, sweet note and a creamy texture. I enjoyed both cups greatly.

SO’s request this morning was something to help her wake up, and she often drinks coffee as well as tea most days, so I figured now was a good time to try this. LP threw this in with our last order, so thanks to him, as always!

This is my first time having tea blended with coffee. The dry blend smells like coffee, but I can also smell the nuttiness of the tea leaves. Poured 14 grams into my Ingenuitea and nearly filled it with 90C water. I’ve basically just been using the thing for waste water, so it’s a thing I decided to scrub the tea stains out of the thing last night. It’s all nice and clean and fresh for us today.

It’s interesting watching the leaves unfurl since I use a gaiwan most days now. The liquor of the first steep is quite light, which initially makes me wonder if it needs more time.

According to the SO, who is the coffee drinker between us, this smells like a medium roast coffee. It also smells nutty and roasty, not surprisingly, and it has a creamy texture.
It tastes “like tea and coffee had a baby.” With milk. Overall it’s quite light and quite enjoyable.

The second steep actually ends up split, as SO isn’t ready for it yet, so I take some first. It comes out darker and the flavors come through with a bit more strength and I get some earthiness and a stronger sense of the tea and the coffee being blended together. So doesn’t take hers until a few minutes later, so it’s even darker, and I take a sip of it and it’s stronger, as well. I feel the caffeine really hard after this steep, and now my head is swimming, so I don’t know that this is one I can physically drink much of.

All-in-all, I enjoyed this one and it was a unique experience, but I will have to drink it in much smaller amounts it seems!

Sweet chocolatey aroma and a nice, rich taste to match. The cocoa and nuts really stand out in this. Great choice to end the evening on, and I’ll have to give it a more dedicated solo session soon.

It’s always interesting when you have multiple people try a tea and they all say something different, but each person provides positive feedback of different notes.

I went back into this tea for the 3rd or 4th time hoping to get those greener notes with fruit as some have found… din’t find it. Got a lot of nutty notes with undertone of sweet potato and roasted veggies over water.

This stuff brew out quite a few more steeps than I thought it would have and it has much more roast to it than it did months ago… I wonder if my storage amplified the roast and the green aspects have begun to die down… hmmmmm…

Overall, this is something that I really enjoy and since it’s almost gone I have to decide if I want to keep the rest for myself or not; it’s actually a hard decision to make :/

Ok, the thought that has pressed most heavily on me, as I pondered the right time to drink this was “Sandstorm?”
I mean, is there sand in this tea? Is Sandstorm the name of the tea farm where the genmaicha is created? I am afraid I don’t get it.
I’ve liked the genmaichas I’ve had, they seem to be roasty toasty teas, and the thought of one with fruit flavor, well, that just seemed interesting.
I do get a good taste of blueberry in this, and the genmaicha base is holding its own. It think the two flavors are both good, but I’m not convinced that they are a perfect flavor. I think that maybe a “warmer” fruit flavor might do better here (apple?), but I liked trying this all the same.
My significant other, who loves blueberry, would have liked this. Alas, I drank it all, and left none for him.
Sipdown!

I brewed this western style this morning in my new teapot and cups from Epcot China. The cups are kind of that bubbled shape where the middle sticks out wide and then tapers closer together towards the lip. This makes for a better trap to capture the scent of the tea, I am finding. And this tea is perfect for that.

If you can recall being at a spring or fall baseball game, there are usually a vendor or two who are selling those freshly roasted candied nuts that smell like the clouds of heaven. This tea captures much of that scent. It is delightful. The taste is a little less sweet but it does still carry sweetness along with the slight malt of a black tea. There is a nuttiness and a slight tang on the back of the tongue as well. A really enjoyable pot of tea this morning.

Sipdown number 15! Thanks to Zennenn for this creamy chocolate blend.

This might actually be more chocolatey than the original Verdant blend. Thanks to Zennenn for including this in my Secret Pumpkin package!

It’s been a long and difficult week so I needed something sweet and comforting. This did hit the spot, but happens to be one of those black teas that hurt my stomach. Call it a bittersweet experience. The flavor is really nice though. More hot cocoa than rice krispy treats. I’m on my second steep and it is still sweet and flavorful. Yum.

I was curious about this one, and Andrew kindly gave me a pouch. Thanks, Andrew! :)

I’ve only had one TGY before this, and I like this one a bit more. I like the lemon in this. Part of me wishes there were more. I’m on my first set of steeps, and if I really desire more lemon, I’ll add some lemon juice to it. I do get some of the roast in here, but it’s not overpowering.

Thanks again for this, Andrew!

Another very well blended tea from LP. Flavored teas can be totally awesome when made with quality ingredients, and this one is certainly an example of such. The dry leaf smells like a bar of good chocolate. Once it’s brewed, I smell more of the maltiness from the black/dark oolong base.

My first steep was about 2.5min, and yielded a wonderful cup of tea. It was malty and honey tasting with a pleasantly light chocolate finish. Going into this one, I was afraid that the chocolate I smelled so heavily on the dry leaf would dominate the flavor, basically giving me hot chocolate. Thankfully that was not the case. As the cup cooled, I started to pick up a subdued flavor of dark fruit – I’m thinking maybe currant but it was hard to tell.

Next steep was 3m. The chocolate taste was a bit lighter but certainly still around. It mixed with a toasty/roasty note to make this steep taste like friggin chocolate cookies. It was nuts. Very tasty. I still got a bit of that fruitiness as it cooled.

I pulled two more steeps out of this tea, with times of 5m and 12m. The 5m steep was a slightly lighter version of the previous, while the final steep was sort of an echo of the tea. Most of the ingredients had given about all they could, so it was just some light malty sweetness for the most part .

The balance between the tea base and the added ingredients is excellent, producing a very interesting experience in the cup. I again commend the skill of the blender!

I’m back drinking tea after 7 days off—I had a kidney stone. Though I do wonder if tea would have helped flushed it out faster.

Anyways, I’ve been wondering what this blend tastes like for a while, and finally decided to purchase some with my last order. I’ll be the first to say I’m not a fan of ripe pu, but this wet leaf smells rather fantastic and…it tastes good too!

Lots of flavors going on. First two that come out to me are vanilla and nuts. A bit chocolately and some raisin notes are there too. 2nd round of steeps reminded me a lot of LP’s Swann’s Way. I did notice that there was some of the sunmoon lake black tea in it.

For throwing lots of left over tea together, this was good. :)

We drank this with a bit of the included vanilla bean this time and that definitely amped up the vanilla flavor! We continue to enjoy this one!

I’ve been waiting for the SO to get back into town to try this, as she’s the black tea person. What a smell! The dry leaf balls smell very sweet. The wet leaves also smell sweet and a bit creamy with a hint of toastiness. The liquor is a medium color while remaining fairly transparent and tastes—as the SO put it—like something you would have with pancakes. Sweet and somewhat creamy, it definitely tastes french toasty or like a syrup.

She likes it so much that she tries to steal the cha hai and take the rest of the first steep for herself. The second steep is even more flavorful as the leaves expand more, and we get a good few flavorful steeps after that, as well. We will definitely be coming back to this one again.

Finishing this off. If there’s any left when I do my next LP order, I’ll definitely get more of this.

I really liked the taste, but I was most impressed with the number of steeps I got out of it. I think I got 12+.

I wanted something special today. Chose this one, and it’s one of the best oolongs that I have had—if not the best.

I steeped it a little lighter this time. It’s a bit fruity and nutty with roasted vegetables at the forefront. I think this is the first dong ding that I have had.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!:)

Raseru’s post was spot on:
http://steepster.com/rasseru/posts/339536

I really liked this one. It did remind me of a jin xuan a lot.

I really haven’t had many oolongs. Anyone know of other fantastic ones? There’s an overwhelming amount of them, and I frankly don’t know which ones I would like. I can say I’m not big into the floral notes. Everything else—fruity, vegetal, milky, chocolatey, spicey, bread, sweet potato, etc.—are fine.

Drank this to get through a round of awful phone interviews. Only enough left for one last session. I must save it until reinforcements arrive.

Finally introducing this to the SO. She thinks it would go well with ochazuke or tamagoyaki with shiozake and rice…which sound like very interesting pairings to me. I would drink green tea with those. Upon taking bigger sips she starts to really taste the chocolate and the earthiness of it. I love how the taste of this tea evolves after a few steeps. The dark chocolate taste gradually gives way to the sweetness of the rice and the leaves themselves. Such good stuff. As we get to the last steep she’s very smiley and giggly. I am intrigued by this effect.