Samovar

I ordered this by accident, thinking it was regular sencha.

I typically avoid “blended teas” – they tend to perfume or mask the tea’s natural flavour. Citrus-based blends especially have not been kind to me. This however was an entirely different experience. It’s a strange balance of “mellow” and “refreshing”. I find myself addicted to this refreshing experience. I ordered more. It’s a nice departure from the usual.

1min 30seconds, 175F 10-14oz of water, 1 teaspoon. Good for multiple steeps, though it tends to lose that fresh edge after the second steep. 4 steeps depending on your palate, though you should start incrementing steep time by 15-30 seconds each subsequent steep.

I have yet to try the “suggested brewing instructions”, which is 2 tablespoons over 16oz of water for 2 minutes. Seems a bit much to me.

I followed the brewing instructions on samovar’s site (I love how Jesse makes brewing instructional videos). Boiling water, first flush use as a rinse. Then all subsequent infusions with 10-14oz of boiling water for 1min. This oolong favours the more green-side, than black – which is what I prefer. Does not come out as grassy, but a nice sweet oolong with faint smoky vegetal notes. Similar to Hawaiian oolong(more likely Hawaiian is similar to this), I experience an tantalizing sensation on the tip of my tongue in the first couple steeps(something I only experience on the first steep with Hawaiian). It eventually evolves into a mellow apricot, but as “advertised”, “goes the distance” at 10-15 steeps. So far my average is 13.

Now the negatives. This tea is rather expensive when compared on a grams/oz scale – sometimes twice the price. The saving grace however, is the amount of steeps you can get out of it – essentially 2-3x the average of most oolongs. Logically that would balance it out in the end, justifying it as a reasonable priced tea? Well, yes and no. If you “go the distance”, then yes. However it is also a large commitment to use it – basically make it a group tea, or save the leaves for the next day, or prepare to go to the bathroom frequently ;). I personally, like to break it up through-out the day. True the flavour evolves, so your not necessarily experiencing the same flavour you started with, but variety is nice to have too.

Personally, I’m very conflicted. I want to make this my “every day” tea. It has all the things I love in certain oolongs, and none of the negatives, with the exception that its a commitment, or its expense if you give up half-way. Definitely one of my favourite oolongs though.

I’ve been really excited to try this one because of all the positive reviews I’ve read.

As per Samovar’s instructions, I rinsed the leaves (or “awakened the leaves,” as they put it) and discarded that first infusion. The 2nd steep’s color was lightly golden yellow. It smelled faintly grassy, but not overwhelmingly so.

I like this. I can taste melons and flowers and sweet things. The aftertaste is a little grassy, but not enough to scare me away.

This is the first [and I believe only] Chinese green tea that Samovar carries [online, anyhow], so when it popped up I was intrigued and wanted to give it a try. I should note at this point that what I got is a sample, and that I steeped it through four cups.

Chinese greens are a strange thing. When I try to peg down what I get from Japanese green, I can see it rather clearly in my head and typically am able to identify flavors with relative ease. When I think about Chinese greens, it’s much more difficult for me because I’ve had such a varying range of flavors when it comes to them [and not all good], so one set group of flavors doesn’t really jump out at me when I think about Chinese greens.

I also don’t drink Chinese greens as much as I do Japanese because the Japanese tend to have more buttery notes, which my palate thanks me for drinking. I like to keep my palate happy lest it garotte me in my sleep.

This tea is helping me nail down some of the differences that I haven’t been able to solidify previously. For one, both greens tend to have vegetal qualities to me, but with Japanese greens it’s more of a spinach-y, even seaweed kind of taste and with the Chinese it’s more akin to the celery end of things. This tea in particular reminds me of both celery and bok choy – somewhere in between those two. And I hadn’t identified it until I read the description, but there’s definitely an asparagus note in there.

Japanese greens [the ones that I consider good, anyhow] are usually rich and deep tasting. There’s some heft in what they have to offer, and the taste is opaque. Chinese greens, even when they are strong in flavor like this one is, tend to be a bit lighter in their flavors, with some lightly salty qualities ebbing in and out of the sweeter tastes.

Lastly, while they both have sweet qualities to them, the Japanese greens have, again, that heaviness around it. Like when you walk outside to just-mowed grass, or if you’ve ever found yourself in a field of freshly cut hay. The smell is strong and sweet and almost gritty. Chinese greens are lighter, and perhaps leaning more towards the floral end of things. Like when you catch a hint of blossoms on a spring breeze. Or maybe smelling your neighbor’s just-mowed lawn a few houses down the street.

As for this tea specifically, it’s strong. The taste, the smell, all of it. At least in the beginning. And in the beginning, it smacks you with that vegetal bok choy/celery, asparagus quality. I found almost no sweetness in my cup until it had cooled substantially. It reminds me of when we went over to a family friend’s house one time and their grandma offered me a soda with Korean characters all over it. Turns out that soda was carbonated celery water or juice or urine and it didn’t really matter because it was HORRIBLY OFFENSIVE to an eight-year-old kid who had been expecting a sugar coma. The first leg of this tea reminded me of that, without the carbonation, so I can’t say that it was an extremely enjoyable experience.

Once it had cooled, and on subsequent infusions, the sweeter components of the tea began to make themselves known a bit more, and my palate decided that it would leave my death for another night. Overall, the tea tasted fresh, with lighter strains of that vegetal taste that shifted into more of a green bean/edamame type flavor and some floral, grassy notes.

So, if you’ve read all of this and those flavors sound appealing to you I think that you’re going to really like this tea. I’m beginning to acknowledge that I am harboring a great love for Japanese greens, so this won’t be hitting my tea shelf in the near future. If you’re looking to try a solid Chinese green tea, though, check this one out.

Yum. The description is right about the buttery mouth feel. This is some very light, delicate tea. I think I’m getting a bit of honey in the aftertaste, but it’s hard to tell for sure. The overall taste is so simple and harmonious.

As it cools down, I’m tasting a hint of some sort of very light fruit. This is probably my favorite unflavored white tea.

This was my first ever tea from Samovar and I was quite excited to have this experience!

I rinsed the leaves like Samovar suggested, then let the 2nd infusion steep for 3 minutes (Samovar suggested 2-5). The resulting liquid was deep, deep brown. Unfortunately, I smelled the fishiness that some people have talked about. Not so much just fish, but a whole seafood store whose air conditioning broke in the height of summer. And some seaweed.

From experience, I knew that smells can be very deceiving when it comes to tea, so I wasn’t afraid to take a sip.

This one is a bit difficult to describe, as well as being surprisingly tasty and very complex. It is earthy, dirty, but not in bad way at all. It works for this tea. It doesn’t taste sweet right up front, but the aftertaste is lovely and lightly sweet, just enough to make you want to take another sip. And of course, the fishiness isn’t a part of the actual taste, but the seaweed is.

Overall, this is probably the most complex tea I have tasted to date. And I like it.

Oh, and if your immediate thought after hearing that the tea tastes like seaweed is one of revulsion, don’t be turned off! Seaweed is an ingredient of ice cream, after all.

I’ll be straight with y’all. I’ve never been a big fan of roses. I think they’re just a tinge too traditional for the modernist in me that clamors loudly in my head. For example, if I find myself in an antique store? Cowbells and kettle drums and GET ME OUT OF HERE. [I’m not saying you can’t find cool stuff in antique stores because you most certainly can – but I get an internal reaction not unlike when people who don’t like strong smells walk by an Abercrombie & Fitch. Speaking of which, do they drown that damn store in scent? Nightly?]

Anyhow, as a flower person, I’m much more of an orchid and gardenias kind of girl. As a tea person, I usually don’t like roses in my leaf, but I really like Samovar’s Bai Mudan, so when I got a sample of this I thought, “Ah hell, it won’t kill me.”

Before I get into the tea, I want to say that my stigma surrounding roses aside, this tea is very, very pretty. Lots of little rose buds with ombre’d hues of pink blushing their petals surrounded by pretty green leaves. On the flip side of that, it smells like roses, which is a smell I associate strongly with non-edible things like soap and perfume.

All of these thoughts bumping around in my head, I closed my eyes and drew a sip.

Seriously, I don’t know how Samovar freaking does it. There’s magic afoot in that place. They have freaking mind gnomes that get into my head and figure out what needs to happen to make me enjoy something and then they snap their fingers, do their step, they can do it all by theyself…

I’m sorry, where the heck was I? Right, the tea. The tea is a rather seamless blending of the two named components. The taste is lightly floral, backed with that distinct dark sweetness I get from bai mudan that quickly morphs into walnut. A slightly heady note of rose chases the liquid down the throat and what is left is a rather dimensional grassy sweetness.

Anyhow, this tea was good to me. Enjoyable, even. Is it going to edge out the many teas of theirs that are nipping at my wallet? No. But it’s the best rose tea I’ve had to date, and if I found myself planning a pinkies-up tea party I’d likely nab a tin because this tea just feels damn fancy. If you like roses, I’m going to say this tea will be a likely winner for you. If you love roses, then do yourself a favor and go buy a sample right now.

Not too too much to say about this tea. Sadly this is my last sample from Samovar.. for now at least :) I’ve had Adagio’s Houjicha and for the most part, I found it to be a little more smokey but not as smooth as this tea. I felt it was a good trade off; I’d rather sacrifice a little bit of smokyness for smoothness any day. Regardless, it had some good nuttyness and definitely was woodsy as the description says. There are twigs in the tea leaves after all…

This tea is a great staple and if your in the mood for drinking a smooth, nutty tea, this is the one. I’m all for exotic tasting teas, but this is one I could see myself having every day without objection.

Here we are again.. finishing up my round of samples from Samovar. Of all the teas I was most excited to try it was this one, although I did find some new favorites this week as well. Blood Orange Pu-erh.. hmm. What to say.. or rather what not to say.

Opening the package is an experience all in it’s own, as I was smacked with the aroma of oranges instantly. And yes, I did like it. The pu-erh-y smell was masked in the dry leaves but really came out after I rinsed them the first time. I’m honestly not the biggest fan of the smell; too fishy for me. Like.. really. Too. Fishy.

I ended up doing two steeps with about 8oz of water, one for 6 minutes and another at 7. There wasn’t too much of a difference between the two, although there was less pu-erh taste in the 7 minute steep. This tea certainly looks like a pu-erh.. very, very dark and bold looking flavor. Now lets talk about the flavor itself..

This tea is interesting. Pu-erh in my opinion is very interesting in general and something perhaps I need to get used to, or rather we all need to get used to. I will say I enjoyed this a bit more than the Maiden’s Ecstasy and I’ll have to contribute this to the strong blood orange flavor. In describing this tea, I think the best way is to say it’s predominately orange in taste, with ginger that tends to bite your tongue a little, while sitting on a pu-erh base. You can certainly tell that this is a pu-erh tea, although the orange tends to mask that very bold earth flavor you get with plain ol’ pu-erh. However, without the pu-erh, I can’t see how the orange flavor could be as dark as it is. You certainly get a dark citrus taste, as I would assume would happen when adding any kind of flavor to Pu-erh. It seems to darken up everything a bit and give it that earthy quality.

I’m not sure what to think of this tea just yet. I’m questioning my rating as I’m not to sure how accurate I’m really being. It’s really subjective. However, I am glad I tried this tea as I do like spicing up my palette with some new flavors. Right now, this isn’t one I can see myself drinking on a daily basis, or perhaps even one I can see myself craving, but it does have it’s place. And… I’m open to pu-erh now. It’s definitely.. different.

Oh. Oh wow.
Seriously.
I’ve had mint teas before, you know, the run of the mill altoid dissolved in water, or 1 part listerine 3 parts water. Those sorts of mint teas. Then I opened my sample back of this stuff from Samovar and WOA. Hold up. It’s Christmas all over again.

I heated my water, steeped the stuff for 3 minutes and plunged my head into my cup. I wanted to live in there. I also stuck my nose into my infuser.. the combination of mint and steam lit my nostrils on fire. Not a pretty sight.

From the second I took my first sip, I knew this was the good stuff. The peppermint was so powerful, but yet so complex. Okay, the peppermint was there. Candy canes, yes, check those off. Then what was this other taste? It seemed so familiar. It wasn’t a licorice taste that reminded me of Twizzlers.. no. It was reminiscent of an earthy licorice. Ah yes. Fennel. And I happen to love chewing on the stuff.

And the aftertaste… oh well I think that’s the best part. Sweet, yet with a strong minty taste. It’s still lingering. I found it amazing that I was able to get such a tingley feel on my tongue, like I just finished eating an actual peppermint. Did I mention sweet?

But seriously, this is one of the best teas I’ve had. Reordering… now!

Let me say that this is my first time trying Pu-erh and it was certainly an… experience. I’ve heard a lot about this blend from Samovar and was pretty excited to try. In terms of smell, there really wasn’t too much until the leaves were wet; the dry leaves smelt earthy but weren’t strong by any means. I followed the suggestion Samovar gave to rinse the leaves before drinking, so I tossed my first steep. After I did that, the smell was much stronger in my infuser. To be honest, at first, I was a little put off by the smell; it was extremely fishy. However, after the second steep, the smell turned into more of an earthy, wet-forest smell. It was certainly different than any tea I’ve tried before.

The color was certainly new to me. I’ve never seen a tea so dark, almost coffee-like in color. It looked like a very bold tea, and certainly upon drinking I came to discover it tasted as dark as it looked. It had a very, very earthy taste to it. I steeped for 3:30 the first time and found that the taste was extremely dark, but smooth. It wasn’t bitter; just a very deep flavor. It wasn’t light or bright by any means. As I drank more, and the tea cooled down, I started to get a faint sweet aftertaste. At first, I’ll admit, I didn’t think I liked it. I thought it was too strong and foul-smelling. But now, seeing as I’ve had a few cups of it, I kind of want more. There is a sweet taste lingering on my tongue. I ended up trying a bunch of different steep times, again at 5 minutes, 6 and 7. I found that 6 minutes was the best for me. The tea didn’t taste as dark or dirt-like and was a little bit sweeter. Like a dark fruit sweet.

Overall Observations:
-Very Dark tea
-Smells of wet-wood, and a little fishy for the first couple of steeps. This smell lets less and less fishy over time.
-Extremely dark taste; much more earthy than any green tea I’ve had (I like to think of it as a very dark Hojicha), taste seems to brighten up more if you let it steep for longer.
-Easily get a lot of steeps out of a serving, and your cup will not get more bitter as a result of adding more steep time.
-Very different tea. I’m excited to try the Blood Orange Pu-erh blend. I think citrus will work nicely with this taste.

Everyone should try this at least once in their tea-drinking adventures. I seemed to enjoy it more and more as I kept drinking it.

I had this tea for the first time at Zen Valley Samovar and fell in love with it. Simple, yet complex, this tea is an experience. The pu-erh is aged and then packed inside a dried mandarin orange peel. It smells beautiful and subtle, and has a nice smooth flavor and consistency.

Pack the whole fruit into a small teapot, pour hot water over it, and let it steep for around 25 seconds. Pour out the first steeping, unless you really like very strong tea. This one will last for quite a while.

A note about the tea: When you first get it, it comes wrapped in plastic. Take off the plastic and let it sit in a dark, yet slightly humid place for about a week. The flavors will be more intense this way.

Wow. Long week and even worse one coming up. Three exams in 2 days is never fun. Within these stressful days I was looking forward to getting my Samovar bundle of samples. Surprisingly they shipped within a day of ordering and I actually got it within 2 days of shipping. A+ service in my opinion. Delivery estimate was the 22-25th.. and I received it yesterday.

Anyway, I was eager to try the first of my tea samples, and what a better tea to kick it off with the ever popular Ryokucha. With all the ranting and raving I knew this stuff had to be good. I mean, if your going to call it “tea crack”, then I guess it’s got some serious credibility.

I followed the steeping instructions on the bag it came in. When I first opened it, the smell of Genmaicha hit me; very similar to the Adagio blend which I’ve been drinking for a couple weeks. The matcha was clearly visible; the pieces of brown rice were a vivid green and overall the smell was somewhat different that the Adagio Genmaicha. I’ll have to credit this to the matcha powder. I heated my water, poured the contents of the baggie into my infuser, poured my water in, and let it steep for a full 3 minutes. It brewed a bright green color. It looked quite delicious.

IMPRESSIONS:
When it first hits your palette, the brown rice flavor is definitely there. It stands out strong and lasts throughout the first sips. In terms of after-taste, I wasn’t getting the sweet, matcha flavor a lot of people were talking about. It was vegetative, but not so sweet. Then again, it was smooth; there was no harshness at all. The taste of Genmaicha was certainly there, although the matcha seemed to be a little hidden. I was a little disappointed in this regard. I did experience the “milkiness” towards the end of my cup, and then a noticed the matcha powder was sitting on the bottom. Maybe I needed to stir the tea around a bit before drinking. I ended up steeping a second and final time, although not much changed. I tasted the brown rice and vegetativeness of the tea but the milkiness was pretty masked by the other flavors. I will say however that between steeps I did have a sweet taste in my mouth. And this did make me want more :)

I guess my only gripe is that this didn’t taste much different than Adagio’s Genmaicha; maybe my sample wasn’t too great or perhaps I steeped it too long or too little. Other than that, it is a great genmaicha. I can see myself reordering.

Had a pretty late night last night (but hockey is worth it) so I had a lot of trouble getting up this morning. So I’ll be honest – I picked this tea out purely for caffeine content. Cause it’s got some. Oh yes.

Today is also a chance to try this with some half & half and sugar. And in a travel mug. So yay! Multi-purpose tea day! I feel so productive! Quick conclusion: if the rest of my day goes how this tea did this morning? Today will be awesome.

Sweet, smoky, substantial, thick and almost a little syrupy (the fruit – lychee I believe I read – adds a thick sweetness that makes me feel like this has been spiked with syrup like a homemade cherry coke). This tea made me happy. It also made me think of sausage. Meander with me for a quick moment. Every time I stop by the fancy-pants grocery store I so love, I check out to see what nifty sausage they have in the case. A few weeks ago, they had a cherry and walnut chicken sausage. I like interesting things so I gave it a shot. So good. Sausage-meat-heartiness plus sweet, tangy fruit almost to the point of potential dessert-dom and a little earthy/nutty note? Yum. Just yum. This tea? Cherry and walnut chicken sausage. All wrapped up in awesome. And caffeine.

This morning? Guarantees this tea a reorder. Seriously good. Not something that I think would be a daily tea for me, mind you. But then I wouldn’t eat cherry and walnut chicken sausage daily either. Both are a bit too rich, distinct and flavorful to have daily without making me feel like I’m attempting to bludgeon my taste buds to death. It’s a tea I’m going to have to be in the mood for and be able to deal with the strong wow-ness of the flavors. But what flavors they are. I seriously could have had twice my normal morning amount if I didn’t think I would be plastered to the ceiling afterward.

Seriously. Awesome. Can I have more?

Trying this the normal way this time. Wow, this brews up dark and thick and I might not be awake for something this strong without a little milk or something but we’ll see how it goes. The smell is very thick and rich. Smoky but sweet. And the more I smell it, the more I think I can handle it without milk to soften it.

The first sip is a lot milder than I anticipated. Very smooth and the taste just sort of slowly built as I swallowed and afterward. Sweet and smoky seem to seesaw back and forth. I can’t decide which one is more obvious but as it cools the fruity sweet seems to take the front taste position.

The initial taste is very smooth with a hint of sweet some sweet smoky. Not quite campfire smoky but not cigar smoky either. It’s more like a menthol tingle smoky. Finding some Icy Hot after a house fire? I have no clue and I’m going to stop trying now. Anyway, after I swallow, I feel myself exhaling smoky flavor and it fills my mouth. But it doesn’t have a real acrid edge to it or anything. The fruity sweetness takes care of that, I think.

After trying this the traditional way, drinking it now makes me really want to have toast with strawberry jam with it. This is definitely hearty enough to stand up to having with food. I imagine it would do well with milk and sugar too but there is enough sweetness that it doesn’t actually need sugar and milk might be overkill with how silky this feels anyway – or it might be decadent and yummy so I’ll probably still give it a shot!

This is a great morning tea but due to the smoothness of it, I could see it making me happy at any time of day. It’s stout and strong but not mean about it. It’s rather heavy so I think for me it is a great winter tea.

Really want my toast with jam now.

I have been eagerly anticipating tasting this tea but I wanted to make sure I had time to give it my full attention so I thought I’d be waiting until the weekend to try this. But now that I am snowed in, I have nothing but time! (Which means long tasting note! YAY!)

And since I have the time, I’m going to try it ‘traditional style’ (check out the “How To Brew Video” here http://shop.samovarlife.com/Samovar_Russian_Blend_Black_Tea_p/0402rubl.htm for the official word on how to do this). Directions include strawberry jam. I’m so there.

The tea smells seriously yummy. Smoky and fruity sweet- it reminds me of the Fifth of November tea I have but better because the fruit flavor isn’t raspberry. It is a blend of lychee, lapsang and breakfast blend teas (so sayeth Samovar) and I can certainly pick out the lapsang and the lychee (well, I pick out fruit – no clue as to what lychee smells or tastes like).

Three tablespoons of tea ended up being 12g exactly, so I put that in 16oz of boiling water and waited for 10 minutes, then strained and decanted it into my tea pot. Because no way am I drinking that tea made at that strength in one go.

Now, it doesn’t say how much to dilute this. I have the desire to do half and half but I think that might be a bit too wussy of me (especially since I’m going to add strawberry jam to it – okay, a strawberry spread… I have no jam). So I’ll do 8oz of tea, 4oz of boiling water. Also, no clue how much strawberry jam to add but I ended up doing about a tablespoon. Because honestly, I love strawberries. And any excuse to put them in my tea must be fully taken advantage of. And even using a small spoon, I’m physically incapable of scooping out a small amount of strawberry preserves.

This smells insane. Smoky, thick, sweet, tarry, sweet, fruity, syrupy, OMG. Like burnt sugar and jam on toast. Times two million. And OMG at the taste. I have no idea how to comprehend this. Sweet, tart, tarry, thick, smoky, sweet, thick. Wowza. This is nuts. Let me see if I can break this down into something that makes sense…

I start to sip and it smells dark and thick and fruity, like overripe fruit (but not rotten – just soft and on the edge of too ripe – rich). Sipping it is smooth, thick, fruity, mellow but very bold and strong. It hits the middle of my tongue and there is a tartness or sourness. Not like something has gone off but like a strawberry that is just about ripe but still has that little bit pucker taste to it. Holding it in my mouth, that’s the main taste I get with a little more heavy but really sweet tarriness at the back of my tongue. Then I swallow and it’s very silky and heavily fruit but also tarry and then right at the very end there is a strong, sweet smoky that flashes through my mouth.

The crazy thing is, it isn’t bitter. I don’t think I’d be brave enough to do this less diluted or with less preserves because the two main flavors I’m getting is the sweet fruit and holy monkeys tarry smokiness. The balance is probably a little heavier on the fruit but not by a whole lot. The tarry actually pairs and mushes together with the fruity really naturally. It’s very sweet but doesn’t feel as sweet because of that strong tarry smokiness. However, it’s very thick and rich and it feels like I’m eating a crazy rich dessert that will ultimately make my eyes roll back in my head as I overdose on richness.

Half way through my 12oz, I added a bit of milk to see what that does. Wow. Sweeter and tarrier at the same time. Maybe a little less smoky at the end? It feels a little less rich but at the same time is still pretty powerful. Like a rich chai minus the spice and plus pine and strawberry.

This is pretty different. I can’t say I’m going to drink it this way often (or maybe even ever again!) because not only am I too impatient to wait for a 10 minute steep, this is a way overpowering for me because of how thick and rich it is. Just too in my face with thickness and flavor. Wowza. Anyway, because of that, I’m holding off on rating this and going to use the rating for making this tea the ‘normal’ way. But even though this is not something I’m going to do in the future except as a novelty, I would highly suggest if you have this tea to give it a go the traditional way. It’s been quite a nifty experience!

I’m going to be so wired today. Seriously. Bouncing off the walls.

Hands down, without a doubt, one of my favorite teas that I’ve ever encountered, and it deserves a big rating bump for that. It’s true that I go through periods where I really don’t want that high and shining note of darjeeling-esque tartness, but this has ever so much more than that going on. It’s so incredibly rich…it smells like a fruit I’d want to grill, cut up and serve warm on a salad drizzled with citrus dressing. The more I drink it, the more I adore it. I won’t reorder every tin I’ve ever purchased from Samovar…but I have a hard time imagining being without this particular tea.

Man.

Reading the lists of flavors that Samovar provided while I anxiously awaited my order’s arrival, I tried to compile some mental understanding of what those combinations would be like together and had the most difficult time. Having now had the tea, I’m still not certain that I can describe quite what it’s like, but I’m going to try.

First of all, the leaves are incredibly fuzzy. I opened my tin eager to get a whiff of the leaves and was surprised by the amount of fluff stuck to the sides of it…there’s a lot. Which makes me happy, for whatever reason. It really looks more like clippings of brown and green-silver yarn than tea leaves.

Second…

I have never had to rinse tea leaves before. I know you’re supposed to for some, and probably there’s something to be said for doing that for some oolongs no matter what, but…I never have. Needless to say, my zojirushi being set to 175 already meant that the little rinse they got was fairly low-temp, and I don’t know if that makes a difference…they recommend boiling. And such a short steep time!…but then I got to thinking…does the 3-minute steep time still hold true for the lower-temp 175 brew vs. the boiling-water brew?

And then I decided it smelled delicious while it was steeping and I didn’t care, because I could just experiment more later and find out. Hoo-ah.

I’m not sure what I expected, but I could never have expected this. To me, this is sort of like someone managed to combine together oolong and white tea, completely bypassing any of the notes I usually associate with green tea in a bizarre leap I wouldn’t have anticipated was possible. We’ve talked a little bit in TNs and comments about green oolong vs. black, but I dub this white oolong. It even has the fluffies floating around the bottom, the nutty nectary sweetness, the…mmm. Even the little bit of tang I sometimes get from whites.

Bready fruit, like plantains — easy to find. Starfruit when very hot (along with something more nutty like peach or apricot), then more bready as it cools, like plantains.

Nutty sweet floral roasted starchy tropical-fruity bliss. I cannot for the life of me find the ‘smoked chocolate’ in here unless I try very, very, very hard, and even then I’m not sure that I’m not just making it up. The cup had more strongly fruity flavors when hot, and some of the edges seem to be rounding off now that I’m at the bottom of the cup and the liquid is tepid. I haven’t tried this at a higher temperature…it sounded good this way, so this is the way I started out…but I imagine it’d be quite tart…more like the skin of a plum than the flesh of it. I’m interested in trying it to see.

I feel as though this is a cup of tea that’s going to provide a lot of flavor revelations the longer I go on drinking it, and that’s pretty exciting. In fact, I think I might have myself some more. Gonna try to resteep first. The short steep time makes me worry that it’s not able to go a second round, but here’s hoping!