Samovar

This is going to sound awfully staged, because Auggy and I just had a small conversation about how she was wishing that Andrews & Dunham’s Ceylon had a bit of a fruity note in it. She had specifically mentioned raspberry.

I’d suspect that this could be a potential victim of the power of suggestion, if it weren’t for the fact that this tea had an undeniable note of raspberry in it. I have yet to have had a Ceylon that has had this much depth to it. Other ones I’ve tried had been rather one note. [I think teaplz likes to use the term “default black” and that is what I think of when I think Ceylon. Or was. It’s changing now.]

Every now and then, I get a little hint of bitterness that almost hinges on a kind of metallic taste [that I think is the coppery tang they reference in the description]. But otherwise, it is very smooth, with that default black taste and fruitiness.

I’ll have to watch out for the honeydew and burnt sugar next time steep this, because I was somewhat distracted when I was drinking this and didn’t make it to a second steep before having to run out and finish some errands. I know this, because my “notes” [if you can call them that] read as such:

200F | 4 minutes
pay attention next time
and steep it again
smooth
omg raspberry.

You know what? That sums it up rather nicely, so I’m just going to stop.

Oh, except to say that Samovar has samples available on some [not all] of their teas now. Holla.

First a pre-cursor. For quite some time now, I stopped brewing sencha in the “western style” (Basically, the typical tea cup-size, lots of water, more brewing time, usually less steeps). I prefer the taste variation I get with the “traditional style” (less water, smaller cups, shorter brewing, typically more steeps) when it comes to sencha(I’m still lazy and do western for most other teas though). As such, my review is based on the “traditional style”.

I could sum up this tea in one word: Wow. I’ve been drinking sencha for years, but the more traditionally cultivated methods, this was my first time trying fukamushi-styled. I ordered this one on a whim, and was blown away with it. Clearly I’m a fan. Using more Traditional Japanese brewing, I can get at least 5 steeps out of this remarkable tea. The brilliant green persists through the steeps, and so does the delicious sweet, buttery almost grassy flavour (for those wary of grass-vegetal, to be honest it is not over-powering, its well balanced, almost a hint).

Brewing method: 120-140ml(4oz or just over) of water(same amount for all steeps) and 1 teaspoon. Water is Green temp (170-175/77c-81c), further cooled, by adding to the pot before adding the tea, then pouring from the pot to the cups(all this happens within a minute, but the cups and pot natural temp cools the water further), add the tea to the pot, then add the water from the cups to the tea(you really only have to do this the one time, unless you’re going long periods between steeps, the purpose is to cool the initial infusion, and to warm the vessels so there is no leaf-shock). Now steep for only 1 minute. Second steep, 30 seconds with current water temp (green 170-175F/77c-81c). Third steep, warmer (White-Oolong temps – 185-195F/85c-90c) 1minute. Fourth steep 5minutes with boiling water. Fifth steep 10 minutes with boiling water. I would drink this every day if I could, but, due to the involved method of brewing this, makes it impractical for most offices. I haven’t brewed it in the “western style”, and I’m hesitant to “waste” this tea that way. If I feel particularly lazy, perhaps I’ll try it, and give my thoughts on it then. But any green-tea lover should definitely try fukamushi sencha. Easily my favourite sencha.

I ordered this based on an existing impression of another “Monkey Picked Iron Goddess of Mercy” brand. That brand, the name of which escapes me to this day, was much lighter and sweeter in nature, that required a good 3 minutes of steeping just to unfurl, and more green-oriented(vegetal). This variation is very dark, roasted and smoky – concentrated even – leaning more to the black tea variety. It was after fiddling around with it that I found a “palatable” setting of only 30 seconds a steep at the White-Oolong temps. 45 seconds max on re-steeps. I’m usually wary of suggested steep times on tins, when they immediately say boiling. And for a such a long period, with a larger quantity of leaf(tablespoon vs my own teaspoon), this, to me at least, would be over-powering. I have yet to try that method, but if I do, I’ll be sure to update my findings, but I’m comfortable with what I have now. My way of brewing, the tea’s the smoky and roasted flavour does not become over-powering, but a more calming accentuated flavour, ideal for fireplace settings, and especially the winter season. I get the woodsey, smokey taste notes mentioned, and after a couple steeps, I definitely detect the apricot. Not as sweet as I had expected from another Monkey Picked, but still a good quality/price ratio oolong. Currently my “every day tea”.

The product description is surprisingly accurate on the taste-notes. For me, I was also getting a sense of what can be best described as “fresh”, with slight notes of vegetal, and an interesting titillation on the tip of my tongue, a sensation similar to something spicy (but not being actually spicy). Due to its rather mellow nature, I had to steep longer than some oolongs. In this case, 3mins at just over Green/White Tea-temps. And for each consecutive steep, added another 30 seconds. By the third steep, it takes on a more apricot flavour. I’ve managed to take it to 5 steeps without issue, but found the first steep to be the most interesting. As good as this tea is, the cost makes it difficult to justify, at least for an “every day” tea. Probably better suited for special occasions, or something to try now and then to break up your regular tea regimen.

This is some good stuff. I even like the aftertaste.

I’m excited to report that this was my very first step into the loose leaf tea world. What a great introduction with the Blood Orange Pu-erh from Samovar! A big thanks to Nelson who recommended this tea. I come from the coffee world (I feel like I’ve just sinned), so I have a very rich and flavorful palette and am expecting that from the tea world.

I would definitely recommend this tea to anyone. For those that are fresh of the boat like myself, this tea is definitely a great starting point. To the smell, I was expecting this tea to be quite strong and have an overpowering orange taste. However, it was completely subdued and wasn’t overpowering at all. I had made a couple cups of this Pu-erh at work and had very focused, mental clarity throughout my day. I’m already looking forward to tomorrow!

I’m still unsure how I’m going to adapt to these tea ratings, so please excuse many ratings that may seem a bit projected as I steep my way in.

Ecstasy is all you need to know about this pu-erh. I just had a friend bring me some back from San Francisco and I’m in love. I drank a huge pot all by myself tonight and am half tempted to make more.

Such a beautiful, rich color, and beautifully balanced in taste.

Not sure if I can add anything useful to what has already been said about this tea, but as someone who never really had too much experience with Earl Grey before giving this one a try, I can say that I like it.

It has a very citrus oriented taste, with the actual black tea flavour mixing in together with the citrus almost as an after taste. As noted by takgoti, this tea is very drinkable without adding anything to it, although some might prefer to dull the sharp, complex (now I’m sounding like Jesse) taste if it’s too strong for them.

I drink this as an alternative tea to pu-erh sometimes to give my week a little bit of variety.

Consistently tasty, and always a nice evening treat. I guess I’m kind of backwards from most people… I drink black/darker teas in the morning, and then when the evening comes I drink green tea before bed. Am I weird?

Anyway, I love the aroma and taste of this tea. It’s so complete and well rounded. The first time I drank this tea (a long while ago) my mom took notice and now we enjoy this tea together a few nights a week. She loves the stuff.

My only gripe is that I have to keep a spoon around to stir around the resting matcha powder on the bottom once in a while.

Still one of the best teas that I have had, to date.

This is my “tried and true” tea that I always go back to after sampling different types of teas or even novelty ones. I think it’s kind of a taste that you have to learn to love — as with most pu-erhs — because it’s not flavoured and is simply earthy and dark. I like it because it gives me a very interesting and sustained energy boost for a few hours without any sort of crash at the end.

It was one of the first teas that I ever tried (I skipped the bagged teas) coming from being a coffee/latte kind of guy, so I guess that explains my liking for the pure darkness of this one.

I’m still playing with the steep times though. Sometimes I only leave it in for 45 seconds (the first two steeps) but then with later steeps I leave it in for longer, sometimes 5 minutes. I believe most of the caffeine comes out within the first 2-3 steeps, and the strength starts to drop after the 3rd or 4th steep. It’s good enough to last me through a long day.

This was way, way better than I thought it was going to be.

And I’m not really sure why I doubted Samovar in the first place!

Anyway, takgoti sent me a sample of this. From the dry leaf, I was expecting some lemon hurricane to attack my tastebuds. It’s… LEMON. Very lemon. Not like fresh-squeezed lemon juice, but more like a lemon candy. Or candied lemon peel.

But there’s really nothing in the scent other than lemon.

So I steeped this up and watched as the water turned pretty red-orange. Oh, it’d be a good point to mention that this is my first honeybush! … And for some reason, I always feel like a pre-pubescent teenager whenever I see/type that, since it just looks dirty.

Anyway, the smell coming off the infusion is exactly like those Lemon Drop candies that used to come in those cardboard boxes that they sold in my cafeteria. In elementary school. I never really liked them (there was an almost weird texture problem with them), but the smell is right there. Actually, the taste is exactly Lemon Drop as well! I should probably point out right now that this is the best lemon-based tea I’ve ever had. Everything else has tasted like I just guzzled a pint of Lemon Pledge. Or Lysol. Or some other generically-lemon cleaning product.

The sugared notes from the stevia really counterbalance the tartness of the lemon in a very wonderful way. It’s really like lemon candies. Or lemon pastry without any baked flavor. Or lemon custard. I think you’re getting the point.

I’m not getting really any taste from the honeybush, but I kind of doubt that’s the real point. It’s just the canvas on which to splotch sunny yellows.

I don’t think I could drink this every day, for sure, but when I’m craving sweet-tart lemon, I know where to turn!

Wanted to try this at a higher temperature after reading Auggy’s note from the other day about how, at that slightly higher temp, the toasted element sort of took a backseat to the milky quality.

This is totally true. I feel like the toasted rice is still very much there, but smoother and less ‘overdone popcorn’ than just…nutty and toasty. There’s a definite saltiness that seems to be part and parcel with the brothy, milky, matcha-creamy flavors.

It would never have occurred to me to change the temp. I’m surprised by how different it is…especially that saltiness. Neat, though.

Already rated this one, so no need to do it again, especially as I’m quite certain that was the longest tasting note I’ve ever written. It’s still delicious. What is particularly nice about this tea is that it contains a good, solid dose of caffeine that can be brewed at 175…which is not a big deal save insofar as sometimes I forget to hike my Zojirushi’s temperature back up to 208 before going to bed so that it’s ready to crank out black tea in the morning, and it’s nice to know that on those occasions that I do so, this will be waiting for me in my cabinet in the morning, ready to kick me into a slightly higher gear.

My cravings for this tea are not constant, I admit, but there are times when nothing else in my cabinet sounds quite as good as this does. Mmm.

Well…alright, then.

This is going to be a long one.

I have finally had my cup of Ryokucha. It was one of the first tea tasting notes I saw passingly (before I even knew what a takgoti WAS ;) ) that interested me, and for the longest time they were out of stock, so my curiosity had to remain unassuaged.

I will admit that the instructions on the tin (which is pretty slick-looking, actually; it’s not fancy but it is black and fully labeled and why I expected it to be anything else I don’t know, exactly, but there you have it) made me quirk an eyebrow. A tablespoon? A whole one? The leaves were such tiny little slips of greenery, there seemed to be so much matcha…that was going to be one dense tablespoon. A whole lot different from a tablespoon of wiry, fat-leafed black or white tea. It occurs to me as I write this that my skepticism is probably symptomatic of the real problem here, which is that at this point I may need a scale instead of a tablespoon.

The brine scent was silvery and at the forefront of the smell of the dry mixture, shining high and not quite sharp on top of a foundation of toasted carbohydrates. It made for a strange mix. I admit that the smell of the brewing wet leaves was cause for some more quirking, as the ‘toasted’ scent became very heavy…less like popcorn and more like popcorn on the ‘uh oh’ side of done. Some part of me felt like a little kid again, and it was saying, ‘this smells like Honey Smacks!’ while the adult bit of me stood off to the side going…but…I didn’t like Honey Smacks. Or Corn Pops, either (and then I remember that I ate both of them by the boxfull when I went away to school). I began to worry.

And then, sitting and sniffing and anxiously waiting, it made a connection for me that merely reading the words ‘toasted rice’ had not.

I have had this flavor before, and it isn’t Honey Smacks or Corn Pops or even popcorn to me, either.

Suddenly I am in Japan again.

At the time of this triggered memory I’ve been there for almost two weeks, which is not even a fraction of the time that someone needs to experience Japan, but has already felt like a lifetime…because only the girl whose family I’m staying with, my roommate from school, speaks any English. No one else does. (In hindsight, this was probably a good thing. It was better for me to be more quiet, do more listening, than I would have been or done otherwise.) It isn’t conversation that’s most difficult, strangely; her mother and I, one afternoon, managed to fold origami together — she taught me some patterns — despite the fact that we understood not a single word the other was saying. The difficult thing was ordering food off of menus. Poor Eiko had to gamble at every meal on what I might like or not like, and even ‘safe’ dishes — like pasta — occasionally arrived with a surprise twist (as with the night that there was a whole octopus gorgeously arrayed on top of the noodles as though it were still alive, and I was faced with a horrifying decision: to send it back when it was so beautifully prepared and offend, or to…urp…eat it). Combine this hit-and-miss ordering with my growing teen years and the fact that Japanese eat far smaller portions than we get accustomed to eating, and I was often more than a little bit peckish.

One afternoon, we travel to see the Daibutsu (giant Buddha) at Kamakura. Afterward we wandered through the little market stalls set up off to one side to look at Japanese historical merchandise of dubious quality (katanas, tsubas and netsukes, oh my!), stopping where someone was cooking little rice cakes — sembei. They had all sorts of different flavors, soy sauce most common. The fresh ones were fantastic, but…lo and behold…they sold them pre-packaged, too. I enjoyed the fresh sembei so much that my hosts from that point forward saw to it that I had a pretty overwhelming supply of the packaged ones, and my vexing food issue was finally solved.

That is what this tastes like, to me. Not popcorn or cereal, though I can readily find that there, it makes utter sense, and probably would have gone to that flavor had my tongue not had this other experience…but sembei. Of course now that I’ve found it, I can’t escape it. That’s what I smell as it brews, too — those cruchy, slightly sticky, sweet-on-the-tail-end, savory snacks that I practically lived on for the last leg of my trip, and which Eiko was forever afterward bringing back to school with her from trips home, just for me.

Why does this surprise me so much? It really shouldn’t. Toasted rice, toasted rice cakes. Logic prevails. I had just not expected to discover it again. It’s entirely possible that other people will have had it without even knowing it; I gather that there are trail mixes that like to toss in chunks of stuff that taste almost just like sembei.

And this is already way, way too long now, so it’s time to abandon memory lane and get back to the tea that I’m now working on my second cup of. First cup I brewed for two and a half minutes and added just shy of the full tablespoon of, afraid that it looked awfully potent, wary of overdoing it. This cup I added the full tablespoon and went for the full four minutes, and I think I prefer this one…the sweetness is so much stronger, and it seems to come not just from the rice but also from the tea this time…two different types of sweet, with the tea sweetness softer and the rice sweetness higher. In the mouth the tea is thick and I find it easy to think ‘creamy’ without any objections from my tongue. It’s like creamy tea without the mouth-sticky that comes from actual dairy.

I’ve lost the brine. I think the reason for this may be that eating soy-sauce sembei has irrevoccably connected salty and savory together with the rice in my palate’s memory…so what I think of isn’t the ocean, but instead that giant, beautiful Buddha gently putting on a green patina just south of Tokyo.

I think this one can stay.

Edit: Worth a mention: a nice honey flavor toward the end of the second cup, lukewarm, especially evident on an exhale or cleared throat. Yum.

This tea is interesting.

And I don’t mean interesting as in that thing you say when you don’t know what to say. I mean interesting as in it is full and varied and complex and it made my brain go to several different places all at once. I knew I wasn’t going to be logging this when I drank it, so I was typing down some words when I did, and every single time that I did something – smelled it, sipped it, swished it, whatever, I found something different.

I was flooded with flavors and smells and texture and memories and wow. This tea was bombarding me with so many things that I could barely keep up. And at the same time I was trying to think, and to place things I wasn’t recognizing instantaneously. It was overwhelming, yet invigorating.

So I’m going to try and piece this together, but forgive me if it comes out a little disjointed, because to me this is like launching someone up into the middle of the sky during the fireworks, bringing them back down, and then asking, “So, what was it like?”

First, this tea is strong. For what it’s worth, I put about a teaspoon and a half in ten ounces of water. This was also my very first experience with it, so I’ll probably try a shorter steep time just to see if that has any effect, though this level of flavor met me well.

There were only two components of this tea that did not strongly remind me of summer – the cinnamon and the tail of the sip that made me think of unsweetened cranberry juice. [Yes, this tea contains hibiscus. And yes, it is bold at the finish. If you can’t handle it I don’t recommend this tea, but you should be aware that this tea holds so much more than hibiscus.] As for the rest of it…

The dry leaf reminds me of peaches or apricots – ripe and juicy and slurpy – and they’re accompanied by cinnamon. Wet, the leaf takes on a bunch of different tones. Sometimes it smelled to me like fruit punch. Then it was potpourri [but not in a bad way]. Then [and it took me a bit of thought to place this] it smelled distinctly like popsicles. You know, the fruit flavored ones that come in the white paper packaging. It had that muted fruitiness, accompanied by that dryness from the ice.

And then, perhaps strangely, I smelled chlorine. I swam competitively for a pretty long time, so chlorine, though really relatively the same from pool to pool, has different connotations to me; different smells. This was summer chlorine; the smell that rises off the soaked concrete of the pool deck as the sun beats down relentlessly. We would slink out of the water, exhausted after a particularly difficult practice and lie, half-heartedly stretching to try and quell the lactic acid that would shortly turn us into human noodles. That strange, unexpected yet familiar chlorine smell was also present in the liquid, but it came and went, dodging between the scent of peach pie sprinkled with cinnamon.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to get from this exactly, so I tentatively took a quick sip. I didn’t let it sit in my mouth for very long, and just swallowed it and I quickly realized this was not going to be enough time to get anything out of it except the resulting tartness. On the next sip, I held it in my mouth and let it roam around a bit. The hibiscus taste was there, but along with it was apple – not particularly sweet, but tart apple, and something else that I couldn’t place. I gulped that sip down [the cranberry taste, as I discovered, was more apparent to me if i swallowed quickly, the hibiscus aspect clearer if I let it make it’s way down more slowly] and took another sip in.

This time, I held the tea at the front of my mouth, just tasting it with the tip of my tongue. Here, I could definitely taste the cinnamon. That was very apparent. But there was something else swirling around with it that I couldn’t quite figure out until it side-swiped my brain.

PLUM.

It was so clearly plum. I don’t know how to break it down anymore than that, I can just say that once I recognized it I nearly face-palmed.

The rest of my cup was spent holding the tea at the tip of my tongue and then pounding it down when I was ready to swallow. I seriously enjoyed that plum cinnamon-y taste, and found the cranberry tartness at the finishing strangely refreshing. I was slightly, slightly disappointed that there weren’t really any peach or apricot flavors to be found, though honestly I think that the rest of the tea was so intense I think it would have been completely drowned out.

I’m wondering if a shorter infusion will dial everything down enough to bring out more flavors, or if it will simply make for a softer cup of tea. Anyhow, this made for a really neat experience. I got a bit more complexity out of the aroma than I did the actual taste of the tea, but that plum cinnamon combination was delightful. I’ll also have to try this iced when the weather turns warmer. Anyhow, right now I’m not thinking that this is going to be a re-order for me. It’s almost too loud for me to enjoy as a tea to drink before bed [which is what I’d want it for since it’s decaf], but for the time being I think I’ll really enjoy this tin.

I have so much love for this tea. Even the smell of the dry leaves in the can is enough to send me halfway to a state of evening before-bed bliss, as this has rapidly become one of my favorite teas for winding down at night. It has a fresh, clean, dewdropped taste that I find soothing in the same way I find cucumber soothing, plus a gentle nuttiness and very slight honeysuckle sweetness that keeps it on the cozy, warm, snuggly side of things. Two steeps of this are always a good way to end my night.