Teavivre

Sipdown 2020! 35/365

This tea is so delicious. I adore that honey sweetness with the minerally qualities of the oolong.

The tiny sample pouch I had of this was opened, and who knows for how long, so my expectations weren’t particularly high. But, as sometimes happens, I got a happy surprise when trying the tea – it was delicious! Full of honey, minerals, florals. Hands down the best darker oolong I’ve had in a long time (non-green? Oxidized? I’m not sure how to say that…) I juuuust ordered DavidsTea’s Phoenix Oolong as my Frequent Steeper freebie, and I’m hoping it’s even half as delicious as this one.

Unfortunately, that’s what I remember from last night – I’m drinking this after the sticky rice oolong today, and literally all I can taste is that flavour, so I’m going to leave the last sip or two of this until my tastebuds have been cleared a bit. That sticky rice flavour is so persistent…

Thanks to Teavivre for the lovely sample!

Additional notes: This one is lovely. Not sure if it’s because I’m overleafing yet Teavivre never gets too astringent, or what is happening. But my default with Teavivre black teas is usually two teaspoons for a mug.
My idea until the chlorine situation is handled, was to get a gallon of filtered water at the store at least for my really good teas or teas I have to review. Then I can just keep boiling tap water on the stove for twenty minutes. However, at the store, I forgot to grab the gallon of filtered water. sigh.

Does anyone have a Lucky Draw giftcard they aren’t going to use (over $3 anyway? I have $3 but fishing for higher…) I think you can copy and paste the giftcard code numbers from other winners? Oh wait… but I’m sure you have to buy $60 or something to use the $6 Lucky Draw? I just wanted to buy a couple things. Hmm

Somehow I haven’t tried this one before. I grabbed it during the black tea sample sale. The leaves here are huge and mostly black, which is odd to me for a Dian Hong. But I’m willing to try it! So the leaves are definitely different than the Yun Nan Dian Hong – Full Leaf, as those are gold and black. But this tea also looks like huge “full leaves” to me! The scent of the dry leaf is very much like a freshly harvested field of hay. Either the two teaspoons was too much, or the three minute steep was too long, as this has a little more astringency than I’d prefer. But I’ll like it even more when I adjust the parameters. It’s a unique one…. I wouldn’t say it tastes like the other Dian Hongs that Teavivre carries. It’s certainly a different flavor profile. The cup is dark and I’m tasting flavors of coffee, that dried hay, flowers, malt, and something fruity about it. It’s almost like an Assam tea. It has a HINT of the fruit flavor that is in the incomparable Nonpareil Yunnan Dian Hong Ancient Wild Tree which makes since if it’s also a Dian Hong. The leaves actually look very similar, except the Nonpareil has a slight red color to the leaves. But there the comparisons end, as the flavor of the Nonpareil is very light and this tea couldn’t be deeper and stronger. I’m actually very surprised that such a dark brew resulted from these huge leaves. I was expecting a very light cup. If you like your teas strong, this is one to try and it’s quite affordable! I would certainly stock up.
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoons for a full mug // 19 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // 3 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Harvest: 2018

Convenient pyramid bags made of environmentally-friendly corn fiber. It was a very clean high-quality Yunnan pu’erh tea, with very light earth notes, and heavy rice aroma and light taste note. Very smooth, mellow, easy on the tummy type of tea. I only had one bag to try but it was a pleasant one. Not a complex pu’erh, but a solid daily drinker if you like rice shou.

Many thanks to Teavivre for this sample. It’s been a while since I’ve had the opportunity to try a new Teavivre tea.

When I opened the small sample package, I was greeted with small, tightly curled, dark brown leaves. The aroma was faint but slightly sweet.

I steeped the leaves at approximately 203 degrees for eight minutes as instructed by the package. The brewed liquor was a vivid reddish-gold. The aroma was slightly sweet and malty, but again faint.

The flavor of this tea was like malty hay with a perceptible “edge” to it. The edge was not quite astringent but it did bite into a sweet characteristic of the taste that subsisted underneath.

All in all, the flavor was amiable. The aftertaste was not obnoxious and lingered only briefly.

Personally, I prefer more robust flavors in black tea. However, this selection should be fine for those who do not need to pump up the volume.

I started off with a sample and ended up buying a big bag of it. It has a dual purpose for me as a tea and cereal. I really love this. The aroma of the dried grains is of buckwheat, nuts, peanuts, a little sweetness of honey. There is a distinct peanut butter aroma, taste. It has a yummy rich nutty roasted-toasted flavor. It’ll be part of my stash for a long time coming. Very comforting and well, it’s healthy too so that’s a plus.

Backlog – sipdown actually 6/16
unsmoked version of this tea
small twisty leaves that smell of chocolate
2min, 205F
chocolate

dry smells – bready, yam, cocoa
1. 3min 212F – yam, cocoa, fruit
2. 3 min 200F – fruit, sweet, coating as it cools
3. 4 min 200F – candy sweetness, fruit, juicy, small sour note in background.

It’s a better at a little lower temperature. But this tea is pretty old now and a lot of the flavor has been lost. Still I wonder, why would you smoke this tea? I might order some more to try.

Definitely, a tea to help relax oneself.

Tense couple of days for me. I found out that my nephew’s ex-girlfriend said he was “cyberstalking” her. After hauling him in, keeping him for 48 hrs, he’s out. His new girlfriend is there for him, said his ex is just angry and jealous. I have experience in criminal law (before I decided to put my chemistry background with my law) but he is in California, and I’m in another state but I did what I could and got the facts (or lack thereof), and spoke to people. I believe the charges were dropped. I looked at his FB and saw a few of his posts that read “Happy birthday. Will love you always.” and a few other sweet posts. Going to sound like a typical aunt here but he’s such a good kid. Good work ethics, has a samurai personality, always wants to help the less fortunate out. Hopefully, it’ll all work out for all involved.

Ah yes, the tea. :)
It’s quite savory, with chestnut aroma, slightly nutty, some floral notes, grassy and very subtle astringency, and a very nice sweet aftertaste. I didn’t get the toasted walnuts mentioned but a continued subtle chestnut flavor, floral and mineral notes. Vegetal, seaweed, marine. As I continued it got slightly bitter, but will drop it down a notch in temperature next time. Boiled chestnuts are the star here. In the later infusions, I got an interesting cantaloupe note.

Gaiwan (silver): 110ml
185℉ / 85℃
5 steeps: rinse, 15s, 25s, 40s, 60s, 90s

Sipdown! 185/365!

Well, this is less offensive than I thought it could be, and as a result, I’m now a bit more interested in trying blends with chrysanthemum. This is what I’d call an easy-drinking pu’erh – it’s mild and earthy, no unpleasant fishiness whatsoever. I don’t know what chrysanthemum tastes like, as I haven’t had it straight, but based on this sample, I’d guess it’s pleasantly earthy? I think I have some straight buds; perhaps I’ll give them a shot later.

Not a favourite of mine, because I haven’t acquired a taste for pu’erh at this point, but it really wasn’t bad at all.

So vegetal. Steamed green beans, spinach, asparagus, slightly nutty, buttery, slightly sweet, some nice chestnut notes, stonefruits, umami…

Really enjoyed my sample of it yesterday. Would love it get more and give it the gongfu style treatment. This time, I use my new TeaVivre glass and 185℉, grandpa style.

Sipdown! 171/365!

Another free sample from Teavivre – thank you! This tea is a delightful example of a well-flavoured oolong, where there’s lots of delicious peach flavour but also plenty of delicious base tea. The base isn’t specified, but it’s a probably a tieguanyin, possibly with some natural peach notes on its own. (The packet doesn’t indicate that there has been any flavouring added, but the peach is too prominent for it to be naturally occurring, or to come from the dried apple that is listed as the only ingredient aside from tea.) Not a fancy tea, but very accurate to its name. Yum!

Sipdown! 169/365!

Thanks to Teavivre for the free sample! This was pretty good – smells like a typical genmaicha, but the green tea had a lot more flavour (vegetal, umami) than many I’ve had, perhaps because it’s fairly fresh (this is from this year). I wouldn’t get this again in teabag form, as I don’t care for them, but might if it’s available in loose leaf.

Soft sweetness with spinach overtones. Medium-thick mouthfeel

Funny. I steeped in a flute glass this time, and now it was just wonderful …
Was it porcelain vs glass ?
Was it wide vs tall ?
Was it the amount of leaves ?
Was it the expectation?
Was it the mood?
About 7+ brews, and all just wonderful, balanced, sweet, nutty, fruity…

Leaf: very palish or light green, lots of buds
Smell of dry leaves: a bang! Sweet, salty
Liquor: very light
Aroma: also sweet
Flavors: chestnut the strongest, then some vegetable (which one?), cream, sweetness, a bit of astringency.
[All in all, not enough flavor bang for me, sorry.] (See my other tasting note, I am definitely editing this statement ….)

So I’m a fruit hog. I eat all kinds of fruit. Tamarind, guava, pomelo, whatever I can get my hands on. I just bought and finished 5 lbs of loquats last month. Those were hard to find!! When living in California, they were everywhere, can pick them off a tree. I had to wait 8 months before they were ready to be picked and shipped to where I’m at now. Anyway, summer is a great time for fruit hogs lol.

So I bought lots of different type of dried fruit samples from TeaVivre to make natural fruit tea. Hawthorn fruit is one of the fruits I’ve never had a chance to eat so I had no clue what it tastes like. Well, I loved it. It was right up my alley. I put 7.5 g of it (sample size) with boiling water. Steep time was 3 minutes or so. It is tart, like tart apple but not like granny smith tart (my favorite apple) but like a cross between a red apple, cranberry, berry tartness. I’m sure many would require some sweetener. I saw some recipes with hawthorn berries and most had some sweetener. I even ate the fruit slices after I finished the tea. hehe I bought 17 oz of it after I tried the sample awhile ago. That’s how much I loved it.

So I looked it up and the health benefits, specifically cardiovascular support studies were incredible. Definitely a super food. I admit that if I didn’t like the taste, I wouldn’t eat it no matter how good it is for me lol. I recommend it if you like tart fruit or you can add agave or honey too. hehe

I noticed this tea is approaching its expiration date so I decided to concentrate on drinking it down. I have a LOT of it because it was soooo good and then I got distracted by other teas and let it languish. Time to fix that.

I had a very weird lunch of leftover barbeque (NC vinegar style from CookOut) and waffles with maple syrup. I told you it was weird. I had the bbq first and then made the tea and waffles.

My first sip reminded me why I bought so much all at once. Even though this is nearing its expiry date, it is still good. Tea needs to “cut through” the thick sweetness of the syrup for me, and this one did. Keemun does it by its raspy cocoa dryness, but this one was silky and sweet, with enough flavor contrast to make itself known through the maple.

I think it paired awesomely.

Has anyone seen this article? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142193/

It was about SARS which is a coronavirus, but basically what it says is that black and puerh tea did have an inhibitory effect on the virus by disrupting an enzyme, 3CL protease. Green and oolong not so much, as the tannins and theaflavin were the helpful bits! Well, any excuse to drink more tea, plus I am hoping the heat of the beverage makes my throat a less hospitable environment for viruses in general!

There are no confirmed cases in our county yet, though there are some in our state. Not worried too much about getting sick as we are taking reasonable precautions, but wondering how supplies of food and other necessaries will hold out with people hoarding.

Praying for all our steepsterites to stay healthy and well fed!

Sorry! Forgot to paste link first time around! It has been added.

I had this with breakfast today, which was just a buttered English muffin. I haven’t had it in a while and last time was probably gong fu. I really didn’t remember what it tasted like, and didn’t look it up, but just reached for it for a change of pace.

It was really good. I used my Kamjove and resteeped once. What surprised me was that when I sipped, it cut through the taste of the food with a fruity, citrus-y taste rather than the low scrape of chocolate-y black tea I expected. But really, that comes more from Keemun tea.

I have been trying to send a private message to some folks, including mrmopar, but it just isn’t working for me on steepster. Anyone else having a problem?

Also, I have discovered spill planes and the delightful history of spills and now I want one. How is that for a start in woodworking, to get a tool that purposely makes useful trash? Any woodworkers here?

We are back from the beach! Hooray! It is good to go but oh so good to get back!

I missed my tea things so I wanted to have gong fu service tonight. We were having oound cake with strawberries and whipped cream, so that cries out for black tea to me. This is one of the very few black teas that my husband likes without milk and sugar.

The first steep was so silky, and the aroma was honeyed. It is rather light in color for a black tea but has plenty of flavor. At times it tasted rather savory, while having sweet and coppery aroma.

Subsequent steeps were much the same, but there were fleeting changes. Around steep four, there was a nice burnt sugar taste and the briskness increased a little. Perhaps I steeped it longer but it was really delightful that way. A steep or two later and it was suddenly very floral. Then at the very end, the lingering aftertaste has a touch of orange peel notes – a slightly bitter or brisk citrus. It still has a creamy body and this must be about the tenth or eleventh steep. The flavor really lingers.

I don’t know if I am tired from the packing up and trip home and unpacking, or if this has tons of GABA, but I am mellow, peaceful, and sleepy. Time to sit in my rocker and read Good Omens!

I have made this western style and it really wasn’t nearly as good, so this one is reserved for gong fu.

I’ve tried all my Teavivre 2019 teas so far but haven’t gotten around to leaving a review. Just yesterday I got my 2nd Yunnan Sourcing order and my tea cabinet is getting full so I figured I would get around to start leaving a few reviews.

I normally like to try a few brewing methods but I find for me and Chinese greens, usually it tastes much better Western brewed. Just a simple cup and infuser. I don’t have a really large cup and that first infusion, if done right, is perfection. That doesn’t go for all green teas (and definitely not for Japanese) but in most cases , it works. Take the best and discard the rest.

So brewed this at 80C, about 6 or 7 oz water , and approximately 3 grams of tea for 1 min 45 sec. This was my favourite green from Teavivre last year and it’s still performing well for the 2019 tea. Intense green bean flavour , slightly nutty & sweet. It’s like a taste of spring.

Swap tea with ashmanra. Thank you :) Keeping my white tea theme rolling now that it’s in the mid-80s here.

The packet was 5g and since I wanted to see how this tea made out gongfu and western, I split it in half: 2.5g for a 60mL gaiwan and 2.5g for a 6oz cup. The dry leaf struck me as strange; it smelled mostly of a jasmine-scented tea, not a typical light floral aroma. I wonder if there was either some product mislabelling or some cross-contam prior to packaging because the packet was sealed tightly. There were also notes of some other flower, hay and a mustiness which is common to Chinese silver needle white teas. The aroma of the rinsed leaf was musty with wet hay and florals and a pungent note much like tea tree oil. I drank the rinse. The tea is difficult to describe. Cantaloupe-ish, lemon sweet-tart, musty, dusty, retronasal florals. Aftertaste was pleasant though short-lived. It took a while to come to me, but I figured it reminded me of a buttery croissant and lychee.

Some other notes that appeared in the gongfu session were nectar, another pungent herbal quality reminiscent of sage, semi-sweet sake, minerals. The liquor aroma became very pronounced with musty jasmine. Tongue-numbing in a way I found unpleasant. The body was thin and watery. Aftertaste moved to oats and cream. By the fourth steep, the liquor lost flavor and grew very drying despite using water near the recommended temp (of note: I believe it was ~165F on my packet vs the 176F in the current product description).

One steep western of 5 minutes was less impressive. Watery-brothy, musty and tart with a strong jasmine finish.