Teavivre

This was snuck into my swap with Evol Ving Ness by Sil when she acted as the middle person between the two of us. I cold brewed this for 6-7 hours and I drank the whole thing but it’s not particularly flavorful. More berry than hibiscus which is nice but sort of that common fruit/berry tisane flavor. Nevertheless, thank you Sil for the share.

Got a sample of this one with my Teavivre order. Brewed gongfu. 80C or a bit less for some infusions. 2.5g. I really liked the look of the rings and watching them unfurl with each infusion.

First infusion was a little bitter. I brewed one minute and it was too long for this tea but the jasmine was good and strong. Next few infusions I kept it to seconds and the bitterness was gone. It’s very similar to Jasmine pearls with a good jasmine aroma and taste. However, I am having trouble picking out anything else about the green tea. Even though I love jasmine, it’s best when a little more subtle and the flavour of the tea comes out with it. Still enjoying this tea though.

It was overly bitter for me. First three steeps were just bitter, but later steeps had a nice subtle woodsy flavour, however the bitter taste persisted to the end, even though I did shorter infusions.

A subtle and delicate tea with a very soft texture, this is my favourite of the 4 Teavivre samples tperez sent me. If I ever order from Teavivre, this is one of the teas I’d like to get. The taste is quite sweet and floral with some vegetal notes. The aftertaste is surprisingly pungent and somewhat tart I would say. It would be nice to see this tea in its fresh state.

Finally getting around to trying this one from a Reddit swap two years ago. Still seems fresh. It tastes pretty much the same as all the other golden monkey teas I’ve tried. It has a bit of astringency. Not my favorite sort of tea, but typical as far as golden monkey goes. I apologize that I don’t have more to say!

Why have I waited so long to write about this? Or ahem, even try it. My bag was buried in a moving box, which was tucked away in storage, for literally two years, then I finally got it back when I moved into this apartment. Yet it has still been sitting in my cupboard because my tea consumption slowed down tremendously over the past year.

So here I am. This batch was packed in 2014 and has a shelf life of three years, yet, upon opening it, it still seems fine.

First cup here is so bready. Like wholesome, hearty, freshly baked rye bread or something. Not white bread. Minimal astringency and a semi-thick mouthfeel.

A rich, warm, woody and earthy ripe puerh. Had a sample from the Puerh Assortment sample pack, but I’m not sure if I would buy it over some other teas.

My favourite tea for now! Such a nice, honey taste, it’s the tea that got my gf into puerhs :)

This was from my sample sale a while ago. I really wanted the samples to try them fresh, and I’m a little disappointed in myself that it’s almost the new harvest and I’m just now getting to some of the harvest from 2018. I definitely wanted to try this one: A unique black base with Teavivre’s essential jasmine essence. Any one of Teavivre’s jasmine teas is an essential to my cupboard (at LEAST one of the jasmine teas!). You can’t really go wrong with them. And Teavivre offers many varieties of base teas for that lovely jasmine flavor. The first steep of these pure golden leaves was light, but surprisingly not lighter for a such a golden tea. The jasmine really shines with these leaves. The jasmine is neither too light in flavor or too heavy handed. I thought I was tasting hints of melon as well. The second steep was much darker, again surprisingly for such a golden leafed tea, but in no way astringent. Hints of chocolate and still plenty of jasmine. Melon has disappeared on the second steep. I really like this, but it might not be as perfect as some of Teavivre’s other jasmine options. I like the idea of a jasmine black tea option though!
Steep #1 // around 2.5 grams for a full mug // 11 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 minute steep
Harvest: 2018

This was another April sipdown of mine. I think I finished this one around the start of the third week of the month. I only had a couple of sample pouches to play around with, so I did not get a chance to spend an extended period of time familiarizing myself with this tea, but in the time I spent with it, I found it to be a decent though not exceptionally interesting Ali Shan oolong.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 7 grams of rolled tea leaves in 5 ounces of 195 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 14 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and 7 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of cream, custard, vanilla, sugarcane, gardenia, and grass. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of butter, spinach, honeysuckle, and orange blossom. The first infusion introduced aromas of apricot and cucumber. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of cream, butter, sugarcane, grass, spinach, and cucumber that were chased by pear, green apple, apricot, orange blossom, and vanilla hints. The subsequent infusions brought out aromas of umami, green apple, lettuce, and honeydew. Stronger and more readily noticeable impressions of pear, green apple, and vanilla came out in the mouth alongside belatedly emerging notes of custard and hints of gardenia and honeysuckle. I also picked up on notes of minerals, umami, cantaloupe, honeydew, white peach, white grape, coriander, lettuce, seaweed, and orange zest. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, coriander, umami, green apple, pear, grass, butter, and spinach that were backed by hints of seaweed, cucumber, apricot, white grape, orange zest, and lettuce.

This was a fairly standard Ali Shan oolong. I found that it faded quickly, but for the most part, there was nothing terribly wrong with it. Unfortunately, I find Ali Shan to be one of the more overhyped and boring terroirs of Taiwan, and since this tea did not differentiate itself from the majority of the other Ali Shan oolongs I have tried, I very quickly reached a point where I was ready to move on from it. To be clear, this tea was not bad. As a matter of fact, I could see it maybe making a respectable introductory Ali Shan oolong for those who are curious about what Ali Shan teas have to offer. I just found it to be a bit on the bland side.

I was in the mood for something that was soft, yet a bit punchy, so I grabbed one of these mini-tuos

First steeping: the chrysanthemum definitely rides up front, but doesn’t overpower the shou.

Second steeping: the floral tones are still dominant, but it isn’t as dominant as it was previously. chocolatey notes are starting to become more apparent.

This pattern repeated over subsequent steepings, but even when oversteeped, it wasn’t overly bitter or astringent.

Nothing too complicated but has a comforting sense to it.

I’m putting one tuocha into my pot and brewing.

First steep, extremely pale, almost like nothing got extracted. A touch of earthiness, but pretty weak.

Second steep: a little better but still fairly bland. I get a vague, general tea/puerh flavor, but nothing distinct.

Third steep: I let it sit for 40 seconds before pouring. I’d rather overbrew at this point than drink the tea equivalent of Miller Lite (to which is what I’d equate the first two steepings). Finally, starting to get somewhere, getting that earthy puerh flavor, but still not very strong.

Fourth steep: getting more of that copper/brown color in the cup and some astringency, no earthiness.

I’ll finish this tuocha but Not a fan in general

I am trying to sip down a lot of my older tea, and I found a bag of green tea samples from Teavivre buried in the tea chest. We had this tonight with pound cake, fresh strawberries, mini chocolate chips, and whipped cream.

First, it is 18 months past its “best by” date. I know it has faded but it was still good. What astounds me is that after a few cups I was so hot I felt like I was having a hot flash, and I knew it must be the tea but I hadn’t read the reviews that talk about the warming sensation. I have the air conditioning on and still I was sweating. I decided to sit back and enjoy it like a nice evening in the sauna.

Our dessert was so sweet that I really enjoyed the earthy flavor amd light bitterness of this tea. It was a perfect foil for our cake. It really cut through the sweetness, and we had enough to make one fair cup for drinking after the cake was gone.

The leaves are adorable. They look like tiny pea pods! I believe we made four steeps in all.

Reminds me of Da Hong Pao, but lighter and less smoked, more floral
used 6.3 plus around 0.7 g of broken leaves in powder, to give a little punch during the first brews.

Quite enjoyable, complex and reserved black tea. As the leaves unfurl over several steepings, chocolate and leather aromas come out, confirmed on the palate. Very little astringency comapred to most black teas I’ve experienced. Nice and mellow, a joy to drink.

I have been working through the cake off and on for about 6 months now. At first I found it so bitter and astringent, that some of the secondary “puerh” flavors didn’t come out at all. I put the cake away for about 10 weeks and brought it out again yesterday for the first time in a while.

The astringency has mellowed somewhat (perhaps because I’m getting leaves deeper in the cake at this point?) and I’m getting more citrus and “green” notes beyond tannin. Sometimes I get a hint of leather.

I will finish this cake, and I have a second cake that I’ll eventually open, but not for a while. I am going to age it and see if it improves at all in a year or so.

Important point, which may explain some of what I experienced early on, is that most of the leaves in my gaiwan are broken. I only see a few whole leaves per pot.

This tea has an interesting smell that’s a mix of bread dough, asparagus, cabbage and stir fry. The taste has a strong umami and vegetable notes. It is quite unique, although the closest comparison would probably be a mix of a robust Long Jing and a Laoshan green tea.

From a swap in 2016 with DelighfulKiwi –
Sipdown. I used the whole amount sent. 5g
I’m far past the best time for this tea as the leaves are more grey than green.
190F, 1min – green, small lingering sweetness, muted hint of nut, but unfortunately most of the flavor is gone due to age.
no rating

Gong Fu Sipdown (600)!

Thank you Teavivre for the free sample – I was definitely very interested in trying this one as I’ve had lotus leaf in various blends of tea but I don’t believe I’ve ever had it straight before. I think it’s a good thing to experience different herbs straight because it helps you better understand their flavour and what they might be contributing to a blend…

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really enjoy this one a whole lot – but I definitely know why. I don’t think it was foul tasting or anything; it’s just the the profile was very intensely grassy and green throughout my entire six or seven infusion session: no real rise or decline in flavour just a solidly grassy experience that reminded me a lot of green tea; which I’m just not into. Apart from the strong grassy notes, it was also a little bit buttery and nutty, which was actually a nice element to this tisane – just not a nice enough one to make up for the grassiness…

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwjr0NoH9Dm/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHIN2JRSMuU

Hadn’t had a lotus leaf tea before, but it was pretty mild and tasty – mostly just tasted like a genmaicha with rose. I’m not the biggest fan of rose, but it wasn’t overwhelming. A nice herbal option.

Thanks for the free giveaway sample, Teavivre!

I cleaned out my online cupboard a bit today as I have sipped down a few teas recently. I am also shocked at how many teas I have not added to my cupboard and I just don’t feel like doing it right now, but this is one that I need to finish soon but had not been added, so here we go.

My husband and I had one of our gongfu cha sessions on the floor tonight with this. I used one teaspoon for my little pot, which holds about seven ounces fully topped up with no leaves in it, but about five ounces with big oolong leaves taking up space. We used boiling water.

The first steeps were very floral, had a wonderful aroma, and a mild taste. This is bery green with none of the charcoal baked flavor of strong mineral notes of some. As the steeps progress, the taste becomes even lighter and fades to notes of hay with soft greens.

I think next time I will use more leaf and see if it can make the floral notes grow and last longer.

I used to have mixed emotions about gongfu cha, but tea is changing me in a lot of ways. Instead of viewing the preparations and clean up as a chore – is it really worth it? Ugh! – it has become a peaceful part of the process and I enjoy the process from beginning to end as much as the actual tea making/drinking part. Filling the kettle, carrying the tray to the spot we have chosen, setting out the teaware, and choosing the tea, all are an integral part and bring me quiet contentment in my task. Washing the tea things, drying them, and taking my time carrying each piece back to its resting place instead of rushing to finish the job, is a pleasure. I am trying to carry that mindset over to other things that I must do, as well.

sipdown from the other day. I had an amazing yellow tea a few years back and have been on the hunt for one that is similar since then. Needless to say this was not it. this one tasted more like a roasted oolong. it wasn’t bad, but wasn’t what i’d hoped for.

An immediate, surprising note of jasmine in the aroma.

Almost clear liquor.

Light, smooth, crisp white tea flavor. Not particularly strong at a 3 minute steep, so I’ll probably try brewing again for longer in the future.

ETA: a 5 minute brew is equally mild, but the jasmine aroma is not as pronounced. The brew becomes slightly earthier as well