Various Artists

Tonight I am drinking a caffeine free tea purely for the benefit of my stomach, peppermint tea. A lot of people don’t realize this, but a strong cup of peppermint tea, as long as it is high in peppermint oils, is excellent for certain gastrointestinal problems. Tastes pretty potent though, not one I drink for the taste. You have to brew it really strong to benefit your stomach.

I brewed this once in a 14oz mug with 5 tsp leaf and boiling water for 8 min.

This morning I am drinking an Oolong I picked up at Fairway, a local and gourmet supermarket. The have a really good gourmet coffee selection and a reasonably good loose tea selection. This one is called Oolong Roasted Twig. The dry leaves smell incredible and have the appearance of, well, twigs. They don’t quite look like stems. There is a mild roasted flavor to this tea and a sweet aftertaste. It is sort of a cross between a Wuyi Oolong and something else, don’t know what.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and 190 degree water for 3 min.

Today I picked up a black tea from a local coffee roaster. I was there primarily to buy coffee. Their coffee is, luckily, better than their tea. That being said the tea is not bad. I don’t know what type of black tea it is, it wasn’t marked except as black tea from china. The man at the store said “it was the finest tea in the world”. I didn’t believe him but thought I would try it anyway. This tea is actually better than I was expecting. There are strong citrus notes and I suspect from the leaf size that it is a broken leaf tea. I just couldn’t leave the place without at least one of their teas. This tea reminds me of an Indian Orange Pekoe even though it is from China.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 2.5 tsp leaf and boiling water for 2 min.

I am drinking the Margaret’s Hope Estate tea from Little Leaf Tea this morning, another part of my Secret Santa gift from TraceyC. I decided to brew this one at 190 degrees to start and it came out good. It is very tasty with a mix of notes hard for me to describe but include grapes, malt, and baked bread.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 190 degree water and 3 tsp leaf for 3 min.

I received my Secret Santa package from TraceyC yesterday afternoon. As the teas are not in the catalog I thought I would review the first of them here. This morning I am drinking Borengajuli Black tea from Little Leaf Tea. It is a tasty tea. I am detecting notes of malt and baked bread. The malt is not overpowering. There is some sweetness there too.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 3 min. Next time I think I will lower the water temperature by 20 degrees for a better result.

THis moring I am drinking a weird tea, organic chrysanthemum silver needle tea from the Clipper Ship Tea Company. The flavors of the chrysanthemum and white tea do not mix as well as they do with that and puerh. It is earthy from the chrysanthemum (a different earthy than ripe puerh) and somewhat sweet from the white tea, weird.

I brewed this tea once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and 185 degree water for 3 min.

Tonight I am drinking a flowering green tea from the Clipper Ship Tea Co. It is nice, sweet and vegetal, not bitter. It also doesn’t have that sour taste I was tasting in everything I drank for days due to my taste buds (I think anyway). I broke in a new glass teapot from China for the purpose of this tea, although I didn’t buy it for flowering teas specifically. This tea was called Awakening Spirit on the package. I only bought one flower of this type so this was a one shot deal.

I brewed this once in a 200ml teapot with one flower tea and 175 degree water for about 5 min.

I bought a bulk bag of Harney and Sons Jasmine Dragon Pearl. I received a bag of 5 pearl sachets and 45 of something else. I sipped through 2 cups before realizing this just doesn’t takes right and then looking and smelling to discover the problem. I don’t’ want to order again just for the 1 bag (I am getting a refund but not a replacement and its a 3rd party not H&S) but I like to have the bagged tea handy for afternoons out of my office. The “other tea” has a grassy scent its sour and hay like in the cup with a yellow liquor (I can’t recognize it, maybe its grass clippings)??

1 more steeping left of my no-name assam (I’m sure it had a name but I lost it) then I can replace it with a new assam. This one is rather flat only a little malt note in the front if I add condensed milk. I prefer a really strongly malty assam so next time I’ll be looking for the malt. This one does the trick of clearing the fog and waking me up. Steepster ate a lot of my notes lately, lets see if this rather inane one “sticks”

Holy. Moly.

I pulled out a sample of 1980’s heicha that I got as a special surprise in my last order from O5 Tea. Somehow I missed this one when I was trying the other samples they sent a few months back. They don’t sell this online and it may not be for sale at all, but maaaaannn… it’s super.

The wet leaves smell like candy, almost a little violetish, but with some warmer caramely notes also. Really intriguing.

The dry leaf looks a bit like the fungus teas I love so much, but I did not see any golden flowers. The brewed tea smells like something I know, but can’t quite place. And the taste… really unique. I’m having a really hard time describing the flavors, so I’ll just go with: yum, noms, eeeeee! and happy of happiness. I wish I could get more of this one!

Blou (black/shou) combos of the day:

- 2014 Verdant Zhu Rong and Tangerine Shou (shou aged in a little tangerine): Super good. This had a refreshing, cooling, citrusy feel. It would actually be a nice springy tea. Perfect for when everything around is waking up!

- 2013 Mandala Temple Stairs and WP Ailaoshan Black: Deeeelish! Another good combo. :)

Received some samples from an awesome tea friend! All were lovely shous :)

Golden Memory – smooth and lovely. I would drink again.

Trinity Blend – oh boy. I wanted to love it… cool name. But the fermentation flavor was out of control LOL. I even did extra rinses and couldn’t get past it.

7572 – This is perfect for an after dinner sip. Very mild, no excessive earthiness, just pleasant and yum.

Hey, my first Random Steepings note!

I received two samples from a friend and know little about their origin. Both are ripe pu’erhs and both were delicious. I am leaving a note more for myself.

2000 Langhe Menghai Ripe – Total yums. No fermentation flavors. Very smooth and wow… SWEET.

2000 Lancang Ripe – Very similar. If all shous turn out like this, I will be a happy girl. The sweetness is so pronounced and lovely. This tastes like a sugar cave. There’s a whisper of earthiness under all the brown sugar. Lovely.

I’m hanging out with my pups and Chairman Meow, enjoying my tea happy!

P.S. Before I hit save, I did google to see if “sugar cave” was some sort of pervy term. Because doesn’t it seem like it would be?

http://instagram.com/p/tWBFT1vkTc/
Bunny tea pet loves this shou!

Dealt with one very annoying customer and one very rude one yesterday. Went home and cooked the stress away— made cold soba noodle salad for the week. I had some leftover fresh ginger when I was done, so I grated it into boiling water and drank that last night. It was very strong and spicy, but warming and healthfully energizing and revitalizing. It was also a cheerful yellow color, which didn’t hurt.

Now, I also somehow managed to sprain my ankle and hurt my knee sometime around Thursday or Friday last week, so I’ve also been dealing with that pain. I swear to God, though, drinking the ginger broth helped. I woke up this morning with no pain at all!

Sometimes the best cures have to be stumbled upon by random happenstance, I guess.

I mixed Zhena’s Chocolate Chai and Republic of Tea’s Good Hope Vanilla and drank it iced.

These are two high-quality rooibos teas that mix quite well together. It tasted like earthy- spicy dessert. I would do it again, except that I like the vanilla rooibos better by itself.

Mixed Saffron Chamomile by Taja Tea with Classic Sleepytime by Celestial Seasonings.

It made two relatively unexciting chamomile-based teas taste really good. The spearmint from the Sleepytime is especially prevalent, and the saffron adds a certain richness that wouldn’t otherwise be noticeable. It’s kind of like a chamomile bouquet of gentle goodness that makes me feel much better about life.

Mmmmmmm, perfect bedtime mix!

I don’t bother logging under random steepings very often but this is for my bad memory:

Stovetop chai last night, best one yet. Heated milk with two scoops assam, 3 pieces broken cinnamon stick, 4 or 5 green cardamom, 5 or 6 cloves and some all spice. Everything crushed a bit with the mortar and pestle. Steeped away, added 2 spoons raspberry honey, a bit extra tea, some water, some ground ginger and ground cinnamon. Stir, stir, stir. Cook, cook, cook. In the end, really good. The cinnamon powder seemed to really make the difference. I wonder if my cinnamon sticks are the rip-off kind. They’re from bulk barn…so probably yes. Anyway, delish!

This is quite possibly my first “Random Steepings” entry. Tada! The beau and I had Chinese food “in town” tonight and I was curious about the tea. The waitress said there was a loose leaf oolong and we asked for a pot of that. It came loose but was brewing up really dark so we investigated. Turned out, this is definitely shu puerh. She had no more info about it but we told her a bit about puerh and how she might like to brew it if she wants to try it again. It was actually really nice and held up to Western steeping really well. This encouraged me to try more of our pu Western style. Yay!

Also excuse the (many?) Typos. I’m on my phone and Steepster won’t let me see what I am typing so I am just hoping it turns out legible…now it’s letting me. Grr. That was pretty bad. I think I got most of them.

Swap Sample Sipdown! (37)

Mystery sample! This one is from Arby and is labeled “Japanese Sencha 2018”. I quite like Japanese green teas, though I haven’t been drinking many lately. I do have quite a pile of unopened sample packets from Yunomi to get through eventually… This one looked as though it had some stems mixed in as well as leaves.

This is perfectly tasty! It has a nice vegetal spinach flavor with a lot of sweetness. There’s a tiny bit of pleasant bitterness creeping up after a 1-minute steep. I also taste some nice and somewhat creamy grain notes.

It’s not terribly complex for a sencha, but it’s very enjoyable nonetheless!

365 Days of Tea Challenge – Day 19

So today, I went to The Steeping Room in Austin for a lovely early afternoon tea! Unfortunately, the tea that I had does not appear to be available for sale on their website, so I’m putting the note here (under Random Steepings) instead.

I ended up having three different teas while I was there. The first two were the Noble Concubine (gui fei) oolong, and the White Tea #18, which is a Taiwanese white tea. The third tea was a resteep of my boyfriend’s Milk Oolong. At The Steeping Room, the servers present you with the wet tea leaves on a small dish along with the steeped tea, and they’ll resteep the same leaves multiple times if you simply ask.

The gui fei was very tasty! It had yummy sweet dried fruit and honey notes along with a very light floral and peach aftertaste. The white tea was less memorable for me, and I couldn’t find much complexity in it. It tasted much as I would expect for a generic white tea – like hay and oats. I was surprised, since the description mentions eucalyptus and camphor notes, which I didn’t find at all. The (unflavored) milk oolong was smooth and silky with a lovely peaches ‘n’ cream sort of flavor. I drank the second steeping, which was just as flavorful as the first.

For food, I had a duo of scones. Their scones are some of my favorite menu items, as I feel they’re very well-made. This time, I chose the Cranberry Walnut and Mixed Berry Spelt scones. Though I felt there was too much walnut in the cranberry scone, it was still very tasty, especially with the included honey butter. The spelt scone was delicious, and reminded me of a fluffy biscuit with mixed berries inside!

For some reason, I decided I should also get dessert! I got the Flourless Chamomile Almond Torte, which was beautifully textured and delicious. It was plated with fresh fruit and drizzled with honey. I was so full of tea and food at this point that I brought half of my dessert home with me!

Anyway, I would highly recommend The Steeping Room to anyone who might find him or herself in Austin! Price-wise, it’s a little bit on the higher side, but I feel the quality is worth it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs1ElRKlqFH/

Tea Swap Sample Sipdown Catch-Up! 2 of 4 (10)

This is a swap from AJRimmer. It’s a plain paper packet that has “Jasmine Tea from China” handwritten on it, but doesn’t list the name of the tea or the company. The tea itself is the jasmine dragon pearl variety. For some reason, I really like jasmine teas, even though I don’t really enjoy floral flavors in general. I actually just ordered a selection of jasmine pearl samples from TeaVivre to try out!

Wow, this is surprisingly good! I wasn’t expecting all that much from a generic, unknown jasmine pearl. But this has some very strong peach notes – strong enough that I’m wondering if it’s a peach-flavored jasmine pearl? I know TeaVivre carries one, in fact I ordered a sample! The jasmine is sweet and smooth. I’m not getting much from the base tea, but honestly that’s what I’d expect from a dragon pearl – they’re mostly about the jasmine flavor.

Overall it has a nice peaches ‘n’ cream sort of flavor to it, with the jasmine of course. Tasty!

Time for my very last Design a Tea custom sample. This one is Mango Amaretto Rooibos. Visually, just red rooibos with a few flower petals. Dry scent is kind of vaguely tart-sweet fruity with heavy marzipan notes.

Hmm, this one is actually pretty good. It doesn’t actually taste like marzipan, it’s actually spot-on for those amazing amaretti cookies (you know the ones I mean, they’re Italian, small and dome-shaped, and a pale pink-tan in color). So hooray for accurate amaretto flavor! The mango is there as a sort of fruity note, but it pokes its tart little head out near the end and gives the sip a nice fresh finish. Yum! :)

Next Design a Tea sample is Blueberry Chestnut with a black base. The black leaves are very small, and there are pieces of some kind of dried fruit-like thing along with decorative flower petals. Dry scent is very sweet and nutty, I don’t get much blueberry but it still smells really good! Once I poured the water over the leaves, I got a nice whiff of blueberry aroma. Steeped for 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

Brewed aroma is still very sweet and rich with lots of nutty scent. I do get a bit of blueberry jam, but it’s in the background. Hmm… I get a lot of the black base (malty, generic) with some nuttiness mixed in. The blueberry mostly shows up at the end of the sip. Tried it with a bit of sugar added, and while it definitely helped to bring out the blueberry flavor, I think I’m just not a fan of white sugar in my tea anymore. It adds a weird aftertaste that reminds me of artificial sweeteners… Maybe next time I’ll try brown sugar. Overall, a decent tea, and I imagine it would be good with milk. Rating would be mid-70s.