Various Artists

This is the White2Tea 2012 Guafengzhai Old Arbor Orb. I’ve split the sample in two so I can share it with Dexter.

Steeping 4-5g in my teeny gaiwan. 2 rinses, rest, flash steeps.

1 – It smells honey sweet, but has quite a bitterness on the tip of the tongue. Bitterness like fresh garden herbs, not bitterness like oversteeped Assam.

2 – Much the same.

3 – Much the same.

4 – Much the same.

And on, and on.

It’s not bad, but I’m not loving it. Part of this might be my disappointment with the club selection, so YMMV.

L’Eveil du Bouddha from MissB! Thank you!

So…. there’s some writing on the bag that I can’t read, but I added this to warm milk. I saw “cacao” and it smelled like ovaltine. But! It has chia seeds or flax seeds (or both!) in it and the texture is so so wrong.

The flavour is GREAT. Kinda like ovaltine, I was right! But the texture went horrendously gloopy and I could only finish about half my cup. This might be better added to a smoothie, or maybe cold rather than hot.

Edit: And so I googled it… Of course google came through!
Ingrédients: graines de chia et de lin broyées*, sarrasin*, farine d’amande*, sucre de coco* (à faible indice glycémique et très nutritif), lucuma*, cacao cru en poudre*, éclats de fêves de cacao cru.
That is, ground chia and flax seeds, buckwheat, almond flour , coconut sugar , lucuma, raw cocoa powder, cocoa nibs.

That’s so awesome! A smoothie addition thingie that HAS NO STEVIA. And contains protein! And the flavour options look amazing! If only I had researched in advance. Haha. I could have had this in my morning smoothie.

This is the DCTea shou coin thing from O5 Tea.

And… I am not a fan. Nopers. I’m on the 4th “rinse” and it’s finally not too bitter, but it tastes ultra musty and damp earthy. And it is still somewhat bitter.

I did one LONG rinse, to mostly break up the coin. It sat for about 10 minutes. Then 3 flash steeps in my glass pot from DavidsTea. It doesn’t pour super fast, but this is a shou. It should be fine.

I guess I’ll keep steeping and trying. But this cup is going down the sink. :/

I think I finally steeped out that verdant sheng puerh, so it’s time to move on to something else.

I’ve organized (most of) my puerh teas: samples in little containers, and the larger bits and bobs in big paper bags. I need to get some storage containers for my puerh, it seems. O.o I wasn’t expecting that. I have a LOT of puerh.

While going through my samples I came across a completely random tightly rolled oolong. No label, plastic bag, etc. I must have had this for ages. I sniffed it and it smelled GOOD. I’m feeling kinda lazy tonight so I’m flash steeping it in 208F water.

It smells like lilacs. OMG. The BEST smell for an oolong, IMO. It’s very sweet and light. Tastes like I imagine flower nectar to be. Or like when you suck the juice out of a honeysuckle blossom. Only it’s more lilac flavoured than honeysuckle. It’s not super thick, but the leaves are just starting to unroll. I expect I’ll get 5-6 total steeps out of this teaspoon of leaf.

Thank you, random sample sharer. I probably lost the label, and I feel kind of bad about it. But I have quite a few oolongs right now as I am a repository for unwanted green oolong samples, so I probably wouldn’t purchase more of this one even if I did know where it came from.

Today I went tea shopping with Dexter and we tried ALL THE TEAS!!! (Yay!!!)

First up, a sheng from The Chinese Tea Shop. I really liked it. Green, fresh, a touch bitter on the tongue. I think we had 5 steeps? Unfortunately I wasn’t paying attention and don’t know which one it was. If I could afford it, I’d probably buy it. It was really nice.

Second up, a shou from The Chinese Tea Shop. I really liked this one too, but it was rather out of my budget at $160 a cake. I think it was this one. Super smooth, very calming. The liquor was really dark in the 2nd and 3rd steeps. Totally would have bought if my budget was bigger. :) http://store.thechineseteashop.com/Pu_Erh_Tea_Cake_Import_Export_Corporation_1990_p/pubc-90-383a.htm

I bought: A Xishi yixing tea pot, a wee cup, a moonlight cake, some white peony, and received a sample of 1000 year old tree yunnan black. Mmm, tea.

At our second stop, Treasure Green, we tried a 2013 Dayi brick (http://treasuregreen.com/collections/pu-erh-tea-cakes-cooked-shou-1/products/2013-dayi-pu-erh-tea-brick-250g) and it was really quite nice, but not nearly as settled as the more expensive shou. I almost bought it, but then I reigned myself in so I didn’t go too far over budget, and picked up some of their “Crescent Moon” and some of the ripe tuocha, as well as the cutest gaiwan. I can’t remember if we tried anything else.

And then we checked out the Urban Tea Merchant and the TWG teas, just for fun.

Labelled: Anhua Hei Cha 2009 Aged Black. From Dexter. Thank you!

Previous note here: http://steepster.com/OMGsrsly/posts/287175

This time I’m steeping it with the other half of the sample (so about 5g) in my little glass gongfu pot from davidstea – about 220ml water I think.

Today, it’s a LOT better, whoa. Reminds me of freshly sawn wood, in a good way. Fruity, as well. Now that I’ve re-read the notes, I’m torn. It’s honestly kind of like cherry or apple wood, but yet it still reminds me somewhat of plums. Not the big round ones, but the little purple oval ones. Soft and squishy.

2 short rinses, and the chunk had opened up completely. The second rinse didn’t taste great (bitter, even though the steep isn’t), so I steeped 35 seconds.

http://instagram.com/p/zGE1mWx5Fa

Yep, after the second steep, it’s really woody. Fruity wood. So neat, now that I’m steeping it better. :) IDK that I’d want a tonne of this tea, but I’m so glad I got a chance to try it, and enough to try it a couple different ways!

And I’m having it in another blingtastic teacup, which always makes everything fancier.

http://instagram.com/p/zGFCqBx5Fu

Thanks so much, Dexter. :D

Dexter got this random green “should be a tieguanyin” oolong from somewhere and kindly passed it on to me! Yay!

http://instagram.com/p/y8xrPuR5BR/

It’s really pretty. It smells SO good dry! Nice and green, very floral.

http://instagram.com/p/y8xx7kx5BV/

Steeped, it’s lilacs and lilies. Soooo floral. Really sweet and delicate, yet the flavours are strong. Although I can’t pick these teas apart, I do like them. I’d say this one is pretty darn good! The leaves are pretty, it’s the barest minimum of bitter as it cools, just enough to remind me it’s tea. I can’t drink a lot of these, as the floral just gets to be too much. But I really like these green floral oolongs!

Thanks so much for sharing, Dexter! I have a couple more rounds with this one, and I’ll enjoy them.

Rinsed once, let rest 5 minutes. Steeped 1:00,1:00, 1:30.

Labelled: Anhua Hei Cha 2009 Aged Black. From Dexter. Thank you!

I have no idea what this is. So of course I decided to try it! It’s pressed like a cake, and although I left the largest pieces in the sample baggie for later, what ended up in my travel gaiwan are still decent sized pieces.

Rinse, sniff. Whoa. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. It’s soooo plummy. Sweet. A little smoky.

Steep 1: 5-ish seconds. This is really light. I smell a bit of fermentation/aging smell, but it’s mostly smoke and plums. The tea is less plummy than the leaves. Oh, that’s tasty. Plums and forest loam? Yeah, pretty much. A little sweet-ish as well.

Steep 2: 5-ish seconds. You know, I’m not sure I like this. There’s something other than plums and forest loam that is not super great. Cedar or something. After the sip. The part that lingers. The actual taste while it’s in my mouth is good, but…

Steep 3: 10-ish seconds. Forest loam and some sort of wood. And varnish. Actually, yeah. It’s kind of like linseed oil. The kind you use to finish wood, not the kind you put on your salad. That’s the part that lingers.

Dexter, what do you think of this tea? I can’t actually drink any more, it tastes like I’m in my dad’s workshop.

I set up a kettle on my desk, so maybe I’ll drink more of the oolongs and puerhs I have that require short steeps and multiple steepings.

This is one of those mandarin oranges, with (I’m pretty sure) ripe puerh in it. I’ve used about 1/4 of the orange and loosely packed tea for a 60ml cup.

1 rinse, steeps for 10-30 seconds.

I much much prefer the ripe stuff to the raw stuff I’ve tried recently. Much prefer.

This is OK. I don’t think it’s fabulous quality now that it’s been sitting in its tissue paper wrapper in my cabinet for (mumbledy) years. It’s not as scary as I thought it was at first, so this is cool.

http://instagram.com/p/w4vMUTx5OF/

52Teas Gingerbread Smoke + Tea Desire Caramel Puerh.

Made as a latte. Yes, the crazy DavidsTea style. 3 tsp each tea.

I used unsweetened almond milk today because 1) I am sick and 2) there was no unsweetened soy milk on sale, and even though I don’t really love soy it generally tastes a bit better for “milk” heavy applications. (And also it sets Jello puddings, but almond milk doesn’t…)

It’s not bad. I’m glad the Gingerbread Smoke is gone. It’s actually lost a LOT of flavour, even though it’s been in a tin. I was expecting the smoke to dominate this blend, but it really isn’t. I’m getting mostly caramel and ginger. (I did end up adding extra ginger to the sample I kept…) And it’s pretty good!

I like this method for using up teas, but it still feels really wasteful. I might do another steeping of this blend tonight, just so I can get as much as possible out of the huge amount of leaves.

A mix of Carrot Cake and Chicory Dickory Dock (both DavidsTea) with some cream.

Yummers.

It’s quite warm today, but this just feels right. :)

I also had Numi’s Chocolate Puerh this morning, and it was all right. Not fabulous, but it performs well as a work tea.

Hello Tea Frens! Good to see you again!

I’ve been away, and while it was partially awesome it was also partially not so awesome. I didn’t get much tea made while I was gone, but I did manage to finish a couple that I don’t remember. :) I’ll be doing a tea-vintory this weekend since I’m back early.

I went camping and hiking in the Kootenays, and it was lovely (http://instagram.com/p/sQBN6sx5EJ/), but I totally overdid it and also had some problems with my panic disorder. I’m glad I made the call to come home early, as overdoing it has resulted in me barely being able to walk. If I had walked into the campground like I had planned, I wouldn’t have had much fun getting back to the car!

Anyways. It’s going to take me a bit to get back into the ritual of making and drinking loads of tea while I’m at home for the day. I’ve been slowly unpacking and tidying and snuggling lots with my cat. And drinking instant coffee mixed with powdered milk. I know. It tasted much better on the lake shore at 7am.

Crio Bru + kick-in-the-pants Assam (Rungagora in this case) + cream = amazing morning pick-me-up and treat.

:)

I spent $3.50 for 8oz of some random Yunnan tea from some random cafe this afternoon because I really wanted more tea.

That was dumb. I asked for black tea, and the guy said they had a Yunnan, which “was similar to an Assam”. Uhh, no. No no no nononononono. I said that I didn’t find that at all, especially since the Yunnan should be from China while the Assam was from India. He insisted. Maybe I should have had the Earl Grey?

Anyways, the tea was thick and dark and tasted like buckwheat honey with a little smoke. Not the sweet bright thick honey I associate with Yunnan teas. It was OK, and a nice change from the standard bagged black teas, but IMO not worth the $3.50. Especially when I had lots of little pieces of tea leaves in the bottom of my mug. They strained it with a fine strainer, too, so it really made me wonder how broken up the tea leaves were.

I mixed some Crio Bru ground cacao/cocoa/whatever with some cacao shells from Herbal Infusions. Steeped them about 30 minutes. Added some honey and cream.

WOW.

Ok. This is good. The ground beans and cream offer some richness that the shells are missing, so it’s not nearly so watery. And it’s so intensely chocolate. I only added about 1/2 tsp honey, and it was totally enough for a decadent dark chocolate beverage.

I have to remember this.

(1 tbsp-ish of each. Heh.)

So this is a weird combo, yet somehow it tastes really really good to me.

Half “Strawberry Cream fruit” by Zen Tea, half “Romeo and Juliet” by Cornelia Bean. Cold steeped about 13 hours.

SO GOOD. The strawberry cream tends to go really acidic when cold steeped (Juicy Blueberry doesn’t nearly so much), so I needed to mix it with something. Romeo and Juliet wasn’t my favourite hot, but smelled so good dry. So I mixed them. And it surprisingly worked out really well. There’s a little more floral, a lot of strawberry, mild acid, a lot of sweetness. I don’t taste the rosemary, but I didn’t taste it with Romeo and Juliet on its own, either.

Plus it’s a cold steep with caffeine that I think tastes good.

So I’ll be bringing a big water bottle of this to work today when I finally get going. (I’ve been so stressed I haven’t been sleeping [ugh moving, work, etc], so I came home early yesterday and crawled into bed at 5pm. Slept 8-8, because I knew sleeping at 5 would be a bad idea. Sleep is so awesome!)

Mix of Cornelia Bean Frangelico and 52Teas Eggnog Honeybush.

They go surprisingly well together. The honeybush tones down the rooibos, the boozy flavours meld well, and topping it with whipped cream is always a tasty treat.

I picked up a tea cart (well, an old microwave cart) today and moved a bunch of stuff off my counter, and off my microwave. Haha. No, my microwave doesn’t go on the microwave cart because it has to be plugged into a separate breaker from my kettle, in the dining area. Yeah.

It is such a relief to have all the counter space back (all 4 feet of it) that I made a celebratory soup, and some tea. Yay!

I mixed up some Hazelberry Puerh from Steam with Bossa Nova oolong from Zen Tea.

A+ choice. Hazelnutty caffeinated dessert in a thermos.

(Note: I am moving May 15. If you have my address, please disregard it. I can always send you the new one if you need it for anything.)

So Ceylon Star asked what kind of tea to mix up on facebook, and I immediately went into the kitchen and threw this desserty concoction together:

1/2 tsp Bossa Nova (oolong) from Zen Tea
1/2 tsp Divine Temptation (black) from Bayswater
1/2 tsp Creme Brulee (black) from Bayswater
1 tsp Canadian Maple Seduction (black) from Steam Tea House

With 1-ish tsp maple syrup and some almond milk, because I don’t want whipped cream enough to walk the 1km to the grocery store in the rain.

Yummers. Yum! Just what I wanted, even though more caffeine at 7pm is probably not a super smart decision.

So good.

Recommend. (Maybe with a toffee puerh for more depth next time?)

Thanks for enabling me, Ceylon Star! :)

London Fog from Cafe Artigiano. Made with a ‘Russian Earl Grey’. This time ‘Russian’ means ‘orange’. Not bad, although the syrup makes it really sweet and I forgot and just got regular dairy. Oops. :)

I did a rather random cold steep last night. Turns out it’s seriously excellent.

1 tbsp Bear Trap by DavidsTea.
1 tbsp Goji Chokeberry Strawberry by Zen Tea
1 tbsp Strawberry Cream (fruit) by Zen Tea

So. Good. Strawberry heaven. I have half of it in a water bottle at work, and when I get home I’m probably going to end up chugging the rest.

Yes, it’s snowing, and I’m drinking iced tea (although, not at my desk). I also have my desk heater on, am wearing 3 layers plus a scarf, and when I get up to do work rather than facebook, steepster and analysis, I put on a lab coat as well. :)

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1 bag of Tulsi, 1 bag Wild Berry Zinger. 12 oz water. A touch of honey.

Much, MUCH better than the last. Tusli goes so well with fruity blends.

(Yes, it is somewhat hibiscusy, but it’s bearable this way. I bought the zinger tea last year for cold steeping, but then lost it in the back of my cupboard.)

I went to a health food store today, and noticed they had marshmallow leaves. Of course, I had to buy them. I mean, it was ~3 cups worth for only $5! That 3 cups is only 50g. This stuff is super light and fluffy.

First thing I did was add some to my chamomile homebrew sleepy tea. There’s chamomile, lemongrass, fennel, lavender, possibly marshmallow root, maybe even other things in there. I don’t remember, and I don’t feel like going back through my random steepings to figure it out. It’s just a bunch of stuff I don’t mind thrown together in not very well measured amounts.

This is nice. Really nice. It’s not as thin as it usually is. Even though I still can’t really taste anything, I get the impression of sweetness.

But, uhh, I have 3 cups worth. That’s a lot. What else should I do with it?

Edit: My last note came up when I posted. So this blend is:
- chamomile – lemongrass – lemon myrtle – marshmallow root – fennel – lavender, and now marshmallow leaves!

I decided to cold steep 1 tbsp each of Strawberry Cream by Zentea, Nana’s Fruit Garden by Herbal Republic, and Lemon Myrtle by Granville Island. It’s been 4.5 hours now and I thought I’d try.

Wow. Rooibos is really rooibosy when you cold steep, huh. The Lemon Myrtle is a tea I have a love-hate relationship with. It’s so weird, and so rooibos, and yet it’s so thirst quenching and amazing when flash chilled.

I think it’s best flash chilled. No more cold steeped Lemon Myrtle for me.

The other teas are providing some nice berry background, which is needed. They’re just not nearly as strong. Oh. Nana’s Fruit Garden SIPDOWN! I need to restock. :)