Various Artists

I’m working on custom blending some of my own teas as gifts to a few tea drinking friends.

I’m currently tweaking the flavours a bit because one is too rooibos-y and plain, another is bitter (I think it could be the violet petals + crush walnuts). I managed to make two very good ones though. A jasmine white tea + decaf assam +dried fruits + peach matcha + whole rose petals and buds + chamomile mixture (which is absolutely delicious), and a spiced apple cider one which is dry, minerally, rooibosy, and tasted old and complex in terms of spices. The cinnamon, orange peel, apple peel, and ginger make it spicy and hot. I’m going for hot, dry desert and spicy, yet calm. You star trek fans out there probably know I’m referring to a Vulcan theme. I’m making blends called (ambassador) Sarek and Amanda’s Garden. Now I just need to perfect the other blends (P’Jem, T’hy’la, Amok Time, Kahm Savas, and Katra). I’m a big ST fan, and an even bigger fan of Vulcan culture. LLAP.

I bought some buckwheat tea from ebay because I really enjoy grain/toasty flavours. However, it was terrible. It tasted like stale or burnt popped rice. I did not enjoy it, however I expect good quality buckwheat would taste better. I may consider ordering from a trusted store to try this again some day.

Tried a mix of 1/2 tsp Lemon Muffin tea from A Quarter to Tea with 1/2 tsp blueberry rooibos from Granville. It was nice and fruity, but I didn’t get as much cake and lemon flavour as I would have liked. I’m going to try the lemon muffin blend by itself with lots of leaf next time.

I’m drinking a mix of equal parts DAVIDs TEA “Birthday cake” and “Alpine punch.” Very creamy and sweet. It tastes like black forest cake if it was made with white sponge cake instead of chocolate cake. I taste cherry, fruit, caramel, and all sorts of other delicious fruity flavours. I highly recommend this combo!

I drank a fine vanilla rooibos (I’m not sure what company) this morning made from a really REALLY nice rooibos. I need to ask them the brand and buy some, it was different than what I’ve had before. Very sweet like marzipan/almonds and less woody. I found it had a similar natural sweetness to the level of sweetness in peanut brittle. The vanilla was subtle, it would have been nice if it was stronger. I’d still say it was a 9/10 considering the rooibos quality.

Made an iced tea using 1 tsp DAVIDs TEA Birthday cake (rooibos) and 1 tsp Masala chai rooibos from Special Teas Inc, It is very, very good. It tastes like a spiced cookie or birthday ice cream sandwich. I taste butter cookie, baked goods, caramel, rooibos, sugar, chai spices such as cardamom and ginger, and some sweet vanilla notes at the end.

I drank some sort of fancy green tea from an artisian bakery named Crust yesterday. I’m not sure if they are original blends or if they buy their leaves from someone else, however it was very good. They have me about 5 tsp worth of leaves which then expanded to fill half my large cup (why so much?) but it did make a good tea despite the wastefulness of their brewing method. It was pretty good, maybe 6/10 because I’m not big on green teas but that was the only blend that sounded appealing to consume with a croissant. For those who enjoy grassy/leafy green teas, this might have been an 8.5/10.

Went out for sushi yesterday and had a genmaicha at the restaurant. Lightly toasted brown rice lent a slight sweetness to it. It went well with my unagi, tomago, and sweet potato rolls.

Monday – Green Tea / Day 2 of Lion’s Tea Challenge

80 mL water + 25 mL hot milk + 1/2 tsp matcha power (writing is in Japanese, I don’t know they brand)

Ick! I forgot I do not like matcha by itself. Maybe I have not had a good matcha, because I like matcha icecream and frappachinos. Anyway. This is bitter and gross. It tastes like green tea and kelp :P Maybe I’ll use the rest to make homemade blended ice drinks, I can’t see myself drinking this again.

I brewed cups of Jasmine Silver Needle White Tea (Teavana) and African Nectar Rooibos (Mighty Leaf) hot yesterday, but didn’t feel like steeping them again. I threw both teabags into a large cup of cold water and let it steep ~10 hours. The rooibos jasmine tea I’m now drinking is delicious. The rooibos makes it woody, sweet, and complex. The jasmine makes it a bit floral and distinctive. I will be making a jug of iced tea with this blend tonight.

This is for Verdant Tea’s “Thirty Year” Tieguanyin. Probably not worth making a separate database entry for this because it likely won’t be available again. I bought some of this when I purchased their bamboo strainers, which I highly recommend, and I needed to add only a few dollars more to get free shipping. Thus I tossed this into my cart.

This tea is tough to judge because it has been heavily re-roasted recently. In fact it tasted like it was re-roasted right before I got it. Noticed some nearly char black pieces, the roasting is rather uneven. I mainly tasted the roast throughout with a slight sour note. The tea looked green once the roasting soaked off. I don’t think this is 30 year old Tieguanyin but with Verdant’s track record of misleading marketing lately I wasn’t expecting this tea to be as old as advertised.

On the plus side, it does steep quite a long time. I got 8 steeps before getting bored with the tea and it could have easily gone a few more. I don’t remember what parameters I used but I did use quite a lot of the tea.

So over the last week I’ve been telling myself I need a thick-walled gaiwan for brewing high-temperature teas like shou. Basically the theory is that thick-walled gaiwans retain heat better on longer steeps, making later steeps more flavorful. Anyway, I don’t have the money to buy teaware at the moment so I decided to make my own.

May I introduce you to…the double-boiler gaiwan!
http://imgur.com/1TvdU9V

Yeah, so I happen to have two of the same gaiwan cups (the lid broke on my first one), and decided to try filling the lower one with boiling-ass water and steeping the top one with equally hot water. So does it work? Yes! Not only is the gaiwan sizzling hot to the touch, but the tea inside (2011 Hui Run from Yunnan Sourcing) is much richer and more intense in later infusions. Maybe I should switch my major to engineering…

I got back from my shift at the school letterpress covered with ink and bruises (fiddling around with stiff old iron machinery), and wanted something comforting. I’m now drinking some mysterious maocha from LiquidProust—used 3.5 grams in a 100ml gaiwan and it’s a very mild, sweet brew. Hints of apricot and a tiny bit of smoke, and a nice sweetness. I’m noticing I really love fruity flavors in my tea—especially raw and ripes. Gonna keep this going and see how it turns out.

Mixed a few different teas together to use up the last of some of my older blends that didn’t have enough in the bag for a decent cup. I tried to match up a few of the ingredients so it would be somewhat cohesive – carrots and a few different berries mostly – and chose only green and white teas so one didn’t overwhelm the other.

Queen of Babylon – Teavana
Green Delight – Tealated
Blackberry Zomba Green Tea – 52Teas
The White Rabbit’s Tea – 52Teas

Most of these fell under the category of “okay” to me – not favorites but enjoyable. I figured throwing them all in one big pitcher and sliding it into the fridge would either be a disaster or a happy surprise. Turns out it depends on who you ask. My husband did not like it, but I think it’s wonderful! Definitely better together than apart, in my opinion. It’s light and refreshing, but flavorful, and has a lovely floral note. I don’t see anything floral in the ingredients so maybe it’s in one of the flavorings? It’s too bad I won’t be able to replicate it, since these teas are all discontinued or unavailable. I would drink this mix often if I could.

Backlog from April 21st:

Pineapple Kona Pop / Raspberry Pineapple Luau
from Teavana

I mixed these two together this morning for something different, but it didn’t really create anything spectacular. In fact, it’s pretty tasteless. I’m sure it’s partly due to my teas being older, but it’s really just not good. There is a vague fruitiness but it mostly tastes dusty and bland. The color is a deep berry red which I’m assuming is from the hibiscus which I can also taste. Not impressed.

We decided to start a new tradition by eating at a lovely Indian restaurant. I drank three cups of their Masala Chai. Strong notes of ginger, cinnamon, rose, and cardamon. It paired well with the vegan/tofu curry. Both hit with such spice, that my mouth was a bit numb, but it was excellent, overall.

Went to a tea room called Miss Molly’s Tea Room. I’ve heard a lot about it, but I hadn’t had the opportunity to try it out until today.

Firstly, that was a fun experience. We had finger sandwiches and cucumber salad. The food was affordable, but as I previously mentioned, they’re always packed on a daily basis. There were a few mommy/daughter outings today, so it was kind of loud/crowded. I still enjoyed everything, though.

We had three pots of during our stay at the tea room: Blueberry White, Blueberry Oolong, and Kris Kringle Black.

Blueberry White-Had a nice mix of silver needle and blueberry pieces. It was light, but definitely a great blend. The blueberry wasn’t too overwhelming; but the silver needle was definitely present throughout the pot.

Blueberry Oolong- I was surprised to find large leaves in the pot. I didn’t get a lot of blueberry notes, but the tea was definitely powerful. I think it may have been a TGY. It opened quite nicely and oddly paired well with the cucumber salad.

Kris Kringle- Strong Assam notes, but the chocolate/peppermint bits balanced the tea well. It was smooth and sweet. It was our dessert tea (no scones since we were stuffed after sandwiches/salad).

Overall, I rated the whole experience 3.6/5. We spent over an hour at the tea room. A majority of the time was waiting for the waitress to bring the check. However, it was busy, so it’s easy to take that into consideration.

Good afternoon, folks!

This is my attempt to get back into the tea reviewing business….I might stop by more often now…I’ll do my best. Life gets pretty complicated at times. xD

Today’s tea of choice is “Aged Puerh, 10 yr. old shou” via Tea Swap from a long while back. I’m finally getting to the sample drawer (I’ve mostly been drinking the teas I like the least at work, so it makes things difficult for me to rate anything fairly, I suppose).

This one has a slight ‘Indian spice’ with the creaminess on the flavor. It has a thick body, which is pretty consistent throughout the session. I managed to get about 10 steeps from the leaf before I grew bored with the same flavor….However, it was definitely an interesting tea overall.

70/100

Getting ready for work this morning while grandpa styling a random/unknown shou tuo that was given to me about a year ago via tea swap, wrapped in white paper. It’s quite unfortunate not knowing which tea this is, but I’ve got most of it chipped away and narrowing down to the last few steeps. I suppose the best teas are often left as a mystery and should be enjoyed while they’re in my stash….Now that I’ve got this noted, time to warm the car and face the snow covered roads on my way to work.

Notes: Dark cherry, earthy, woody, & smooth.

Happy Tuesday!

I’ve finally caught the bug that was going around the office. I had tried to prevent it from happening, but not even medicines nor tea can stop what is destined to happen from happening, I suppose.

I’m currently wearing layers of clothing & blankets at the computer desk, while mustering enough energy to write the review for today’s mysterious Roasted TGY (courtesy of Liquid Proust) and enjoying the fact that I can taste it, despite the lack of most senses….It’s deep flavor (charcoal, stone fruits, & nuts) allows my taste buds to enjoy something which has seemed impossible for the last couple of days (although I’m currently at the worst part of the sickness). Anyway, I wanted to make a quick note of it while I could….Cheers!

Backlog—“Yu Lang Xiang” from LH Tea Farmer

I’ve been without a computer for the past few weeks, but with plenty of patience of waiting on parts to arrive in the mail, I’m up and running again!

Notes:

1st Steep: Sweet pecan & with a thick mouthfeel despite the color of liquor.
2nd Steep: Nutty/pecans & slight bitterness in the back of the mouth.
3rd Steep: "Mixed nuts w/pecans, a slight bitterness still; less “sweet” more “savory.”
4th Steep: “You get the idea.” xD

7/10

Tea Swap
“Raw Puerh from Dr. Puerh”

I started this tea later in the evening/early morning. I wanted to drink tea before bed—to help get me to sleep—so, I had randomly grabbed this from my tea sample/tea swap box. Unfortunately, I’m not sure which year this puerh was produced nor which puerh this is, exactly, but from the note on the bag, there’s the producer/tea type.

From looking at the leaf, it’s slightly greener, so I’m assuming it’s range is from 2014-2017. It’s tightly compressed (from a brick, maybe?), too.

Notes:

Rinse: Slight aromatics from the leaf. Still pretty compressed. Light-to-no color.
1st Steep: Light aromatics. Still “watery,” with hardly zero flavor.

2nd Steep: The leaf is still pretty compacted together. Light aromatics, very little flavor.

Pried the leaf apart with a pick.

3rd Steep: Slight bitterness in the mouth. Light notes of honey/floral. Smells like “sheng.” My assumption is that this is a newer year (2015-2017) due to the fragile state of the leaf w/temperature used (198 F).

4th Steep (3 hours after session began): Bitter, mouth drying, & burnt flowers.

5th Steep/Flash Steep/Final Steep (Decreased Temperature (180 F)): Bitter, bitter bitter.

5 or 6/10.

I will have to attempt to make the rest of this at a decreased temperature range. I normally brew sheng around 195-200 F, but it seems that this one may be better to start closer at green tea levels (160s-170s) and increase the temperature slightly. The leaf was pretty fragile. Upon looking at the leaves, post-session, I had noticed that they were simply “bits and pieces” of leaves, rather than a full leaf/bud. That may have had an affect of the tea, but I’m not 100% on my assumption.