What-Cha

I think between group buys and swaps, I have three different Georgia Black teas to try. This is the first I’ve gotten to – acquired in a swap with JK7Ray I believe.

The dry leaves had a sour plum aroma, a little lesser after the first steep, surprisingly. This tea was light in flavor and body and quite simple as well, but I wouldn’t consider those negatives. Just different. I got 11 steeps with this black tea, starting with a couple at 12s, then 20s and increasing by 10s at a time until the last few where started increasing steep times faster. As I said, the flavor was consistent through most of the session – Malty plums, with an occasional sour note, not quite citrus fruit, more like an herbal lemongrass flavor. Only got it on like two steeps, and not consecutively. May try it Western style next time, as I’ve heard these Georgian teas can do better that way. So annoying to get out my big teapot and stuff though ;)

This was my sample in my last what-cha order.

I did 2 min at just under boiling water. It had a pleasant spicy flavor with a bit of tannic brightness. The tannic bit wasn’t unplanted but coated the inside of my mouth and made the taste lingers bit. There’s also a woody almost meaty note in the background. I ended up steeping this a few more times without any bitterness. I think the 2nd steep was even spicer, but the subsequent ones less so than the 1st. I might try brewing it for longer next time.

Pics:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIQax7yjj3O/?taken-by=gooseberryspoon

1st steep 160 35 sec
Brews to a light green color. Taste is grassy but not bitter. There is a sweet corn taste, like the fresh green husks of the corn, and corn silk. Steeped leaves a fantastic bright green color.

2nd steep 160 45 sec
Color of the tea is still lighter than I would expect of the leaves. There’s more grassiness here and less of the corn. A bit of a savory seaweed note has appeared.

3rd steep ~150F ~1.5 min
Sweeter, a light bitterness that coats the mouth

4th steep
Very sweet, less bitterness

https://www.instagram.com/p/BINrHTAj9kM/?taken-by=gooseberryspoon
https://www.instagram.com/p/BINgp-MDCGr/?taken-by=gooseberryspoon

Since trying a smoky Lapsang Souchong, and even a Golden Monkey which had some smoke to it and finding them quite off-putting, seeing smoke in a tea’s description worries me a tad bit. More and more, I’m finding that there’s a type or level of smoke that I can tolerate, and one which I cannot. There’s the horror that is BBQ-Tea and the more subdued kind of smoke flavor, which usually meshes pretty well with the rest of what a tea has going on. I’m glad to report this tea is one of the latter.

I actually didn’t pick up any smoke in the first couple steeps, just a sweet vegetal flavor. A couple steeps in, the smoke started to manifest as a light and wispy aftertaste. As it went on, it became one of the two main flavors I was getting – smokiness with a nutty sweetness. I tried, but I wasn’t feeling any fruitiness as the description claims there is. The smoke along with the nutty flavor made for a savory-sweet tea to drink. Throughout the session, the tea left my mouth decently dry, though there was little to no bitterness in the flavor. On my first session, I treated this tea a little too harshly and did get some pretty off-putting bitterness. This is a pretty good tea, if a little simple. Just glad it wasn’t meaty BBQ tea – blech.

I believe this is the last one I had kicking around from the Discover Vietnam collection on What-cha. I definitely encourage people to try some of the Vietnamese teas on What-cha. Along with the Red Buffalo oolong of some internet fame, the Wild Boar black and Fish Hook green tea were of particular note to me. Not really sure which of those are currently in stock, as I think they all ran out at the end of last year, but get ’em if you can. Worth a try at the very least!

This is one of those lovely golden fruity assamicas that ive luckily had the pleasure of – not your average Assam you would buy in the supermarket..

Assam & fruit aroma sorta melts in my mind into amber & black treacle. There is a lovely perfect not-too-sweetness & a every-so-slight Assamica malt character thats present when the leaf is pushed giving it a robust body & glossy edge.

Citrus/nectarine sweet n sour hidden away as well, and the first few steeps had a lovely lingering fruit aftertaste. Lovely body in the mouth & lovely clear qi energy.

Beautiful red purple green leaf as well.

Im not really much of a straight Assam drinker but this is really good quality stuff

Edit* found out its ‘historic Sinensis with newer Assamica, Dum Dum Manipuri and Cambodia’ So not just straight Assam

This is for the Spring 2016 harvest.

Wow this tea is amazing! I really love high mountain teas, so I ordered a sample of this – should’ve gotten a larger bag! The liquid is a very pretty light glowing amber color. It’s very smooth and slightly floral. Had me going “mmm” every sip! I bought a tumbler of this to my all-day test and it got me through the day.

I western brewed this, but I will try gongfu with the rest of my sample to reveal the complexities of the flavor.

Actually, this is my first jasmine scented tea! The dry leaves smelled soooo bright and flowery. I steeped it according to package instructions – 1tsp at 80C for 2.5min. The resulting tea was really flowery. I don’t know what jasmine is suppose to taste like but it reminded me of lychee! I really liked it, but it was slightly overpowering. Maybe I’ll try a shorter brewing time or less leaves next time. I cold-steeped the remains and the resulting brew had a light jasmine taste that was amazing. I will have to try more jasmine-scented tea in the future!

I had wanted to become more familiar with Korean tea when I placed my last What-cha order so I grabbed a few including this one since I’ve never had a Korean black tea.

Opening the package the first think I notice is the small thin delicate tea leaves. They smell a bit like chocolate, and dark raisins, and…Corn Pops? I spent a few minutes trying to inhale the bag, but it was uncannily just like the Corn Pops cereal.

1st steep: ~35 seconds at around 175 F
Brews orange gold. Smells like raisins and tastes like raisins. It very much like the sweet water left over from soaking raisins which I’ve tried many times from baking something or other. It also had a bit of a corny cereal flavor like fresh ground whole grain corn meal. The texture had just a bit of silky come out.

2nd steep: ~1 min 175F
Brewed to a deeper orange color. Now tasting more (I guess anything) like a black tea with a bit of brisk astringency that coats the mouth. There’s a malty sweet taste to it and also a mint like mouth tingle thing going on.

3rd steep: ~160F lost track of time switching over laundry.
This was so Corn Pops.

Subsequent steeps were much lighter and sweet flavored. I think I did up to six with increasing time and temps. I rather liked trying this tea as it was pretty unique to anything I’ve had previously. I’m glad I got only 10g though because I can’t see myself drinking such a sweet tea on a regular basis. I rather prefer blacks with more of a punch or greens that balance out any sweet flavors with bitter. I’ll probably use the rest of it in trying a cold/ice brew and maybe a cup with a longer initial steep time.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIFqqGEDq2o/?taken-by=gooseberryspoon

This tea is great! The dry leaves have a strong aroma of sticky rice – mmm! We’re off to a good start! =D

I steeped 1tsp (2-3g?) in a cup at 80C for 2min, adding 30s for each subsequent steep. It tastes exactly like sticky rice! I was concerned that the aroma/taste would be overpowering, but it’s perfect for me. The tea is sweet and comforting. It would be perfect for the wintertime! Or really, any time!

Today this tea tasted significantly different for me. I don’t know if I got the ratio just right or what, but it decreased my enjoyment of this tea.
5.9g, 180F, 100 ml teapot, mostly western
fruity, citrus, almost hoppy, make that definitely hoppy – that IPA finish. I don’t like IPAs. The finish downgrades my rating of this tea. Pretty much destroyed my enjoyment. :(

Appearance- silvery green twisty leaves. Smell malt and hay, fresh. This year’s tea. 2tsp, 8oz, westren. Lazy today.
Taste- green, fruity with citrus finish. Got fruitier as it cooled. Fruit lingered in aftertaste. Subtle. If I hadn’t been paying attention I’d have lost the flavor. Coating and thick. Flavor fairly consistent throughout all 5 steepings. Enjoyed this tea a lot. 89
I’ll be interested to see what comes out of brewing gong fu. Going to cold brew spent leaves now.

It’s been much too hot for hot tea which is a shame since I recently got in my whatcha order. I’ve been cold brewing some of it, but I don’t like judging a tea on cold brew alone. I’ve finally had a chance to have this hot a few times now enough to form an opinion on it.

The tea leaves are dark and finely twisted. Quite possibly one of the prettiest assamicas I’ve seen. The bag of tea smells actually kind of like teriyaki beef jerky which is a bit odd. I brewed this with just under boiling water for about 3 min. It ended up a little malty and sweet but also robust, as well as a little…fruity? I can’t quite put my finger on it. There’s a bit of an edge at the end that lets you know you are drinking an Assam. I’m really liking it for breakfast as its bold enough for the morning, but not so much that I feel I need to add anything.

It has taken me ages to get around to trying this tea. Based on some of the reviews I figured it would not be a tea I like. That would be an understatement. This tea tastes like an old wet rotting wood log. A bit mushroomy too. And yet… here I am still sipping this tea as I write this. Why haven’t I thrown it away? Hmmmm

This is probably the best Silver Needle tea I’ve tried yet. I’ve found with these teas it works best to start with longer steeps than I would for gongfu with other teas, because they seem almost hydrophobic in nature. So something like 1m, 45s, 30s, 20s, 45s, 1m, 1m. They don’t seem to have the longevity of many other teas, perhaps because I brew them this way, but I find if I follow a more “normal” gongfu progression, the first steeps are light to the point of being flavorless and I don’t really end up with any good steeps at all!

I think this is one of the last teas I have from my first What-Cha order, which included the Discover Vietnam set – a wonderful collection of widely variant teas. I actually hadn’t opened this one yet, as the fact that it had melon in the description made me want to save it for last.

This tea was quite interesting – the description on the bag seemed an uncommon combination: sweet melon and smoke notes. I love melon, and generally dislike smoke, so I had mixed feelings going in. This tea is absolutely sweet. It seemed kind of like melon rind or sweet cucumber – not quite the sugary sweetness that would come from the flesh of a melon, because it had almost a tartness with that sweet flavor, which in part of my notes I described as almost citric.

So while it is sweet, it’s a tart sweetness, and this sweetness is also accompanied by prominent savory notes. Most steeps, this savory flavor was actually what I tasted first, while the sweetness came in more the middle of the sip and they kind of combined on the finish. I think the savory flavor is what was described as smoke, though it wasn’t the BBQ type of smoke I really find distasteful in tea. I don’t even think I would have described it as a smoky taste had it not said that on the bag. To me it was almost woody or maybe like a barnyard taste.

This was a good tea for sure, and an interesting one to boot. I’m glad I got to taste a bunch of awesome teas from Vietnam, and I encourage everybody who orders from What-Cha to give some of them a try. They surprised me with their quality and uniqueness (is that a word? I don’t know).

Shows how much expectations of something can warp your view – it was a curve ball thrown by LP in a Jin Xuan blind test, & in relation to that it tasted odd & i dismissed it (partly due to the test looking for a good fruity Jin Xuan oolong), but on its own its very interesting.

Serious Aroma of roasted sugar coated nuts, or popcorn… its like being at the fair or something..

This persists for the first few steeps as it gets slightly more vegetal in nature. Slight bitterness starts to creep in as well, coating the mouth, astringent. The huigan being very sheng-like in nature, almost camphor, very leafy.

Interesting tea

I enjoyed this more the second time around – out of the blind test environment where my aim was to find fruity jin xuan – and proved once again that what-cha is the king of weird teas you never knew could exist

Compared to the few Indian black teas I’ve sipped, this one was gentler and softer, with perhaps the slightest muscatel notes that I noticed only when I looking for them. What-Cha’s description of it as “a light crisp tea with honey notes” felt like an accurate summary. I did sense a fairly strong dose of caffeine, but I have no idea whether that’s actually the case. Other than that punchiness, this tea reminded me of the What-Cha Georgia black teas that I love so much.

This tea has quickly become a favorite. Nutty, buttery, sweet corn notes. No astringency or bitterness. I’ve brewed this western-style in a little glass teapot, starting with 1min and increasing by ~30sec each steep, up to around 3min. Always a great cup, and enjoyable through several steeps.

Backlog, sipdown.
As good as ever, sad to see it go. Will reorder in the future, eventually.

195F, 8oz, 1 tsp. Westren.
2min30s- honey, floral, cream. Creamy honey throughout steep. Smooth.

I steeped this well passed the time printed on the directions. Dropped the 2nd steep to recommended time of 1min. Really the flavor was similar and tea was not negatively impacted by longer steep time. Like this tea 89.

I did try this in a gaiwan the next day and found I liked it better westren.

Sipdown at work.
Last cup of this – little bits of leaf from the bottom of the bag. Unpleasant and bitter.

This tea is so old. It’s green tea that was picked in 2014. Now in 2018 it tastes like those terrible green tea teabags. It’s lost all redeeming characteristics and is just generic blahness now. Sorry tea!