306 Tasting Notes
Marco Polo TTB
Soo… It’s a black tea… no, it’s an oolong! What?
Definitely “honey scented”, although I wonder if that is because of flavoring or bug bites.
It was just ‘ok’ when I thought it was a black tea, but judging from the profile of an oolong it’s actually quite nice!
Marco Polo TTB
I’m soo excited about this box, I can’t even believe it. Like WOW.
I think this might be the tea labeled ‘the vert/green tea’, it’s the closest name for it on Steepster anyhoo.
This is a tightly rolled green tea! Surprising because lately I’ve seen alot of the flash fried, flat varieties. This is a refreshing change.
I put the water in and took the trash out. I came back and realized that I had forgotten to time it. Ooops. But it’s a recommended 5 min steep, so it certainly wasn’t oversteeped for the first infusion. Probably understeeped. Regardless- the taste is of a fresh spring green. Buttery and mellow and absolutely no astringency or drying. Usually for me water is a type of refreshing, and tea is a completely different type. This wanders into ‘ice cold water’ refreshing, even though it’s warm. I suppose more of a hydrating taste/feel that I get out of this.
Let’s talk about the leaves. I mentioned the dry leaf is rolled. Rolled/twisted and dark stripy green is how it starts. Then in the water it blooms. It slowly unfurls and it’s soo big! It’s like stewed greens in my Ingenuitea pot. Soo awesome. Tea for some reason seems better to be when it’s accompanied by a show. =)
Oooh. I’m soo naughty. I bought this as part of my order from Stacy’s bday sale and am only just now getting around to it.
Does anyone remember those orange flavored chocolate oranges that used to pop up around the holidays? You would just take the ball and smash it against something and it would pop open into slices. I absolutely loved those as a kid. This is what that reminds me off- especially as it cools down. I was expecting milk chocolate, because for some reason all my chocolatey teas lately have been more on the milk chocolate side, but this tea is totally dark chocolate orange slices. Absolutely divine.
Dunno, as hibiscus teas go, I think Passion by Tazo has my heart.
I tried to get my Mom to try some. We were celebrating her birthday early (It’s on Tuesday). She didn’t like it. Oh well. She liked the cake!
From Pass the Stash v2.0
The vanilla in this is very strong.
Mostly I was drawn to this because of the name. I wonder if anyone has a scent memory of the city that is like this? In my mind it would be flowers, cigarette smoke, water, and perfume. Of course I’ve never been there- that’s just the idea I get from french classes at school.
I was away from my computer when I brewed this up. All I wrote down was ‘vanilla, soft, black’.
Pass the Stash TTB v2.0
The packaging smells like soap. Well the whole box smells like soap- I reckon that it’s that packet of lavender at the bottom. Thankfully this baggie was sealed fairly well and the tea smelt orangey.
I would not have picked this out as an oolong just by looking at it, which goes to show you how well I can identify things on sight (not very well). It feels weird brewing up a flavored tea after pretty much a week of straight teas. I sent the Butiki TTB2 back to Marzipan after work yesterday.
Despite the dry leaves having smelt orangey it was not very apparent in the brewed liquor. The brew was mostly oolong with a touch of orange candy. Not a very strong flavor. I got none of the almond flavor. I think this should be renamed ‘sweet orange oolong’. =) Even then I would say that the flavoring is very light, or maybe very faded.
The oolong base was of medium…? The place were it’s definately not green but I hesitate to call it anything resembling mature. It seems only partially oxidized and brews out with a touch of astringency. It wasn’t exceptional, nor was it the worse thing ever.
I find it funny how some things can present totally different to me from how they present to others.
Contrary to the other review on this tea I found the scent of the dry leaves to be clean and sweet. While I agree that the brew was not vegetal, I would rather say that while it was slightly on the sweet side, it was more on the more astringent side, especially as you go deeper into the cup. That a thing about some of these, some of them have the tendency to have all the flavor settle towards the bottom of the cup, even if you brew in an entirely different vessel.
While on the deeper side of oolongs, I wouldn’t classify this as roasted. I know, my world of oolongs tend to be separated into ‘green’, ‘roasted’ and ‘not roasted, not green’. Lol. I would say that this is a slightly ‘rounder’ feeling oolong, if that makes sense. It tastes more mature.
Mouthfeel is clean, but taste is lingering (in a totally good way!). There’s little to no dryness. I feel like this is a tea that I wouldn’t necessarily enjoy the process of drinking often, but I enjoy the effects of drinking. The lingering taste and the aroma of this tea is very nice.
