1759 Tasting Notes
The tea is good! light, refreshing, and a bit spicy. Just what I wanted.
I seem to be fighting a bug. Only it isn’t like any bug I’ve had before. 99% of the ones I have involve a sore throat/stuffy nose/cough/fuzzy brain. This time? slightly elevated temp that I wouldn’t even call a fever… and exhaustion. Oh and I’m sore all over. Nope I haven’t done anything resembling exercise recently. Confusing! I don’t know what to do with this thing, whatever it is. I know how to fight my normal sick battles! Not impressed I say.
Sorry for the rant. I get grumpy when I feel like bleh,apparently.
Oh yum!
This doesn’t remind me of Christmas per se, but it was quite enjoyable.
The hazelnut, white chocolate and butter notes are prominent. Stone fruit though, ehhhh I think I could sense that in the aftertaste a bit, and maybe far in the distant background… but then I’ve noticed my apricot sensors aren’t very strong in general. I mean, unless it is the main focus of a tea, I tend to not taste it at all.
Also, I had this cuppa without any additions and found it quite sweet. Like one of those cookies with a heavy layer of chocolate/nutty spread on top. I do wish I had more! and that is saying something considering my recent preference for straight teas
I had this the other day in store. Quite different than what I had at home. Delish! Hmmm
I am often quite surprised how different the in-store sample teas are to the home brewed ones.
Everyone seems to be enjoying this one. I haven’t been a fan of the this one even though I’ve tried it several times. Too much cinnamon as I recall. I need to refresh my memory and try it again.
Yeah same here, I mean the first time I had it.
I agree, Evol Ving Ness. For me though, I has to do with the green tea being masked. Personally, if I wanted a chai, I would rather have a rooibos based one.
Green tea! Damn. Who knew?
I usually like my chai to be assam black. Only ever had one green chai I loved and it was finicky. Maybe black chai is more forgiving?
Ugh. I seriously need to stop buying so much of my faves all at once. I overindulged in this one awhile back, didn’t want it for a long long time, and recently started drinking it again. Only it has now been nearly two years that I’ve had my tin, and some flavour/smoothness has been lost. No surprise, time does that to consumables. Duh.
There isn’t much left, maybe fifteen grams out of 70. Could be worse, right?
I wonder if there are any fun things I could do with the last of it. Latte? nah. I’ve had it iced before. Hmmm. I must think on it!
Marinade for chicken?
Could make an interesting Soup Stock as well…
I haven’t had this one in ages, but I remember loving it. It might be time to re-order.
Evol- I was thinking about chicken! or maybe fish?
Roswell – Oooh that’d be different. I’ve never made stock out of tea before! :)
M – Me too. I can’t wait for a fresh supply!!
Fish, yes! I hadn’t considered that. Might work. I like the soup stock idea too. I’d be tempted to add it at the very end as a finishing touch. Roswell Strange, have you tried this already? If so, how did you approach it?
I think the flavours in this one would go nicely as a marinade for chicken, mushrooms, carrots, and onions to be roasted in the oven. Maybe a touch of maple syrup.
@Evol Ving Ness I can’t say I’ve ever tried any teas as rubs because I don’t eat meat – but I’ve tried other teas for soup stock before (not this one). Basically, you brew a slightly concentrated pot (like, a western sized pot) and just use that as the stock you cook the rest of the soup in. I think the ingredients you listed for the marinade would likely work for the soup though: carrot, onion, mushrooms, and chicken.
Thank you. And yes, it does show promise as a soup. I am going to give it a try one of these days.
I saw one of those 30second cooking vids online with fish, potatoes and asparagus. I may try something like that using this as a glaze.
Roswell- Now I’m really curious about making it as a soup! I’ve only really thought about Lapsang before
Genmaicha makes a nice stock base too :)
Wow! Those all sound great too.
Ahhh I’ve been meaning to try genmaicha!
Very good.
Really enjoying this! There is a certain profile of oolong that really gets me, and yes, this is IT. Roasty. A bit fruity. Peach maybe? Highly oxidized. Mineral notes. Honey.
I can’t wait to try this in a gaiwan. and now I’m sad there’s only 25g. Le sighs.
I feel like I’ve had this tea before. Very familiar.
The marzipan scent is incredible. I could sit there and sniff it all day. Can you get high from that? I’m not sure I care, it is so addictive. Mmmm.
But the taste was a bit of a letdown. All the flavours are blended in an odd way, they don’t seem to mesh well. I think the base and the additives are mismatched. Maybe this would have gone better with a dragonwell?
So I found it easy enough to drink. Sadly, any wow factors are absent.
After opening the packet I was so sure I’d be buying 50g of this. Maybe not now that I’ve finished the cup. Oh well.
Not what I had in mind for my 1500th note! But none of the teas I’ve sampled lately seemed notable enough so I figured if it can’t be fabulous, I might as well embrace the terrible :)
Anyhow, this brew is rather biting. I had hoped there would be more honey than ginger, but I found it so harsh that my mug went down the drain. It already had honey so no amount of sugar could help! and diluting it with twice the amount of neede water did zilch.
Normally I don’t mind a bit of ginger… but it requires moderation! too much makes it taste like a chemical burn down my throat. Not fun.
Perhaps I can use the other packets my friend gave me in cooking. Honey ginger chicken? That might work…
Congrats on 1500! Wow!
I am curious to see how your cooking idea turns out.
@Morgana thanks! It’s been six years, so about time haha
@Christina I’ll post about it when I try! I’m quite curious myself now
I will never be able to do that many notes. WOW!
@mrpopar I thought the same, you would be surprised at how easy it is haha. But I know a few others who have 10000+ reviews. Something to aspire for :)
The first few sips of this are so strange.
Something tastes artificial, but I think that may be the truly odd mix of teas in here and how they meld.
Definitely also caramel notes. Fake ones, but they are there.
Also something smoky and I’m not sure which tea the smoke belongs to.
Things get less overwhelmingly strange as the cup cools. Thankfully.
Overall a very interesting cup, but not something I’d want to seek out more of. My friend gave me two more bags… I’m not sure what to do with em!
Ok so I tried this again. Thought about doing gongfu but then checked Steepster to see if anyone else had tried it that way, and saw that the average prep was ONE tsp, not one and a quarter as per the packaging!
So I used a regular mug instead of my monster sized one, with a single teaspoon…. and you know what? this is much better. I’d still like to try it gongfu, but at least now I know what to expect! totally goofed on the timing of course, in that I forgot to use a timer… but I think it was around 3 min.
And YES there is honey!!! A rather drying sensation at the back of the mouth as well, and a mineralish note in between. Also got that wonderful warming sensation that spreads through the body like a warm hug. Mmmmm love that!
Anyhow, will see what happens with my gongfu experiment before deciding what to do with my free 50g.
The other thing I have to consider is that I have a whackload of black tea in my cupboard, and won’t ever be able to finish it before spring arrives, probably even summer… so maybe I should get a green or oolong instead? who knows what I’ll be craving by then. Sighs.
I kind of feel greedy for it (but I’m sure it’s normal) but I always feel compelled to get one of the most expensive teas with the free 50g, regardless of what I have in my cupboard. I’ll be getting 50g of this for free, but granted, I really like it and I don’t have that much plain black tea in my cupboard right now so it works out for me. Maybe look over their more expensive greens and oolongs?
I thought about that. I still need to try their Gyokuro and Sencha Ashikubo. In the winter I go nuts on black teas, and shift a little towards green/oolong in the summer, but sometimes it is a shift entirely away from black teas, and others it is just a bit away from black. Though it may be smarter to go with the more expensive green and buy a small amountof the Honey Black!
Got this to go, iced. I was so thirsty! Shopping does that to a girl, apparently.
And oh boy did I shop!!! Got almost all of it done. and some great deals as well. Now I have a bunch of returns to make. You know, the ones you buy as back up gifts but then end up finding that perfect gift for someone. Ahhhh and I forgot to buy me some wine for Xmas dinner. Ooops.
Not that I would have been able to carry it, with all my packages.
Anyhow, the tea was ok I suppose. Much the way I remember. But I really did wanna know if some chill sparked any difference. The answer? not really. and I am really ok with that. Also chose it because of the ctc factor. Needed me some caffeine!
Night all xo
Hate to say this, but it could be influenza. :/ That’s how I felt at the beginning of last week, and it progressed to be snotty. But mostly I was just exhausted and uncomfortably warm when normally I’m a bit chilly.
Yeah I was thinking about that. My tummy is only a tiny bit icky feeling though. I think I’m more annoyed cuz I felt like this earlier in the week on and off for about four days. I felt better on Friday and now its back. Hope you’re feeling all better now OMGsrsly!
Influenza is a respiratory virus, similar to but also much worse than a cold (it’s a different type of virus). The “stomach flu” is usually either a GI virus or food poisoning.
hmm. So it’d be the stomach flu then. Maybe