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With a heavy heart, I threw out the last of this tea last night. It still smelled heavenly but given its age, I decided against steeping it. There was only a teaspoon left and for some inexplicable reason I had been hoarding it forever. I guess it served as a sentimental memento of a bygone era. Teavana was a part of my early tea journey and as far as flavored greens go, I still haven’t found one that can top this. RIP.

Sipdown. This works a lot better as an ambient/cold brew. Instead of the pancake syrup flavor of the hot brew, I get delicate florals and caramelized sugar notes. I’m discovering that I prefer my green oolongs hot and dark oolongs cold. I feel like cold steeping tames the roastiness of darker oolongs and makes the nuances much clearer.

This tea doesn’t quite live up to its exotic name. I was expecting something fruity and tropical but the end result tasted like apple cider vinegar. The tea brews up a copper color with citrusy notes of lemon and orange peels but tastes very puckery. It’s like drinking a tart fruit juice minus the sweetness. Don’t really taste the guava, quince, strawberries, or any of the other ingredients in the blend. It’s just sour all around. Tried it as a cold brew and the results were more or less the same. The idea of this tea is nice but execution is sadly a fail.

Man I was ready to write off this tea because it had been so dismal but today I casually steeped the last few grams at work and it was unexpectedly good. It’s amusing – and a little perplexing – how the most meticulous gongfu setup at home, right down to precise weight and water temperature, sometimes gives inferior results compared to just winging it at the office. On a side note, please ignore the brewing directions on the package. Any sencha steeped for 3 minutes will be terribly bitter.

Anyway, the first steep was lip smacking good. Wonderfully sweet throughout and balanced umami. Notes of spinach and fresh grass transitioning to a crisp lingering grape-like sweetness. Easily better than the pricier shinchas I’ve had this year. But subsequent steeps are a reminder of why this is a budget tea. The second steep had a generic sencha flavor and almost all of the flavor was washed out in the third infusion leaving behind a sulfur like taste.

So yeah, pretty good for a one and done kind of tea.

A decent sencha but not as amazing as Saemidori Kagoshima green teas I’ve had from O-Cha and Yuuki-Cha in the past. It’s also different from the others in that it appears to be more asamushi like with lots of long needle shaped leaves even though its advertised as a deep steamed sencha. First steep is light and vegetal with a splash of umami. Second infusion is grassier with a touch of astringency. Notes of spinach, cashew, and turnips. The last steep is similar with a generic green flavor.

Not packaged oxygen-free like other Japanese vendors which likely contributed to the less than optimal taste.

This is a somewhat tricky tea to rate. Going on the taste alone, it’s not one that I would willingly seek out. It’s very medicinal, both in taste and smell. The smell of the tea, which sorta reminds me of bug spray, quickly takes over the entire room. Strong fennel taste with a musky sort of sweetness, hints of nutmeg, citrus, and mint. Similar flavor profile to Yogi bedtime tea but thankfully no stevia in it to amplify the funky stuff.

Now as a sleep aid, I would say it works almost too well. I used less than half the quantity of tea the instructions called for and fell into a deep slumber less than an hour later. Didn’t feel like waking up the next morning and felt groggy most of the day.

So yeah, not exactly a pleasant tea but it did help me sleep. I’ll still reach for chamomile to help me wind down in the evening and reserve this for those occasions when I’m having trouble with insomnia.

My Rishi tea order arrived yesterday. Lots of herbals and caffeine free blends, but I did pick up a couple of regular loose leaf teas one of which was this bergamot scented green oolong. The leaves are beautifully fragrant and brew to an intense but smooth bergamot flavor. Notes of tangerine, cardamom, and eucalyptus. Compared to Earl Grey black tea, I feel like the neutral green tea base really allows the bergamot to shine through. Reminds me of Verdant’s now retired Earl of Anxi blend which used TGY as the base.

That said, I prefer a subtle bergamot flavor and on its own, this is way too potent for me. But that’s not a problem, I will just blend it with a straight tea the way I do all my flavored teas.

Why, oh why did they have to add stevia to this blend? It completely ruined what might have otherwise been a palatable tea. I was super excited when I took a whiff of the teabag. It had a tantalizing aroma of oranges, spearmint, and chai spices. But thanks to the stevia, what I tasted in my mouth was reminiscent of peppermint toothpaste or tiger balm. And it wasn’t just a fleeting note either. No, the weird minty taste lingered forever in the back of my throat as if I had swallowed toothpaste. The aftertaste haunted me long after I finished the tea.

I’m just going to give away what I have left of this tea because it’s that bad. I ordered Valerian Dream, an herbal blend from Rishi with similar ingredients but no sweetners and appears to be much higher quality.

After trying the Spring 2019 harvest, I have to up my rating for this tea. The winter picked tea sample I had previously tried was inexplicably bad but this one was respectable. Highly aromatic and sweet with intense aromas of pineapple, papaya, honey, and flowers. The brewed tea had a mild fruity-floral flavor. I detected notes of mango, orchid, and lychee. However the biggest downside was this delicious flavor peaked way too early and the tea itself had nothing left to give after about 6 steeps.

Drank this one as a commute tea on the way to work this morning. Grandpa steeped 1.3g in my 10oz tumbler using just under boiling water. Leaves had a subtle aroma of caramel and flowers. The brewed tea smelled of dried prunes. The flavor is somewhat different than other Dong Dings I’ve tried in that it doesn’t have the toffee and caramelized notes. Instead it has a syrupy buckwheat honey flavor. As it steeps I get notes of brown sugar and sticky buns.

Though this is not the most nuanced Dong Ding, it’s a sweet easy drinking tea. Smooth and dark without any roasted/char flavor.