New Tasting Notes

My girlfriend visited Yellow Mountain Tea House today and brought me back some tea! This tea was one of my requests. I’ve never had jasmine green tea before so I was excited to try it. The floral fragrance is strong. It caught me off guard at first, but I really enjoyed it. I found the tea to be very light and mild. Perfect for relaxing and playing board games.

Time for a caffeine-free selection! Still making my way through this Bird & Blend packet backlog – I’m not sure if this is from the subscription or one of many samples I bought at some point. This smells lovely in the bag, very apple crumble!

I’m actually surprised how much I like this, since I’m quite picky about red rooibos tisanes. I don’t even mind the small amount of hibiscus! The flavor is a little thin, as always with fruit-based tisanes. But it has a nice cooked-yet-tart apple flavor and the perfect amount of cinnamon to complement it. I don’t feel the hibiscus is needed, but at least it doesn’t overstep its bounds, as it is wont to do. There’s not explicitly a pastry flavor, but it does go to a nice apple crumble sort of place.

I’ll have to consider this one for a restock when I get around to ordering from B&B again. It’s always nice to have more caffeine-free options! :)

What is this exactly? Not a tea really, and not an herbal. Perhaps more honestly classified as a medicinal . It has a very clean taste. Neither the ginger or turmeric are overpowering but they are definitely both present. the same cannot be said for the other listed ingredients, I get no orange peel or orange oil. I’m assuming the sweetness comes from the licorice. No black pepper on the tongue either.
It is a nice warm tea to end the night with . I can’t quite call it cozy. But it is quite good.

Blech. This is a very flavorless tea. If that’s what they mean by “earthy” in the description of Rooibos teas, I’m gonna have to steer clear. It’s a bummer because I like the idea of a nice decaffeinated chai to occasionally and the night with. My search will have to continue. This is also the first Barney & Sons tea I’ve had that his disappointed me so much.

I assume this much have been from the subscription box, as I am not a huge fan of coconut so I can’t imagine ordering this blend. There are huge flakes of unsweetened coconut in it, so naturally I was nervous about not knowing how old the pouch is. But generally it’s very obvious from the smell when coconut has gone rancid, and fortunately this smells perfectly pleasant.

As a coconut tolerator, and not a coconut lover, I’m pleasantly surprised that the coconut is fairly light here, just a supporting flavor. The milk oolong is fairly basic, without much depth to it, but it’s still a pleasant combination. There are mild grassy, leafy notes and of course a smooth creamy flavor. At the tail end of the sip, a light peachy note emerges, and it remains in the aftertaste.

It’s not complex, but nice enough to sip on in the evening. The light coconut flavor melds nicely with the creamy oolong for a decadent tea.

This surprisingly came out a little bitter despite being steeped for only 2.5 minutes…

This tea is a bit older (as most of my teas are at this point), and at this point it’s mostly just a generic genmaicha. Although looking at my previous note, it seems like I didn’t find much apple flavor when it was new either.

I do like genmaicha, so I don’t mind, but I have much tastier genmaicha in my cupboard. Sorry, B&B, this one just isn’t special to me.

Picked up a sampler of Revolution teas at Cost Plus World Market when shopping for a Tea Advent Calendar (different company). I loooove the smell of lavender. This tea reminded me of my time in France and Maui at the lavender farms.
The tea is pretty well balanced; not too floral but not weak. Definitely would drink this again.

Seems the key to this tea is having it as a tea lemonade. It tastes like what I imagine an orange Julius tastes like. Cold. Refreshing. Tart. And yet it’s also creamy and sweet. Nice vanilla/marshmallow flavor that goes nicely with the citrus. Think creamsicle but with more citrus.

This is the only Kusmi tea I have in sachet form. I think I bought it during a sale or something? Their sachets are really cool, made of linen with a cloth string and no staples. Fancy.

This tea is a bit… blah. The flavoring is very mild and the base tea unremarkable. It’s a little bit too light for me, and I’m sure its age hasn’t improved it either. As far as the red fruits, mostly I taste the cherry and raspberry here. Having never tried redcurrants, I’m not sure I would recognize their flavor.

Having a Dammann tea similar to this one that I prefer, I’m not sure what to do with the remaining sachets. Maybe I’ll put them in my big ’ol bag of wrapped tea bags that I keep for travelling…

And yet another tea courtesy of White Antlers. Thank you :)

The session starts with a thin, brown sugar sweetness and a hint of vanilla. Really strong roast, so much that most of the time I taste mostly roasted nuts, roasted barley and brown toast. Past that I can taste apricot, peach, orange blossom honey, and orange zest. Strong mineral taste and tingles, light apricot and orange blossom aftertaste. In subsequent infusions, the fruitiness and sweetness are overtaken by malt, wood, straw, astringency and bitterness tasting much like a washed-out black tea.

Unlike LuckyMe, I didn’t find this oolong to be easy-drinking. The roast easily dominated the session for me. The leaf seems temperamental, unforgiving. Then again, I don’t have a finessed hand. I thought with the level of roast aroma in the dry leaf that I would brew this with water off the boil; based on the unfavorable results, the next session I will try with lower temperature.

Not recommended… for now.

This was a sampler I received in an old 2017 What-cha order. Still sealed. I wanted it to go with my potstickers for dinner tonight, so I brewed it up as a pot, western style. Smells precisely as one would expect, with strong nuo mi xiang herb aroma, as well as some fainter aromas of butter and minerals. Perhaps something lightly vegetal, like cauliflower?

Flavor is nice; I’ve really enjoyed a sticky rice pu’erh I have, so I was expecting to enjoy this. Lovely umami nuo mi xiang herb flavor, rice, butter, vegetables, and a faint minerality toward the end of the sip. I think the only thing I could possibly complain about with a tea like this is that I have to deep clean my infuser every time I make it, because the aroma is so strong every cup of tea I make afterwards will taste of sticky rice if I don’t.

Sad sipdown… Yunomi doesn’t seem to carry this flavor anymore, unfortunately.

This isn’t quite as good as it once was, but it still has that yummy cinnamon toast flavor that I love. I’ll have to look into recreating this flavor profile in the future, as I assume I won’t be able to get this tea again. Maybe I could add cinnamon stick to a nice bready Yunnan tea.

I will miss you, tasty cinnamon toast tea… :(

A great blend of all the pumpkin spice flavors without being too much – and it’s decaf, which is good for afternoon tea time.

It’s a great basic tea that’s inexpensive. I prefer PG Tips and Yorkshire Gold, but both are far more expensive. I tried Tetley’s and was pleasantly surprised by how good it is. Sometimes it’s nice to just have a good plain tea with no frills.

I had half of a sample packet of this inside an empty Adagio fandom mini tin. I was shocked that there was no entry on Steepster… I feel bad being the only one to write a note for it, since I’m drinking it Western style, and lazily at that. Looking at the website, it looks like I ordered in March of last year, so at least it’s not that terribly old…?

Regardless, this is super delicious. I love the amount of oxidation here, it’s such a good middle ground between too green and floral (for me) and highly oxidized. It retains some of those nice green and fresh mineral notes but has a lovely rich bready and dried fruit flavor too. There are also some strong honeyed fig notes which are to die for! Maybe a hint of cinnamon as well? And of course, the lovely thick and silky mouthfeel that is a hallmark of oolong.

Nom nom nom!

Another tea from my Dammann advent order. This is one of the few Noël teas that I haven’t tried yet, and the flavor combination sounded lovely, so in the cart it went! It’s listed as an apple, peach, pear, and mirabelle plum black tea with hazelnut and chestnut. I’ve never had a mirabelle plum before, except as preserves, but I love all plums and stonefruit in general, so this seems right up my alley! The smell is very sweet mixed stonefruits, and I would almost guess there was vanilla as well.

This steeped up very light in flavor, which I think is well-suited to the mix of fruits here. The strongest notes are the apple, which is crisp and somewhat tart, and the juicy plum. The peach sort of melds into the plum, being quite similar, and I don’t think I’m tasting pear here at all. I also can’t pick out any nutty notes. The base tea is generic and unassuming, a good foil for the lovely fruit flavors. There’s a tad bit of tannic astringency, which sort of enforces the idea of apple and stonefruit skin on the tongue. And perhaps a hint of floral at the tail end of the sip from the rose petals?

Overall, I’m very happy with it, as the plum flavor is quite pronounced and not overshadowed by the peach. This would be a lovely choice as a light afternoon or early evening tea. I definitely don’t get any Christmas-y association from it, but I’ve also never been to St. Petersburg! ;)

I have a terrible habit recently of making tea and then not drinking it until it cools. So I have basically been having luke warm to cool teas for who knows how long now. This tea is no exception and I feel it would have been better when hot.

It’s ok. Sort of coffee. Sort of chocolate. Sort of coconut. Sort of vanilla. A lot of jumbled and not my favorite. I think I may try it as a latte…or toss it into my swap box…

This tea is the perfect combination of juicy apricot and fresh lavender. I love how many blends from Plum Deluxe include lavender! This one is so good! So refreshing and lovely warm or cold. My ounce of this only made a few cups, and if their prices were more reasonable, I would certainly order more.

Another one from White Antlers. This one’s fresh-e-fresh. I saved 3 grams from the pouch to make a western cup. I wonder to whom I forwarded the rest.

When I travel (oh COVID, when will you depart), my packings are minimal. When I house-sit, the amenities here are never sparse (I could get by as I would on vacation by bringing only a toothbrush, medication and a few days worth of clothes), yet I brought 6 bags with me. Today is the final day of house-sitting for my work father. The place is a mess even though I’ve occupied only the bedroom, bathroom and barely the kitchen. In this whirlwind moment of cleaning and gathering my belongings, I steeped up what little I saved of this tea and of course forgot about it for 10 minutes.

Luckily, my folly didn’t ruin the tea, which means it’s a solid tea. The dry leaves smell strongly of roasted peanut and cocoa. Steeped up, it has a full, smooth body with a heavy malty-sweet overtone and complex undertones of leather, peanut, cocoa, baked bread, stonefruit, caramel, banana, tannins and flowers. Lingering malty-stonefruit-peanut aftertaste. It lacks a little kick to adequately grab my attention (perhaps the long steep time muted some quirks) but it’s a satisfying brew regardless.

Two steeps western into the work thermos.

Smooth and full bodied with a woody, drying finish. Two layers of sweetness: one that is deep and fruity like dates, and a higher pitched floral sugar tone. Caffeine low — probably not the best tea to choose for a 6am Saturday shift but I wanted something mellow. I don’t remember much else. It’s an old tea in a stamped pouch.

It’s time to take a quick break from reviewing black teas. I finished a 25g pouch of this tea last week, and I have kind of been itching to review it ever since. It was easily one of the most unique white teas I have tried in some time.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After rinsing, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea buds in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was followed by 18 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and 30 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea buds emitted aromas of corn husk, malt, hay, straw, and butter. After the rinse, I detected aromas of roasted almond, sugarcane, cream, and golden raisin. The first infusion introduced aromas of honeydew, cantaloupe, and marshmallow. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of corn husk, malt, butter, hay, straw, and sugarcane that were balanced by subtler flavors of honeydew, cantaloupe, and golden raisin. The majority of the subsequent infusions brought forth aromas of plum, apricot, watermelon, vanilla, wheat toast, cinnamon, minerals, autumn leaves, white pepper, caramel, horehound, camphor, honey, and sweet potato. Stronger and more immediately notable impressions of honeydew and cantaloupe appeared in the mouth alongside notes of wheat toast, marshmallow, cream, minerals, roasted almond, plum, golden apple, vanilla, apricot, bark, autumn leaves, caramel, red pear, cucumber, orange zest, sweet potato, horehound, watermelon rind, and honey. Hints of lychee, cinnamon, white pepper, ginger, and camphor lurked around the fringes. Once the tea began to fade, the liquor started emphasizing notes of minerals, malt, cucumber, wheat toast, watermelon rind, caramel, cream, honeydew, and sweet potato that were chased by lingering hints of orange zest, marshmallow, sugarcane, roasted almond, autumn leaves, vanilla, bark, horehound, ginger, and honey.

This was a durable and amazingly complex Indian white tea with a very unique mix of aroma and flavor components. It reminded me a good deal of an awesome Ceylonese white tea I purchased from Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company several years ago. Compared to that tea, this one was somewhat less refined. Its aroma and flavor components grew increasingly muddled as my review session progressed, and the tea liquor thinned out a little more than I hoped it would. Still, this was a very nice white tea that struck me as stopping perhaps just a hair shy of crossing the threshold of excellence. I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a unique and challenging white tea that is also an absolute blast to drink and pick apart.