359 Tasting Notes

77
drank Honeydew Melon by Rishi Tea
359 tasting notes

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Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 5 min, 0 sec
Josh

Looking forward to trying Golden Moon’s White Persian Melon version of this. Honeydew is super good!

Erin

yes! glad you liked it! this is one of my favorite flavored whites.

Ricky

Haha, so you did order Golden Moon’s sampler =] Nice!

It’s a good white. I was thinking of getting a tin of GM’s white melon for those days I have a craving, but maybe I’ll get this, who knows.

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83
drank Kuki Yerba Mate by Samovar
359 tasting notes

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Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 30 sec
AmazonV

halp! how much water/leaf should i use? and ummm if i still don’t like it want some more?

Ricky

Well, before my cup broke, I use to always do two teaspoons with 10oz of water. Isn’t Breville suppose to make it a perfect cup ;D

AmazonV

I skipped the breville, it doesn’t have a mate button :( so i read the tin, and i swear it said 3 tbl / 16 oz boiling for 3 min, BLEH

Ricky

Haha, I think the black tea setting should be fine. Though Kuki is a green, so it’s kind of strange.

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75
drank Pineapple Sencha by Den's Tea
359 tasting notes

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Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 45 sec
Cofftea

You’re a bigger fan of the apple even though you think it tastes like hot apple juice? I’m confused.

Cofftea

I just looked and the steeping parameters on the tea’s page and on the brewing parameters chart are the same… 4oz boiled water, 2g leaf, 30 sec steep.

Ricky

If I had to order how much I like a certain fruit, it’d be oranges, apples, pineapples. That was fruit, not tea. I’m not a fan of pineapple nor am I a fan of orange citrus peels, therefore I enjoyed Apple sencha more. Apple sencha would be a healthy apple juice =]

the quiet life

Pineapples can be evil, but I love them so! I’ll definitely have to try this someday. And the Apple Sencha, too. :)

Ricky

Did you ever try the Den’s Sampler pack?

the quiet life

Yeah, mine came with Orange Sencha (which I still haven’t tried, but should).

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81

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Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 4 min, 0 sec
Cofftea

Pics please!=D

Ricky

Of the Sorapot? My photo gear is packed away!

Cofftea

of this in the sorapot:) I bet it was gorgeous!

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78
drank Lychee Black by Samovar
359 tasting notes

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Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 4 min, 0 sec
teaplz

Hrm. The tea description says it’s also flavored with lychee flowers. I think that’s why there’s such a strong floral component.

Ricky

The package said lychee flavored oils! Conflicting! Oh this would probably be a nice bubble tea base actually, haha.

Cofftea

Ditto on the italics!

tease

Oh dear, I was really looking forward to ordering this one… Especially when it’s one of Samovar’s bestsellers!

Ricky

Doesn’t hurt to try the sampler for yourself =] It’s more of a Rosie tea than lychee.

Cofftea

A disappointment that’s still a 73 though:)

Ricky

Well, the low rating is honestly because I felt deceived. If they advertised this as a Rose tea I would have bought it anyways and it would probably of gotten an eighty. My ratings are all messed up now. I honestly don’t even know how I do it anymore. One day I will go through and fix my ratings. I mean if you are looking for a lychee tea, you won’t find that much for this. If you are looking for a decent rose tea one is very nice. Golden Moon’s rose is a lot heavier and more floral where as this one is more subtle. I guess it really depends what you’re looking for.

Cofftea

Ooooh… deception… I hate being decieved. Then I would have given it MUCH lower than a 73. I don’t consider 73 a “low rating”. Deception would probably get no higher than a 35 in my book.

Ricky

It really isn’t, but if I can stand a tea it’s generally 65-85 range. I have no clue what 81,82,83,84,85 means… I’m going to have to rework my scale and figure out exactly what these numbers mean to me.

teaplz

I don’t know why you feel deceived, Ricky.

Read the tasting notes they list:
Light bodied and as sweet as the lychee fruit that sweetens this brew. A lingering rosy fragrance is met with the slightly malty, very smooth, and mild liquor flavor of the black tea. Light bodied, extremely refreshing, and lightly sweetened by the fruit itself.
Lychee flowers naturally sweeten this light, salubrious, brew.

It’s very clear from Samovar’s website stuff that this has rose notes to it. The cup I had, I could taste the lychee at the end of every sip if I concentrated. It’s there. It’s not like Samovar said this is going to be a fruit-fest. It’s a very light cup of tea.

Ricky

Ahh, I meant deceived by the name. I agree, the description describes the tea, but let’s take some random tea => Caramelized Pear, from the name you expect Caramel and Pear. Rose was clearly the stronger factor in this tea and the lychee was at the end of a sip. If this was Lychee Rose Black, I’d understand. The name just seems misleading as Rose is the stronger component.

tease

Eeep, I’d missed that rose bit, too, teaplz. Oh well. I guess the rose component would pretty naturally overpower the lychee, unfortunately… Too bad I don’t like drinking roses.

teaplz

But the rose flavor is coming from the lychee, so it’s not really a deception.

Apparently a lot of people think lychee tastes like roses (search Google for lychee + rose and you’ll see). So maybe the essential oils of lychee are more rose-like than the fruit itself.

Arguing over semantics, obviously. :P But I feel like deception is when a tea company uses elements that they didn’t list. Here, your expectations were different than the end result, and that’s not Samovar’s fault.

tease

Huh, really? How interesting, I didn’t know that. I’ve always been under the impression that roses are more… Overwhelming in the nostrils.

Ricky

Oh totally agree with you that it didn’t meet my own expectations. Samovar describes its accurate. I think I did state that it was a great tea, just not what I expected. I could see how lychee tastes rosy, but the juicy fruit flavor was what I was looking for.

Let’s just say I’d be happy with this tea if someone gave me it and didn’t tell me what it was. Teas are so complicated. Seriously! =]

Tomato, tomahto. Words are so complicated too! =P

Cofftea

LOL at tomahto…

CHAroma

@ teaplz, I’m in agreement with you. To me, this tea is 100% lychee. I’m not getting rose notes at all, but I also had no idea that some people confuse lychee and rose. It’s a very good explanation. Varying expectations definitely affect the tea tasting experience. Luckily for me, this was exactly what I expected and wanted. :)

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80
drank Masala Chai by Samovar
359 tasting notes

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Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec
Cofftea

2 questions… while adding to the black tea flavor and the caffeine, doesn’t the extra non chai black tea take away from the spice, especially when adding milk? And when you say “2/3 of tea” do you mean 2/3 regular strength tea or the amount of tea you’d use for the total quantity of liquid steeped in 2/3 the amount of water?

Ricky

Woaps, I emptied the whole package and filled my cup with water about 2/3s of the way. I have a 10oz cup but if I fill it to the rim, it’s about 12oz. I would assume if you mixed in another black tea it would dilute the flavor (I didn’t mix in another tea).

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70
drank Wild Orange Blossom by Teavana
359 tasting notes

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Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 6 min, 0 sec
Cinoi

There is a lot of fruit in their fruit teas, this is true. You should try Tiki Twilight, it is one of my favorites from them, I haven’t logged because, well no real reason, I’ll go do it now…

Jillian

So does it bear any similarity to the evil Tazo ‘Sweet’ Wild Orange tea? ;)

Ricky

Tazo Sweet WIld Orange has devil horns and a tail! Now that’s a truly evil tea =P

Haha, yay more tea logs =] Hops over to Cinoi’s log.

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75

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Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 45 sec

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83
drank Dawn by The Simple Leaf
359 tasting notes

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Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 30 sec
teaplz

Man Ricky, you are the Steepster Exchange King! Seriously, so many trades, hahaha.

Ricky

I know! It must be my bio. I still have so much tea to go through. It’s crazy. A lot of Samovar tea as well.

Erin

YES! Another person who loves Dawn!

Ricky

Another convert! Yes! =]

Unfortunately it couldn’t really handle the second steep. It’s good, but not as amazing as the first. I think it’s more like a 1.5 steep. Third steep was a total failure =(

Shanti

I love Dawn! Second steep is more caramel-chocolatey than the first for me, yum.

Harfatum

This was without milk, right?

sophistre

Mmm. This part of my shopping list should probably be next…

Ricky

Yep it was without milk. Get it! It’s delicious!

Harfatum

Yeah, Dawn is an amazing tea. It’s also pretty unique, which is even more impressive.

~lauren.

Hey, Ricky! This review was posted on the TheSimpleLeaf website! You may already have known about it but I just found it today and thought WOW! NEAT! http://www.thesimpleleaf.com/

Ricky

Haha, didn’t notice that they linked Steepster’s reviews. Thanks!

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77

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Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 2 min, 30 sec
teaplz

The second steep of Sinharaja is delicious! Really sugary-sweet and awesome. :D

And yeah, I’m still testing out how much caffeine I can take before bed. So far white teas seem to be okay…

Ricky

But some white and greens contain as much caffeine as blacks! Bai Mudan apparently has low caffeine. Hmm, it might have been the green/black tea I drank before that then. So wasn’t cool! Hibiscus tea right now =P I know how much you love it, haha. Oh yeah! Takgoti’s birthday in a few hours.

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Profile

Bio

Hiya!

I am always up for sharing my tea with others. If you’re interested in something just let me know.

My Ratings
80+ Love it, needs to purchase more!
70-79 Pretty good, would consider another cup
50-69 Not bad, but probably won’t repurchase
< 50 Bleck, I don’t want another cup

Location

NYC

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