10238 Tasting Notes
I’m trying really hard to write tasting notes right now, but I’ve attempted to do so for over a dozen teas today only for the pages to show up as 404 Errors – I know that’ll go away, but it’s super irritating. Yes, the site is running at “100% Capacity”, but had it not being doing that already for years prior to Adagio’s takeover!? Sure, the start of things was NOT great overall but at least you could write a damn tasting note more than 5% of the time…
Anyway – that frustration aside, I’m happy to have an influx of more geeky teas in my stash. I bought I bunch with the goal of having teas I could use/talk about on the podcast (Geek Steep) but this is a damn good tea regardless. It’s maybe the least overly fandom-y of the new tea additions, being inspired by Harry Potter. The dry leaf smells fucking incredible – one of the freshest smelling rhubarb teas I’ve ever come across. I should really update my Steepster profile; rhubarb has been something I’ve liked in tea for years now but it has quickly become something that I adore in tea.
I see it most often paired with custard/cream or strawberry, so it’s cool seeing a new flavour duo! The ginger is nice – why the rhubarb has a refreshing sweetness and freshness that hint of warming spice makes it feel more baked and autumnal. I can see the Rhubarb Crumble inspiration coming through, and it does feel like this would be something appropriate for The Burrow.
Nom nom nom.
Had this one on the weekend and while it was not my favourite bubble tea I’ve had recently (by quite a bit) it was definitely really interesting. I think it would be most accurate to describe it as the hybrid of a non-milk based bubble tea and a smoothie or slushy. It had a lot of dragonfruit blended up in it and while it wasn’t icy it was quite thick with a lot of frozen fruit. It also had a cheese cloud/snowcap cream topper, which ended up getting slightly blended into the rest and adding a creaminess and silkier texture. The flavour was just so light/mild though – I guess actual dragon fruit really isn’t the richest flavouring anyway but I expected it to be either sweeter or juicier or to have some sort of punch. This was just verrryyyy light and refreshing. Would be good on a hot summer day, but this was like ten at night, in an air conditioned condo…
So this past weekend my friend Marika and I started recording for our podcast! Ahh! I’m so excited, but also everything just felt soooo real! I have a nice backlog of tasting notes, aside from my normal tasting queue, that are completely podcast related – I’ll post them whenever the episodes start airing…
This was what I was drinking while we recorded our intro episode though! Jin Shuan is one of the teas that Marika and I had our first big, long nerdier conversation over when we were first getting to know each other – so it was kind of a nod to that connection, which has now grown into this cool endeavor we’re doing together! I’m excited to share that with everyone here on Steepster – well everyone who has an interest anyway, haha.
Flavors: Butter, Cream, Creamy, Floral, Flowers, Freshly Cut Grass, Green
So, I’m not a huge Darjeeling person – although I don’t mind one every now and then. I do have a preference for 2nd Flush though, typically. However, this specific Darjeeling from this year’s harvest has been recommended to me so many times this summer by the people in my MTL tea circle who are Darjeeling drinkers that I just HAD to go and get some!
Firstly – let me just start by saying that from the moment I smelled the dry leaf I felt like I got the hype! You get that tickle in your nose from all the tea dander/down that you’re inhaling and it’s so incredibly fresh and aromatic. Like sweet peas fresh from the garden and summer flowers, like peony. I could tell it was going to be really good!
And, well, it is! The taste is almost identical to what the dry leaf smelled like. On the greener end of the spectrum, but refreshing and sweet garden pea/snow pea with fresh Spring florals of peony, lilac, and lily. It’s a touch malty, a touch spicy, and just a little bit astringent but mostly in lives in that zone of refreshing vegetal and floral notes. It’s a bit atypical for what I personally like in a darjeeling (which is more of that muscatel note, though I do like floral flavours) but I’m digging it!!
Reaaallllyyyy impressed with this year’s harvest!
Gongfu Sipdown (1077)!
Very sloppy evening session of this tea with a delicious & subtly sweet prickly pear!! The tea is full bodied and astringent with a smokier top note & rich woody umami and spice notes (cumin/smoked paprika/black pepper), plus a punch of malt, bitter baker’s chocolate, and a bit of a musky quality to the main sip!! It benefits from the bordering on slimy, coating mouthfeel of the prickly pear and the more gentle sweetness that doesn’t overpower the tea!!
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CEaQbTlg2v2/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTL5OL-6fj0
Sipdown (1078)!
I had this one on Monday or Tuesday – I can’t honestly remember which day because the week has blurred together so much. It was good, but not as good as I wanted it to be. I didn’t get any of the fun large cut ingredients in my sample that are in the product phone, and while I don’t know that the large dehydrated berry pieces would have made a big impact on the giant cinnamon stick might have.
It was pretty full bodied, with a more bitter dark chocolate note. I actually liked the slight bitterness because it differentiates this from the overly rich/sweet and sometimes waxy chocolate teas out there – it somehow also feels more authentic with the bitterness. Also means that it’s got the legs to stand up to milk! The undertone was more jammy blueberry, and it was okay but I expected the berry to have a stronger presence in the blend overall given the tea’s name…
Another tea from Arthur Dove with musical inspiration! I hadn’t heard the Wham! song that this tea is named after, so I decided to do the same exercise with this tea as I did with Lull where I steeped the tea, found my own song that matched the taste of the tea, to me, and then listened to the actual song to see how I compared…
Here’s the song I picked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBXdL2tw3HM
The actual song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYX0sjP6Za8
I’m actually pretty happy with how close the two were! Not totally the same thing, but I think I definitely got the vibe that Arthur was going for. In terms of taste, I’m also quite happy with the blend – it’s really sweet and tropical with notes of vibrant, juicy fresh oranges, pineapple, and banana with a creamy little twist of coconut. Fresh, packed in flavours, though still a light and refreshing body to the infusion. It’s always interesting when that happens where the taste is so packed in there but the tea still feels light. Love that!
I’ve been eyeing this and the Hanamitsu for a while, and recently Hojicha released a “Classic” roast so I caved and just ordered myself one of each – so now I happen to own the entire Hojicha Co assortment. That’s a whole lot of Hojicha!!
The order arrived today, so I broke into one of the bags straight away. This is definitely different from what I normally go for in Hojicha (I like a DARK roast) but I’m surprisingly enjoying it a lot. It’s described as tasting kind of like a cozy log cabin, and I sort of get that. There’s a sweet nuttyness to the top notes of this hojicha, but then the body has a really unique flavour/feeling that I’ve not experienced in hojicha so much. It’s like there’s just a hint of cinnamon/cassia oil! It’s a subtle and quite woody tasting cinnamon flavour but with that kind of “hot” feeling on the tongue that you only get with intense cinnamon oils/flavouring. It’s strange how I’m getting the sensation while the flavour is a lot calmer. It works really well with the roasted notes and nuttiness, and deeply feeds into the log cabin kind of vibe.
Finished a mug of this a few minutes ago and was really impressed!
It’s both a buttery and soft banana as well as a nice ripe and sweet one, and it complimented beautifully with the sweet fudge/toffee notes that were the grounded undertone carrying into a sweet finish. I want to write more, but I’m heading into a meeting so this will have to do for now – but it was honestly just really good!
Just finished a mug of this for my first cup of the morning – thank you VariaTEA for sharing it! I think I’m going to have to go and look it up on the TeaRunners website to see if they list any tasting notes/information on the tea because I found it really weird…
The aroma coming from the dry leaf and off the steep aroma was like a nice sweet honeycomb and red fruit, but the taste is sort of sudsy and chemical. It reminded me a bit of the “Fresh Linen” scented laundry detergent that I use. Not as full blown as that, of course, and with an undertone of something pleasant but just not wonderful. Though there’s still hints of malt, honey, and red fruit. They’re just drowned out by that off note.
