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This is the second tea I elected to try from my Den’s novice sampler. I figured I would get the tea bags out of the way and then get into the loose leaf varieties tomorrow. This also happens to be my first sencha. Like the genmaicha, there were no instructions for western style. The dry bag smelled strongly of grass with a little sweetness. I brewed it for two minutes.

The brewed tea smells vegetal and grassy. The taste is spinach mixed with sweet grass. There’s also a touch of asparagus (the tea bag was covered in quite a bit of powder – I’m not sure whether it was matcha or just powdered sencha leaf). I found this tea satisfying and quite delicious. As it cooled I started to get a slightly bitter note, so the next time I make sencha I’ll be sure to drink it faster.

(holding off on the rating until I can compare it to the loose leaf versions)

On a side note, I would love to get some general advice for steeping these Japanese greens teas western-style. In particular, the ones I have are senchas, genmaicha, and one houjicha. I would really love to just get some general guidelines for temperature and time for steeping these types of teas in 8 ounce quantities. Thanks in advance! :)

This was the free sample at Red Leaf this month. I’ve never had matcha before, so I figured I’d order it and give it a try! Dry, the almond scent is extremely strong, which got me a little excited.

I don’t have any experience with matcha. I wanted to try it cold with milk so I looked around to see what other people had done. I ended up mixing about a half teaspoon of powder with an ounce or two of hot water, stirring to dissolve. Then I added 8 ounces of vanilla soymilk and mixed it all up. Overall, I thought it came out pretty tasty. I could definitely taste the almond, but it was overpowering, and I could just taste a hint of the matcha. Not going to rate it because I have no idea what I’m talking about! :D

I recently ordered the green tea sampler for novices from Den’s Tea. I really love that they offer something like this to new customers. It’s only $3 and I got two tea bag samples plus four loose samples plus a booklet. AND they give you a coupon code for $3 off your next order of $15 or more, making the sampler free if you make a purchase later. Fantastic, thanks Den’s!

I’ve been curious about genmaicha for a while now, so this had to be the first one I tried. I actually got both a sachet and a loose sample of this tea, so it’ll be interesting to compare the two. The packet didn’t have brewing instructions and their instructions for genmaicha were tuned for a very small amount of water, so I read through some notes from other people and decided on a two minute steep. The dry sachet smelled mostly of matcha and vegetal green tea and there was quite a bit of matcha dust clinging all over it.

I was amazed by how roasty the brewed tea smelled! It basically smelled like all toasted rice with some of the green tea peeking in from the background. Yum yum! I was so impatient while waiting for this to cool so I could try it! XD I must say, this tea is delicious. It’s an excellent mix of spinachy green tea and asparagus-like matcha with a strong toasted rice flavor in the background, supporting the other flavors. The aftertaste is slightly bitter, but in a pleasant way when combined with the rice. I can’t wait to try all of these other green teas.

(holding off on the rating until I try the loose version!)

This is the first tea I’m trying from my swap with Arshness. The dry leaf looks like generic little black tea leaves with sprinkles mixed in. I had to pour a little bit out of the zippy bag to smell it – that darn Foxtrot made everything smell minty! :P It smells like vanilla and sugar and frosting, which bodes well. I actually brewed this one twice.

The first time, I did a heaping teaspoon for 3 minutes, which turned out to be too long. It basically came out bitter and I didn’t taste much of anything else. Drank it with lots of sugar and milk.

The second time, I did 2 minutes instead of 3 and it was much better. The brewed tea smells like a medium-bodied black tea with strong vanilla and frosting notes. I must admit, I’m a little bit disappointed that the flavors in this one don’t taste quite as strong as they smell. The tea is slightly bitter even with the short brew time, but it’s not a super unpleasant bitterness. I do taste vanilla and frosting, and I added some sugar to help coax them out some more. Overall, this tea is tasty but I would like it better with stronger flavors. Thanks for the sample, Arshness. :)

Loose, this tea looks like a rooibos with a little bit of black tea in it. There is a surprising amount of dried blueberries, which is nice. There are also flower petals, as usual (Della Terra really loves them I guess). The dry tea smells like blueberry yogurt to me, in the best way. Maybe with a hint of vanilla. I actually made this one twice.

The first time, I steeped it for 5 minutes. I thought the rooibos got a bit too strong in this one, but the blueberry flavor was very deep and yummy – sort of a jammy blueberry flavor.

The second time, I steeped it for 3 minutes. This time there is a much better balance of rooibos versus flavors. It tastes like lovely sweet blueberries with a little bit of sweet cream and vanilla poured over the top. The rooibos flavor is there, but it’s more of a background note. I added about a teaspoon of sugar and it really helps the blueberry flavor shine. I’m sure this would be tasty with milk also. Rooibos haters won’t love this one but I think they would find it tasty enough. I would like a little bit stronger of a flavor, but I still find it quite good. :)

I don’t know much about oolongs, but this one is definitely oxidized – the leaves are extremely dark brown, almost black. They’re large leaves that are rolled into loose pellets and a few of them are unrolled. There are yellow flower petals (I assume for aesthetics) and little baby cubes of some form of caramel solid. This tea smells fantastic! It reminds me of butter rum lifesavers mixed with Werther’s hard candies. Yum yum yum! I want this as a perfume – I would have to beat them away with a stick! The leaves are fairly bulky so I used a very heaping teaspoon for my 8 ounces of water.

The brewed tea smells so buttery, it just melts you from the inside. The sweet, caramely scent is there too, playing second fiddle. This tea tastes fantastic too! The butter hits first, then the sweet caramel and cream flavors. I don’t know anything about oolong, but I feel like this one must be toasted because there’s this amazing rich, roasty toasty nut flavor in the background. It totally makes this tea! It’s like a sweet, flaky, buttery roasted almond tart with caramel and honey drizzled all over the top. Everyone must try this now! Go go! Oh, and I added a little bit of sugar to this one.

The dry leaf of this tea has a lot of interest. The green leaves are long and slightly fluffy, and they appear to have been rolled into little cigarette shapes. I don’t see much white tea in here – there appear to be a few scattered silver needles and some of the smaller leaf pieces could be bai mudan, but I’m not sure. There are pink rose petals and little squares of what looks like almond. There’s a decent amount of dehydrated raspberry that is broken into small pieces, which is a good idea in my opinion. The mini white chocolate chips are few and far between, much to my dismay. It smells strongly of tart raspberry (the exact scent reminds me of some raspberry candy… Jolly Rancher maybe?) with some musty green and hay in the background. I used a heaping teaspoon and brewed for 3 minutes at 175.

The brew smells vegetal with the same tart raspberry scent and little bit of hay. The taste is similar to the smell. I like this raspberry flavor even though it’s not entirely a genuine flavor. It’s tart and pleasing and it doesn’t entirely overpower the vegetal taste of the tea. However, I get zero white chocolate taste out of this, even though I made sure that there were a couple chips included in my teaspoon of tea. This makes me very sad because I was really looking forward to the raspberry and white chocolate combination… This is a fairly tasty raspberry green tea, but even with sugar I don’t taste any chocolate. Shame.

Number two from my Della Terra order! If nothing else, this tea is adorable – I love the sprinkles. Mine has these weird little pastel-colored squishy spheres in it. They’re about peppercorn size and they feel spongy when I squeeze one. I’m not sure what they are, Della Terra’s website says that the add-ins can change due to availability. I didn’t go as far as to eat one… There are also little baby sugar crystals dyed in pastel colors. Cute! The dry tea smells very strongly of rooibos with some kind of weird sour note and maybe a tiny bit of sugar. Very strange. I brewed two teaspoons for 5 minutes because in my last experience, the tea wasn’t strong enough with the recommended amount.

The brewed tea smells like rooibos and… cherry lozenges? This was not a flavor I expected to find. There’s also a quiet note of spun sugar in the background somewhere. When I first tasted the tea, it kind of just tasted like rooibos. So then I added a teaspoon of sugar and I think that really helped the flavoring, because it got extremely sweet (sweeter than I would expect from the amount of sugar). I definitely taste the rooibos, but thank goodness there is no cherry lozenge here. I do get spun sugar from this, but there’s also some kind of vanilla-esque flavor. Then there’s something that reminds me of a mildly fruit flavored hard candy. This is extremely sweet, and anyone who doesn’t enjoy rooibos is certainly not going to like it. I happen to like rooibos, so I am finding it very tasty. I’ll definitely play with steep times just to see how it affects the level of rooibos versus flavor.

I sent out my first swaps ever today, hooray! Thanks to Arshness and Ost for their friendliness. :D Ladies, I sent your tracking numbers via private messages.

This is my first tea to try from my Della Terra order that arrived today. It was full of shameless dessert teas like this one and cotton candy… Sue me! The dry leaf of this tea smells amazing – mostly butter with brown sugar undertones. It’s black tea mixed with a decent amount of candied pineapple pieces, various flower petals, and the occasional dried cherry. I have to assume the cherries are only there for style, since there were only like five total in my 1 ounce package. This makes sense, considering the maraschino cherries on top of the pineapple upside down cake are only there for show, too.

The first time, I brewed the recommended teaspoon (mine was a bit heaping) for 3 minutes. It came out far too weak for my tastes. So then I did about a teaspoon and a half for 4 minutes and it definitely improved. The brewed tea smells strongly of butter and brown sugar with kind of a toasted nut smell. It reminds me of a really buttery pound cake with some kind of glaze, which is pretty much what pineapple upside down cake is. I don’t get any pineapple in the smell.

The tea itself is quite tasty. I can taste the base just barely, so it must be a fairly mild variety since I steeped for 4 minutes and with extra tea. The flavor is very buttery and sugary with hints of dark caramelized sugar and cream. I think it equates very well to the actual cake used in the dessert, but I am getting zero pineapple here. Not even a hint of pineapple. And to be honest, that’s okay with me because this does cake very well. This is almost a dead ringer for that terrible-for-you sliced butter cake that you can buy at grocery stores (it’s like a more ridiculous pound cake basically).

I feel like this tea is a little weak, maybe I’ll try 2 full teaspoons next time I make it. Very tasty though!

Trying this one again after the French press pre-steep debacle… Steeped for 3 minutes at 205 degrees.

Wow, I am definitely getting a lot more lemon and lime than I did before. Still getting bergamot too and a tad bit of orange and a hint of floral. The lemon/lime (they kind of meld together) is definitely the main event though, and it kind of transforms into bergamot in the middle of the sip. Yum yum. :D