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Another tea from Lena! This one has the original packaging so I know I’m steeping it right lol. And I’m glad it does. But it’s here as a back up anyway:) While I know sencha is a green tea, the steeping instructions surprise me. This is my 1st experience w/ flash steeping and it calls for slightly hotter water than I normally use. I went w/ as directed for the time and temp, but decided to go w/ the industry standard of 2.25g of tea per 6oz (I’m always glad when a package calls a cup of tea 6oz) which is actually a little less than a teaspoon. I’m surprised at the density of this tea. One teaspoon is 2.5g.

When it’s done steeping, it doesn’t look like water like I feared. The aroma is definitely apple w/ a light green tea background. But it doesn’t smell like a fresh apple- more like a jolly rancher candy. That’s ok by me, jolly ranchers are sour apple.:) And YAY it tastes just how it smells. It tastes like green tea steeped in watered down apple juice w/ a jolly rancher dissolved in it. If you don’t mind the small amount of caffeine, this would be a WONDERFUL sugar free calorie free substitute for apple juice. For more apple flavor, steep in one apple’s worth of fresh apple juice. I don’t think this would hold up to blending w/ a caramel tea like I originally suspected, unless it was a green base, but I’m really looking forward to blending this w/ adagio’s bengal green chai. My only problem is figuring out how much to increase steeping time for additional infusions… I normally steep greens for 3 min and increase infusions by 1 min so should I keep the 1/3 ratio and increase it by 10 seconds?

2nd infusion. Pretty much like the 1st. Very light green tea taste, then sweetness, then a bit of mint.

I blended 2.25g w/ 1.12g of dried organic home grown orange mint. Because of the mint I decided to only steep this for 2 min instead of my normal 3. I like my tea stronger so although this is a blend I’m thinking of steeping them separately so I can steep the orange mint for only 2 min then use that herbal tisane to steep the gensing green for 3. The gensing green is definitely lighter (it only steeps for 3 normally so what can you expect for 1/3 less time?), but so is the peppermint. I don’t taste the orange, but I do taste a sweetness (not sweetener sweetness) that hits me before the bite of the mint does which is nice. I find coming back to mint blends ironic because that’s the way I started w/ loose leaf… putting mint in EVERYTHING. Mint (unless it’s chocolate mint) isn’t my favorite anymore. Yay for maturing tastebuds!

Infusion 3 for mom again. She came home from her colonoscopy very cold.

Infusions 1 and 2. 16oz of water, 6g of tea leaf, and 3g of dried ginger root. Backlooging infusion 1 from last nite- made it for my mom who was very sick to her stomach due to having to take a whole bottle of miralax for her colonoscopy prep and I had the 2nd infusion (steeped for 4 min) this morning.

infusion 5, 9 min. Liquor and aroma not much, if at all, lighter than infusion 4. Now THIS is the white tea I wanted! No strawberry or cakey flavor, but it is still sweet. A good white tea flavor. I’ll keep resteeping it. I actually like that by infusion 5 the strawberry is gone because it tastes like a completely different tea w/o steeping something different.

infusion 4, 8 min. Liquor and aroma are lighter. Can’t speak for the flavor again though- this one was mom’s.

3rd infusion… The liquor is just more like the 1st steep. The aroma is slightly lighter, still sweet but no cakey aroma. Really no cake flavor either although the strawberry flavor is still very much there. Because of that I’ll steep at least one more time.

2nd steep. Aroma is strong like the 1st and the liquor is only slightly lighter. Can’t speak for the flavor though, making this infusion for my mom who’s just starting her prep for her colonoscopy tomorrow. I’m still convinced there are some black leaves in here. There are a lot of dark leaves that are unfortunately also finely minced.

I got this in a tea swap (thanks Lena!:D) and it was labeled w/ just the name and company name. I was not around a computer when I prepared this to look at the “as directed” preparation so I guessed. Inspite of what the dry leaf looked like (green or white) I just assumed it was a black tea because most dessert teas are black. If I would have known this was a white tea, I would have not only prepared it properly, I would have been MUCH more thrilled about it because I prefer white and green teas and I’m always looking for more dessert teas.

The fact that this is a white tea is why I thought the liquor was pretty light for a black tea… medium brown. The scent was definitely that of strawberries… strawberry jam to be exact. When I taste it I can definitely taste the strawberry jam flavor, but (thankfully) I can also taste the pound cake that short cake is made from. But most importantly, inspite of me screwing this one up, I can still taste the tea. YAY! A sign of a good tea is you can screw it up buy not steeping it the way you intended to and it still tastes good. This would be good to use in a simple syrup to sweeten strawberries instead of plain water.