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Equusfell drank Shandon Rose by Verdant Tea (Special)

122 tasting notes

Random chance sample from Dinosara. I’m a fan of mint, so I thought I would give it a shot.
The dry leaves are very fluffy, so I chose two (actual) teaspoons for my 8 oz up at home. The smell of the brewed tea contains definite mint an rose notes, but also something…. like a light meat flavor? The leaves smell very faintly like tuna! Not fishy tuna, either, more oily, meaty tuna! So bizarre… Luckily that flavor doesn’t translate into the brew. There is a faint minty tingle at the end of the sip, but I think it just contributes to the slight sweetness of the sarsaparilla and rose flavors. The rose really saves this tea, it makes it a nice, complicated cup; otherwise I think it would be too muddy.
I think the cardamom is giving me that meaty undertone. In overall profile, this tea is more sweet than savory, though. It almost reminds me of a good, floral soda (that I think has a touch of sarsaparilla flavor in it) from Kentucky called Ale81. Definitely intriguing.
I added a touch of sugar to see what it would do, and WOW did it bump up the sarsaparilla/floral soda analogy! Thankfully, the sugar forced the meatiness out of the flavor profile, as well. Now I’m really enjoying this cup with some sugar!
Unfortunately, if I gulp it too quickly all I get is the muddiness of the mint… This is definitely a sipping tea.

Flavors: Meat, Mint, Rose, Sarsaparilla, Sweet

Preparation

175 °F / 79 °C 1 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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Dinosara
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LOL meat as a flavor is just hilarious to me.

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Dinosara
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LOL meat as a flavor is just hilarious to me.

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Bio

I started drinking something other than Sleepytime in my first year of grad school, 2011. Enabled by a few decent local tea shops in a big city, I amassed a small cupboard of teas that I now find harsh and bad (haha, I’m getting in too deep!). With my move back to the US and subsequent geographic isolation from tea shops, I recently discovered the world of online tea vendors.
My cupboard is slowly growing but still small. Regardless I am interested in swaps, if you find something in my collection that you would like to try, ask away! I just can’t guarantee yet that I have a lot of it!
I’m very into Jade oolongs and anything that has a floral character (especially jasmine, rose, violet, and lychee scented things!). Most green teas, excepting the extremely bitter, are good in my book, and again I seek sweeter, fresher, greener types, though nutty/savory teas have their place (as long as they don’t tip over into salty!). I then to shy away from smokey or overly roasted teas and for this reason and the fact that I am not a fan of chocolate, everyone’s favorite blacks and wuyi oolongs tend to fall flat for me. White teas are alright but I don’t tend to reach for them unless they are floral scented. I rarely drink herbals, chamomile and I do not get along, but a basic vanilla rooibos, or some flavored green rooibos’ can be interesting.
In general, it could be said that I tend toward floral and sweet oolong, sheng (as well as moonlight whites and yabaos), matcha, and green teas.

As of now my rating system follows the school grading scale in terms of how well the tea performs and how well I like it (100-90 A, 89-80 B, etc.). Anything above 90 will eventually end up in my cupboard, though it’s fine to keep a B student around for daily drinkers!

Location

Athens, Ohio

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