Jillian Send Message

My parents gave me a whole box of these when I was over at their house for Easter dinner this year – apparently none of them care for it. Oh well, more for me. ;)

There weren’t any steeping recs on the box unfortunatly, so I sort of guessed at it. It’s a black/green blend so I didn’t steep it in boiling water. Still, the black tea in the flavour seems to be wanting milk, although I’m afraid that it’ll do horrible things to the green tea in the blend. The jasmine is a nice counterpoint, although I’m not really getting any of the lemon that is supposed to be here too. I’m finding that this tea is a bit astringent for my liking, but I might just need to fiddle with the steeping time a bit.

It a bit surprising how resilient this tea is to high water temperatures, especially given how green this particular oolong is. I steep this tea three times (2nd @ 3:00, 3rd @ 3:45) before I got bored with it – three seems to be my limit for most oolong teas, although that Jade Teapot Tie Kwan Yin sample managed to keep my interest for longer.

I actually drank this this morning but this is the first chance I’ve had to log it. It was pretty early so I wasn’t exactly paying much attention to the nuances of the tea but it had enough of a caffeine kick to wake me up.

Oh bleh, I think the milk’s gone sour! DX

…Is it bad that I’m still tempted to drink it because I love this tea so much and even bad milk can’t spoil the taste completely? ;)

It’s another tea from Den’s Green Tea Sampler and it’s probably my favorite that I’ve tried thus far. The scent when I opened the little packet was exactly like a freshly-peeled Navel orange and I could see some fairly large and numerous bits of dried orange peel mixed in with the sencha leaves. The sencha itself looked fairly broken-up although that might just be because it’s a sample and more crushable.

I didn’t think that 30 seconds would bring out much orange flavour, but it was surprising how much actually came out in the flavour of the tea. The orange has a bit of bitter tang, but at the same time the tea as a whole has a smooth, almost creamy-feeling taste which I found truly delicious.

The re-steep (@15 seconds) was still quite flavourful, though it tasted a bit thinner and more grassy/vegetale, like I’d expect from a sencha tea.

This tea smells delicious and fruity but it smells quite natural and not overly perfumed. The taste is quite light and smooth for a black tea, so I don’t think adding milk or sugar would really be needed. When I think about I can taste all of the four berry flavour except for the cherry. The currant, strawberry, and raspberry are pretty easy to distinguish. It’s a great flavoured black tea, thanks go to Ricky for giving me a sample to try.

I like the smell of this tea, it’s fresh and fruity, but I can also smell of a bit of the sourness I usually associate with yogurt. The tea doesn’t taste hugely melon but the flavouring has enough kick to let you know that it’s there, and it leave a bit of an aftertaste in the mouth. It’s not that sickly-sweet faux-melon flavour I’ve come across sometimes, thank God – I hate that stuff. There’s a note of fresh ‘greeness’ to the tea that compliments the melon well. The yogurt is quite subdued but it gives a creamy texture and taste to each sip.

This tea would be very nice iced, IMO. Maybe I’ll try it that way when the weather gets hotter (which it’s due to soon)

It tastes excellent with a splash of skim milk. It really brings out the flavour of the green cardamom in the chai and makes the pepper less ’bitey". ;D

The second steeping (4:00) has most of the notes and characteristics of the first steep, only fuller and more developed. The third steep (4:30) has a smooth, slightly buttery quality to it, and the floral notes are toned down several notches with a bit of a vegetale note starting to creep in.

The fourth steep (@5:15) is starting to taste a bit thin. The floral notes are mostly gone and oddly enough there isn’t really anything that seems to have taken their place. Some oolongs get that strongly vegetale taste after the first few steeps, but this doesn’t seem to have much of one (yet).

I usually get bored of a tea after the first two steeps or so but this one just encourages me to keep on going – so it must be doing something right! But I think it’s time to put this tea (and myself) to bed. :D