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I drank it with some milk this morning and surprisingly found that I liked it much better. The mango is still pretty subtle but it lends a bit of a fruity sweetness to the tea that’s quite nice. Actually I shouldn’t be that surprised – Murchie’s specializes in English-style teas which are generally best with milk and/or sugar.

Uping the rating a couple points.

I got this tea from Ricky, but I think I should have asked him about steeping parameters since I sort of had to guesstimate based on what the Lupicia site recommended. It ended up being one scoop/teaspoon in an average-sized coffee mug for 2 min in 90ºC water. If anyone had sucess with anything different I’d love to hear about it.

Dry it looks much like any other rolled oolong and it doesn’t really smell any different from one either. For some reason I was expecting this really sweet, perfumy tea, but it’s probably just as well that it isn’t. What the scent does remind me of is a Ti Kuan Yin, but with a bit more robust bakeiness.

The taste starts out with a strong bakey flavour aswell, but it changes abruptly into a clear, slightly sweet, uplifting taste which I think might be the osmanthus flavour.

The 2nd steeping (@ 3 mins) is considerably less bakey and much lighter and smoother. This steeping is sweeter too, with the same little clear, uplifting hint of ‘something’ else at the end.

I’ve been thinking that this might be a nice tea to try iced. Has anyone tried icing oolongs? Usually it’s just black, green or fruit teas I’ve heard people mention.

This is another one of the teas I got from TeaEqualsBliss in a trade.

I don’t know much about Nilgiri tea apart from the fact that it supposedly has a bit of a citrusiness and that 52Teas uses it as the base for their black tea blends. The dry leaves are so small that at first I thought they were CTC, but on closer inspection they’re just small leaf pieces. It doesn’t seem to have much of a scent, either dry or while steeping. I stood there for like a minute sniffing the tea and probably looking quite silly, but all I could pick up was a bit of a faint, sweet and slightly woodsey scent.

The brewed tea looks very red in my white ceramic mug; it’s a lovely deep shade that reminds me of red wine. The taste is fairly light for a black tea, with the start of each sip reminding me a bit of Darjeeling tea -but not as astringent. Then it turns slightly toasty before ending with an almost fruity note.

This morning I added the water to the teabag and stared at the cup in a zombie-like state without realizing I’d forgotten to set the timer. I guess that’s a sign that I really need the caffeine! *head-desk *

Now that I think abpout it, this tea tea tastes quite a lot like Adagio’s Green Needle tea – only with a bit more ‘greeness’ add to it. And yeah, soooo not keeping to the tin’s steeping instructions.

I rinsed the tea for a bit longer than last time – about 30 seconds. It seemed to have removed most of the decaying-fish scent and it made the resulting tea a little less overpoweringly earthy. Don’t get me wrong, it still tastes like this tea is stiff enough to stand a spoon up in it.

I think I’m starting to enjoy this pu-erh, although I feel like it needs something sweet to go with it to cut some of the flavour.

This is another purchase from the Urban Tea Merchant tea salon in Vancouver. This tea comes in both green and black variations, but I chose the black one because I thought it had the more robust scent.

The smell…the smell is incredible. It’s like vanilla ice cream – but the high quality stuff that has bits of vanilla beans in it. Then there’s a mix of berry – I think I can smell blueberry, strawberry, maybe currant, and all sort of fruits or berries I can’t even begin to identify. It’s a bit like Mariage Freres’ Marco Polo only bolder and more fruity/berry.

The taste is surprisingly different however, as the first thing I get isn’t vanilla or strawberry but a sort of fresh, not-too-sweet fruit flavour, that seems vaguely familiar, only I can’t quite place it. Guava maybe???? There’s also a faint hint of something floral with it, but it’s not a perfumy sort of floral. There are other, sweeter fruit/berries flavours that follow, but they’re quite subdued in the wake of the intital burst of flavour notes.

I ordered this partially so that I could compare it to the genmaicha I got from Murchie’s. This tea smell very distinctly of popcorn – just popcorn, not burnt-smelling this time. The taste is surprisingly smooth and mild, and I’m barely getting any grassiness at all from the green tea base. But there’s a sweetness to the flavour that was lacking in the Murchie’s tea.

It lacks the body and the intense savory quality of other genmaichas, but I’ll have a better idea of that after I give it a longer steeping time.

I think I’m going to be sad when this tea runs out. Go read my past tasting notes if you’re curious. :)