1301 Tasting Notes
Many thanks to oOTeaOo for this. The leaves are so pretty! Even dry, this has a natural fruity scent. There’s a floral aspect, too, which I like. Brewed, this smells like a nice juicy peach. The flavor is all peach, with a touch of vanilla and tartness. Very summery. Perfect for an afternoon break.
Gahhh too much smoke. The smell is so smoky that it makes it hard to taste anything else. It’s not ashy or astringent. There is a touch of sweetness if you can get past the super smoky scent. But bah, it turns out that I really don’t like smoky tea.
No rating because I think that this would be enjoyable for people who do like smoke. Thanks to Laurent at Nina’s Tea for the sample.
Mmmm. I picked this up in Taiwan and have mostly been hoarding it since my return. The leaves aren’t totally whole, but they are very coarsely cut. The dry bags are only half full in order to allow for room for the leaves to expand. And seriously, it’s kind of fun to watch the tea bag fill up as the leaves absorb water. For those of you who care, the bags are pouches rather than triangle bags, and I can’t tell what kind of material they’re made of – it’s not as obviously plastic as the triangle bags and looks fibrous, but is also pretty strong.
The brewed tea smells distinctly but not overwhelmingly of jasmine. The color is a lovely gold. But you probably want to hear about the taste, so here goes. The jasmine is definitely prominent here. Personally, I like it. The underlying tea is rather grassy, which complements and supports the jasmine beautifully. There’s a lovely, dry aftertaste that I encountered in most Taiwanese tea that I still haven’t been able to find the right words for. It’s sort of… metallic-smoky, in a good way. I realize that’s a totally useless description that makes no sense, but it’s the best I can come up with. If anyone has experience with this tea and can articulate a better description, please chime in!
Overall, this is a great go-to tea that’s easy to brew in a hurry, and will always be a personal favorite because it carries good memories of my trip.
Mmmm creamy. At first, the flavor of this is overwhelmingly creamy with just a touch of coconut. The coconut comes out more in the aftertaste. As I keep drinking it, though, the coconut really comes out to play and it’s about an even flavor balance between creamy and coconutty. Kind of like coconut water with a thicker mouthfeel. Alas, I don’t actually like coconut, so this goes in the nice-to-have-tried-it-but-don’t-want-more category. Many thanks to whatshesaid for the sample!
The dry leaves are also super pretty!
I think I made this wrong. I brewed it for 3 1/2 minutes, which is apparently too long. Nonetheless, I shall make a tasting note. No rating for now though.
The first brew came out rather bland. Neither the jasmine nor the mint really stood out. It was just overall underwhelming.
But I decided to do a second brew. Much better. The jasmine and mint both came out in this brew. At first I thought there wasn’t enough mint, but after a while I came to appreciate the fine balance between jasmine and mint. I agree with Alphakitty that you get one flavor at a time in any given sip. It’s quite pleasant. I’m looking forward to make a proper brew next time. Hopefully it will be even better than this one!
Work on a Saturday, you say? Oh gee look at that I haven’t made a tasting note in absolutely forever I better catch up on my Steepster activity! Procrastination FTW.
This one’s a little bit of a backlog. I made some and took it to work on Thursday. You know those days that are just bad? When everything that could wrong does? When it rains and you end up late on the one day you really truly can’t be late and it shakes your confidence and you end up making a fool of yourself? When all you want to do is close the door to your office and curl up and hide from the world? Yeah, it was one of those days.
And you know what? This tea actively made it better. There’s something about having your favorite mint tea on hand that just makes the world more tolerable. As always, the perfect blend of mint and citrus to bring a little sunshine into my day. A lovely bit of comfort right when I needed it.
Ah, another winner from Stacy. I really enjoyed this earlier today. Nice, robust roasted flavor. The base tea seems to be quite good, so the roasted notes really highlight it rather than the whole thing just tasting like rice (I’m looking at you, Say Tea). I’m still not back in the swing of writing long tasting notes, but I wanted to at least log this.
Quality vanilla flavor? Check. Della Terra’s awesome cream flavoring? Check. This rooibos tea is great. It’s milder than DT’s other creamy rooibos (rooibi? roiboses?) in that it doesn’t have the tartness that many of those other flavors do. Rather, it’s a nice, smooth, soothing vanilla. For some reason the flavor is evocative of lady fingers – there’s just something cakey going on here. I love it.
Perfect for a dessert tea and lovely for a bedtime tea, though probably best suited for colder evenings when you want something rich and creamy. Many thanks to whatshesaid for the sample.
