123 Tasting Notes
Ok, so I admit.. when I opened the package and smelled the tea, I was seduced.
But it meant nothing to me, I swear.
The warm brew with sugar wasn’t sweet, it was just weird.
Like two flavours competing and no one winning.
When things finally cooled down, it got better. As things usually do.
Give this one to someone you don’t like. They’ll think it’s sweet, at first, and then maybe they will go away.
Today’s random steeping isn’t so random. In fact, for once, I know exactly what I am drinking.
I actually went out to buy chinese bud tea. Looking at the $15 price made me think twice though. Instead, I picked up 1 KG of raw Ontario Grade 1 honey.
I figured that this would go a lot further than 40g of buds.
For the third steeping of David’s Long Jing, I cranked up the heat to full, and dumped the hot water in 4g of tea.
The brew came out yellow, and I mixed in a tablespoon of honey. If you put in too much honey, it will sour your tea. So what I do is add a couple teaspoons of sugar. You get sweetness plus the florals of honey. Unfortunately this particular honey didn’t overwhelm me with floweriness. Tasting the honey, I get a caramel like flavour with delicious sweetness, it moves to hurting the throat. On the other hand, it does provide quite a bit of taste in the cup.
Forget about whether it smells like peach for a sec. Because regardless of what the name is, this smells good! In fact, I recommend holding this cup next to your coworkers just to get them to say: “Hey, that smells yummy”.
Warm, it reminds me of warm peaches.
Cold, it’s good too.
You might want to be careful with the sweetner though. Maybe add a bit of water, if you put in too much. I was getting a really sweet vanilla on the tongue.
So far I’m.really impressed with their tea. I would make iced tea from this!
Drunk warm, this is full of black cherry. Berry goodness bursting out. Iced, it is refreshingly mild. So depending on which taste you are looking for, choose your temperature!
Brewed up double strength, then iced.
I like a slice of apple berry pie, but I never get one. So I might
Pull this one out when there is apple pie.
This is no where near as overpowering as Cherry Koolaid. I have a bunch of KA single serves and really you can add them to anything. I did Cherry Matcha for example. The colour is really red and there is that black cherry finish to it (warm).
I picked this one up in a multipack. The care they took with the packaging was just amazing, and would definitely encourage me to buy from them again. A box, and five
Seperately sealed packages of flavoured tea!
Flavors: Cherry, Hibiscus
Sometimes the low price of something is an attraction in itself. So when I saw these boxes of green tea flying off the shelves of Walmart, I had to try. I tossed my buck into the automatic checkout and off I went.
Each of the tea bags is individually wrapped in paper. The box itself had a holographic strip for authenticity.
I tossed in two bags and 400 mL and it made a mild yellow brew with some tea flavour.
I should also note that this is “Fujian Green Tea” and imported to Canada by a company.
The classics are classics for a reason. Ceylon tea is about comfort. I had memories of drinking this tea from several years ago. Back then, it literally dotted my tastebuds like a fine talcum powder.
The tea leaf itself is thin and wiry, yet fairly small.
I used the whole 6g sample to brew and made sure everything was steaming hot to extract as much tannin as possible. I did two steepings of 3 minutes each.
The result was a nice balanced tea that wasn’t bitter. Adjust the strength with a little water, if you need to.
Without milk, with sugar this tea has that little bit of tartness that you need from a black tea.
With milk, on the second steeping it moved closer to Assam.
I get some of that classic ceylon taste for sure.
This tea or Ceylon Supreme should be fine for a daily.
There are a lot of different Ceylon teas out there. For something different, go to a third party that sells a large number of Ceylons. But this should do for your daily cuppa. :)
If you take a look at this pic, you can see the brown twig like pieces that are from the tea leaf. In an ultra high grade OP tea these would be as long as possible and without any leaf attached. They would yield a most mild cup of Ceylon. It’s as much about factory prowess as growing conditions.
Preparation
Ceylon Teas are the best.
This particular Ceylon is a high mountain one, which is synonmous with quality.
I get a pleasing nose from the tea; its warmth reminds me that Ceylon tea is like comfort food.
With sugar, it is so easily drinkeable. I can feel the umami dancing on the front of my tongue.When mixed with water, this tea is as smooth as a darjeeling that is in my cupboard.
It reminds of a wine of high quality, that is too easy to drink.
At the same time, it’s a good value at $16 / 100g Cdn.
The only thing that I will mention is that you will need a fine sieve for this one. Even from the picture you csn tell that this is not a wiry tea. It looks almost like a gunpowder that was broken up. There was a considerable amount of tea dust at the botton of the cup which required filtering.
Also, the brewed leaf had pieces that were larger included.
It was a dark and rainy day.
My cat had positioned himself next to the window,
because he wanted to be as close to the outside
as possible without getting wet.
I took a sip from cup.
A strange grin appeared on my lips
and an insane look of joy
showed in my eyes as I shouted: It’s ALIVE!
I have finally brought my evil creation to life!
There was a smokey smell emanating from my cup,
It reminded me of the day the Quebec forrest burned.
But there was something else in my cup,
A certain darkness that came from the strength
Of ceylon combined with
The fruitiness of assam.
Alone, this wouldn’t have been tasty,
What brought it to life was this:
LOTS OF MILK AND SUGAR!
I know what you are thinking. Who wouldn’t want to cover up the disguting rotted fish odour of puehr tuo cha with chocolate? After all, there us nothing unusual about that.
Well, this one turned out suprisingly delish.
I rinsed the tuo cha for about 3o seconds and threw it in.
Next I broke off 1/4 of a chocholate bar with rice crisps. Tossed it in a bag and smashed
It with a bottle of olive oil.
3 minutes later I had something dark and delicious.
Puehr is filled with funky notes that go well with milk chocolate.
The search continues for an inexpensive, yet tasty green tea to fill my cup.
This time I picked up an unnamed Chinese Wulu for $10 / 100g.
While that is more expensive than the last tin at $6 / 110g,
I think that the tea is tastier.
I used 4 grams and 400 mL of water and got two good steeps out of it.
This might actually be my new everyday green.
I might even be able to eat the leaves from this.
That’s the one thing I love about Long Jing.
Those wok fired leaves are so easy to eat.
