423 Tasting Notes
Backlogging a morning cup with milk and sugar from Thursday morning. I’ve still not had enough time with this tea to properly rate it. It’s strong, malty, smooth and takes milk and sugar very well. I’ve yet to drink it plain – once I will, I’ll probably rate it. I have a friend at work that loves Assam, and he adores this tea. I’ll try to dedicate more time to it this week, to see if it’s worth restocking or not.
Backlogging a 7 (!) brew evening with this tea, after a horrid, tough day at work. Its toasty goodness and low caffeine content made me reach out for it. This is turning out to be my “comfort cup” tea – not finicky, always sweet, positive, comforting, warm. I’ll most certainly stock up on some more on my next Norbu buy.
One cup last night, one cup this morning, after my morning run – a tea for (almost) every occasion. Why the almost? It’s rather on the lighter side of tea, so if you’re looking for a caffeine kick, I wouldn’t recommend this.
Broke down and joined the combined tea of the month club and reserved tea of the month club at Verdant Tea. My house will be flooded, which means that I need to start looking for a proper way to organize, store and catalog the teas that I have. Good problems to have… :)
I’ve had a very hectic week, so I’ll be doing some heavy backlogging today :)
Finally took the time to properly brew and taste this tea. Fantastic – sweet, with a slightly smokey taste, and a roasted hazelnut vibe to it. A very good tea that is going straight to my to buy list.
This tea is a traditionally roasted tiguanyin, even though it’s from Taiwan. The dry leaves are dark, tightly balled and have a musky, milky smell. The tea brews a pale gold, silky and oily, with a great depth and complexity of flavour. I will need some more time with this tea before I can nail down all of its flavours, but I can say at this point that there’s no vegetal taste to this tea, and that it starts out with a note of perfume (not an unpleasant one) and floral, with a nectary sweetness, and a lingering sweet aftertaste. There is no astringency to this tea, and I don’t think that it will take milk well, although its likely that adding sugar will take the edge off the perfume of this tea. The second brew is better than the first, but you should take care not to overbrew this tea – it grows bitter quite quickly.
This tea is currently on sale, and is reasonably priced. It’s a very unique tiguanyin, that I think is worth tasting.
