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Tonight I finished packing over 1.2kg of tea to send out to people to discover new teas :)
What a process that was… however, Netflix helps a lot

Anyways, I was packing this tea up and realized I never actually drank it so I decided that I needed to. WOW talk about an instant flashback… drinking this reminded me of the tea that Japanese tea houses in Tokyo provide when you sit down inside. Normally the liquid is very green and has some bitterness to it because they don’t offer their highest tea or gyokuro but free tea is free tea :)
What I really enjoyed most about this is how pure it is. This is nothing but Japanese bancha and that is something to embrace. It isn’t the best and it isn’t bad, it is simply good. Everyday teas are quite a beautiful thing!

If you have this tea I ask you to please make it to steep 6… it’s almost like some butterscotch candy was extracted and injected into the tea before it was plucked only to be detected when a tea has really been under stress of hot water multiple times.

Casually sipping on this and then came back to it for a sixth steeping which is rather long for an oolong and I, and B O O M out f no where it just impressed me with the complete new flavor that decided to come out of nowhere. It’s kind of rude for someone to hide when you play with their friend five different times, but whatever… I will forgive the green means to happiness in this case. This was much better than censored which is good to experience because I had thought that these type of oolong (oxidization and area) might not be something I enjoyed; fun to be proven wrong :)

Drank this one tonight with a cold salad. This is one of the few teas that I have ever had where smelling it actually ruins the taste. The flavor of this is quite nice, but the smell is rough… I think the roasted nature to it makes it odd to drink if you smell it, but the fruity and citrus notes are very enjoyable. Overall it was a fantastic paring for a cold salad on a hot day :)

This is the last tea of the night for me… I have had over 60 steeps in total today which was quite enjoyable to catch up on my tastings :)
https://instagram.com/p/7WeTHtRYH5/

This is what I have to say: This is by far the best mixture of wood and floral I have ever came across in a tea to date. The dryness is actually enjoyable as part of the mouth feel as it fits the taste profile. I wasn’t expecting this taste from the aroma of the dry leaf, but that changes dramatically after you steep it. Overall, this is a beautiful oolong and I’m actually surprised that I ended up with a woodsy one for the last of the night as it seems fitting with its warmth that it provides.

I wish I knew who gifted me this…
This was the tea that I cold brewed for the iced tea event that I attended last month. Not only is this tea balanced wonderfully, its cold steeped liquid is the second best cold tea I have ever had. The tea on its own is naturally sweet with a scent that is light enough to not be annoying, but fruity enough that the smell comes before the taste. This is the kind of tea that I will showcase during summer because its semi-juicy and sweet taste is perfect for when its hot outside.

Held off on this review until I drank it all :)
With that being said, it is the tea on the right: https://instagram.com/p/4fn1JRxYIY/

What I really enjoyed about this tea, which made me drink it in the mornings, was the thickness that came about from brewing it. Very buttery with what I would call a mixture of stone and flower in there. It’s not often that I come across a stone like oolong, let alone one with floral notes that has a buttery texture. All of that combined together provide a tea that was more of an experience than a quick morning drink. What was odd about this tea is that it literally had no smell before it was brewed, not sure what that was about… but I don’t care, it did its job :)

This is one potent tea… my gooooooodness, just ask someone to smell theirs if they have some. After experimenting with this tea I found that cold brew + minor amounts of sugar make a nice cup; however, a hot to warm cup of this is very rough to get through as it is just too much strength of multiple things going on within your mouth when you take a sip. I recommend cold steeping this one for sure.

Unfortunately, I have steeped the last of this leaf that I got from the Kickstarter. This was a beautiful green tea that was easily brewed. Everything about the cups that this produced was light: aroma, taste, and color. I wouldn’t label it as a fragile type of leaf, but there is an element of elegance to it. The only disadvantage of this tea is that anyone else who got this with the Kickstarter will have also got the Farmer Chang’s Green Oolong which blows this one away… it might be an oolong and this is a green tea, but to compare the color, aroma, and taste between the two the victor emerges immediately.

My mom has asked me multiple times to make a cherry tea, but I loathe the idea of having to taste a cherry tea more than once to figure out its strengths and weaknesses. So my way out of it was to buy some :P
Not only is this tea balanced well, but anyone who understands how to measure and time tea well will be able to control the strength of the liquid that is produced from this tea. I have already brewed this a few times and the aroma from it is very sweet, floral, and even alluring. The taste is just as you would expect from it, so for those who are looking for the tasting notes of this tea and know how to brew their cups to their liking, I don’t see any issue with this blend.

(I wish I knew how much sugar was in each steep though)

Amazon delivered my new kettle today… surprised me :)

Anyways, everything on it is in celsius so now I have to remember new numbers :P
This one I brewed at 85c which was might have been too much, but it still ‘turnt out’
For whatever reason, I’m getting more of a TGY texture than a taste from this one. The smooth cream/butter like texture sticks in my mouth for a good few seconds after each sip.What this lacks, which I actually kind of enjoy, is the strong floral accents that many TGY have. For me this allows me to get the green oolong vegetables notes more directly unlike when floral notes overwhelm one’s mouth when drinking a potent TGY. This is great news for me because I like my floral teas to be drank outside and others to be enjoyed inside; this one was being drank inside too :)