159 Tasting Notes
Given this is my 25th tasting note for this tea, you think I’d have run out of things to say.
But not so.
Today I underestimated the amount of tea I needed, and produced a scalding beverage of really pale, 1st steep, PMT.
It’s actually lovely. More delicate than usual, but with plenty of aftertaste, even though my tastebuds are dampened by a horrible head cold.
Preparation
I might have to recreate this one, I do love it.
On my second cup. I have developed a head cold and a sore throat- it’s not been my week – and this is keeping me going.
It’s invigorating and head clearing. Keeps the doctor away!
Oh, and I have it sweet. It’s traditional!
Preparation
My first, 5:30 am, pre-jentacular kick-starting tea is always an important one.
Sometimes, I go really light with a white or green to ease into the day, sometimes a hearty black as a heart starter.
Unusually today, I’ve gone the middle ground.
The aroma is floral, due to the cornflowers. The taste is floral, due to the cornflowers. And the aftertaste is floral, due to the cornflowers.
In fact, it tastes like I have mixed together musk sweets and cornflowers with a stack of icing sugar, and painted the inside of my mouth with them.
The lesson today is: context! Don’t expect a lovely floral afternoon escape to fill in such a key tea timeslot. It’s not up to the job.
Just not the right tea at the right time.
Preparation
Ok, so now I have made this five times. I think I have it right. Incredibly quick steep time is the key.
So, the story here is that I have patriotically chosen to invest in another Australian Tea. This is my second of the three tea companies in Australia … and it’s disapointing.
It’s a blend of Australian and Imported teas.
I actually can’t work out where the rest of it is from. There’s an Indian hint here and there in the taste, not so sure if I can pick up chinese or even kenyan.
Colour-wise, it looks like the Aussie-grown Daintree that I love, taste-wise, it’s just tea,
If it was in a tea-bag, it would be at the upper end, but as a loose leaf tea – a CTC one at that – it’s all tannin and tar.
I’ll probably use up the box and never buy it again.
Preparation
I don’t know about anyone else, but I re-steep greens and whites, but never blacks.
On this occaision, I decided to try it.
So I had a pot of this at about 4pm and gave it another run at 8pm.
I don’t think I could distinguish between the pots. Both had the fine, lingering slightly leathery aftertaste of a good ceylon following a refreshing front of mouth taste.
Looks like I’ll be resteeping some blacks from now on.
Has anyone else been re-steeping blacks?
Preparation
OMG! I sooooo read this wrong! I thought it said organic celery! LOL
Yes, I resteep black tea.
Take my comments w/ a grain of salt- save chais, I’m just not a black tea person. When I do drink non chai blacks, I do try to resteep them as much as I can, but I don’t get nearly as many infusions as I do from green, white, oolongs, or pu erhs. The exeption was 52teas’ Beer Tea, but that was because it didn’t act like your typical black tea.
It depends on the black. Some of the blacks I have take it well, and the others either become instantly too weak to carry a second cup or too bitter for me to enjoy the second one. There are a few in my cabinet that I can usually get three good steeps out of, however, so it’s definitely worth experimentation.
Again!
Thius time I was feeling vaguely nauseous last night, so I made a PMT. It didn’t help, and I was troubled by it all night.
So, this morning it’s a second steeping and some antacids.
So far, feeling a little better.
The power of Tea? Or the antacids? Can’t decide. But the Pai Mu Tan was as sweet and lovely as ever! My theory that the second steeping is the best seems to hold.
