Bird Pick Tea & Herb

Sent off a couple teaspoons of this one to Sil and had just enough left over to make myself a last cup. Even though the leftover bits were quite small and broken it brewed up just lovely. Roasty with some mild creamy caramel notes. Yum.
I love hojicha as a nightcap so I’ll definitely consider picking this one up in teabag form for ease of use. I’m thankful to Bird Pick for sending me these samples and will certainly be placing an order in the future.
Sipdown 11/75

Full disclosure: I have yet to find a houjicha that I don’t actively love. And this one is certainly no exception. The dry leaf smells exactly like kettle corn. It’s kind of amazing. There were no instructions on the little sample packet so I brewed it the way I usually do with my greens. 1.5 minutes at 175˚. Brewed, it still smells like kettle corn, just a bit less potent.
And the taste… yum! Oh so delightfully roasty and just a bit more caramely than a traditional houjicha. I like that the caramel is subdued as I could see it turning out too sweet otherwise. Absolutely delightful.

I do wish Bird Pick offered smaller sizes though. I’d love this one, but with 4oz being the only option I’m not sure I’ll pick it up. At least not until I finish all the other houjichas I have hanging around.

This was one of the free samples I chose from Bird Pick! It’s a beautiful tied wreath of dark brown leaves, about an inch and a half in diameter. Dry scent is sweet bread and honey with some raisin and wood notes. I used one piece in my 8 ounce cup, and as it steeped it unfurled a bit until it looked something like a sea urchin in my cup.

The steeped tea has a nice bread aroma with a lot of honey. Hm, this is an interesting one! There is a definite dark wheat bread flavor here. However, the beginning of the sip is quite woody and slightly… loamy? I don’t know. Midway through, it shifts to pure bread and honey tea, and this is the aftertaste as well. If this were bread and honey tea all the way through, I would be a very happy girl. The rougher flavor at the beginning is not my favorite.

I’m not usually a fan of bedtime teas, but this was a pretty good blend. The lavender is what sold it for me. It’s relaxing but not overpowering and leaves you feeling refreshed and ready for bed.

It brews a nice golden color and is excellent with just a hint of honey to round it out.

I need to eventually do a side by side taste test of this tea, and Bird Pick’s Yunnan Pu-erh. Its been 9 days since I drank the latter so it’s hard to compare by memory. The aroma of the dry leaf is more earthy, pond water-y. Theres also more dust in the bag, similar to how really tippy yunnans have gold dust in the bag.

The flavor is a bit more earthy than I recall the other pu-erh being. Theres also a bit of an almost cocoa note hinting at the edges. But aside from that, its very similar the other pu-erh. Smooth, not too heavy, not too intense, easy going pu-erh. I’ll need to do a side by side, but while I would like to have either in my cupboard for a nice daily pu-erh, I don’t feel the need to have both. And considering that this is 4x as expensive as the Yunnan Pu-erh, I’d have to say that it won’t be my choice.

Sipdown I sent the rest of this to a Steepster pal, but held back a 1/2 tsp for myself since I had forgotten whether or not I wanted to order it. Turns out, yes! I definitely want more of this delightful tea. It’s sweet and mellow with a distinctive honeydew flavor. As it cools off the honeydew slips into cantaloupe which I think is just as delightful. I actually don’t find the sencha too vegetal or savory for the flavorings, but I steep for a very short time which may help with that. Bird Pick offers this up in sachet form which I think would be a good option, as I tend to drink greens around bedtime and don’t love dealing with cleaning up my steeper late at night.
Thanks again to Bird Pick for the free sample of this, I’m excited to try more from the company.

Oh, wow. The flavoring in this one is absolutely spot-on! Another review stated they found it more of a watermelon flavor, but I don’t taste that at all. This tastes like perfectly fresh juicy honeydew. Even hot it’s a match, though I imagine it would be incredible iced. Definitely the best flavored green I’ve yet to try.
It’s a shame Bird Pick only sells 4oz sizes. If it were available to purchase in more reasonable sizes I would snatch it up in a millisecond. But I’ll have to at least sip down a reasonable amount of my existing greens before even considering picking up 4 full ounces.

I’ve been really impressed with my Bird Pick samples so far. All have been things I can see myself restocking in the future. And I really enjoy ripe pu-erh so I was really looking forward to trying this.

1 heaping tsp, 8oz water, boiling, 2,3,4 minutes.

This is a really good shou. Earthy, sweet, and not super dark, heavy, or intense. This is medium bodied, super smooth, and so easy to drink. All three steeps kept dissapearing on me. This is what I consider a perfect everyday shou pu. Tasty and addictive, without feeling too decadent. I always feel like I need to spend extra time and effort gongfu style steeping most ripe puerhs, but this one is so good western style.

So I took out the package of this to try some earlier. Ate some soup, and then looked all over for the package. I could not find it anywhere, I circled my apartment a dozen times and even went so far as to check the freezer even though I didn’t even go in there today. Finally, I decided to check the box with the rest of the samples. Lo and behold, there it is. I spent 10 minutes making myself crazy, mumbling curses to the thieving gremlins under my breathe, and it was properly put away the whole time.

I sweetened it, like I do almost all of my black teas, and yum. This is malty and fruity. Deep dark dried cherries, craisins, and prunes. Thick sweet seductive and sinful. The flavor coats your mouth and lingers a while, awakening your taste buds and leaving them pleased. There’s a sort of dark brown sugar like taste here, like a thinned out molasses. Yum! I’m not getting much floral from this, which is fine by me. I think the sweetening helped bring out the fruity and dim the floral. And just like that, POOF, the cup is gone.

This is another tea I’ve been sipping on today. This is a nice bold tea. Nice and malty, with a hint of cocoa, and some caramel like sweetness. I can see this being a great breakfast tea. I’m glad that my sample is big enough for a few more cups, because one this is so yummy, and two this is pretty heavy in my stomach. I look forward to drinking more when I’m feeling better.

I’m not sure, but I might have some sort of tea powers. While I was searching for another caramel houjicha, somebody mentioned this company, and I found this tea. It smells nicely nutty and like caramel. The flavour reminds me of this soft serve I got from the Japanese market. This will now be one of my evening teas.

Backlog

I drank this one Friday, before going down town for my boyfriend’s birthday. Since I didn’t write up this note up right away, I’m going off of the quick short hand notes I jotted down. I remember thinking that this smelled strongly of baked goods when the water hit it. The first steep was lots of honey, maybe some caramel, and lots of fresh baked bread. Delicious, I recall typing “my name is Mandy and I approve this tea” in the tea chat, so there’s that. I think I did three steeps before heading down town, and the flavor stayed strong through out. This was more light to medium bodied, but I steeped in a mason jar so this might have been due to heat loss. Definitely one that I plan on reordering, because not only does it taste great, its also so pretty and fun.

YUM! This is very good! Thank you Ost for the sample :)

It is very vegetal, with a little sweetness to balance it out. It reminds me of a cross between a milk oolong, TGY oolong and dragonwell green. It has a nice full mouthfeel to it. Quite silky indeed! Good stuff!

Soothing floral notes of osmanthus makes this tea comforting. Smooth and creamy, easy to drink.

from the (Mostly) Unflavored TTB

This one really does remind me of an oolong. It’s creamy and I bet I could steep it for forever. It’s like a creamy, but still really green, oolong. It’s tasty. (I’m doing this western style, and I’m on my fourth infusion and it’s still going strong.)

I took my car back to the body shop this morning to get them to fix the button for the hatchback that they broke. I thought it would be quick (because that’s what they told me) but I wound up being a couple of hours late to work. Blah.

MzPriss’ Unflavored Tea Box – Tea #9
I could smell this through the baggie and it smells like buttered popcorn. Must. Steep. Now. I would have guessed it’s an oolong since it is rolled up like an oolong, but it is actually a green tea. By the flavor I would have guessed green, so there you go. It’s a mild green flavor. I know some oolongs have that veggie flavor, but not many. Most of the flavor is just like the fragrance: buttered popcorn. So kind of like a milk oolong if the base was green. The second cup has the same level of buttered popcorn but it seems like the base is more like oolong now rather than green tea. Sheesh, most of these teas in the teabox have a high 80 rating on Steepster. I hope what I add to the tea box does it justice! One teaspoon left of this one for someone to try!
Steep #1 // 1 tsp // 25 min after boiling // 2 1/2 min
Steep #2 // 20 min after boiling // 2 1/2 min

Sipdown (141/148)!

Thanks VariaTEA and by extension Amariel for the small sample. I have to say, I’m really not sure how I feel about this one though. Taste wise I’m getting some really weird stuff from it.

I definitely pick up on a vegetal roastyness characteristic of a Houjicha, but on top of that is a really intense metallic taste and zero caramel notes. I also really vaguely, under all the metallic taste, get a sort of coffee like flavour which I have seen a few people mention in tasting notes so maybe I’m not totally crazy.

But overall I’m not really enjoying this one.

I don’t know what I am doing wrong because I have had this twice now and both times I couldn’t find the caramel. The houjicha was just too strong for my tastes. Thank you Amariel for the opportunity to try this tea but I just don’ think its for me. I will try the last of this cold brewed and see how that goes.