Camellia Sinensis

sample from crowkettle. This oonlong is not for me. There’s jasmine hidden in the background making it not all that enjoyable. not sure if it’s flavoured as such or my imagination is wreaking havoc on me but this is on the not so much a win side for me :)

I’m lost when it comes to steeping green oolong. There are so many different methods and parameters (western, traditional, and hybrid) spread across companies for similar to exact same types of oolong, that I don’t know where to begin. I’ve steeped this type of oolong at near boiling for 1min with pretty awesome results, and I’ve also done the same temp and amount for 20s for an equally fine cup. Most commonly, I see a 3min steep at about 90C, which is a coin’s toss for how it works out for me.

Life is hard.

Anyways, Camellia Sinensis recommends a rinse, and then a 4-5min steep at 95C. That never worked for me; I found it made the cup overly vegetal, on the verge of being sour.

For my very last serving I decided to follow a 20s steep time, with a touch and go, 1min range increase after the third steep, and this solved the aforementioned problems I had with this tea. I found that the liquidized floral-sweet qualities and the milk-nut notes of the cup were given more room to breath and take on a silky texture. The marine note I noticed the first few times all but disappeared.

Too bad I hadn’t steeped it like that from the beginning! It makes that that $12/50g tempting, indeed.

Steep Count: 4

(2016 Harvest)

Cup Scent: butter, toasted nuts, flowers, savoury seaweed sprinkles (subtle)

To taste, it follows the precedent set by the scent, making for a savoury cup full of cream, butter, nuts, and gentle flowers. It’s probably the most mild “Jin Xuan,” natural or scented, I’ve had in recent times. It’s nothing special in my books, but it’s buttery-cream profile makes for a comforting cup, with excellent steep value.

I drank up all my other Jin Xuans, so it’s nice to discover I have some left. I didn’t realize what this was or pay too much attention when I initially placed an order online. It took seeing the unfurled leaves to realize what this was. Whoops.

Steep Count: 6

Florals reminiscent of dandelion came out strong on the third steep. It reminds me that dandelion wine is on my “too try” list.

(2016 harvest)

Strawberry, caramel , lilac, lemon marmelade, milky chalky thing. Upfront but thin and somewhat unrefined in flavors. the taste is reminescent of those light roast pourover coffees which bears red fruits and caramel extract notes… i ain’t a big fan of this mix.
But it does packs big flavors at a smaller price.

clean and simple taste: roasted cereals, woody notes, swiss chard and charcoal. Overall it is a pleasant tea with nothing to dislike, yet little to impress IMHO.

mmmm this oolong makes me happy. I’ve set an agressive goal for myself today to get through 15 sipdowns (hello sipdown saturday!). Now i’m not even sure that i have 15 teas in my cupboard to sipdown, but that’s my goal. I’ve got 9 teas inbound and that would mean that even if they were in my cupboard, i’d still hit my sipdown goal haha. And then i can also justify possibly picking up tea in chicago. :)

Really appreciate the share of all these oolongs and green teas Crowkettle. As much as they’re not my jam – having small amounts of them IS totally up my alley :)

Another from crowkettle. This is a tasty one as well – creamy, vanilla, butter, smooth, delicious. Notes of coconut…slight grassy flavour but overall just tasty. I almost get a hint of cinnamon but not quite. glad to be able to have this again.

My favorite oolong from Camelia Sinensis,

I often tend to prefer the roundness of middle infusions in oolongs, but this one starts majestically.

Yixing pot gongfu!

Restocked pretty recently on this cupboard staple Hojicha & decided to treat myself to a nice afternoon tea session now that I’m replenished again!! Golden & toasty, this hojicha is basically an explosion of carmelized peanut notes – one of my favourite “lighter roast” hojichas, and a good break up from the darker roast I’ve been drinking recently. Only downside is that it steeps out quickly; but thankfully it’s light and a 50g restock goes a long way!

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CKrnCS5AM1t/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmiGVmB5qvo&ab_channel=StillCorners-Topic

Made in my Hojicha dedicated yixing pot!

My pour yixing pots don’t get enough love, and I feel guilty about that. So I’m going to make more of a conscious effort to give them some love in 2019. Starting with this one, because I’ve been craving those roasty, nutty, caramel-esque hojicha flavours a lot this winter.

I actually made this to share with one of my roommates – and it wasn’t a very long session (because we were drinking two other teas at the same time) but it was a very nice session! Around seven steeps; all quite strong and delicious though. I like the level of roast on this tea; and it’s got such a nice sweet undertone. Like caramelized, roasted peanuts/hazelnuts. Just a hint of grassiness still; but mostly super smooth, delicious roastiness.

Comfort tea in a cup.

Cup from yesterday, with the tiniest bits of added vanilla agave and milk.

I’m on a huge vanilla agave kick right now, for better or worse. It’s like when I get in a “flavoured honey mood” and I just have to experiment and try adding in into everything. It worked really well with this one though! The tea itself is a nice, medium(ish) roast with a lot of sweetness in addition to the toasty quality; notes of caramel and nuts so the vanilla just really, really drew out that sweetness. It felt very much like drinking a super comforting, toasty mug of liquid vanilla hazelnut toffee with such warm roasty undertones throughout the whole thing.

It was a good evening cup too because it was VERY relaxing.

Delicious cuppa at work.

I added a bit of milk and honey to this one; while I love the flavour of straight Hojicha what I was really looking for from this cuppa was something very smooth and comforting and both milk and honey, especially together, seem to really do that for me.

Flavour wise, it was a mix of notes with none of them really being the “stand out” flavour or anything; they all just sort of vacillated in and out of the overall profile. Things like hazelnuts, roasted nuts in general, caramel, cocoa powder, coffee/mocha, barley, generic roastiness, cream. Overall, just a very toasty/comforting and sweet flavour with some serious dessert tea/note undertones. REALLY satisfying.

The most surprising thing about the cup was actually the colour of the brew though. With the milk/honey added it was sort of this weird browny taupe sort of colour? With like purple undertones. I’ve never seen that before with a Hojicha, and I wish I’d taken a picture because it was stunning!

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/41/25/b3/4125b3cc10c80890de44006f235f5f3a—taupe-color-rose-taupe.jpg

If you’re using this grid of “taupes” as a reference though, I think it was something sort of like the deep taupe/medium taupe sort of hues. REALLY gorgeous, and I wonder if it’s something I could replicate…

So, I missed my bus home after work so I’m stuck here another hour. I prepped as much as humanly possible for the opener tomorrow, and now I’m catching up on tasting notes because why the fuck not? I’ve gotta kill that time somehow…

This was my first tea of the day/morning here at work: while I’ve largely purchased this one to be used in my Hojicha dedicated yixing pot I thought it’d be good to taste it ahead of time and sort of get a feel for the flavours.

Hojicha doesn’t seem to vary too much from company to company; you can always tell what it is, the degree of roasting just seems to change slightly and I’ve found sometimes the level of sweetness too. I find this one is actually fairly lightly roasted because I can still get a good degree of grassiness in combination with the roast. It does have that barley/buckwheat kind of cereal flavour to it that the company is advertising, and it finishes with a big of sweetness that lingers for a pleasantly long time on the sides of my tongue. I’m definitely enjoying it, and excited to see what will come of it once it gets brewed in the yixing pot.

This is my go-to Wulong. It tastes wonderful when it’s fresh from the gaiwan, but I don’t have a kettle by my desk so my habit is to brew it western-style in a pot, and take frequent small tastes as it stews. My first taste is before even a minute has passed, and it is quite mild. The liquor is a light, almost fluorescent, green/yellow. The smell is a little grassy. The taste is quite mild: a little toasted rice, a little dandelion, and something sweet like honey. The mouthfeel even so early is quite distinct. You can really feel the oils in the tea coat your mouth and leave a dry kind of feeling well after the flavour is gone. The next taste is around the 4 or 5 minute mark. The colour is much more yellow now, with just a hint of brown. Not much smell, although my nose is pretty stuffy so I may be missing out. The sweetness is still there in the taste, but there’s also something umami. Very slightly like mushrooms. My habit is to keep tasting it even as it stews for much longer, but I don’t want to prolong this note much longer. Needless to say, it gets much more bitter as it sits longer in the water, but I used to be quite a fan of hoppy beers in a previous life so I enjoy a good bitter bomb.

I’m bumping the rating up on this one after I adjusted the parameters and got more than uncooked and unsweetened flower-nutmeg dough, with strong caramel scent.

This time around I actually get a little more of that “hard caramel candy” sweetness,spread through more cups. That sweetness adds more depth to the honeysuckle and jasmine milk-dough notes, and is lightly dusted in nutmeg and almonds slivers. It’s an odd mixture of flavours but it’s interesting enough to keep me steeping!

Steep Count: 4

(2016 winter harvest)

My nose is currently glued to my cup because floral vanilla caramel drops. It’s oolong heaven. First steep is floral cream, with a dash of something richer lightly sprinkled with nutmeg to finish. The heavy cream notes and “seasonings” make this tea feel filling.

Second steep smells like butter, and reminding me vaguely of cookie dough! Cream notes are dominant but a light caramel note is starting to creep into the profile at the end of the sip. The nippy nutmeg also remains. Yep! It’s like cookie dough without the sweetness (pastry dough?). My silly brain is trying to convince me I taste flour now.

The third steep has a floral-sweet aroma of honeysuckle. The floral note carries over to the taste, where it flows into the cream and the ever-present nutmeg and gives a strong impression of almond milk. The finished cup leaves a lingering sensation of mint freshness. This is where I cut it though; there’s only so much raw pastry dough, nutmeg, and cream I can drink this late in the evening!

All in all, not a bad first foray into Si Ji Chun/ Four Seasons Oolong!

Steep Count: 3

(2016 Winter Harvest)

This blerg isn’t half bad. I think i do better when the “cream” is there to cut through the blerginess. Still nothing i want in my cupboard but i did DRINK it…so you know. that’s a win :)

sample from crowkettle creme de blerg…

in all honesty, i think earl grey cream is one of the few ways i’m almost always ok with the blerg. Still not my favourite cup but i can drink a whole one without feeling nauseous from the the blerg. :) So that was my afternoon tea….still more blerg to come though. lol

Final Count: 62

Gongfu!

Paired this with some mini mangoes imported from Columbia!! I look forward to these mangoes every Spring and Summer. They’re sweet, tender, and practically melt in your mouth when you eat them. I knew they would pair wonderfully with this Taiwanese oolong! The tea is on the more light to medium bodied side, but it’s wonderfully aromatic and has a strong floral aroma that reminds me of Easter lillies. The taste has the same Easter Lily type of floral notes, but softer and more fresh and creamy with flavours of coconut oil, fresh churned butter, and jasmine as well. I have to say, compared to the session I had in this same park a few weeks ago, this was just a much better experience all around; it’s really great to be getting back to brewing outside!!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CrYkz-6oiP8/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y_0Bg-T4cg

Gongfu!

This was our last gongfu session of the evening, though not our last tea. I don’t know why but Marika only ended up brewing two steeps of this before switching to a different tea. I thought they were quite nice though – and the Oriental Beauty we had just tasted prior was a hard tea to come after! Predictably and familiarly smooth and creamy though, with the mix of floral and creamy notes I know and love about this tea.