Chicago Tea Garden

4g tea
about 5 oz water
Zealong’s website suggests about 5g per 5oz, so thats why the low amount of water.

Aroma is strong and nutty and finishes with a lingering sweetness.

The color is a light pale yellow. The leaves were rather large and dark, they have not unfurled completely.

This is a very smooth tea, the flavor does not come across nearly as strong as the aroma. There is no bitterness, no astringency. The subtle flavors may be overwhelmed by the stronger iced Assam i just finished prior. Will have to see if the re-steeps alleviate that and maybe adjust the rating higher.

One of the most exquisite white teas I have tasted. Sweet floral flavours with a peppery note that I find very refreshing in comparison to the almost excessively subtle flavour of some Yinzhens. Definitely use a gaiwan or a small teapot — brewing and drinking this tea in small amounts seems to bring out the flavours more clearly. Highly recommended.

The leaves for this furtive tea are made in the fashion of Taiwanese Oolongs. They’re tightly curled balls of a dark green with some stems attached. The dry leaf aroma is clearly roasted with some vegetal undertones of steamed cabbage.

This oolong brews a radiant yellow-gold liquor and provides a sweet vegetal aroma similar to that of the dry leaf, but with the roasted notes a bit subdued.

The texture and flavor are smooth on the palate with no appreciable astringency. A bit of vegetal bitterness combines with a buttery sweetness and a bit of a roasty tail keeps this tea interesting every time.

I recommend this oolong to fans of oolong teas and milk teas.

So apparently New Zealand can make some tea. Who knew? But yeah, this is some seriously tasty stuff.

Normally I’m not one for using boiling water on greener oolongs. However, the directions printed inside the tea’s packaging say use boiling water and, given that Zealong’s packaging is pretty serious (a vacuum-sealed bag of tea inside a matte black square tin which sits snugly in the foam bottom of a large, magnetic-close box), I’m going to take their directions seriously, too. Zealong also says you can take this up to 8 steeps. I’m not sure I can make it that long, even if the tea can, but we’ll see.

The dry leaves have a very faint smell to them. Very faint. Even the liquid is fairly lightly scented, but it is a delicious smell anyway.
Steep 1 (1min): Sipping is kind of wow. It’s rich – dark, heavy, sweet, floral at first. Slurping a bit makes the flavor lighten up more and becomes like a fresh lemongrass flavor. As it cools, that almost-lemon-candy note comes up more and more. There’s a little dryness left behind after each sip, along with a lovely sweet, floral/fruity taste.

Steep 2 (1min): The main reason I don’t use boiling water on oolongs is that it seems that the leaves can get easily cooked and that smell and taste is kind of gross to me. After pouring the tea, these leaves now have a bit of that cooked scent about them, but instead of smelling like over-boiled collard greens, it’s like toasted bread… with some lemon preserves smeared on top. The tea, though, doesn’t have any overcooked-ness to it but there is a darker note to it that wasn’t present in the first steep. Also, the fresh lemongrass note has turned into a more lemon preserves note. The astringency is still there and adds a bit of texture at the end of the sip.

Steep 3 (1min): The flavor is darker now. The lemon note is gone and replaced with an almost honey note. Slurping brings out a woody flavor. There might be a hint of something almost spicy, or I might be insane.

Steep 4 (2min): Heavier again with the nuances and light notes of the first steep kind of muddied up a bit but still not overcooked. And is the lemon back some? And maybe something that reminds me of cream… (Though that could have been the sip of half & half I took while making the hubby some EG, but it continues to stick around so maybe it’s the tea.)

Steep 5 (3min): The leaves are smelling pretty done now but the done-ness hasn’t come into the tea. It’s darker, heavier, thicker and a little more one-note tasting than previous steeps but there’s still a faint hint of lemon/lemon preserves.

Steep 6 (4min): Might be tasting a little overcooked now? Still has a lot of the same tastes as steep 5, though.

Okay, I’m done. Seriously, I’ve had a lot of oolong – it might be coming out of my pores at this point. Could the tea take a couple of more steeps? Maybe. Can I? Nope. But I will say that this is seriously good stuff though. Congrats, New Zealand, for making good tea!
5g/5oz

PS – Just watched the documentary All in This Tea. Definitely recommend it to any tea lover out there!

I was pretty surprised to see that this one truly does live up to the hype. This is creamy, buttery, floral, mildly vegetal, smooth, silky, rich, sweet, and keeps going and going. I followed CTG’s brewing parameters exactly and was pleased with results. Also, I have to agree with fellow taster, Adham and say that the first infusion kinda does taste like rice pudding! Good Call on that one Adham! The only downfall is that it is a bit pricey and requires a lot of leaf to give up the optimal results.

Very fresh, mineral notes are strongest.

Hmmm… it’s taken me a little while to get a good enough feel for this tea before writing a review. The good thing was that I’ve been able to get quite a few cups out of the sample!

First off, the recommended 30 second first steep didn’t produce a strong enough taste for me. I preferred 1 1/2 – 2 minutes. Regardless of how long, the first steep is big on a wonderful floral scent but kinda weak on flavor. The second and third steeps had a much more pronounced flavor. It’s somewhat vegetal but not quite like green tea. It’s very soothing and floral. The later steeps have a nice sweetness to them too. The only thing I don’t care for much is that it has a dry finish. Other than that, very wonderful tea!

This tea had a really rich, multilayered flavor. It was sweet but towards the third infusion there was a nice smokiness to it.

‘I love this tea. Like, yeah. A lot.’

That was all Auggy wrote about it on the card with the bag, and then she noted steep times. How could I not go for this?

This has been included because I am presently on a crusade to find a Keemun that will occupy the ragged hole that’ll turn up in my cupboard eventually, but which is currently occupied by Jackee Muntz. Jackee will not last forever, after all.

The smell has a lot of depth. Freshly steeped and too hot to drink, I kept catching glimpses of something fruity behind the familiar smell of Keemun’s mild smoke, then something bright and bake-y, and something slightly nutty. These are terrible descriptions, but I would be hard-pressed to be more accurate with them. As the cup cooled a bit, still hot for drinking but no longer billowing steam, the smell became predominately bake-y fruit. It wasn’t until I opened up the page to start writing a note that I saw ‘grilled peaches’ on the description and said, YES. That! I am the first to be skeptical of tea descriptions, since people are usually more suggestible than otherwise, but this is a far cry from ‘well, maybe I can find that there if I think about it’…oh, it’s there. It’s there in spades with the bake-y flavor that makes me want to say this is like…like…like slathering something in peach preserves and grilling it. I’m trying to figure out what the ‘something’ would be. Its been a long time since I had potato bread last, but maybe something like that?

This translates very well to the taste. Sipping, the flavors are as above, with a pronounced and obvious musk and nuttiness (I associate both with peaches in my head), without losing a very mellow, shadowy sweetness.

I don’t get the roses mentioned from this cup, though I think the sweetness at times tastes more floral than fruity to me, particularly in the aftertaste. Holding the tea in my mouth, it’s more starchy and bake-y. As it cools even more, the fruity smell is coming so far forward that it almost reminds me of the tropical plaintain thing that some of my favorite teas have…starchy but sweet. I would never in my life have expected something like that from a Keemun, but there it is!

This is one smooth steep. It does have that sort of ‘I could get bitter and sour on you in a hurry if you use too much leaf or steep too long’ taste on the middle of the back of the tongue, but I think that’s just a Keemun thing generally, and it hasn’t made good on the threat, so I’m quite pleased.

It isn’t the salty-sweet caramel pretender that Jackee is, but this tea has a lot of the qualities I enjoy in a cup, so I think I shall find a place for it on the reg.

Subsequent steeps will get noted in a bit.

Exquisite. Simply exquisite. Use a tiny porcelain gaiwan to brew this silver needle and heaven is yours.

Rinse and smell. The quick smell is buttery, creamy, with a whiff of very strong “oolong.” The long smell is more on the vegetal side, almost spinach-like.
The first steeping smells clean, buttery, and smooth. It’s a very pleasing scent, when most tie guan yin does not get to this point for a few infusions. But seeing the “competition grade,” I did not expect this to be “most tie guan yin.” My first sip hits me strongly, the delicate aroma belying a strong, yet still smooth flavour. Something reminds me of pizza, and I cannot shake that feeling, though I know not what.
The aroma of the second steeping is far more subtle, and very nearly not-there. The flavour has calmed down and holds its delicate floral tie guan yin taste.
Delicious. This is some of the best tie guan yin I have ever tasted.
I look forward to the next couple steeps.

This is my favorite type of tea – and this is one of the best examples of that type of tea. It’s smooth, it’s creamy, it’s crisp. Holy beep this is a good tea. Excellent. I want more.

The Final Sipdown: Day 12
Decupboarding Total: 27

I’m staring to like when good teas are caught up in The Final Sipdown. It’s a nice break from teas that are still around only because I don’t like them enough to drink them up. This is one of those good teas. I’m not dying to reorder this but, depending on the state of my pantry, I can see myself picking up more of this the next time I order from CTG. It’s quite tasty and I like the variety of flavors I can get from this.

This time I went the ‘high-flavor brew’ (11.5g/12oz) and it really is flavorful. The sencha aspect is really highlighted. The pan frying gives it a nice, somewhat nutty note that makes it feel more like a fall-mood sencha instead of a spring or summer one. Perfect for today with a cold front stalking us!

Trying a different brewing method for my second try of this. This time I’m doing a lazy man’s sencha-style brewin because anything else required too much thought. 4g/6oz/ 175°/pour started at about 30s.

Yum. Each sip tastes a little different – sometimes I get a pungent, sweet, vegetal sencha, then other sips give me a sweet, hay-ish taste that makes me think of Rishi’s Snow Buds but richer. Sometimes it tastes very much like a Japanese green. Other times I think I’m drinking a Chinese green. But not a dull green, salty Chinese green. Fresh, bright green with nice sweetness and no salty/mineral-y tingle. I’m also not getting the astringency I was previously, which is fine by me because I’m kind of a wuss when it comes to that.

I’m upping the rating on this just a bit because this is very tasty. I could see myself buying more of this.

Honestly, I’m not feeling all that great today so it’s not the best time for me to try a new tea, but my order from CTG just came in and it had this interesting little beastie in it and I just couldn’t resist.

There are two different ways to prepare this, plus I’ve got my own sort of default prep method, giving me three different ways I want to try this tea at to see what it gives me. For this first attempt, I decided to go with the ‘high flavor brew’. 4g/4oz, 175° for 45s. The tea smells very vegetal with a hint of buttery. The first part of the taste is refreshingly astringent with a very vegetal/green and a little sweet and buttery flavor. The aftertaste is astringent but sweet. And now my cup is empty.

4oz almost isn’t enough to figure out what I think of this tea. I could probably do without the astringent aftertaste, but I kind of like how it shows up at the front of the sip. The other flavors in the tea are also very promising but I’ll have to have more of it to figure out how much I like it. And that will give me a chance to play with parameters, too. So right now the rating is tentative, subject to change with more parameter playing and when I’m feeling more chipper.

ETA: I messed up the second steep (too much water) but it ended up nice anyway – the vegetal taste of a Chinese green, the sweetness of a Japanese green. I did a 5s steep, treating it like I would a Japanese green and I probably could have given it a touch more time since it tasted a little thin, but at the same time the shorter steep time probably kept any astringency down.

Thanks to AmazonV for this tea!
Smooth, asparagus notes. Pale yellow infusion. I think this would be good with a hearty meal.

Had this today and I absolutely loved it, definitely my new favorite pu-erh.

This is a green tea pu-erh cake flavored like sticky rice. The little nest is very green with a remarkable lack of odor, until it gets hit with hot water. Once the hot water hit the cake and released a hit of sweet sticky rice and tiny natural outdoorsy smell, not at all like regular pu-erh, but clean in a way that makes you almost consider not rinsing before drinking, but the directions say to rinse for 30 seconds, so I obliged.

So 30 second rinse in hot water, then 30 second infusion, hot, no additives. The tea smells just how it tastes, like sweet, starchy, sticky rice mixed with a very sweet green tea. Similar to Genmaicha, but I do like this one a lot more. There is no earthy flavor or smell, this tea is the most mild pu-erh I have ever had (in cake form – as in the Chocolate Pu-Erh I rave about is actually more mild of a pu-erh, but I digress). You really still get the mouth-feel and richness of a pu-erh, but the lack of the fishy, outdoors odor and flavor really makes this one of the greatest pu-erhs I have ever had.

That being said, I believe this is my first green pu-erh cake and I should expand my horizons and not be so terrified of pu-erh, but I will definitely be buying more of these from Chicago Tea Garden…

This is really unique from presentation to the tea itself.

Once you cut into the shrink-wrap around the dehydrated clementine, you get a brief whiff of earthiness and a quick flash of ocean- OK, it’s briefly fishy. I have a friend that describes pu-erh as smelling and tasting like basement. This isn’t that bad, but it’s definitely mossy.

Once brewed, the fish dissipates quickly. The taste is smooth and slightly sweet. I pick up a lot of “veggies” but this isn’t what I’d call vegetative. It’s more like very dull impressions of carrot, potato and mushroom in that order.

While the clementine packaging is a nice novelty, I couldn’t sense any involvement in the fragrance or flavor. This isn’t a citrus flavored pu-erh by any means. It is, however, a solid example of a nicely aged tea.

Steep Information:
Amount: ~6g
Water: 150ml boiling filtered water
Tool: Adagio IngenuiTEA 16 oz
Steep Time: a little over 1:30 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: vegetal
Steeped Tea Smell: honey, sweet, floral, vegetal
Flavor: buttery sweet
Body: Light
Aftertaste: vegetal
Liquor: translucent pale yellow-green

Sweet, buttery, delicious – but not as good as the Zealong Aromatic.

An excellent oolong.

Resteep (2) Information: 150ml, boiling, 1:30 – sweet, vegetal, a little nutty

Resteep (3) Information: 200ml, boiling, 2:00, vegetal, a little nutty, a little bitter

Resteep (4) Information: 200ml, boiling, 2:00, vegetal, a little nutty, a little bitter

Resteep (5) Information: 200ml, boiling, 2:00, vegetal, a little nutty, bitter

Images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/08/chicago-tea-garden-loose-leaf-oolong.html

Very light. Very smooth with just a hint of not even bitter but maybe sour at the very end? It’s almost got more smell than flavor. I recognize this is better than the other one I had but I think it is too delicate for me. Kind of like Japanese food – it seems light on flavor until you get used to it, then it’s really flavorful.

By far the best oolong I’ve had in years, need to order some more – soon. Put a bit in my travel mug and I’m able to just keep resteeping it all day. Love it!

This? Is so good. First off, the dry leaf smells amazing. It’s pretty much one of the most fragrant (and delicious smelling) Anxi oolong I’ve ever sniffed – fresh, floral, sweet, rich… And the taste? OMG. I vaguely recall having an almost otherworldly experience with a Red Blossom oolong (their Alishan, I think?) much too long ago. This rates right up there with that (utterly divine) experience.

First steep (30s) – Rich and buttery but also fresh, light and floral. There is a great mix of light/sweet and dark/heavy notes. Seriously wow.
Second steep (30s) – The smell of this literally made me close my eyes in delight. The floral notes make me think of orchid. Though the floral smell is more distinctive this steep, the overall taste is heavier and richer than before. It’s very fresh tasting. The creamy/buttery taste is really coming through and there’s a nectar/honey-like sweetness that’s very strong. Have I said wow? Because it is.
Third steep (45s) – Sweet, sweet, sweet! Like a sugar glaze over unopened orchid blossoms. Or, as it cools, perhaps like a very light kettle corn.
Fourth steep (45s) – The smell is heavier now, more green/vegetal notes than floral ones. The taste is darker too, reminding me a bit of Samovar’s Four Seasons (which I rarely had luck with) but with a slightly more present floral top note.

I think the second steep is by far my favorite with the first steep coming in second. Since those were so tasty, that’s what I’m rating this on. (Though I reserve the right to bump the rating up when the second steep is fresh in my mind.)
4g/5oz