Green Terrace Teas

I am on my second cup of this today. It’s so good and seemed like a nice way to ease into Monday.

If I am being totally honest, I am killing time trying to avoid going into invoicing hell. Don’t get me wrong, invoicing is great – it gets the checks rolling in. But the process is so spork in the eye boring and by the end of the day I am a drooling idiot.

I know I mentioned before that I am totally in love with our new rescue cat, and he loves me too. He is technically my daughter’s cat but when she is sleeping or on her computer we get some amazing cuddle time. I am becoming a ridiculous cat person. No pictures in my wallet but here are a few online!
http://imgur.com/a/Og5b3#4

Funny thing is, I was sworn off of pets until this one came along.

My advice to you is, if you have a sample of this that you haven’t tried, make it right now! If you don’t have a sample, order it.

I made mine western style due to time constraints this morning, but the website recommends many short infusions.

So I was standing at the stove cooking breakfast, and I took the first sip of this tea. My, “WOW” made my husband come running from the next room. It was pretty funny. I had to tell him that it was just a great tea wow, not a something is wrong wow.

An initial sniff of the dry leaf gave me a hint as to what was coming. It smelled like MORE somehow. Some honey, maybe honeysuckle. Some stone fruit. Not just a tea smell. I must admit that I carried the packet around for a few minutes and kept sniffing it while my water was heating up.

This has to be another leafhopper tea, I don’t know how else there would be such an amazing honey flavor to it. I kept trying to pin down what I was tasting, and initially I thought honey, honeysuckle, maybe some peach? Then I started thinking about the next cup before I had finished this one. It’s just that good.

The second (3 minute) steep was still sweet and really good. Usually I only steep black teas twice, but the leaves hadn’t fully unfurled so I might try this a third time just to see what happens.

I love this tea and have reviewed it ad nauseam, so this is going to be more of a personal note.

You know I love tea, and most of you know that I love my cat like crazy.
Here he is in case you don’t know him yet! http://imgur.com/a/Og5b3

So it only made sense last night when tea and cats collided in my dream. I had the funniest dream, where I found this adorable kitten. Instead of regular kitten fur, his fur was curly like bi luo chun. I really want a cat like that!

General update!

First, I love this tea. I have been drinking it a lot this past week because I bought 100g of it…I think it was 100g. Anyway, I had a tin I wanted to put it in but there was too much tea because it was so fluffy. Today I finally drank it down so that it all fits into a tin. Yay!

I haven’t been writing reviews as much in the past month, largely because the site was so kerborken that either no one would see it (the last couple I wrote had no likes…sniff…) or because I was drinking the same old things. The site seems to have largely fixed itself so I’ll work on getting back into the habit. I’m also sad that the forum is so much slower than it used to be. But hey, chat is still hopping after about 10 am every day. So you should go there!

In other news, I have been working on a solution to storing my teas, and I think I’m there. You know I love tins, and I have a big shelf for all of the tinned teas that I have. But what to do with all of those little packages everywhere? Well, I repurposed one of those cube storage things from my daughter’s room – she is grown up and moved out and didn’t want it – and bought new fabric cubes this weekend and now I have six cubes of sorted teas. The only down side is that when I was moving the tea into the thingie, I realized that I have….so….much…tea. And yet I keep buying it. Oh well, more for you guys.

This is a delicious tea. It reminds me very much of the other beloved “leafhopper” teas that develop such a nice, honey flavor due to the leafhopper bites. I woke up this morning with a sore throat, and had already picked this out as my morning tea. It was packaged in a vacuum packed foil package so I imagine unopened it would have a really good shelf life.

The leaves are long, it’s one of those that is hard to measure in a spoon so I sort of eyeballed it to get to where I thought it should be. I really enjoy watching leaves unfurl, and this one did not disappoint. I went three minutes but it looked like the leaves were still wanting a little more, so the total was maybe 3:20.

There were several stems in the tea, and that surprised me. I had to go read up on it and read somewhere that many Taiwanese teas have the stems in the tea as well. Also the photo on the website shows a couple so I figured that’s how it was meant to be.

It’s not malty at all, just a lovely medium bodied black with a nice taste of honey. The second infusion didn’t disappoint either. I wouldn’t hesitate to order this again.

I am re-visiting this review to say a couple important things. First of all, I love this tea so much I have a $115 dollar yixing pot dedicated to it (I occasionally let some other fruity/floral unroasted oolongs in there, but not often). The seasoning on this pot just keeps getting more deliciously sweet and rich. It smells like caramel and fruit when I open it up. Secondly, LYCHEE!!! I had some trouble putting my thumb on what the flavors of this tea are the first time. I kept thinking apples and roses/magnolias… then I had a lychee fruit beverage yesterday and suddenly it hit me. Lychee has a really floral kind of fruitiness to me, and it is almost identical to the flavor of this tea (Lychee flavored Calpico is the drink I had, FYI, which is a creamy non-carbonated soft drink from Japan).

All that said, here is my original review from several months ago when I first tried it:

This is my first bug-bitten oolong! I’m so excited! I received this as a sample from Green Terrace Teas, a new company based in Taiwan. The samples were vacuum sealed in attractive gold foil packaging and labeled elegantly and clearly in both Chinese and English. I am very impressed by how professional these samples are presented!

After a quick rinse of the leaves, I am totally enamored by the aroma of this oolong. There are notes of apples, cream, butter, warm honey and magnolias (or roses). This is unlike anything I’ve encountered; the smell is so wonderful I sat and smelled it for a strong minute or two before brewing the first infusion.

Despite an even more floral aroma after a quick 30-second steep, the gold liquor yielded by this tea tastes very sweet and mellow. I primarily taste subtle notes of apples, honey and flowers. There’s a very evident hui gan. The taste is surprisingly mellower than the aroma.

The second steeping has all the same flavors. It is exceptionally mellow and honey-like with crisp notes of apple and floral magnolia tones coming through. The brew is a deep yellow color.

As the brewed leaves unfurl completely, they are gorgeously green with red-brown edges. The tiny holes from leaf hopper bites are quite fun to look at, and the tea has become noticeably more floral. By the third and fourth infusion, it is still sweet but more floral. I can see this tea lasting a good many steepings and I intend to sit and enjoy them without thinking and focusing on describing the tea, so I will end my review here. I’ve become rather tea drunk from this one tea. I feel like I’ve become flowing water.

This really is an incredible tea and one not to overlook.