Inoki Bathhouse

Adventageddon Day 11

Today’s tea is just straight up ginger, which I really wasn’t very enthused about at all. I really struggled with trying to think about how I’d brew this in a way that would be palatable to me. At one point I considered a hot tea just packed with honey, but in the end I decided to go with something a bit more “fun”.

What I did was brew the whole packet in a couple of ounces of boiling water along with a little sweetener until I had a super ginger-y concentrate. Like, super gingery. I think I steeped it for maybe two or three hours. Then I dumped that in a mug and topped it with sparkling water. Basically, my own version of a ginger beer or ginger ale. More like a ginger beer though, I suppose, because it definitely had that earthy and spicy kick to it and wasn’t quite as sweet as a ginger ale even with my modest sweetener addition.

It was, in my opinion, a pretty good way to salvage what was a pretty disappointing sight when opening up the advents this morning.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDdEnRYpD_0/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5GYPTj9xXI&ab_channel=TessaRae

Adventageddon Day 10

I would have loved to either brew this gongfu or make it into a big pot of tea, but I just didn’t have the time today for either. However, it was a pretty generous portion of pearls included today so I was able to make my Western mug of it and still have enough pearls left over to do a gongfu session in the future!

I personally find it’s hard to produce a bad jasmine green tea. Boring or just sort of mediocre for sure – but even a lower quality jasmine is pretty serviceable. Similar to how it’s hard to have a truly bad chamomile or peppermint. This wasn’t that, though. It was very, very smooth and round feeling on the palate with highly lush and fragrant jasmine notes on a really pleasant, naturally sweet tasting green tea. It was such a nice moment of calm and to just treat myself midday during what was a pretty busy afternoon for me.

We’re getting really close to the holiday break at work (majority of the company has a week off), but I took extra time before and after that break so I’m REALLY feeling the crunch of having to wrap up a lot of bigger projects. A soothing jasmine tea? Yeah, exactly what was needed today.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDagOvsyYMf/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0PxUvTUrEc&ab_channel=ANTENOCH

Adventageddon Day 9

Honestly not the nicest spearmint I’ve had but even lower quality spearmint is still good tasting, y’know? It did have that up front kind of sweetness that I like a lot about spearmint but I found the overall cup a little too earthy and muddled in the finish. Not quite as crisp/clean and well rounded as it maybe could have been? But it wasn’t like it was very coarse either. I still happily finished my mug, and I’d definitely drink it again. I just know I’ve been spoiled by better…

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDX7CdLyJ4E/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNrAPKRSIYA&ab_channel=niina

Adventageddon Day 8

Gongfu!

This might be my favourite tea from Inoki so far! It’s a black tea from Yunnan, and the dry leaf was both visually quite lovely with golden tips scattered throughout along with amazingly rich and chocolate-y smelling. My mouth was watering before even brewing it up.

Steeped up this was very, very full-bodied and intense but in a really nice way. Quite fudge-y with incredibly strong notes of dark baker’s chocolate complete with a pleasantly bittersweet quality. The undertones were a little bit more woody and earthy, with hints of beetroot and smoke to go alongside that intense cocoa profile. It was a bit astringent, but a welcome astringency that suited this very unsweet but heavily truffle-esque profile. As soon as I’d steeped out the leaf it was very much the kind of black tea I immediately just wanted more of. I’m hoping we see more teas like this as the advent continues!

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDVVeu3SUWV/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpNsGfmLmGM&ab_channel=ClubHalifax

Adventageddon Day 7

Gongfu!

I feel like it’s a tough act for this chrysanthemum tisane to have to follow the absolutely stunning and higher grade “Royal Chrysanthemum” that we started the Inoki advent with. However, I was certainly very surprised and impressed with that tea despite not thinking of chrysanthemum as a flavour I enjoy, so I did go into this cautiously optimistic.

It’s definitely not as nice as the Royal Chrysanthemum, but honestly not half bad either. I could have probably stopped brewing it after a steep or two but I kept going with the session until it was totally steeped out. Mind you, that was still only an extra couple of steeps since this isn’t a tisane with a whole lot of flavour payoff after the initial brews. But still. More of an effort was made than I think I’d have made if I had been presented with this tea, say, last month.

It was peppery and I think that was probably the strongest/most clear tasting note but overall much less intense/strong as the Royal. The tiny little flower buds were still pretty, though. Definitely light, refreshing, and smooth with a less “typical” floral composition.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDSws7ry2bL/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VepmXdGVB0k&ab_channel=CharlieHouston

Adventageddon Day 6

Not gonna sugar coat it – this one was rough. Ginseng is such an intensely strong and polarizing flavour, and I don’t even mind it usually either as part of a ginseng oolong or in different blends. However, straight ginseng was A LOT. It was so, so incredibly and uncomfortably sweet. I actually ended up adding in an orange and ginger flavoured honey which, of course, didn’t do much for how cloying the brew was but at least introducing other flavours helped break up the medicinal and woody notes that accompanied the mouth coating sweetness.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDQMGQsSJFF/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNueNm-m8YI&ab_channel=ModestOda

Adventageddon Day 5

Two days of back to back straight green teas is not super fun for me personally, but I did enjoy this one a lot more than yesterday’s bancha. I didn’t time to make it gongfu, so it was a larger Western style mug for the day. Definitely more medium bodied and quite smooth with strong notes of chestnut, edamame, and both corn silk and grilled corn. Not something I’d typically reach for, but all the other teas today were kind of decadent and sweet in one way or the other so it actually was a nice break up from that.

(As an aside, I’m not sure what makes this particular dragonwell “ceremonial”. It didn’t seem like an especially high quality/grade to me.)

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDNnFftS3pU/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULk3-fmFScI&ab_channel=TommyNewport

Adventageddon Day 4

Gongfu!

Not a tea for me, but definitely one that was interesting to try and challenge myself with since I don’t often go out of my way to brew up Japanese green teas (outside of matcha/hojicha) since I know I struggle with them. And, to be fair, there were elements of this I enjoyed. Namely, I thought the really unctious and buttery mouthfeel was quite pleasant even if I didn’t jive with the tasting notes. The nuttiness at the front end of the sip was okay, but it just finished so aggressively oceanic with really kelp/nori like notes that I couldn’t get passed.

I pushed myself to do four infusions and give this one a real honest shake, but I couldn’t do more than that. Honestly, it’s nothing negative about the tea itself. Sometimes certain flavours just aren’t for you, and that is not a reflection on the quality of the tea in any way. When I saw this in the morning I knew that’d likely be the case, but you never know 100% until you give it a go.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDLC-EZyVkq/?img_index=1

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

Adventageddon Day 3

Flowering teas aren’t really my thing so this was another pull from the Inoki advent that I was feeling so-so about. Mainly, I just feel like the quality of the tea used to make them is usually not super great, and because they steep for so long while blooming they usually get pretty bitter and unpleasant.

I made a giant Western-style pot of this, though, in the one big glass teapot I own to give it a proper shot and it was another tea that did actually surprise me. I was nervous with my first sips because it took a LONG time for the bloom to fully open up, but the tea was actually pretty smooth and not as astringent/bitter as I’d been braced for. Plus, I have to admit that this particular bloom was really quite gorgeous. Very elaborate with multiple “tiers” of flowers culminating in a full rose bud. And the notes of rose were really fresh and authentic! Still nothing AMAZING tasting, but definitely one of the better blooming teas I’ve had in recent memory.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDIdoKPSOFh/?img_index=1

It took a while, but I actually got a really clear photo of the bloom!

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiYPodjvvNE&ab_channel=ChineseAmericanBear%E5%8D%8E%E8%A3%94%E7%BE%8E%E5%9B%BD%E7%86%8A

Adventageddon Day 2

Gongfu!

Though yesterday’s Inoki selection did surprise me in the end, I was still much more excited to see this tea come out of the box today. I was up very early this morning, so I actually managed to fit in two gongfu sessions (this and Tea Thoughts) before leaving for the office, so the day was off to a pretty solid start!

First couple infusions of this were highly buttery and soft, to the point where I’m not entirely unconvinced that this wasn’t potentially flavoured? If it was flavoured I do think it was a pretty restrained amount of flavouring, but definitely more buttery than you would typically see “naturally occur” with a milk oolong/jin xuan. Though I think there’s a lot of flavoured milk oolong passed off as “just tea” to unsuspecting tea shop owners AND customers alike, in general I’m not anti-flavoured milk oolongs. There is something to be said about the consistency that flavouring can bring, especially with tea styles like this that are very weather dependent – something which can be pretty hard to predict and recreate. But if I’d thought there was a possibility there was flavouring in this tea I probably would have picked a different brewing vessel…

Another reason I think it may have been flavoured (or "scented) is that by the third steep all of that buttery flavour was basically gone, and not in a gradual declining of flavours sort of way but more in a ‘you steeped it all out’ sort of vibe. However, I actually LOVED the flavours that remained afterwards. It was very smooth, lush and floral with quite distinctive notes of violets and lilacs that were round feeling on the palate and lingered lightly after the swallow leaving that sort of flower nectar sweetness on the bed of the tongue.

So, in the end, I really enjoyed this tea even if I have some light questions about the authenticity of it or not. To be perfectly clear, I’m NOT accusing Inoki of anything. I don’t know if they know it’s flavoured or not, and there are so many potential circumstances that could be at play here. They never outright said it wasn’t flavoured or scented in the info that comes with the advent, and I’ve also seen soooo many cases where the tea shops either didn’t know their milk oolong was flavoured out of ignorance or were just flat out lied to by the people who wholesaled it to them that they trusted. It’s shockingly quite common.

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDF43CoyYo2/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_qS83R9t5c&ab_channel=MICHELLE

Adventageddon Day 1

This was the most surprising tea out of today’s selections!

Inoki Bathhouse is my “new to me” tea company, but honestly to call them a tea company is maybe kind of incorrect? What they really specialize is different bathing products inspired by different spa experiences and traditions around the world. Namely bath soaks – the majority of which contain tea as one of the ingredients. This advent is really their first time selling tea for consumption. I actually found them because when I was doing my advent selections for the year I started AGGRESIVELY getting targeted ads for their advent. It was a little on the steeper side (pun intended) price wise, but because it checked off two boxes (straight/gongfu appropriate teas and a company I’ve not tried before) on my yearly advent “wish list” I thought I’d give them a shot.

I definitely rolled my eyes a bit when I saw this tisane as day one, though. Not because I think it’s a bad inclusion or anything like that. It actually makes a TON of sense given their usual product type. I just don’t personally tend to ever really enjoy the taste of pure chrysanthemum outside of my notorious love of snow chrysanthemum, which is entirely different. But I never skip an advent tea, so I popped one of the admittedly STUNNING flowers into a teacup and gave it a shot with as open a mind as I could. Honestly? Yeah, I ate crow on this one.

Not only was this absolutely gorgeous, which you can see in my photo (the light is bouncing PERFECTLY off the flowers), but it was actually really nice tasting too. Definitely the nicest cup of straight chrysanthemum that I’ve ever made. Still not, like, an immediate favourite but I thought it was flavourful without being aggressive and I liked the gentle peppery top notes against the headier and slightly buttery florals. I even resteeped it, which is a high compliment if I do say so myself. So, I see you Inoki Bathhouse and I’m verrrryyy intrigued to see what else this advent has to offer!

Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDDUEFtyMDA/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKwRr_daYJ8&ab_channel=GoldieBoutilier