Nepal Tea

Having this tea this morning, I wasn’t quite awake yet. I read the flavors – fresh flowers, bumblebee? It’s buttercream. Which I don’t get. The bumblebee gave me a chuckle. What does bumblebee taste like?
Mostly I get flowers out of this tea. It’s not sugary tasting.

Gongfu Sipdown (2617)!

This was kindly gifted to me by my very sweet tea friend gabbydrinkstea, and since I’m finally starting to feel well again, I was excited to dive into it!! First things first, it’s quite naturally sweet tasting with more of a fruity profile than I’d expected from such a bud heavy white tea. It’s not that white tea buds don’t typically have a fruity element to their taste, but this one was very, very bright and citrusy all throughout the session. There were also more expected soft notes of freshly whipped cream, corn silk, and Timothy hay but I just kept circling back to the wonderfully sunny and sweet lemon curd profile that felt so vibrant and joyful on my palate. I think the fact that the liquor itself had a fuller, thick sort of texture definitely did a lot to bolster the richness of the lemon flavour and that may have been why I kept interpreting it as curd-like. Well, that and the rich and airy cream notes – which were, in a way, like a meringue capping off each sip.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C7HTrfCO_m1/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oOocsfe0Z0

Sipdown! (50 | 302)

Last Sips by tea for August!

This smelled a bit… alarming dry. Very strong citrusy/medicinal scent.

Luckily it doesn’t taste like the smell, lol. I mostly taste the lemongrass paired with ginger and a touch of citrus. But there’s something else, and I’m assuming it’s the black cardamom? I’ve never had black cardamom, so not sure what it tastes like, but this is quite… aromatic? Citrusy but in a mentholated, pungent essential oil sort of way, and there’s even a hint of smoke at the end of the sip. It’s reminding me a bit of eucalyptus as well.

Someone who knows, is that what black cardamom tastes like? Ha ha either way, it was enjoyable and quite different from other lemongrass-based tisanes I’ve had.

2.5 grams. Exactly. Never done that before. Water at 185F. Timer set for 3 minutes of infusion. The difficulty with tasting expensive things is not in how the taste actually is but based on how the dollar amount shapes your perspective. Oftentimes product marketers will say a product is worth more than it truly is to see how differently people react with it. This can really skew things. Like the coffee that is pooped. It fetches a high price but most people say it doesn’t taste good.

Dry aroma: Woody. Slight floral, rose. But is that the suggestion in the name speaking?
Dry appearance: Golden buds and dark chocolate leaf. Tightly twisted.

Wet Leaf appearance: Mostly chocolate brown but a few are olive green.
Wet leaf. Slight rose aroma. But not your general rose, more specific. Like walking though a flower garden and smelling each one.

Flavor. The first sip had some roasted vegetal notes. An undertone of decaying wood. Honey and rose notes.
Mouthfeel: Silky. A bit of astringency to finish but not an offensive drying sensation.
Liquor aroma: A bit bready. Not quite as bready as other Nepal teas I’ve had.

2nd Steep:
Ooo. The second steep is coming out quite a bit more floral. Perhaps it was also the longer steep? Slightly more astringent but still in a good way.

3rd Steep: Perhaps it was the longer infusion that was needed to draw out the floral notes. Quite good still. Honey notes in the sweetness present themselves a bit more as well.

I originally got this tea thinking I would gift it to my friends and family who like tea, but aren’t really tea nerds. Instead, I ended up drinking almost all of it on my own. This tea has such a nice story and the packaging is amazing, so it really is a nice gift to give someone. This is a smooth tea that tastes of caramel, apricots, and malt. It has a similar flavor profile to jin jun mei, but it has much more complexity. Smooth, Cocoa, Caramel. Tart, Bitter, Malty. All those flavors each take their turn lingering on your tongue.

Drank this tea this morning and was expecting more flavor because of the scent of the dry leaves/spices. Good, but I felt like it was missing something to round out the flavors… tasted hollow if that makes sense. This came in the Advent Calendar from Danielle ( Teaandmeblog ) and I followed the brewing instructions on the package,

A spiced black tea with cinnamon at the front and black pepper at the back. The combination was interesting enough to keep drinking, but isn’t something I’d keep stocked in my cupboard.

sipsby advent, day 4*
(sipsby packages this in no particular order, so your order may be different than mine)

My last Nepal Tea sampler packet! The dry leaf looks more like a black tea to me, and the aroma of the dry leaves is very muscatel.

Steeped half the packet (4.7g) in 500ml 205F water for 3 minutes. The steeped tea also has a fruity muscatel aroma, but much stronger is a cocoa aroma (which I rarely smell in teas). Also a floral honey aroma note.

Mmm. I think I’d rank this in my favorites from all the Nepal Tea samplers. There is a deep cocoa and earthy mineral flavor, with a more subtle roasty/smoky element. There is a bit of a Darjeeling-esqe muscatel note, as well. The aftertaste on my tongue is sort of a muddle spices and plum flavor, and some lingering floral rose.

Very enjoyable!

Last chai from my Nepal Tea samplers, this one on a white tea base. It came in a single-serve sachet teabag rather than loose leaf, like some of the other chai samplers.

The steeped tea has a citrusy aroma, as well as a mix of ginger and cinnamon. I was really worried this would be too potent for me, as sichuan pepper is listed in the ingredients, and I’m extremely spice sensitive… but I’m not getting any burning sensation during or after the sip. I do have a very pleasant and welcome warming down my throat; I sprouted a bad cold overnight, and my throat, nose, and chest are all sore and mucusy. I see the base is the White Prakash tea that I tasted strong citrus notes in when I had it cold brewed, so I’m assuming that, mixed with the lemongrass, is where I’m getting the mellow citrusy/lemony flavor of the tea. Of the spices, I taste mostly ginger, with a more mild pepperiness, in the spice.

While their green chai tasted like a Moroccan Mint blend to me, this white chai tastes like a Lemon Ginger tea (albeit less abrasive with nothing artificial/cleaner-esque about it). Very happy to be having this with this sore throat.

It has finally cooled down enough that the thought of a warm cup of tea in the morning is palatable again… especially so as we are living under a cloud of forest fire smoke that has made my throat and chest irritated for days.

I really enjoyed Nepal Tea’s “White Prakash”. This was in my sampler pack from the San Francisco International Tea Festival 2018, but isn’t listed on their website. The packet looks the same as the White Prakash, but “1st Flush” is hand-written on it. The leaves look different as well… these are really full and fluffy (resulting in 3.5g inside the packet) while the regular White Prakash packet had smaller, more needle-like leaves (resulting in 6.5g inside the packet).

I brewed the full 3.5g packet in 180F water, steeped for 3 minutes. It smells like honey graham biscuits with some wildflower florality as it cools in my cup. I’m getting notes of buttered vegetables, hay, and wildflower honey. The flavor is more buttery/floral with a more dominant hay note than I got in the regular White Prakash cold brewed. I’m also not getting the strong citrus note I got in the White Prakash cold brew in this tea at all. Not sure how much of the differences are due to this being a First Flush vs. warm brewing this tea and cold brewing the other one.

Still enjoying this, but I liked the regular White Prakash cold brew a bit more.

Brewed the whole sample packet of this tea (I think it was about 6.5g) into a liter of water and left to cold brew overnight.

Oh, what an interesting white tea! I think this is my second favorite of the Nepal Tea samplers I’ve gone through so far. It has a strong lemon citrus note that I’ve never tasted in a white tea before. It’s very clean and refreshing! I’m also getting notes of melon, cucumber water, spring water, hay, and a subtle floral note, but they aren’t as strong as the tangy lemony note.

I also have a sampler of a White Prakash hand-labeled “first flush” and am uncertain what the difference is, but if it is as tasty as this tea, I’m looking forward to it!

Oh, I think this is my favorite of the Nepal Tea samplers I’ve tried thus far. I used about half the loose leaf (around 3.75g) steeped in 500ml of 205F water.

It smells like a Chinese black… it has that sort of pithy orange mixed with smoke smell that always reminds me of a BBQ sauce or savory meat marinade, which I smell/taste in Chinese blacks often.

The tea is very malty, with some notes of leather, orange zest, smoke, spices (most close to the peppery aspect of cardamom), and maybe just a hint of floral rose. It’s a nice strong tea and goes well with breakfast. I had some cookies kindly gifted to me by AJRimmer with it, and the sweetness also accompanied the mild astringency and umami notes nicely. (That cookie was also banging… I love mochi but I can’t stand azuki, so I tend to avoid it because I hate biting into mochi and getting surprise azuki in my mouth. I’ve never seen a chocolate chip cookie with mochi in the center! It was great! We just don’t have access to foreign snacks in my area…)

Another Nepal Tea chai, this one on a green base. Sample was a handy single-serve teabag instead of a non-resealable packet stuffed with leaf.

The brewed tea of this one smells more strongly of mint and citrus, reminding me less of a chai and more of a Morrocan Mint tea. I like the Morrocan Mint flavor profile, but dislike gunpowder green tea, so I tend to really enjoy those flavors on alternate green bases. I also like my mint greens with a touch of lemony herb.

The tea tastes very clean and refreshing… surprising since this is a very old green. I’m tasting a nice mix of spearmint, herbaceous/hay/citrus from the lemongrass, and a slightly more pithy/tangy citrus at the end of the sip from the orange peel. The ginger and cinnamon is very mild… I had a hard time even placing them in the blend at all. If I take a long sip and let the tea linger on my tongue a bit before the swallow, I can then make out a subtle spice note, but the tea remains gentle and smooth… it doesn’t provide a kick.

A nice Morrocan Mint-type tea, without the unpleasant smoky notes I get from more traditional MM blends that use gunpowder.

Unlike with the Ganesha Green, which I brewed way too strong to use up the sample leaf, this time I actually brewed according to my preferences (5g to 1L) and tracked down a binder clip to try to keep the air out of the opened foil packet for the rest of the sample. Left overnight, strained the next morning… this is light enough I’m now getting that refreshing, thirst-quenching quality, which was stifled before with biting astringency. The flavor is lightly grassy, and I’m still getting a bit of that floral orchid note that I tasted in the Ganesha Green. There is a bit of a spinach note at the end of the sip, but it is more subtle, and the tea prepared this way is much sweeter, with a dew/spring water quality. Very pleasant!

Coldbrewed my sample packet of this overnight.

This is an aromatic tasting green. I’m getting a strong floral orchid note, with a vegetal note reminding me of cooked spinach and eggplant. It’s more astringent than I prefer, but that is because this sample came in loose leaf in a foil packet that can’t be resealed, and there was more leaf than I tend to use for a cold brew (I use about 5g and had to use closer to 8g to finish off the packet). I always get bitter green cold brews with a lot of leaf, so I’m not surprised by that. It’s making it a little unpleasant rather than refreshing for me, but I’ll finish off the liter. Next time I’ll just not be lazy and grab another mason jar to split the leaf more according to my tastes…

My Nepal Tea today is another chai, and suprisingly to me, this one was a single-serve teabag in the foil sample bag (what I assumed they all were, until I opened up the last two and had a bunch of loose leaf inside). It looks to me from the ingredients the main difference in the chai blends is this one includes some citrus notes?

The tea has a nice peppery/citrus aroma. And the citrus notes are definitely very present in the sip, as well. I can taste both the herbaceous citrus of lemongrass and the more tangy and pithy orange peel. The cardamom is, once again, the strongest spice flavor in the blend, and it pairs nicely with the citrus notes. The ginger pops toward the end of the sip and leaves a warmth in the mouth after the sip, though it isn’t unpleasant.

I’m happy to see the flavors are quite different between the two black tea chais by this company. The Nepali Breakfast one is a bit sweeter due to the stronger cinnamon note, which I’m not tasting at all in this one, and this one is a little more tangy due to the citrus. I have enjoyed both, but with my love of tangy/tart flavors, I think I prefer this one a bit more.

This is the Nepal Tea sampler I pulled out for today. This time I brewed it quite a bit stronger than I personally tend to treat black teas, just because there is quite a bit of leaf in these packets, but once the foil is ripped open, the sample can’t be resealed, so I need to try to use up the leaf quickly.

The tea brews a lovely deep coppery red color, and smells like yams and wildflowers, with a pinch of cinnamon spice. I was expecting an astringent brew based on my stronger leaf content, but it is surprisingly smooth on the sip; there is a mellow and not bitter or unpleasant tannic aftertaste. I’m getting a malty/bready flavor with a strong floral note, like a sweet rose. It’s also quite fruity, tasting like a mix of muscatel and cherry.

A solid morning black. The flavors remind me of Darjeelings I’ve had, but the body is thicker and darker, more akin to Assam. I woke with a mild headache (and with me having chronic migraine, it only takes a hot second for a mild headache to suddenly turn into something very bad) and have found after getting only half a cup of this in me, I feel much better.

This month for the summer vacation prompt I’m going to focus on Nepali teas! I purchased a sampler of teas back in 2018 from Nepal Teas booth at the San Francisco International Tea Fest (they came in a lovely handmade pouch too, which I still use as my “travel tea” pouch on vacations). Later, I saw a really great presentation by the owner of Nepal Teas at the Portland Tea Fest in 2019… I moved house and got a cat just a month after that, and ended up naming her “Chiya,” the Nepali word for “tea,” because it somehow stuck out in my mind from that presentation and sounded “cat-like” to me, hahaha!

I assumed each sample packet was one sachet teabag, and found myself surprised after I tore open the top of the foil that there was quite a bit of loose leaf packed inside! I use 2.5g for a 350ml cup, and there was still 5.5g left inside the packet. The packets are tear-foil and not resealable, so I’ll have to use up the remainder of tea today… I may make a latte or a larger pot later.

The dry leaf has a strong peppery smell. Brewed up, I do still smell the pepper, but the strongest aroma from the cup is that particular peppery/minty scent I get from cardamom. On sip, this is a very smooth chai; there is a pleasant warming but it isn’t uncomfortably spicy (I’m very sensitive to spice). The cardamom stands out the most to me in the flavor, but I’m able to pick out the other spices, as well; midsip is a slight pepperiness, and the end of the sip and aftertaste leave a lingering sensation of pungent and sweeter cinnamon and the tiniest, subtle ginger kick.

The black tea itself is perhaps coming off a little weaker than I prefer in a chai, but that could just be the age of the leaves having lost some luster so the spices really take over. There is no astringency though, which I often get from really robust or CTC chais, which is very pleasant. There is perhaps a slight honey-oats sort of flavor from the base in the background, but the sip is so cardamom forward that it is very subtle.

A pleasant cup of chai. Sometimes I find blends with lots of spices can feel a bit overwhelmed and I rarely can taste all the different components then, anyway. This is a simple mix of only a few spices, but each is discernable and adds to the medley in the cup.

#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #195 overall / Tea #19 for May
Wednesday 5/12 - Nepali Breakfast. Two sample packets made as a cold brew pitcher started 5/8. Chai tea. Gifted and can’t remember it since I didn’t make a tasting note when was drinking it but it was enjoyed.
#tiffanydrinkstea #tiffanys2021 #tiffanysfaves #tiffanyinthe614 #tiffanysteasipdown

The more I drank this the more I appreciated it. Oolongs can be a bit too “toasty” for my taste but this had more of a subtle toasted flavor that I could appreciate. As someone else said, it’s not an every day tea but it’s one I’d like to have on hand.

#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #138 overall / Tea #9 for April

Tuesday 04/06/21 — Nepal Tea Kanchanjangha Verde (Premium Green). Sample packet cold-brewed for 2 days (3-31 to 4-2). Sipped 4/3, 4/4, and 4/6 (forgot to finish this earlier as I’ve been sipping other teas). I think I over steeped it? But it just tasted like a strong cold-brew green tea.

#tiffanydrinkstea #tiffanys2021 #tiffanysfaves #tiffanyinthe614 #tiffanysteasipdown #sipdownchallenge

#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #126 overall / Tea #42 for March

Wednesday 3/31/21 — Nepal Tea Silver Yeti. Part of the #nepalteaambassador team, posting this on my Instagram. Sample pack brewed hot & plain 3/30 then re-steeped cold brew & plain to sip 3/31.

PHOTO: https://www.instagram.com/p/CNIK41jgOJJ/

#tiffanydrinkstea #tiffanys2021 #tiffanysfaves #tiffanyinthe614 #tiffanysteasipdown #sipdownchallenge

#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #85 overall / Tea #1 for March

Monday 3/1 Will be writing about this tea on my instagram since I received this as part of being a #nepalteaambassador – will link the post here when I do post it. This was a sampler pack (enough for a 16 oz cuppa) so I had it hot and plain. I have a 50g pouch as well so I’ll be trying it cold brewed and such as well this month.

UPDATE PHOTO/POST on Instagram 3/3/21: https://www.instagram.com/p/CL-SJZUgTHi/

#tiffanydrinkstea #tiffanys2021 #tiffanysfaves #tiffanyinthe614 #tiffanysteasipdown #sipdownchallenge

A sample from a Sips By box from May of last year.

This has notes that I associate with Assam – briskness, malt, tobacco, and rich raisin. There’s virtually no bitterness and only a touch of astringency, which is a nice improvement. It is quite a bit lighter in flavor than I would expect, which makes it perhaps more suited for afternoon, whereas I would choose Assam for a kick-in-the-pants morning tea.

This also has a rather strong floral note that shows itself in the middle of the sip, and then sort of fades a bit by the end. I’m not a floral fan, and this note comes off a bit perfumey. Unfortunately it quite ruins the flavor for me.

Oh well, you can’t love them all! I am interested in trying more Nepalese teas in the future.

(not rating since I feel I’m rather biased against this one)