Northeast Tea House

Ah, crap. I closed the tab. Well… round two of writing this note. Fight! Rewriting a note is about as exciting as cleaning a toilet. You just can’t capture your initial enthusiasm. But I will try.

This one needs to be consumed. It has been sitting with the rest of my dark teas and it’s been a few years and now I realize it’s not a dark tea at all. Opps.
How cool it is to put it in bamboo. While bamboo isn’t one of my favorite flavors this one packs an interesting punch. When I first unwrapped the tea and poured it into my gaiwan I found a nice, long black hair attached. It’s like it really wanted to be a tea bag but didn’t want the added plastic that comes with that.

The rinse water is the epitome of earthy aroma. Loam, woods, leaves, soil, bark. If it wasn’t 2 degrees I’d go sit on the deck and enjoy this how it is supposed to be enjoyed.
The aroma of the rinsed leaf is AMAZING! Golden, purple, and red raisins. Sweet yet with a hint of wood. This sweetness does not translate to the flavor surprisingly. It’s very deep and woody like a shou pu erh almost. A house made in the 1880s. Some drying chopped wood with moss probably decaying in a pile on the side. With an overall tone of bamboo.

TTB Review #53: Very mild, so much so that I’m not getting any distinct flavors coming through. Largely unremarkable.

TTB Review #25: Utterly unremarkable. Am I drinking tea or hot water with merely an essence of tea flavor? Could be either, really. Very disappointing, to say the least.

TTB Review #3: I like this one much more than the previous Northeast Tea House blend. The flavors are complex and sophisticated. I’m reminded of an English Breakfast-style tea but with more nuance and not nearly as strong. Very much enjoyed this one.

TTB Review #2: Nothing particularly special about this one for me. The flavors are good but I’m not finding anything outstanding.

I find it interesting when they call a tea complex but I find it to be fairly easy to access. At least I find the taste to be the case anyway. The appearance of the dry leaf is complex and beautiful. A work of art. The flavor is subtle, almost honey like, with bits of vegetal notes. Perfect for ancestry searches.

Valhallow. You win the advent tea gift-giving season. These are some amazing samples! And it’s my 1,000 tasting note! Huzzah! Though I’m sure it’s actually much higher than that since there was a year or two of Steepster bugs. Anywho. Silvery white fuzz and a mix of greens and a few browns in the dry leaf. Clear, light amber liquor. Wish the website would give info on the tea. They provide some really fantastic teas but provide no info on there. At the 30-second infusion mark, nothing was noticeable. At one minute there is a note of ground apple, Chamomile. Earthy notes. Slight barnyard. A hint of summer florals, specifically the common tansy. When steeped longer there are some burnt bread notes. But otherwise I can’t say I really fancy this one much ^^;

Random side note: I found a genealogy of my ancestors from my dad’s side and they have a copy of it in the MN Genealogy society near me. I am beyond excited to go and look at it. It’s 400 pages long _

Another amazing tea from Vallhallow. The loveliness about pue teas is the vast amount of flavors you can find and the subjectiveness makes it an adventure each and every time. At first, I really wasn’t a fan of white teas. I only had one from Whittard I enjoyed but most of the barnyard flavors just didn’t do it for me. However, it is growing on me (English is so weird). The delicate leaves in the cake are a mix of browns and a few greens with golden fuzz. Earthy in flavor. Not entirely pleasant when steeped for too long. Weird flavors of sawdust and tarnish? Even when steeped for a proper amount of time the flavors fully remind me of a woodworking shop. Various smells of different types of woods. A pencil. Leaves the mouth feeling kind of heavy and somewhat dry. This reminds me of a cross between pure and a white. I feel that if left to mature for a few more years it would develop some nice notes.

Just fo the record. This is powdered tea. Not matcha. Matcha can only be made from the Tencha leaf in Japan. Okay, now that I’ve let the tea nerd speak this is very unique. And now I really want to try the other experimental white teas that they have powdered: https://www.facebook.com/profile/100063628717884/search/?q=dian%20cha

The aroma coming from the cup immediately hints you to an experience that won’t be like other powdered teas. It is profound and deep. The flavor is woody and herbaceous with distinct roast notes. The end it quite a bit more gritty than I expected but not in a bad way. It very much reminded me of the tea that I bought while in Hawai’i that was roasted to a chocolate brown. Thank you Vallhallow for joining me!

Another Valhallow sample! I was so excited to see that this was a sticky rice tea. The aroma, the flavor, I loves it. Even though a wrapper isn’t conducive for keeping smells in, the leaves still had a lovely scent. I rinsed it once, though honestly, I don’t think it needed a rinse. The initial aroma coming off the is full of sticky rice plant. There is umami, sticky rice, and a bit of marine qualities in the wet leaves. The mouthfeel is smooth with slight astringency. It has a refreshing quality. The flavor is what I expected. Lots of sticky rice notes. Earthy notes of dry dirt and desert twigs.

Can’t find this on their website but had to make a note because this is a wonderful tea. While I generally tend to not drink white teas, I’m starting to take more of an appreciation for them. This one has all the usual qualities in the aroma. Lots of barnyard notes. Strong notes of hay and summer out in the field. The flavor is a bit more subtle versus a Shou Mei. But not in a bad sense. It’s just not in your face; more like a gentle caress of the cheek. It is refreshing with woodsy and slight milky notes in the finish. No astringency. I am on my third steeping now and finding that the milky notes become more pronounced the further you dive in. Also slight sawdust The one other noticeable difference, from other white teas, right off the bat is the coloring of the leaves. Quite a bit browner with dark olive greens. I do love how long and beautiful the leaves are.