Rishi Tea

So my most recent experience with this tisane seems to go against what others have said on here. I’m a big ginger fan, and I just felt overwhelmed by the zesty tartness of the berries, hibiscus, and rosehips. I feel like I can taste the ginger if I imagine really hard.

That said, Auggy makes a very good point about these herbal infusions tending to be inconsistent. I’m thinking that the second infusion may give me a little more ginger flavor as the zingy flavors in these types of infusions usually fade out after the first steeping.

Anyone remember Lemon Zinger? This reminds me of a “fancier” version of that. In a tin :)

So this was the second Rishi tea I ever had, I always have a tin of it in the cabinet, I always share it with friends, it never lets me down, I wrote a song about it, we’vebeentogetherforseveralyearsnow…

Anyways! What a fine example of the great qualities white tea can offer. I’ve had a few that are better, but Rishi (as usual) sets the bar pretty high.
Yes it’s not Silver Needle, but I’ve actually found that when introducing “real white tea” to my non-tea drinking friends, starting with Bai Mu Dan is sometimes the better way to go. Silver Needle has the potential to be too subtle for some taste-buds (Doesn’t it break your heart when someone claims your tea tastes like hot water?)
I think the White Peony has a little more presence while still retaining the texture and overall taste of what a white tea should be. I think it’s really a personal preference when you get down to it though, Rishi has fine examples of both Silver Needle and White Peony.

My favorite thing about this tea is that after I share it with friends, they can go out and pick it up from the grocery – it’s the gift that keeps on giving!

Once again, used my Sorapot to slowly steep a nice Organic Silver Needle Jasmine by Rishi that I had actually purchased in my local grocery store. I was impressed by the quality of the loose tea and the wonderful jasmine fragrance as I typically only buy my teas via the internet/mail order to make sure they are as fresh as possible. But, I must have gotten a nice batch from the grocery store because it was tasty.

I have always loved Jasmine (pearls, greens, and whites) so it’s hard for me to say that I didn’t like this one of course! As far as comparing it with other jasmine teas I’ve tried over the years, I’d say it definitely meets expectations. The silver needles were not the best quality as I’ve seen though (many broken tips) but that might just be because of the bulk packaging process. Given that I paid $12.99 for just 1.9 oz of the tea though, I think I’ll go back to buying my organic jasmine silver needle in larger quantities from some of my favorite online stores.

So I think there is definitely something to be said about pairing maté with citrus flavors. There are several different variations from different companies that all work quite well.

Personally, I have always preferred Numi’s “Mate Lemon Green – Rainforest Green” which is similar to this in many respects but opts to add “precious eyebrow” green tea to complement the maté and citrus flavors. I almost always choose loose leaf over bags, but this is one rare exception and I think even loose-leaf purists should give Numi’s bagged tea a try if you like Rishi’s Mate Lemongrass.

That said, this is a very pleasant drink that is lightly uplifting and tastes very refreshing. I usually will take sips while infusing this and err a little on the lighter side to avoid the tart unbalance of too much lemongrass flavor. This, of course, is personal taste.

As I spend another day at work, tethered to a computer, watching my muscles atrophy and my interpersonal skills decline… I think to myself, “At least I have Osthmanthus Silver Needle!”

This tea is underglorified.

The explanation is likely quite simple. I don’t think the average American knows what Osthmanthus Blossoms are. Or maybe they do (Do you?) – but I certainly didn’t before my tea obsession thoroughly set in!

So allow me to share, in case you’re unfamiliar. Osthmanthus Blossoms, or “Guay Hua,” usually come from East Asia. Cute little osthmanthus flowers grow on shrubs, and are typically harvested late in the year (autumn). As a result, osthmanthus-scented teas are often the last teas available each year. Osthmanthus scenting, from what I understand, is quite similar to jasmine scenting. Osthmanthus Blossoms are mixed in with the tea, allowed to sit&scent the tea overnight, picked out the next day, and then fresh Osthmanthus Blossoms are mixed in so it can happen all over again. The process is repeated, up to 10 times, and then… voilà! Sweet nectar of the gods.

The difference to note, however, is in the flavour. I don’t want you comparing my glorious Osthmanthus-scented Silver Needle to Jasmine-anything.
While some may find Jasmine-scented teas to be perfumey and overpowering, (me) Osthmanthus creates a unique luxurious nectary flavour unlike any other. I would describe the tea as being smooth and sweet, with notes of honey and ripened yellow fruits, and a subtle floral aroma. The first infusion is always best, as it contains the most of that fresh-steeped Osthmanthus flavour.
And while I’ve seen Osthmanthus Oolongs elsewhere… NOTHING is like this Osthmanthus Silver Needle. It’s perfect.

This tea is easily in my Top 5. I dare you to try it and not like it.

Have a great day everyone! :)

I am trying to be good about trying my samples from swaps. You would think it wouldn’t be difficult, since I’ve gotten sent some very intriguing tea. However, one, I want to write about the tea I’ve gotten sent and I tend to spend a fair amount of time writing logs.

Two, I have enough that I tend to get overwhelmed when it comes to making choices. Really, I should just put all the samples in my cupboard and use the randomizer [find it here if you don’t know what that is – http://www.jaydeee.net/pickatea.php – thanks Jon [and teaplz, for the assist]], which I started doing but it makes my tea cupboard look absolutely insane and unwieldy to navigate. Can I just say that I find it hilarious that I have over a thousand searches on the randomizer even though I know that I personally haven’t used it that many times? You sneakersons! Maybe I should just make a dummy Steepster account so I have all my tea swap samples over there. Is it ridiculous that I’m thinking about doing that? Maybe, Overlords, we could have the option to make separate cupboards [like by tea type, or so that I could have a separate cupboard for swap tea]? Just thinking out loud. I would find that useful. I should also put that on the discussion board instead of just assuming the Overlords are going to read this…

Zeus, this post is a brain dump. Anyway, three, I just love Samovar so damn much it’s difficult to tear me away from them.

With all of that mess being said, I am going to be drinking swap tea near-exclusively so that I can start to pare down my not-so-mini-mountain of tea. As I’m sure you all are familiar, the vast quantities of already-owned tea has not stopped me from continuing to order more. Steepster Select is not helping.

So, here we have a tea that LENA sent me. [I like that little bolding thing y’all have been doing. To whoever started that: I think Angrboda did? thanks, Ricky! Clever.] LENA sent me enough that I had multiple brewing opportunities, all of which this log will be touching on.

When I see “Breakfast” in a tea name, my mind automatically assumes that this is going to be some kind of a blend. Reading the description on Steepster, though, it appears that this is straight Dian Hong, which was surprising. I haven’t had a lot of Dian Hong before, but I think I like it. It reads as a bit milder to me than other black teas.

This blend is smooth, which I appreciate. Rishi calls it robust, which it very well may be at longer steep times, but at 4 minutes and beyond the bitterness began to creep in for me and it makes it difficult for me to find other flavors when it’s there [in an elephant in the room kind of sense]. So, I retreated back a bit. I tried 2 minutes, which was way too mild for me. At 4 and 4:30 the bitterness wasn’t enough to make things undrinkable for me, but if I can get it to a place where that bitterness isn’t present it’s preferable. And so, 3 minutes was the magic number for me on this tea.

The scent of the liquid was rather lovely. It actually reminded me of coffee beans, mixed with scones. It brought forth many breakfast-like thoughts for me, which was appropriate. There was a definite sweetness to it that wasn’t terribly present in the taste.

The flavor was pleasant, but not remarkable. On the second steep of a particular run, I got this delicious, bite-a-ble, malty, almost salty, edging on savory flavor. It reminded me a lot of these belgian waffles I get from one of my favorite places to hit up for breakfast. Otherwise, I wasn’t getting a ton of flavor notes from it in general. Mainly, it tasted of that kind of default black tea flavor. There was a very, very slight, natural sweetness that waded in at towards the end of sips from time to time [more noticeably when the tea had cooled]. Reading the description after finishing my sample off, I didn’t notice any chocolate notes, but had I been looking for it, I might have been able to find it. [It would have been more of a dark chocolate/cocoa type of taste, I think.]

Lastly, I didn’t add anything to any of the cups, but I think that this could stand up to a splash of milk and a dash of sugar, for sure.

ETA: [because this log needs to be longer…] the third steep was very watery. I stopped at two on consequent runs.

All in all, this was a nice, unassuming, solid cup of black tea. Nothing mind-blowing, but if I were a black tea in the morning type of person, I could see this being an easy staple. As it is, I don’t think I’ll be ordering it, but it was nice to try. If I find myself gravitating more towards black tea in the future [as my tastes tend to shift over time], I’ll be keep this one in mind, though.

It was yet another gorgeously sunny and warm day in Atlanta, and I was going back through my tealog here to see what to try iced, and this was jumped out at me. I had just enough left in the pouch for an iced tea steep, so…here we are.

Wow. Just wow. Deep and fruity, fresh and full of flavor. And it seems like it would be an awesome base for any other tea concoctions, smoothies, sparklers, or cocktails. I’m not really doing it justice with this tasting note; get a sample pack and experience it for yourself.

It’s been rainy, cold, and overcast here in Atlanta these past few days. Today was the first bit of sun I’ve seen in a while, so I brewed up this tea I bought down in Austin. It’s so deliciously sweet, I thought I was drinking Kool-Aid. The blueberry and cherry notes are really strong. This would be excellent iced.

The warm baked quality of this oolong is certainly its most apparent quality. The barley taste inherent to most oolongs is a little more understated in Iron Goddess.
Be careful to follow the instructions to a T. A little bit of this tea goes a LOOONG way.

While this isn’t the finest tea Rishi sells (as many have said here) it is pretty common in grocery stores, so it is something I can recommend to a friend who wants to buy something new (i.e. not Lipton teabags) that isn’t hard to find or very expensive. Personally, this was a gateway tea for me in a sense. At the time, I didn’t have any loose leaf teas, and didn’t even know that there were different kinds of oolong teas (!). After trying this tea, my spark of an interest in tea snowballed into the daily hobby I enjoy today. I still keep a tin of it on hand for everyday use and using when experimenting with iced/chilled teas.

This is always on my list of teas that I offer to my friends who “don’t like any kind of tea period”. I think this was the first roasted green I ever tried, so it definitely gets points for nostalgia as well. Rishi delivers as usual with an excellent tea!

A refreshing green with a distinct citrus flavor that is quite unique. A delightful cup despite my wife insisting it smells/tastes like oregano… It kinda does.

A great tea if you are looking for jasmine. If you’re in it for the white tea, I’d recommend checking out Rishi’s Silver Needle (non jasmine version) and White Peony if you haven’t already.
This is a nice tea; it’s just that the jasmine aroma and flavor can easily overpower the buds’ delicate taste.

So this marks the end of the sample Lena gave me to try – and I’ll miss it. The leaves held onto their flavour through four steepings but after that I reluctantly decided that the tea was mostly spent. I probably could have made more tea out of the leaves, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much. So I elected not to try and squeeze every last drop of flavour out of the leaves, lol.

The flavour never became harsh or astringent, and it managed to be floral without getting that overly perfumed-flowery quality that I’ve noticed in some oolongs. At the same time it had a slight vegetale flavour that was more of a ‘cooked greens’ flavour rather than ‘raws greens’. There’s also something about the taste that makes me think of warmth and comfort.

This is a very nice tea ladies and gents.

Another tea from the lovely Lena. I’ve never had a yellow tea before so I was excited to try it – and a bit nervous when I heard how delicate they are.

So let’s start with the steeping instructions: “Use a porcelain guywan, glass teapot or a Ho-hin and fill it half full”

Riiight, because I have any of those things. I had to look up what a Ho-hin is sadly enough. I do have a glass tea pot, but it’s a huge two liter one so filling that half-way would be a bit difficult. I’ve seen guywans in Asian stores in Vancouver and all I can say that me drinking from one of those is an accident waiting to happen. I can just see myself pressing too hard on the upper rim and flipping the whole thing over onto me. DX

So I ended up using about half of the sample Lena gave me (about a tbsp) in a 10 oz coffee mug. The dry leaves were covered in a thick coat of soft fuzz and they looked more silvery than yellow. The first steep for about 2 min yielded a pale-looking, delicate brew that smelled quite fragrant. The flavour is subtle and a bit vegetale, but with honey-sweet notes intertwined throughout. The steeped leaves absorbed water and unfolded a bit and I could see that they were, indeed, a pale yellowish-green shade.

The resteep was a little lighter but it still had that same green-sweet flavour. Some people have compared it to honeysuckle – I’ve never tried honeysuckle so I really can’t say. I could get more steeps out of the leaves, but I’m pretty tired so I think I’ll just head off to bed.

Every time I have this it reminds me of Coca-Cola sans the nasty sweetness and carbonation.

This tea is swell. It’s not nearly as strong or bold as an earl grey which is nice for me. What I enjoy most about this tea is taking in a good waft of vanilla just before drinking and then waiting for the aftertaste. I enjoy this tea more-so once it has cooled way down; it takes on a bit more of a sweet taste throughout.

I probably wouldn’t buy it again, but I will enjoy this Rishi sampler until the last loose leaf.