Rishi Tea

Brewed some in my gravity-type infuser from Teavana. It’s a nice minty treat, especially with a little vanilla soy creamer added to kick the vanilla up just a notch. I need to drink this more often.

And I need to try some on ice. Maybe as an iced tea latte or an ice cream float.

The first cup was good, nice mint flavor with vanilla and just a touch of licorice root. I’m waiting on the second cup while I write this, that cup will get some creamer added!!

I’m glad this tea doesn’t have a tremondous amount of licorice root, I always worry about it’s effects on blood pressure (raises it) and potassium levels (lowers those).

Overall, this is a good choice for a cold winter day.

This has been my favorite tea for over two years now, its malty sweetness cannot be matched for this type of tea. I haven’t found any other Yunnan black tea that has a similar flavor. It also makes a WONDERFUL iced tea. I mix with a natural cane sugar (Florida Crystals) not the darker the lighter sugar. Everyone who has tasted this at my place is just struck at how good of iced tea this is compared to anything they have ever tried. I make a pot in the morning and then use it for iced tea later in the day. This is a dark infusion and gets sweeter as it cools. While they say you can do multiple infusions a lot of the complexity is lost in a later infusion.

I would have liked to see a bit less popped rice and a bit more matcha powder. I think gemaimacha should have a subtle marshy flavor, and a prevalance of pine notes derived from the matcha powder.

Ever since I read this: http://bit.ly/6kBYYq, I have been obsessed with trying this tea. So, when I decided it was time to put another order through with Rishi, Ancient Yellow Buds was the first tea on my list.

Not gonna lie, it’s pretty amazing.

First things first, this tea brews clear [or very nearly so]. It doesn’t look like you’ve done anything. I was thrown by this a bit, but now you know, and knowing is half the battle. [Cue shooting star rainbow swipe thingy.]

I’m going to have to agree with LENA, in that I primarily get honeysuckle out of this. Lovely, concentrated, honey combined with that almost strained sweetness from cholorphyll and a nectar-like thickness honeysuckle. It also did this crazy wonderful thing for me where, once I had swallowed the tea, I could feel the lingering honeysuckle taste actually dissolving on my tongue. Physically felt it. Like cotton candy, that kind of sensation, except not sickly sweet. Or angel food cake. It was awesome.

But the thing that kicks this tea from “love it” to “I am going to throw down some serious hyperbole and expletives until you try this” is the fact that lightly, in the aftertaste, towards the back of my tongue, I get the taste of freshly baked white bread, sweet and yeasty. This is not obvious. I like to wait in between sips of my tea, and that’s probably why I noticed it.

I did three steeps of this at varying times [gauge reflects the first one, Rishi recommends 3 minutes and then 4-5 on second and third steeps, which is what I did]. I don’t really see any need to deviate from these times, but I might since I definitely have enough to experiment a bit. Speaking of which, I bought 4 ounces of it, which I’m very glad of now because I expect that I’ll be drinking a lot of it. Anyhow, if any of this sounds even remotely appealing to you I’d suggest that you get it.

Quickly becoming my favorite black tea.

After being disappointed by the fact that Rish thinks “all greens are created equal”, I steeped this the 1st time using their suggestions, but now I’m using the steeping parameters for Kukicha on www.denstea.com. 1 teaspoon instead of one TB and a 6oz cup instead of an 8oz cup. Time and temp differences can be found below.

Of course a shorter steep w/ less leaf produces a lighter liquor. It almost looks like lemon juice. It smells like my 1st try only much lighter. The taste doesn’t surprise me either, their very similar except this one has substantially less bitterness. While it isn’t really bitter, there is still the savory umami notes. It’s definitely not a sweet green.

Conclusion Will probably prepare it using Rishi’s parameters when I make the sole recipe they have on the tea’s profile page, but when it comes to drinking it I’ll be using these parameters.

This was my 1st order from Rishi and only my 2nd tea that I know of that was Rishi. I’ve had their matcha prepared at a cafe once. But I could have well tried a sample of something at my local tea shop (they have 7 per day) that was indeed Rishi.

While I absolutely loved Rishi’s daily sales they had last month, I wasn’t going to cave because I have neither the money or the storage space. Til I saw this one. The tea itself didn’t really grab me, it’s the recipe for sole they have on the info page that suckered me in. I’m also also determined to learn to be able to define exactly what umami is, specifically in teas so I want to try every umami tea I can get my hands on. When it comes to trying a recipe for the 1st time I’m very anal about making it verbatum, yes even down to the brand of tea.

As I said before, I have very little experience w/ Rishi’s products and even less experience w/ dealing w/ their company directly but my 1st experience wasn’t a very positive one. I learned a very important lesson: when trying a new company, especially if your purchase will be a small one, investigate shipping. My purchase consisted of just this 50g (1oz is ~28g) pouch of tea which I got for only $3.75 (regularly priced $10) which costed $8 to ship an entire 90 miles. What’s worse, it was supposed to take 4 days to get here (quite long in my book), but ended up taking 9! I can order something from Adagio all the way in NJ, only pay $3.75 for shipping, and get it in a week.

Not only was this my 1st experience ordering from Rishi, it was also my first Kukicha. I opened the pouch and was quite surprised to see 2 different kinds of leaves- tiny, dark green grass clipping like leaves and longer, yellowish green blades. And the smell… Now I’m normally very good about not letting the smell of the raw leaves affect my perspective (I am a huge fan of Adagio’s white cucumber after all lol), but this is… how do I even discribe this? Putrid. That’s it. It smells like wet, moldy hay. Yuck. Oh well. I’ll give it a shot.

The steeping instructions suggest 1TB in 8oz of water heated to 185 degrees for 3-4min. Except for the amount of leaf (which seems like a lot), this seems awfully suspicious of the general steeping times for all greens, including Japanese, that most companies suggest so I went to Den’s Tea’s website to see what they suggest because I know their steeping parameters are unique to each type of tea. Yep. I was right. Den’s suggests 1tsp of leaf steeped in 6oz of water heated to 180 degrees for only 45 sec. Well, I’ll try Rishi’s steeping parameters 1st then try Den’s and compare them.

The discription of this says the liquor is emerald, but that isn’t true. It’s more “the person that used the bathroom before me didn’t flush and I can tell they have a urinary tract infection.” Thank God the aroma is virtually nothing like the raw leaves. There is an extremely faint hay like taste but that is easily covered by the bitter sweet (but definitely more sweet) flavor that they said I should expect. I’m also not getting the creamy mouth feel they discribe.

Conclusions: Surprisingly good tea even using their steeping parameters, but I wish they’d have more unique steeping parameters. I can’t wait to make the sole recipe. I’ll try different brands to compare both flavor and price, but if I decide that this is indeed the Kukicha for me, I’ll be buying it my local tea shop for $5.75/oz (and for every $100 spent I get $5 off). I also have 2 pu erh recommendations that are Rishi. I’m absolutely terrified of pu erh and I don’t want to waste money on something I don’t like so I’ll be buying those locally as well. My tea shop has an awesome return policy. The shipping is just absolutely not worth it, even if the products are.

Tasted better than normal Genmai, to me. It must be the added Matcha that kicked the taste up a notch.

2nd infusion just tasted like regular Genmai, as most of the Matcha got washed away.

i am just starting to get into pu-erh and I figured this would be a good segway into it. At first, which steeping this tea smelled like kitty litter that was infused with caramel pieces. But, after it was done steeping, it just smelled earthy,keeping the caramel. My first infusion I made a little too weak- I think i added too much water in my teapot by accident. Oh well, live and learn, right? The liquor is a really dark amber color, almost coffee like. The tast was a bit bitter and earthy but the sweet overtones of dark chocolate and caramel worked nicely together on my palette. Overall, I like this tea, it isn’t super earthy, which is what I was expecting, I am pleasantly surprised with it.

A nice floral and earthy tea. Easy drinking with a light mouthfeel.

Hrm. So maybe this whole work tea experience isn’t working out quite as well as I hoped!

So I figured I’d finish off the sample that takgoti sent me, and try some Ancient Emerald Lily at work (I have a tin of this as well).

I think the problem is actually my Flavia machine’s water. I’m not sure having the water run through the same spout that produces coffee and hot chocolate and various types of tea is such a good thing. Or maybe it’s just the water that tastes bad…

Anyway, this tea, which is one that I found in the past to be very enjoyable, pretty much fell flat today. None of the flavors really stood out. There was a weird, almost mineral-like taste, and the formally nutty notes were really harsh and unpleasant. The lower water temperature I used really caused the tea to lose a lot of its astringency, which was definitely pleasant. And as the cup cooled, there was definite green-sweet peeping through.

But overall, the cup just wasn’t as good as I’ve had in the past. Tea is probably 99% water, so I have a feeling the water might be the key to my problem. The next step is going to be boiling some water in the microwave and then letting it cool to an appropriate temperature. Or I might test another tea, like Adagio’s Gunpowder, and see how it stands up to these icky water conditions. I don’t want to be ruining tea with bad water.

Looks like the hot water kettle + bottled water might just end up being the more viable option…

takgoti sent me this tea, even though I had bought a canister of it for myself! So I figured I’d try her batch first, since it’s “older” than mine.

Yay! Anyway, the dry leaf is absolutely gorgeous. Green and silvery and long and wiry. The dry leaves have a sweet leafy smell. Like sweet hay, in a wonderful way. Not a barn-y, old way.

Anyway, I dumped a tablespoon of this into my pot, and let the steeping begin! The leaves unfurl very prettily, expanding. They’re all completely full leaves, gorgeous and green. I couldn’t wait for the pour. The tea itself smells absolutely delicious, let me tell you. Buttery and a bit of nice vegetal. Like buttered peas, maybe? A bit floral too.

I actually liked this tea a lot better as my cup cooled. On first sip, when it was pretty hot, the flavors didn’t come out as much, and the slight vegetal notes were a bit strong. But as the cup cooled… mmmm. The buttery notes came out as an aftertaste, delicious and creamy. A bit like buttered corn on the cob, maybe, but it’s very subtle. With more of a veggie taste than a white tea.

The upfront of the flavors are highly complex. I doubt I can even begin to put them into words properly. There’s definitely a floral note. It’s very light. There’s also faint nuttiness if I swish the tea around my mouth. Maybe that’s the chestnut? Then there’s the lingering sweetness on the palate, which makes you almost want to eat your tongue. Yes, that sounded bizarre.

The only complaint that I have is that it’s a tad bit astringent. Not anything overwhelming, but there is a bit of dryness to the tongue that comes with each sip. I found that I liked taking breaks between series of sips to almost “refresh” my palate.

But boy, is this tea pretty damned complex. In a wonderful way. It boggles my mind that the tea plants these leaves and buds are harvested from are ancient, and still producing wonderful and delicious teas such as this.

Absolutely NOM NOM NOM. Thank you, takkerz, for sending me this! So yummy!

This is the last of it. Will definitely buy again.

I love Pu-erhs like this. Very creamy and earthy. Good for multiple steepings. Don’t use too much water at any one time to get everything out of this.

I read their suggestion of preparing this like chai with a bit of doubt. Mint chai? But the husband wanted chai and it was the only thing I had enough of to do 2 cups (then I opened the box from Adagio and remembered that I ordered a sampler of their Thai Chai, so I guess that will be next).

This is… WEIRD. Instead of that sugary (dirty) mouthfeel of most chais I’ve made, this leaves my mouth feeling fresh and clean.

There’s tea/chai flavor, and a hint of vanilla, but mostly mint. I have enough to drink this prepared as a regular tea, so we’ll see how that turns out.

Sweet scents of apricot and honeysuckle are surprisingly pronounced considering this is a completely unflavoured tea. It defies logic.

The taste is delicate and feminine without being overtly flowery; perfectly delightful much like the nectar of honeysuckle with the added depth of premium white tea.

Sublime. (seriously).

This tea is very smooth and full of earth (black). It is easy to be put off by the fishy, oily aroma but there is a sweetness at the end that rounds out the flavor. The finish has a heavy mouth-feel and the aftertaste is malty.

All in all, I’d rather have a cup of good coffee. I’ve been mixing it with SpecialTeas Almond Cookie with a nice result.