Rishi Tea

Really refreshing, this tea would probably be great on a hot summer day. Tasty on its own and does not need to be sweetened.

A really tasty iced tea, not too peachy.

Before I say anything else, I want to say that my first experience with Jade Cloud was a thoroughly enjoyable one.

That being said, here’s the thing. The more tea that I accumulate, the harder it can be to distinguish them from one another – especially if I don’t drink them back to back [and I don’t drink teas of the same type right after one another, really].

The more tea that I try, the more the flavors start to blend together until certain ones become indistinguishable until only a select few stand out – either because someone did something noticeably different or the taste is just THAT much better. As I’m typing this out, I’m realizing that perhaps that’s the point of drinking a lot of tea, but I also feel like it’s probably more my fault than the tea.

I guess that this is why they have tea tastings in shops, right? Usually, I don’t brew pots – I brew cups, and I re-steep if I feel like drinking more of it and/or the tea can take a re-steep. Maybe I need to get some shot glasses or some of those tasting teacups and spend a day or two comparing the similar ones. Part of me feels like if the differences aren’t ones that I notice between cups then what do I care, but part of me wants to see if I can notice a difference. [Curiosity will likely win out, because it almost always does.]

This is also a long-winded way of saying that the flavors I got out of this tea are going to sound mighty similar to other teas that I have previously logged. It is nutty, but with a grassy sweetness to it – warming and comforting, and I really liked it. It was certainly welcomed into my day since we’ve been having some rather dreary weather, but I see this as being something I’d revisit regardless of what the hell’s going on outside.

It’s cold and raw in New York, but the Yankees are kicking butt and I’ve got a cup of some award-winning Rishi Masala Chai.

Yeah, this is pretty much to tea what mashed potatoes or scrambled eggs are to food, pure comfort. The best traditional Masala chai out there. And not only great-tasting, but since I don’t own stock in Monsanto I appreciate that it’s organic and I’m not getting a side of pesticide residue with my beverage.

Some tea snobs turn their noses up at chai. (“It’s not really a fine tea, old boy.”) But when you’re craving something rich, a cup of Darjeeling ain’t going to scratch the itch — not even the FTGFOP variety.

While it’s great if you make it the way you’d make your regular tea (use a five-minute steep), it’s even better if you make it the traditional Indian way. Forget the teapot and just use a saucepan. Two teaspoons of chai, one-and-a-half cups of water, half-cup of milk (or, in my case, vanilla Rice Dream), bring it to a boil and then let it simmer for five minutes. Add sugar, honey or agave syrup. Strain and serve and watch Mariano Rivera shut down the Angels for game number one. Strange. It doesn’t feel that cold in here any more.

It’s been a while since I both logged and drank this tea, so now seems like a good time.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve had this since I logged the last [and first] time, but that’s part of the reason why I’m probably not going to reorder it. It’s not a remarkable tea. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, and I’m not going to change the rating on it, because it’s reading at a 75 still, but I think that part of the problem is that some of its notes remind me of Ancient Emerald Lily to me, and when a tea reminds me of a tea that is, in my mind, superior, well…I think you can figure the rest out.

So here’s the thing about Green Needles. For me, it starts out a little bitter. It’s almost sour, even. Eventually in the aftertaste, and even more so as it cools, it becomes sweeter. A nice, edging on juicy, grassy sweetness [this is what reminds me of Ancient Emerald Lily]. And then over time the bitter, sour part of the tea disappears. I should probably just wait until the tea cools enough for that to be gone, but I’m not patient enough.

The problem that I noticed, even when this becomes sweet, is that this has an almost scratchy texture to it. I’m not sure quite how to explain it. Kind of like that feeling your lungs get when it’s really [and I mean really cold outside. Or if you breathe in heavy fumes. It reminds me of this one time when I was at swim practice during the winter [we swam indoors] and there was a chemical spill. All of a sudden, we all got this kind of scratchy feeling in our throats and we all started coughing. Then we had to evacuate the building. [We got dressed first, of course. That would have been inhumane.] It was really cold outside. Our hair froze. It was grand. And actually, now that I type this, laughing gas. That funny feeling you get in your throat when you inhale laughing gas.

Anyway, I don’t know what causes that feeling. And I didn’t write about it last time, so I don’t know if I got it before. I’m guessing not. Maybe I won’t get it next time. I think I just need to drink this more often, even if it’s mainly because it means it’ll free up a little space on my tea shelf.

On a completely unrelated note, don’t think that I haven’t noticed you Steepster guys being all sneaky-like and making little changes to the site. The tasting notes, the cute little cup graphic, among others. I like it, I love it, I want some more of it.

And now, a question.

What’s better than watching Castle on the couch with a down blanket?

You probably know the answer, but: watching Castle on the couch with a down blanket and a REALLY GOOD CUP OF TEA.

I’m sipping on my second cup of the roasted [as opposed to steamed] version of this tea and I can already tell that this is going to be a solid green tea standby for me.

The roasted part of this tea’s name probably has more to do with the processing than the taste, but I am getting a really nutty flavor in this tea. [I almost typed “I am tasting nuts” and then I stopped myself. …And then I wrote it anyway because I think it’s funny.] Though, actually, when I read the description is does say “nutty and roasted,” so that’s one check mark in the not-crazy-box for today.

To break it down a little further, the tea has some sweet notes to it, so it reads more like an almond or a filbert or something. I like it. On the first cup, it is this roasted nut flavor that dominates, with a hint of vegetal-ity. In fact, when I smelled it before diving in, I looked at it and was like, “…Genmai cha?” But the toasted component in this leans more towards your elephant treats than your breakfast cereals. There’s also a little bit of saltiness, which seems to come and go.

In the second cup, the sweetness becomes more pronounced with the other players singing backup. It reminds me of sweet white corn, or…goji berries without the tang. It’s an interesting tea. I’m looking forward to getting to know it better.

Backlogging.

A dose of Snow Buds, and also no deets. =(

1st steep: 5 min.
2nd steep: 5 min 30 sec.
3rd steep: 6 min.

Backlogging. Sunday afternoon.

Three tasty steeps reminded me how much I like this tea. =)

But the more exciting news is why I no longer have to “ration” (tea really good, don’t have much left) this tea. My mom told me last Friday that she’d brought me a large tin of Harney and Sons’ Earl Grey for $2.99 on sale at William and Sonoma (it turned out to be an 8oz tin, which I will be splitting with grandma and her as that is waaay too much tea for just me). She told me she’d brought it about a week and a half ago and didn’t think there would be anymore left but that there was a lot of loose tea on sale. I happened to be going nearby the William and Sonoma on Saturday morning and thought that it wouldn’t hurt to look in case there was some left. Indeed there was! I got two tins of this one, Rishi’s organic Earl Grey, Rishi’s organic Emerald Lily, Harney and Sons’ Tower of London, and Harney and Sons’ Canton Green all for 50-75% off. Quite the exciting tea sale find!

1st steep: 3 min.
2nd steep: 3 min 15 sec.
3rd steep: 3 min 30 sec.

4th steep! This is the first time I’ve done a 4th steep on any tea, I think. Yay tea! It’s good. I may do a 5th steep. I may not.

Clearing off my desk again is not good. Didn’t I just do this on Monday? Where did all this stuff come from?

I love smelling tea. Both the tea itself and the tea leaves. Sometimes I just sniff at it. It might be weird. But I bet other ‘steeps’ here do it.

This was a lovely, light, slightly dry cup. So good that I immediately started resteeping it. It’s steeping right now actually.

GreenTeaSteve pointed out that white tea actually has more caffeine that green after I lamented to him that I had a hankering for green tea but needed a pick me up and felt I should have a black instead.

Edited to say that Steve disproved himself with Google. Green tea does have more caffeine than white.

Not too long ago, I didn’t think I liked white tea. I hadn’t really drank it much. Now this tea is one of my favs and half the canister is gone. I’m also surprised to find that I can actually tell if I made the tea badly. Water was a tad to hot. Tea was a bit too brewed. But still yum.

Small robin’s egg blue teapot. 2 tbsp.

New cream pottery with dark brown speckles teacup that I brought from the farmer’s market just this morning.

Getting rid of a slight headache finally. Enjoying this tea for the second time. Yum!

Deep blue pottery mug. 1 tbsp.

Second brewing. 5 minutes 30 seconds.

Headache all gone now. Enjoying a nice salad of romaine, spinach, spring mix, cumber, scallion, radish, tomato, and ginger dressing.

Third brewing. 6 minutes.

This should tide me over until dinner is ready and my husband wakes up. He’s on nights for the next two weeks so later dinners to let him sleep a bit more. This might be the best brewing of the batch.

I didn’t think I liked white teas. In fact, I didn’t think I liked this tea. But two days ago, I had it again for the first time since I started paying attention to water temperature. Delish. Light, grassy/vegiteal, and easy to drink. I’m adding it below the oolong on my this-is-all-I-want-to-drink list.

Standard mug – blue pottery. 1 tbsp. gently steaming water. 5 minutes.

Second brewing. 6 minutes.

I was hoping to try a third brewing but I fear I might be tea-d out for the evening.

The picture doesn’t lie; this tea looks like a Crayola box. There’s certainly a lot for the eyes to feast upon. And it brews into…well, they call it ruby. I don’t think it’s quite that rich in hue, I’d call it more of a dusty rose. But I’m probably splitting hairs at this point.

The smell is just about as loud as the color. It reminds me of Blow Pops. Or bubblegum. Specifically one of those old school brands like Bubble Yum or Fruit Stripe Gum [who remembers that?]. The kind of gum that loses its flavor 5 minutes later. It is fruity. I mean, it is FROO-TEA. This tea is SO fruity… [HOW FRUITY IS IT?] This tea is SO fruity that it belongs at a male burlesque show. In fact, if teas were people I think that Plum Berry would be a drag queen.

And a rather fabulous one at that.

The smell is somewhat dampened [no pun intended] when the tea is wet. The actual liquid smells like something very specific that I can’t put my finger on, but it isn’t fruit. I’ll think of it in a week.

The tartness of the hibiscus is quite obvious, but I don’t mind that flavor, so I’m enjoying it so far. However, they list an entire encyclopedia of ingredients on the bag and . [I mean, schizandra berries? Are those for real? They sound like something Neil Gaiman would make up. Do unicorns eat them?] I’m somewhat disappointed that I can’t pick them out, but the aftertaste is rather hectic – there’s a lot going on. Once the novelty of this wears off, perhaps I’ll be able to separate the flavors more easily. Or perhaps once it cools.

It’s surprising to me, well, one that this gets steeped for this long. The only thing I steep for 6 minutes are pu-erhs, maybe the occasional herbal. But two, I’ve never had a white tea be this strong. I prefer my white teas to be more delicate – more of a pinky-up affair. I’d really call this an herbal more than anything else, but they say there are white tealeaves in it. Not sure what the point of it is, because anything from those leaves is surely put into a choke-hold by what I am coming to affectionately think of as the crunchberries.

One last thing that I’m really noticing about this tea is that it’s leaving me with a bit of a dry mouth. Is it tannins that do that? I’m not sure. Anyhow, it’s not unlike that sensation you get after drinking lemonade. I’m having to chase it with water, which I’m sure my bladder will be protesting later.

So, Plum Berry is sassy, a little sweet, and maybe just a touch overwhelming. Like a game of drag queen bingo, this isn’t something I want to visit every night, but it’s going to be fun every now and again.

Oops. Accidentally forgot about this and let it steep for an hour. It tastes like sour rotting fruit. DO NOT STEEP FOR AN HOUR! What a waste.

Surprised to say, I love this. Makes my whole office smell like blueberry muffins. I do not like blueberries or fruit tea, but somehow rooibos has saved another concoction. On second steep I taste more of the hibiscus, so I’d avoid that unless it’s your cup o’ tea.

I’ve been surfing on a crest of mucus for the past couple of days. [I know. Lovely.] A sore throat and that dull full body ache have also invaded, so when I read a tasting note the other day from @Britt Wight mentioned that honeybush is an expectorant so it’s been ALL ROOIBOS ALL THE TIME here. With the exception of the masala chai I had the other day, all the tea I’ve been drinking has either been this or Samovar’s Ocean of Wisdom.

Great for the mucus.

Not great for my energy levels.

If you ever want to make someone tired, deprive them of caffeine and make them try to read physics. Instanap!

The tea is good. Still makes me feel like a giant blueberry, but I find the taste pleasant. [Then again, I also like rooibos.] It’s sweet but with a tartness. It could be that my tongue is playing tricks on me because of this cold, but it’s a tartness that doesn’t remind me of hibiscus. [While I don’t mind hibiscus, I am beginning to tire of it being used in everything under the sun.]

A few hours on the deck, with a steaming cup of this, and the BLESSED, BLESSED SUN had me feeling better than I have in days. Now I just need to get some caffeine in me. Shouldn’t be a problem. The physics, on the other hand…

You wake up to the sound of your alarm, and reach over to hit the snooze button. But you realize that your alarm clock is a blueberry. Confused, you sit up and reach to turn on the light, except that the light is a blueberry. You reach to pull back the duvet, only it has been replaced by a sheet of blueberries. Panicked, you run into the bathroom to look in the mirror, and…YOU ARE A GIANT BLUEBERRY.

Open the package and take a whiff, and it’s like every single entity in your realm of consciousness has been replaced by blueberries. The scent is strong, young Skywalker. Luckily, I like those little blue pellets, so this is an enjoyable experience for me.

The scent continues to waft up sweetly when the tea is brewing. The taste is a similar to the blueberries as well – slightly tart, but with an unmistakable sweetness [if you get good ones, that is]. The sweetness in this tea arrives in the finish and lingers in the aftertaste.

For me, the rooibos in this is almost unrecognizable. When I do taste it, it’s in the aftertaste, but it’s not strong.

I’m curious to try this iced.

So far so good, Rishi. You’re two for two. Can you keep it up? CHALLENGE EXTENDED.

Brewed it this morning.
Tasted floral and of corn.
Still quite delicious.

Brew it once, then stop.
Does not hold up to re-steep.
Well, for me at least.

I do not know why
This came out in a haiku.
Refrigerator.

Well, being honest, this is in homage to a shirt/hoodie Auggy found.
http://typetees.threadless.com/product/623/Haikus_Are_Easy_But_Sometimes
I wants it.

Anyhow, I ran out of what I had of this, but they had it in Williams Sonoma so I grabbed a tin. I find myself craving it somewhat often, so this is going to be a tea that I replenish for sure. I like it a lot. Giving it a ratings bump.

It is harder for green teas to stand out to me, because I have a lot of them and within their subtypes their flavor profiles tend to be pretty similar. But not with this one.

What can I say? I just really freaking like this tea.

The sweetness from it is, for me, just perfect. Almost…juicy? When you add that it’s well-balanced with the other flavors that are floating around in the cup, it makes it memorable.

Sometimes you need to drink something that’s just…GOOD, you know?

When I got home, I was greeted by a package from Rishi on the doorstep. If only all things in life could be timed so perfectly.

I didn’t even bother to take my bags to my room. I dropped them in the kitchen, began to heat a kettle, and sliced open the box. I pretended to ponder over which package to open first, but it really wasn’t a choice. I had read too many favorable logs of this tea to not try it first.

Oh my god.

No, hang on, wait for it…

OH. MY. GOD.

Can we talk about the name for a second? When tea names use words that I am familiar with [unlike things like genmaicha or sencha which previously had no place in my scope of knowledge] they tend to conjure up images that the tea itself rarely lives up to.

I read something like Ancient Emerald Lily, and here’s what comes to mind. Trees that have been around longer than any people I know, which grow so high that you can’t see where they end. The unseen sun makes it presence known by rays of light which pierce through the foliage. Small particles of dust and earth shift and float aimlessly in and out of the columns of sunshine, swirling occasionally when swept into in an eddy of wind. The floor is littered with stones and roots. Moss blankets patches of ground, and the occasional flower, striking against the palette of greens, greys, and browns, stretches towards the light. The forest breathes and swells. Quiet sounds echo through consciousness.

My mother always told me that I had an overactive imagination.

But therein lies my problem. These are the things that I think about, and how can a tea compare? This is the closest that a tea has come to keeping pace with my brain when it goes into overdrive. The taste is clean and fresh, with a hint of something roasted or toasted or some other -oasted type adjective [the roasted aspect is also apparent in the scent]. It has a sweet finish. Not sweet like sugar, or sweet like honey. It’s a more subtle sweetness, like honeysuckle, or when you bite into a particularly excellent ear of corn.

The tea leaves themselves, wet or dry, do not portray any of the aforementioned qualities. To me, they smell mainly vegetal, with a sweetness that’s closer to brown sugar – very similar to most other green teas I’ve had. But the taste is rather singular. It almost reads like a white tea.

The description on the bag eludes to wild orchid and toasted chesnut. I don’t know what orchid is supposed to taste like [are they even edible?] and while I’ve seen many an orchid I’m not exactly sure what they smell like either. Nor have I ever had a chesnut, roasted over an open fire or otherwise, but if they’re anything like what I’m pulling out of this tea that’s going to have to change this season.

In a sentence – Rishi Tea Win.

The July TeaLog Catchup ! (Last one!)

So it’s been a long time since I’ve had this Wuyi oolong. I can’t quite remember why I picked to have it that day now. Part of it was that it sounded soothing though. But I did remember that I had tried reducing the steeping times with success last time. So I looked up my tealog for it. Indeed, I had. It looks like a bit more reduction might be warranted for my tastes still. So I tried that this time with very good results. 4 very enjoyable steeps were consumed.

2nd steep: 3mins 45 secs, 190 F.
3rd steep: 4 mins, 195 F.
4th steep: approx 8 mins, 200 F.

Backlogging. 3 days ago. Tuesday afternoon.

I haven’t had an oolong in forever and it sounded like a good thing that day. This met my need and it was like I remembered it, yet it wasn’t. The first two steeps were stronger than I would have liked. So maybe decrease the steeping time a bit. And the third and fourth were quite good. Overall, I liked drinking it that day but it didn’t quite live up to my memory of it.

The first two steeps I had right after each other in the afternoon, the third right after dinner, and the fourth right before bed.

2nd steep: 4 mins 15 secs
3rd steep: 4 mins 30 secs
4th steep: 5 mins

Oolong is SO good. I don’t know why I don’t drink it more often. Two steeps before dinner, two steeps after dinner. Stopped resteeping because it was time for bed and my previous tealogs said that the fifth steep was on the weak side. Again, steeps three and four were the best.

1st steep: 4 min.
2nd steep: 4 min 30 sec.
3rd steep: 5 min.
4th steep: 5 min 30 sec.

These steeping parameters worked well.