Rishi Tea

Nice vegetal flavor.

Lovely & straightforward.

FANTASTIC

This was a decent tea, with a real juicy pale fruit and floral character. I was surprised, upon inspecting the leaves, that it was such an interesting mix of very broken pieces along with intact, beautiful and fuzzy budsets. Anyway, a nice slightly above average green.

Well, this is a shame. The first tea since I’ve had since Monday and I suppose I wasn’t quite ready for it. It tastes funny. No, correction: I’m tasting funny. I thought I was enough on the upswing from the cold that has literally knocked me out since Monday to have some tea. But no. And to add insult to injury, this cup empties out my tin of this. Really wish it would have had a better send off. I can taste some of the nuttiness and vegetal flavor that I enjoy about this tea, but they just aren’t sitting cohesively on my tongue. Bah. Back to orange juice it is.

I’m getting into the nutty solid but nectary sweet taste that a lot of white teas seem to have. This one has the nutty solid white taste but the overall taste reminds me much more of a green tea. I miss the nectar sweetness a bit but this is still really yummy and can hit the spot when I find myself craving a green.

4.5g/8oz

I feel kind of… off today. Pretty sure my body is building up to a migraine. So I’m being careful today and hoping I can get it to detrigger (if that’s even a word). I ate something earlier and eating just made me feel worse, so I’m hoping that a nice, gentle tea will make me feel better. Or not worse. At the very least, hopefully I’ll feel mentally better about feeling physically bad, right?

This tea strikes me as a very friendly tea. Sweet and flavorful, but gentle. It’s sort of an “I know you really want sencha but can’t deal with the potency right now, so here’s a little of that sweet grass flavor but not enough to overwhelm you.” Isn’t that nice of it?

ETA: Two cups of this and I’m feeling a little caffeinated but otherwise better than I have all day. On my third cup now it is starting to feel a little weak (but it is still nicely sweet, just not as strong and some salty taste is starting to come in) so I think this will be my last one of this. On the other hand, my cat really seems to be enjoying this steep.

I think I’m getting sick. Any time I tilt my head the slightest bit, the room starts spinning. So I’m either getting sick or have been hitting the bottle quite heavily and forgetting about it. Option two is not as unlikely as one might think as I’m forgetting all sorts of things today. Such as how long I steeped this for. 4 minutes? 5? I don’t recall and the timer went off less than a minute ago.

Anyway, whatever I did to it worked out well. I still thinks this taste like a mild Chinese green. It’s got the honey taste that seems fairly standard but only a tiny little hint of the brine that I seem to always get. I’m drinking it from the same cup as my earlier steeps of Ryokucha, but I rinsed and wiped the cup out good so the sweet, grassy green hints I’m getting are from this tea, not leftover from the Ryokucha.

The leaves smell yummy but I can’t place the smell. It’s good though. Sweet. Green. Brewing it smells like a sweet green, not white. The notes say a grassy highnote and a hazelnut finish. I totally get the grassy. Not sure about the hazelnut since pretty much my only exposure to that flavor is flavored coffees and teas which I can’t imagine the actual nut tasting like. There is a light-ish nutty taste at the end that I’m guessing is hazelnut? It doesn’t taste quite like the taste that I think is chestnut but has a similar-ish note. Anyway, it has little to no salty taste I get from Chinese greens so I’m liking this.

Hello. Meet my absolute favourite COLD-BREW tea in the entire world!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Organic Kukicha.
(This tea is unbe-freaking-lievable. I probably have at least 1 pot a day. Not counting the steady supply of cold-brew harios in my fridge.)

Hario Pitcher + 2 Tblsp Kukicha + Fill to top with COLD water.
Leave in fridge for 4+ hours. Enjoy! Feel free to re-infuse and do it all over again.
(Tip: a splash of warm water before filling the hario with cold water does a nice job of getting the leaves to open up if you like it a teeny bit more pronounced.)

Seriously… try it.
And FYI you can find the Hario Pitchers I’m referring to on Rishi’s website. I own 6. Best investment I’ve ever made. Ever. And when any of you try it… let me know afterward how you feel about it. We’ll embrace.

(P.S. Word on the street is that if you use the coupon code “GIVETEA10” on Rishi’s website, you get 20% off your order. Get a hario! And by street, I mean my inbox.)

Has anyone found a favourite Kukicha from any other tea company? I’m just curious. I tried one from Adagio one time… meh… didn’t compare. And it was powdery. I want full twigs n leaves people!

I think this may be my favourite Japanese green that I own… :)

I cannot drink enough of this. I go through endless cups of it at work. As usual, Rishi seems to do it best.

1/4 cup of this in a bottle of VODKA… Overnight… Decant… Mix with orange juice (or anything else)… enjoy! :)

I brought a bottle like this with a pretty purple bow to a party a few weeks ago… BIG HIT! I felt cool!

Detox with tea… retox with tea… can you blame me? ;)

Excellent dessert tea… I paired it with chocolate and cream cheese brownies for the supper that I made for friends last night. It was a big hit. It’s easy to see why it was one of the First Place Winners at the World Tea Competition in 2009. http://www.rishi-tea.com/2009WTE-Teas.php
UPDATE: I mulled the Cinnamon Plum Cider as directed by Rishi’s website… OH MY GOSH GUYS. TRY IT. It’s delectable! And get the best quality cider you can find, you’ll taste the difference!

Lovely! It’s almost… cider-y? Incredible.

I paired it with breakfast:
Combine fresh parsley, fresh basil, and green onions – chopped – to a few eggs and a splash of milk. Whisk together. Cook like scrambled eggs. Top with grated Widmer’s Brick Cheese.

Add a piece of smoked salmon (locally I buy from Sendik’s) on the side. Enjoy :)

While I intend to finish drinking this container of white tea (as tea is too precious to waste!), I don’t care for this white tea blend. This tastes too “grassy” to me (which I don’t mind in other teas, like Yerba Mate), and its flavor is too strong for my liking. At least a little bit goes a long way.

I really love the fruity flavor of this white tea. This is one of my favorite white tea blends. I highly recommend it. Like anytime I drink tea, I add a minute amount of stevia (as I have a major sweet tooth).

This is one of my personal favorites. This oolong has such vibrant flavors. I definitely agree with those that mention notes of moss, and I also pick up on some of the lilac aroma mentioned on the packaging, along with some sandalwood. I love the light glowing green color.

Delicately flavored, and so pretty when it unfurls.