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mystery tea! somehow this ended up in the shopping cart that cavo and i made and neither one of us can remember wanting to order it. So we split it and now we have a mystery tea lol This one is actually pretty decent. It’s a very lemon tea, which i’m ok with. I think it would be particularly tasty with a splash of honey added, so i’ll try that next time :)
Final Count: 101 (gotta watch that lol)
This tea comes from Ost, who is helping me to experience assam. Thanks!
The leaves are short, dark brown, and thin. When brewing, they smell tannic but also a bit fruity and produce a teak brown liquor. The taste is smooth but bold. It’s brisk and malty, but lacks the complexity to make it very interesting. It was a good kick-in-the pants morning tea, but not one that I would stock.
From GCTTB Round 3 Christina
This is my first TTB and there are so many things in there to try! I was feeling lazy when I got this box yesterday so just cold brewed some of this to try today. Mostly I’m getting floral and some fruitiness (not really strawberry but I can’t tell what specifically) and also some pepper? Very refreshing iced tea and perfect for a warm summer evening!
apparently i’ve had this a few times and not reviewed it, or steepster has eaten my reviews again. :( this one from RiverTea is a pretty decent average assam. it’s got a medium kick to it, with a slight malty taste to it without being bitter or in your face. There is an after taste here that is almost drying in my mouth but not quite. Overall, the sort of tea i imagine would be even tastier with a little milk if someone was inclined to drink tea that way…which i don’t haha.
My first experience with this tea wasn’t pleasant, but I remember that someone suggested that I try steeping this tea at a lower temperature. So this morning I went for steeping at 74C instead of 80C.
Result? It’s not the steeping, it’s the tea itself. There’s just this weird musty undertone to it that I don’t like. I made a whole pot and disliked it so much that I couldn’t even finish half a cup and poured the rest down the drain.
I guess the remainder of this will go into the swap pile…
Preparation
Backlog from a few days ago.
I’m generally a green tea person, but I’m still figuring out what green teas I like, and why. This is the first bancha I’ve tried (unless I’ve had it before and it wasn’t labeled as such), but I didn’t like it that much.
It tasted musty and smoky, like some senchas and mao fengs I’ve had in the past. Generally, smokiness/mustiness is a flavour I try to avoid in greens. Perhaps my sample got contaminated by other strong-smelling teas? Perhaps I just messed up the steeping?
What do others think of bancha teas?
Hmmm… It was a sample with RiverTea instead of a full-sized package, so I guess the contamination/smell hypothesis still holds true. One of the other samples I had from them was Granny Cake, which is a very fragrant tea.
I love bancha, but it’s an acquired taste. To me the dried leaves smell like oil paint. I know, that sounds repulsive, but somehow I love it. Did you do a short steep in cooler water? 2-3 minutes tops at about 73F is what I usually do.
I got this in a trade from Shadowfall. I actually like it. It’s not a “knock your woks off” (snicker) sort of flavor black tea, but it’s a strong workhorse kick you in the keester first tea of the day.
My cupboard looks to be really out of date, so I think I might completely empty it and start over. I have been really bad about adding things to it. I think it’s sort of denial, like if I don’t add things to the number they don’t really exist. Or something.
GCTTB Rd 3:
Thank you Christina for the chance to try yet another RiverTea. This one is pleasant enough but a bit on the bland side for my tastes. Also, I am definitely getting a lot of floral notes that are slightly undercut by strawberry juiciness. However, to find those notes, it takes a bit more concentration than I would like to have to use. Still, it was fun to try and now I know this isn’t for me.
There is no balance in this tea. No harmony or joy. Just jasmine, jasmine, jasmine. I now know what it’s like to drink perfume. That is not something I ever wanted to know. Yet now I do.
Unlike the lucky reviewer before me whose sample tasted mostly of cherries, like I had wished mine would taste, my sample was predominately jasmine flowers, no cherry, a hint of vegetal bitter green and whole lot of NOPE
Frankly I’m thankful. Spring Fest was actually a huge contender among the teas I wanted to order in my last rivertea purchase. At the last minute, right before checkout I took it out of my cart with the hopes that, given RiverTea’s usual practice of picking out similar, thoughtful tea samples, that I would see it in my order anyway. My hoping paid off! In that sense at least. Unfortunately, and very fortunately -seriously, I can only imagine how upset I would be if I actually spent money on tea that makes me physically recoil in horror – I hate this tea. Okay hate is a strong word. Intensely dislike. Better. I intensely dislike this tea. And so does my nephew. But luckily my little tea snob in the making will drink anything. He drank the whole pot -with a bit of rock sugar – for me like a champion. Good lad.
Flavors: Jasmine
GCTTB Rd 3:
You know you gotta be just a little bit tired when you search for a tea by the phrase “Ruby Red Christina” because that’s who put it in the box so obviously steepster must know which tea I mean. Anyways, thank you Christina for the opportunity to try this tea. It says it is an apple/currant rooibos but I am just getting currant, though it is a bit smoother/less medicinal than other currant teas I have had so maybe that is how the apple plays into it? Ultimately though, this tea isn’t something I would reach for given I am not a currant lover so it will continue to travel with the box. It was fun to try though :)
Rivertea had sent me a sample of this, it sounds good based on the description. But it tastes weeeeeirrrrd.
Really sour. Leaves a horrid taste in my mouth. I don’t get chocolate at all when it’s hot.
I did just sip it as it had cooled and the chocolate comes out more, and the flavours aren’t quite as in your face sour and clashy…but it’s still not something I’d ever buy.
I will be passing the rest on to my friend to try.
It’s really bitter and icky to me.
And there’s something in it that reminds me of the flavour note in Boatsman that I dislike. I thought it might be chamomile but there’s none in this according to the ingredients. Who knows. They smell kind of similar.
I let this cold steep in the fridge for about 15 hours. That might have been a little too long. I’m getting lots of white base (not much green) and some tart fruitiness. Not sure I can actually identify the fruit – not really cranberry, not really goji, not really pineapple, but fruity.
This isn’t bad, it’s ok – next time I think I’m going to try more leaf and shorted steep time. Try and coax more of the actual fruit flavors out.
The roses overpowerd the actual sencha and rasberry in this blend. Which is a shame because while I don’t mind rose tea in general, I’d have proffered the raspberry and green combination. The vanilla is also there to help smooth out the rose. It’s a very creamy tea and I will enjoy finishing it but I don’t know if I’ll be repurchasing after summer.
Side note: I cold breed this tea in the fridge over night using warm water which resulted in none of the typical green tea bitterness. I might cold brew this particular tea for now since I have no luck what so ever in hot brewing a green that doesn’t come out a horrid bitter mess.
Flavors: Creamy, Floral, Green, Rose, Vanilla
This is the last of the samples I stole out of Cavocorax’s Rivertea tins. Usually this is one I would overlook for sure but it smelled so good I grabbed a tsp just to try it out. It is a really nice tea. Smooth black base that really allows the juicy citrus flavors to shine. It is nice though not a flavor I personally reach for often so I don’t think it’s one I would buy myself but I would recommend it for anyone who enjoys a nice citrus tea. Thank you Cavo for the opportunity to try it :)