Silk Road Teas

Nutty, but not dry in your mouth. Light too! I like this stuff. It does have a hint of Dragon Well as Frank W. commented.

This tea has a nice light flavor and lovely color. I’ve tried it at various steep temps. It’s really only good for 2 steeps. Maybe I’m steeping the first pot too long? Normally I do the first one around 1min and 35 secs and second steep around 2mins30 secs or more. The second pot never seems to be as strong in flavor. I guess I prefer a stronger green tea. I will be going through this bag pretty quick, I’m drinking too much tea =D
Although I expected a little more from this tea. I do not think I will order this tea again, but it was worth a try. Overall it’s a good green tea.

Went camping in the North Dakota badlands this weekend! We go there to mountain bike the Maa Daa Hey trail, which is always an adventure! We brought along several friends, some who had never done anything like it before. It started out so great..and then it got BLAZING hot. We were about 5 miles from our campsite when it was over 100 degrees. And when I say 5 miles, I mean 5 miles of crazy difficult uphills and hairy downhills. Being from up north, we just aren’t used to that kind of heat, especially while exercising!! Let’s just say, even though I brought along my tea, I didn’t get any tea this weekend. Too stinking hot, and no energy to make iced tea. Advice for any aspiring bikers: go in the early morning, or evening! Even though we felt like we had just survived the end of the world by the end of the bike ride, we had seen some pretty amazing scenery. Stuff you just don’t see unless you get out there and find it! I was hoping to see mountain lion tracks, but alas. We saw some scat however that we thought was probably mountain lion..that’s just not as cool. :P We did see a little horned toad tho! Everything else was probably too smart to be out in the sun. :)

On to the tea. This is my first Lu An Gua Pian. The leaves are dark green, long and twisted. Aroma of the dry leaves is nice.
First steep, I am sadly underwhelmed. Perhaps I didn’t use enough leaf? It has a very nice full mouthfeel but little flavor. Any flavor I am picking up is mildly vegetal and sweet. I notice the leaves haven’t un-twisted yet, so maybe that’s why.
2nd steep I went for two minutes. The leaves are unfurling more now, so maybe now the taste will amp up a bit……..There is more flavor than the first steep but it’s still very light. My tongue is tingling a little, and the sweetness is still nice. It’s just so mild! It’s a little strange. It feels so full in the mouth but the taste is so quiet……I am liking it more and More as it cools. The mild vegetal taste reminds me of good garden cucumbers. Very fresh. No bitterness as of yet.
3rd steep 3 minutes. This is probably my favorite steep. Very pleasant. Very silky. Nothing about this tea is over the top. I would view this as a contemplative tea, one to take the time to sip while sitting on the front porch. I don’t have a front porch, but that’s what this tea is made for. :)

Upping the rating on this one; adjusting the steeping times to longer made the difference. The sweetness stood out more, and that nummy sesame seed oil vegetable taste stayed longer.

Beautiful dark green, small leaves. First steep 1 minute. Soup is light greenish yellow. At first I found it rather savory, like vegetables coated in sesame seed oil; brothy and nutty. Interesting.
The aftertaste kind of crept up on me; a delicate sweetness! What a nice surprise!
2nd steep 1 min 20 sec. A bit uninteresting, at least at first. More nutty than the previous brew. The sweetness isn’t as present. I probably just needed to steep it longer.
3rd steep 2 min. It’s ok.
Overall, I like it for general drinking.

I like this tea as an every day tea. It has some vegetal background with fruity sweetness. I like this tea at work and keeps me warm in the morning. Over all an OK tea.

Strangely enough I am REALLY enjoying this tea tonight. The first time I tried it I could tell it was a high quality tea but I just wasn’t much of a fan, it being a black tea and all. (It was in a sampler I ordered). I thought I would give it another try. Im glad I did! I can’t find the words to describe it much, other than cocoa; zero bitterness, sweet aroma. Finally giving this one a rating!

I am still developing a taste for black teas, so I won’t actually put a number rating on this one. I can tell its very high quality, and I appreciate it’s smoothness. It has nummy cocoa notes. I have been resisting milk and sugar because I really want to appreciate the tea alone; it really is a good tea!

I like this better than I did before. I think it’s going to be a good tea day! Upping the rating!

I bought this to reach the free shipping price. I don’t find it mind blowing but it’s a nice oolong to have with food, or if you want a pleasant, light and fresh tasting oolong. At first sip I was pretty disappointed; it was very light. But as it cooled it really came into its own, very floral. The second steep had the nicest mouthfeel, although I steeped it a little too long I think; it seemed to hit a sharp floral note as I swallowed that I think would been lessened if it was steeped a little less time. Overall, I’m happy.

Love this stuff. It reminds me of what green tea should taste like. Has a very vegetal flavor. The description says a fruity flavor, but I’m not finding those notes. I find it to be somewhere in the middle of a Sencha and a Dragonwell. You get a slightly grassy flavor (sencha) with a hint of nuttiness (dragonwell). If you drink green vegetal teas, you must buy this one.

Well, I bought this almost a year ago and mostly forgot about it until I found it in the refrigerator this morning. This still tastes fine to me, although obviously it is not at the peak of freshness anymore. Just a very light, sweet and vegetal green tea. See previous notes if interested.

Yesterday I found myself in the neighborhood of Rainbow Grocery, which is a huge worker owned co-op grocery store. It’s an all vegetarian place and one of the things they are noted for is their large bulk food selection. I have not been there in years. I was happy to find they have quite a large selection of tea in bulk from Silk Road and some other companies. I’ve always wanted to try this one but didn’t want to fork over the price for 1/4 lb. that Silk Road has it for on their website.

Anyway on to the tea…

This was prepared in a glass teapot and I steeped it for 175F at 3 minutes. Based on my experience with Chinese greens I felt it was a safe assumption.

The tea liquor is a medium yellow in color. The first thing I notice about it is how very vegetal it is. The flavor reminds me a bit of artichokes and cooked peas. After sipping it has a nice sweet aftertaste without a lot of astringency. I am not terribly thrilled by it, but it would make a good everyday tea and I will certainly finish off what I have.

Now I need to stop posting tasting notes and do something productive for a while! :-P

2 grams in 12 oz seems to do pretty well, note to self, try 3 next time just to see…

I recently broke down and ordered the citric acid to clean my zojirushi. I had cleaned it 4 times before hand with lemon juice; all the scale was gone but I could still taste funky mineralness. Having now cleaned it with the citric acid, I can still barely taste and smell mineral. I think I’m going to have to buy spring water just for my zojirushi, using water filtered from my britta isn’t cutting it. It’s fine in the tea kettle, so maybe the zojirushi just really picks up the city water taste?

Thankfully, the funky taste is so faint I can still enjoy this tea.

A Japanese friend of mine gave a package of little crackers, some wrapped in seaweed, to eat while drinking oolong. She warned me first, “it’s spicy!” I’m pretty sure it’s wasabi on these rice crackers! Hhooowee!!!
Anyhow, it goes really nice with this oolong. I made a pot for my sister and I as she watches a Korean drama on Netflix with subtitles and I sit here on Steepster. I’d say we are both a bit into Asian culture, me more with the tea, she more with their TV, and both of us with their food.
I hope these crackers don’t give me a stomach ache..I can’t stop eating them!