Steepster

Ha, buckwheat tea. It tastes like buckwheat. Where are the noodles and onions? Maybe I will make some for dinner tomorrow night.

First steeping (2:00) – Wow! This is GOOD! The aftertaste is so sweet! Can definitely taste the honey note.

Second steeping (2:30) – This one started out a bit more smokey, like sitting in a nice sauna. But then the sweet honey note gradually crept back in from the first steeping and took over the tea! Amazing! Especially for a black tea, to develop this well into the second steeping!

I am not entirely sure I can give a perfect review of this, as my brewing resources are rather low-tech (kettle, electric stove, mug). Amount is what is in the select package. I am sure my technique is poor.

Smells richly of a light coffee. Was not strong, but that is not a bad thing. To simplify the flavor profile, it tasted like a watered down coffee with nutty notes. It really did taste like a roasted grain/rice tea. I enjoy it, and think it would go well with a soup or rice dish or as a mild evening tea.

When I first read the notes about the flavors in this tea, I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it at all. I was very pleasantly surprised how soothing the taste was and how much I liked the taste. It has a smooth flavor and makes my entire body feel good!

Got this from the Steepster Select December package. Dude. I need to get through those teas. I think I have just a single serving for 4 of the 5. The Roasted Dong Ding I left for my roommate since she loved it so much :)
This smells like a typical black tea. Assam? Ceylon? It didn’t have any defining features right when I ripped open the package, and as it was steeping, it still smelt like a typical black tea.
Tasting it, it tastes a bit weaker than other black teas that I’ve had, but I do get bits of that “sour cherry” that is written on the package.
Overall, an okay cup of tea. The other package has been placed in my sipdown pile already and I’d happily rid this tea from my stash :)

Slept at 1:30 last night and I’m actually really surprised that I was able to whip out my paper in 2 hours. HA. I legit started it at 11pm and finished at 1. But I had a pretty nice outline, I just didn’t add this company in the outline so I had to tweak a while bunch of things.
Now with a full night’s rest, it is 11 am, I’m drinking this tea to wake me up! Paper is due at 1:30 tonight and now I’m just editing all the mistakes that my 12am brain made haha.

Very mild green tea with a nice balance of roasted flavors and fresh green notes. Nice finishing sweetness adds to a very easy to drink flavor profile. Very sweet, nutty aroma which is echoed in the faint almond aftertaste. A nice warm-weather tea. 8/10

Last tea out of my Steepster box. I tried 2 greens back to back. This is the second one. Has a stronger, earthy/grassy taste to me when compared to other greens. Leaves are grassy looking if you will. Drinkable but not turning me into a green tea lover-this is just preference. If you like earthy/grassy green, give this a try.

Just exploring green tea more, so not well versed in it. The leaves for this one were really cool. They were so perfectly shaped still, you would of thought that they were fresh and not dry. Nice pale brown/green flavor that you expect with a green. Taste was rather ordinary to me, plain green if you will. Nothing to make me remember it, but I did drink and like it.

This tea brews up dark red, and smells chocolatey. There is some chocolate in the first brew, but a lot more of a coppery taste with a hint of additional metallic/bitterness at the tip of my tongue. If there was more in the package, I’d experiment with shorter steeping times for the first cup.

Love oolongs, love Da Hong Pao, love Steepster. Enough said.

I thought this tea smelled like and tasted like dirt. I steeped it less than 2 minutes because the smell overwhelmed the kitchen. Definitely not for me!

mmmm i can get behind this tea as a tea from the select box. To have a box full of teas like this, i would maybe pay the 25$. This is a slightly smoky tea..in that it comes across as the memory of smoke…rather than being smokey..combined with the sweet caramel notes, it’s perfect. I don’t get much of the sour cherry from this, but i am a fan… yes..this is lovely. Except, i can’t buy it..soooo booo!

Very flavorful, earthy tea. Tobacco notes with tangy tannins, warm sweetness with mild spice. Nutty aroma is soothing and comforting, perfect for a rainy day. Can’t wait to have the other sample when we have another cold snap. 8.5/10, would recommend and drink again.

I like the smoky, woody, earthy taste…
I wish there had been a little more to the package;
I would liked to have over leafed it a bit.
A hint of cacao which would be enhanced by a Padron Londres…
“Flowery” got me to wishin’ ;-)

First tea out of my first Steepster box! I brewed as recommended on the package. I am not very versed with drinking that many oolongs. I will say that I agree with the tasting notes on the package, there was a very slight caramel sugar/grain taste and I couldn’t put my finger on what the finish was but floral seems right. I drank this with no milk and sugar, to start my day. I usually have English Breakfast with sugar and cream but I am expanding my horizons. I enjoyed this but I am not a tea drinking purist if you will so because of my own personal tastes, I did not rate it higher. If you are into oolong tea, straight up, I think that you will enjoy this more than myself.

Scent of leaves/stems: very strong notes of roasted edamame, straw, and grain/nuts

Infusion: golden amber with a scent of popcorn kernals

Potent brew. The tea is good, but the flavor is a bit powerful. Makes the room smell heavily of edamame and popcorn kernals. Tastes about the same. Smooth with no bitterness or astringency, but very powerful. I’d drink it if it was offered, but I wouldn’t brew this myself…way too aromatic

OK, I do like houjicha. That being said, it seems the houjichas that are made with a lot of stem* are not for me . I brought something similar to this back from Japan and didn’t like that either. The woodyness, hay? flavor of this type of houjicha is just not for me. I don’t like the taste it leaves in my mouth. There are some other notes in this tea that are pretty pleasant. There is a caramel taste somewhere in there, that LIES to me and says “oh, this tea is actually pretty good”, right before the taste of wood punches me in the face.

*Is there actually a difference in houjichas being made from stems vs leaves? I feel like I’ve had hojichas before that I have LOVED, but they weren’t like this. What is the difference here? Am I confusing the “leafy” hojicha with something else?

Brown sugar and toasted coconut notes come through in this very nicely, with a subtle fruitiness that doesn’t overpower. This is surprisingly sweet. Loved it.

Until Steepster Select, I had not tried many straight black teas. I’m just an oolong & green girl, and never really wanted to be trying plain blacks. I am a changed woman after experiencing the black teas in this first steepster select box.

I loved this tea. The smokiness was nice. The caramel and sour cherry notes were phenomenal. I had no idea I would like a black tea so much. I brewed this gongfu style to really enjoy these flavors, and I’m quite glad I did that.

This is one of the best jasmine teas I have had. The flavor is quite delicate and easy to enjoy. The jasmine notes are sweet and mild, not too bright or “in your face” and they intermingle beautifully with the green tea, which is also quite light in flavor and on the sweet side. The jasmine flavor reminds me of pink bubble gum. I really like it a lot. Simple and clean.

This was my first time with Houjicha. I can appreciate the idea behind this tea, but it’s not for me.

I brewed for only a minute and a half and the first steeping was very strong. It actually tasted more like coffee than tea to me. This being the first time I have brewed Houjicha, I’ll take the blame for that first steeping. I probably used too much leaf. On the second and third steepings the liquid was less orange and more gold and had a much more mellow taste, so I feel it tasted how it was supposed to in these steepings. The overall flavors and scents are of popcorn and roasted nuts, and yes there is a very strong hay or straw aroma as other reviewers have mentioned. There was a very subtle sweetness in the later steepings. Seeing that this tea is made from the twigs and stems of the leaves, it has a very different flavor than other teas. Though it is a green tea, the picking and roasting of this tea makes it taste nothing like other green teas. It’s much more like an herbal tea in flavor.

I enjoyed this tea enough to drink three steepings of it, but the scent lingered in my room for hours after I finished, and I did not enjoy that. It smelled like someone had burnt a bag of microwave popcorn in my room. I wouldn’t suggest this tea unless roasted flavors are your thing. I’ve had light roast coffees with more delicate flavor than this tea.

Backlog:

The aroma of this tea reminds me of the smell of the air here in the Pacific Northwest on an early evening in autumn. You step outside and there is a crisp edge to the air and it is scented with the fragrance of smoke rising out of chimneys … it smells rustic: like wood and smoke and crisp, cool air. Not overly smoky … just like this tea.

In my first cup (infusions 1 and 2), I got that burnt hazelnut caramel sort of flavor that Steepster suggests in the tasting notes. There is a deep, nutty note. A lovely caramel-y flavor to this. There is some smoke to the flavor too, but not an overpowering presence of smoke. This Da Hong Pao has a pleasing, clean finish.

Subsequent infusions offer more flavors. I still taste the smoke and woodsy tones, but they are softer now. A sweet-tart fruit note in the distance that begins to emerge and come closer in later infusions. Those fruit notes later reveal themselves to be a bit like a cross between a nectarine and a plum … there are some tart notes but mostly sweet.

A really nice Red Robe.