T2

Seemed like the most natural choice to have with Korean bulgogi at dinner. Good choice; it complemented the food very nicely. Both floral and umami coming out. Hubby liked the sip he had of mine, so he’ll probably join me with a cup next time!

Broke my evening very-little-to-no-caffeine rule. Made a chai for my husband and myself to go with the Indian dinner tonight. The tea and the food just naturally brought out the best in each other. I hope I don’t pay for my caffeine splurge later though!

This is what happens when I make Indian for dinner: I have chai for the next few days. I agree with everyone about the heavy clove in this. It took me a few times to get used to it, but that was a couple years ago now. So it’s been in my cupboard ever since. I know that it’s not my favourite chai that I’ve tried, but T2 is the most convenient tea company for me, especially given Australia’s insanely tight customs regulations. I simply wouldn’t be able to order chai from overseas. Well, I suppose I could order it; I just wouldn’t recieve it. Ideally I’d like to make my own masala chai blend, but I want to make sure I could find the freshest spices before I laid out the money gathering it all together.

In any case, I made a concentrate to go through the next few days. Then I filled my cup with 1/3 chai and 2/3 milk (spoiling myself with whole milk today) a little honey and a little sugar. Despite the way that sounds, it’s not very sweet, but just sweet enough. I finish it off with nutmeg that I freshly grate over the top while the tea is still moving from the stirring. When the nutmeg hits the surface it magically spreads out, looking like a swirling, spicy universe in my cup. What a nice way to start the day.

This is the last tea to try from my Nine Green pack from T2. I tend to always save the best for last, and I figured there was a pretty good chance I’d like this one. No worries there! Sniffing the dry leaf, it’s almost all sweet strawberries. There’s not much to notice of the cream, and even less of the sencha itself. After it’s steeped, it becomes almost 50/50 between strawberries and sencha in both the infused leaf and the liquor. It’s very smooth and rather creamy (makes sense, really) in my mouth and a sensation of juicy strawberries really lingers well after the last sip. All that being said, it’s not overly sweet at all; in fact, it has the usual slight bitterness and other normal characteristics of sencha, just with strawberries on top.

In all honesty, since I’m really going gung-ho on tea tasting, I wanted to find an unflavoured green tea in this pack that I would happily choose as a cupboard standard. The best bet for that is the Genmaicha Sencha which I think is fantastic, although maybe it’s not considered “unflavored”. But this Gorgeous Geisha is very good, and my Southern Girl background kind of makes it hard to turn it down! Seriously, I did try to pick a “real” tea for a keeper. But juicy, fruity, creamy tea? Come on. How could I resist?

You can read a separate review I did for this tea and a couple of other T2 greens on my blog: http://hardlysupermom.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/progress-report-card-t2-nine-green-pack-part-3/

Ok, I’ve been struggling with this cold and sore throat for over a week now, and today is the worst I’ve felt. But I simply have too many samples to try, and I can’t hold myself off any longer. These may not be the best conditions for truly evaluating this tea, but they are some of the best conditions for just saying, “Stuff it! I’m gonna do what I want to keep myself comfortable!”

So with that bit of self-indulgence in mind, this is really nice. I get florals and vanilla with a sweet-tart fruitiness all on top of a base of mind-soothing sencha. It’s smooth and rather buttery. I can see why it’s one of T2’s most popular green teas. The kids can run around, fuss, and generally destroy the house; they’ll be alright and I’ll be alright. That’s the mood this tea has left me with. (Do-gooders, relax: I’m not neglecting my kids. I’m gaining mental strength for the rest of our day!)

You can read a separate review I did for this tea and a couple of other T2 greens on my blog: http://hardlysupermom.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/progress-report-card-t2-nine-green-pack-part-3/

A brilliant, slightly sweet morning tea. This is definitely the tea I will default to on cold Melbourne mornings. It really quite “gets” the essence of Melbourne, and goes brilliantly with a cigarette during winter.
The tea makes a perfect “regular” tea, as it isn’t too sweet, and is just enough during the morning.

As with most things with tea (and life in general I suppose), it depends what you are looking for. This is certainly a very nice tea to drink, but for me there was not enough sencha flavour. If felt more like a herbal tea than a “true” tea.

I give this tea a relatively low rating but I must emphasize that this is a nice tea itself. It smells and tastes of sweet peach, not sure whether it is attributable to the flavouring (or the flowers? I am not much of a botanist). It has a delicate floral note too, whereas the tea flavour is not so prominent. The problem is that it is being marketed as an Earl Grey, which I think is a big mistake. It tastes nothing like Earl Grey because the classic ingredient, bergamot, is missing here. I can imagine many Earl Grey lovers being sorely disappointed after tasting a sip – as in my own case!! :(

Backlogging tea from yesterday afternoon….

This tea is from Tina S.. Thank you so much for sending this. I am always on the lookout for a good flavored green.

The sencha base is nice and smooth. It is a bit grassy, but not at all bitter. The mango flavor leans more tropical for me. Kind of more pineapple, but I did taste mango, too. I am thinking the name might use an update. It is funny how flavors of things sometimes end up tasting differently, even when you flavor a tea one way. The base definitely comes into play and can change the flavor just a little. All in all, a pretty good, refreshing tea, but nothing remarkable.

Teapot method at about 180F, 3 minutes.

This is actually my last pot of this tea. Dry it has nice dark leaves with large pieces of clove, whole cardamom pods and star anise. It smells spicy. The wet leaves take on more of an anise (licorice) smell. When tasting no particular spice stands out, I personally think it could use a little more ginger. For me it is a good chai but not a stand out.

This tea has been discontinued. Try Sencha Sensation or Gorgeous Geisha for something similar.

I found the T2 shop while I was in Brisbane for the day. The box recommends 2 tsp per medium teapot and to brew 2-4 min at 100 C. The dry leaves are mixture of darker CTC leaves and some lighter larger leaves. The dry smell is of blended black tea, I couldn’t really pick out any specific scents. The wet leaves aren’t that different. I have brewed this one 3 or 4 times now cutting back on the brew time, tea amount and water temp. There is too heavy an astrigency from the assam in the blend for me for a higher temp or longer brew time. After all the experimentation, I am left with an adequate tea. It is fine but doesn’t have enough complexity to elevate it above most bagged teas from the grocery.

I have had a theory about sencha, that it would go well brewed with coconut, ever since I drank some sencha alongsidea vaguely coconut flavoured (amongst other things) tart from Silo Bakery in Canberra. So I added a tablespoonful of dried flaked coconut to my pot of boiled water that was cooling for the sencha, then after three minutes added the sencha. Fail. No coconut taste noticeable. Ah well. I’ll just have to eat coconut flavoured things alongside.

This is not one of my favourites, to be honest. I’m gradually working my way through it. Too toasty for my taste, sencha-wise; I prefer a greener-tasting cup. It comes into its own iced though, whether cold-brewed or hot-brewed and poured over ice (which is how I’m drinking it now). It was a gift; I wouldn’t buy it again though. The hunt for the sublime in sencha continues…