Tiger Line

a surprise holiday gift from Sil !
i was so pleased to get this extremely thoughtful mail that i saved the packet of tea and carried it around in my purse for over a week. hah. like a little xmas baby.

it was yummy. after brewing i announced to the room that it is the color of pee. which really just add to it’s charm. i really like Kitenna’s description of it tasting like sweet pretzels. THIS is the exact kind of thing i should go for when i’m looking for herbal options from now on.
rooibos is just kinda depressing at this point.
but this, this tea is delicious comfort in a cup.
totally.

Sil you are epic.

I think I’ve hoarded this strange tea long enough so here it goes- 5min in boiling water.

It smells deliciously bready and tastes almost sweet in a starchy way. This is so mellow- just the thing I need to wind down after this crazy, long day. so many good and bad things happened at school today, but it all ended well. I got to count and eat lots of smarties in Intro to Anthropological Research, and I’m choosing to focus on that.

Thanks for this unique tea, Sil!

Sipdown, 119. This is most definitely a reorder, even though I know it’s probably going to mean an order from ali express. So delicious! It’s tough to find tisanes for the evening that I actually love and would want to drink any time, and this is definitely one of those teas. So glad Sil sent this one along!

This one comes to me thanks to Sil! I figured I would get started on this giant pile of tea that she sent me with this buckwheat tea.

I thought this would brew up darker, maybe because it’s called “black”, but the liquor was a pale yellow. It smells sweet and savory, bready and nutty. It tastes fantastic. I never thought I would be into a buckwheat tea, but it’s delicious! Ever so slightly sweet and salty, like natural peanut butter. Natural peanut butter on dense bread. As it brews longer, it gets more and more pretzelly. The sweetness gets more on the aftertaste, but it’s still there. What a fantastic dessert tea! Thanks for sharing, Sil. I’ll be interested if anyone finds a source for something like this in the future!

I had house guests from China last week and as usual they brought welcome gift of moon cakes and black buckwheat tea by Tiger. I never tried this tea before so I read about it on the web. It contains rutin which is a phytochemical which lowers LDL cholesterol. It also has 9.5gms of pro and 320mgs of Potassium and only 2 mgs of Sodium. This could be a great product for those trying to slim down or who have HTN or vascular disease. You drink the tea and eat the groats, so it is like breakfast in a cup. It has a very toast, nutty flavor. Reminds me of a piece of multigrain bread just out of the toaster or Maypo breakfast cereal (which I have not had since childhood). This might just be my new go to breakfast. You could steep it longer. I was just anxious to try it.

A little surprised with this one. Not at all what I expected. Well, partially what I expected in terms of flavour, but with a name like black buckwheat, I guess I was expecting something akin to a genmaicha with black tea and buckwheat.

I’m enjoying this mild tea now, though as I wanted caffeine to help my headache, it’s not helping any. I didn’t add anything to this and it’s fine, but I wonder what a dab of honey with this would be like.

Thanks to sil for sending this unusual tea to me to try.

Sil’s Sampler Sipdown #3
Hmmmm….this is really interesting!
It definitely tastes & smells like pretzels in a way, only with an amazing sweet aftertaste that grows & lingers.
Back in my vegetarian days, I used to eat buckwheat quite often: Pancakes, Kasha with cabbage, savory buckwheat crepes stuffed with shrooms… Buckwheat groats are an under-used grain, very flavorful in a lovely earthy way.
I don’t know if this is just toasted buckwheat groats, or if there is more to it, but I’d like to buy some buckwheat, roast it, & then try steeping it to find out. Wouldn’t it be great if it was really that simple? I’d enjoy drinking this in the evening anytime. :D
Thank Sil!

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Thank you Sil for this tea.

From the reviews I have read for this one I must say I am looking forward to trying it. What a unique little tea this appears to be :)

The smell is similar to my husbands organic, no salt peanut butter from Good Earth that he buys. Sort of like toasted sesame seeds too. The taste is similar to the smell, it’s sweet, dry, nutty, baked and bready.

Much nicer than I was expecting, although I am now craving peanut butter on toast. Might have to get myself some in a minute.

One of the last teas from my swap with Sil. I’ve just received, and have ordered, a fair few new teas, so I figured I’d better get to work on some of my samples and near sipdowns this weekend. I guess this is one I left until now because of its unfamiliarity. I’m having a successful day with unfamiliar teas, though, so there’s no time like the present!

I don’t know whether I’m doing the right thing with this, but I basically treated it like normal tea, putting it in boiling water for about 4 minutes. I tried a few of the grains while I was waiting, and I’m pretty sure I could actually enjoy them as a snack. Anyway, the result is a medium yellow liquor that smells quite savoury, and slightly salty. Pretzel is probably the best comparison I can come up with for now, but it’s also reminding me of something else that I can’t quite place for now. No doubt it’ll come to me at some point.

To taste, this is much as I expected, given the scent and what it is. It tastes like liquid pretzel, and maybe a bit like freshly baked bread. It’s got a baked taste about it, somehow, and it’s ever so slightly salty, too. I think I could actually get used to drinking this — it’s different from almost all other teas I’ve tried, but it’s actually very pleasant and palatable. Light, too. A nice change from my normal tea habits. I’m impressed!

Tastyyyy! It’s smells like cereal. And tastes like the toasty rice at the bottom of the pot. The longer this soaked, the better it tasted. I also ate a few grains before adding water. Tasty crunchy snack! I could totally see this as being delicious served as a hot cereal with cream and sugar. It’s also deliciously pure and satisfying as a tea. I want more of this. Moooooore! Where do we find this in the US? :(

Thank you for sharing this with me Sil!!

Super excited to receive this in a swap from Sil.

My granparents are farmers, so growing up I would often eat raw/whole wheat, barley, buckwheat, etc. To this day I love chewing on raw, fresh grains. Hello (natural) carbs!

This tea smells and tastes like heavy bread or pretzels. Definitely a buckwheat taste. I actually ate the buckwheat after it was steeped. So good. The tea is also slightly sweet on its own which is nice.

I have been looking for wheat/barley teas like mugicha and soba cha at asian/international grocery stores. Haven’t found what I am looking for just yet. Although I am sure I could call up my grandpa and source it for free…

1.1 tbsp for 375 ml

Bakey-brothy taste. Slight saltiness.

Second infusion at 5 minutes. Still a good level of flavour- smooth and bakey taste.

Thanks to Sil for the sample!

I figured that i’d better have this myself before the entire world got to try it. The funniest thing about this tea is that it was a last minute purchase from the grocery store because i thought it would be something different to try. I wasn’t really hoping for good, just a novel-tea drink that people could try in swaps and that i could bring back for the girls.

Turns out? this isn’t half bad. My other half was in agreement that it kinda smells like a pretzel…or really dense bread that you can get. When he tasted it, he likened it to ovaltine. Now, i haven’t had ovaltine in AGES…so i’ve got zero recollection on that one but his taste buds are also pretty strange. It has almost a sweetness to it that’s pretty decent. I have NO idea if there’s caffeine in this or not – i’m guessing possibly not? Either way, this is pretty decent. I think i prefer this one to Orzo – honey from lupicia (which i tried to compare against this one). it’s much lighter in taste..or something not sure. WEIRD! but good lol

Sipdown! 834.

Yum. That is all.

Ummm, heck yes, this is SO DELICIOUS! I catch exactly what you’re saying, Indigobloom, about this tasting like sweet pretzels. I’m not quite sure that I would have likened it to that, but mildly sweet, toasted baked goods? Definitely. This is super tasty, and definitely a tea we probably need to locate a non-China source for, because yeah. It’s pretty darn good. Thanks for sharing, Sil!

Thanks to Sil for this sample!!
It smells just like these Polish pretzel snacks I grew up on. Soon as I sniffed the cup, I knew it’d be tasty. Oh man is it ever a trip back to childhood.
Bready and sweet, this is pretty much a warm liquid pretzel (not the salted kind, obviously haha)
I think I oversteeped just a little bit, and despite that, I am in heaven.
Will be keeping my eye out for these packets at the grocery :)