What-Cha
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After last nights debacle with the pomegranate stuff, I decided to whip myself into shape this morning and follow some directions!
…
But as I write this, and look on the bag, I realize I only partially followed the directions. I did brew this tea at 194 as directed. I brewed gong fu cha style with about 7g of tea to about 6 oz. Water. I steeped 30 second steeps after a 5 sec rinse.
I don’t think this is a complicated tea. It’s very light and buttery with a sugarcane note in the finish. I’m picking up subtle florals with a hint of grassy ness. Very pleasant but not particularly mind blowing. I will gladly drink the rest of this tea but probably won’t restock it.
I was inspired by beerandbeancurd’s tasting note to try this tea with pineapple upside down cake tonight but got so excited to brew the tea, I couldn’t wait until cake time!
I brewed it about 5g to 5 oz. Water at 194 degrees. 5 sec. Rinse.
The dry leaves smelled like cinnamon and dark chocolate. Wet leaves netted stronger cinnamon and vanilla.
Steeped at 30 second intervals for 4 steeps then 45 seconds, 1 minute, 1:30, 2 minutes.
Dark chocolate was prominent throughout followed by sugarcane, hay, malt, and spice. Did I mention the dark chocolate? A lovely light, slightly sweet finish ended each cup.
I kept my leftovers to cool and threw it over ice and yes, you guessed it, dark chocolate with a crystal clear, slightly sweet, finish.
This is a delicious tea that I have no hesitation recommending.
I decided to take a break from gong fu brewing this morning an opted for a cuppa Earl Grey instead.
My only other exposure to earl grey has been grocery store bags, so this tastes and smells quite good in comparison. I steeped it as directed, 2 tsp. To about 8 oz. Water at 203 degrees for 4 minutes.
I’m having trouble identifying notes this morning but do get orange and lemon which I think, is the bergamot? I’ve never had bergamot so am guessing. A rather short, polite finish, and overall very satisfying cup of tea.
Bergamot is a type of citrus, so it can be quite lemony in flavor. But I also find it can be more on the floral side, it just depends on the tea for me!
Ah yes, that makes sense! I almost noted a floral note but I can’t quite taste it even though I “know” it’s there.
Bergamot, to me, smells like Fruity Pebbles cereal. As unsophisticated as that sounds!
Interesting how differently people perceive the same flavoring! To me, bergamot in earl grey tastes like a floral perfume. In green tea though, it tastes like cardamom.
I don’t care much for bergamot on Ceylon because it is lemony plus sour orange which is too much for me, but I like bergamot on Keemun or other roasty black teas or even smoky ones. Quite a bit, in fact.
I didn’t realize the Ceylon was citrusy too. I could have just been tasting that, doh!
Thanks Shae, I know what fruity pebbles smells like, that helps! Lol
Luckyme, I wondered if I was picking up a floral note. I’ll have to try again and really pay attention.
I have been checking my oolong box and found this one. Certainly it will fill sipdown prompt — Your oldest oolong tea even though I don’t count one serving amounts as sipdowns. But let it be a sipdown! (Two prompts in one day, woo!)
Okay, actually it must be my first experience with aged oolong. This oolong was released when I have been 8 years old, maybe I have started with my tea bag wrapper collection back then? I don’t know, when exactly I have started.
It is unigue, because it looks quite green in colour, even though it has been roasted 60%; and overall I wasn’t sure about flavour profile (walnut skin, really?) and overall, you know, it’s old tea feel.
I was pleasantly surprised already when adding leaves (all 5 grams) to the preheated gaiwan. It was somehow herbaceous, with roasted grains, and overall quite indeed complex.
I have been using 90-95°C water in thermos, and it seems it suited this tea well. I didn’t made a rinse, as there wasn’t any dust and following flavours and aromas were noticed (without particular order):
Walnut skin for sure, agian that herbaceous note, grains, nutty, florals, a little of spices (derk says cardamom, could it be), a little grassy (no contamination with Kumano!), olives a bit, or maybe olive oil. The mouthfeel was, again as derk said already, somehow oily and smooth, creamy and mouthcoating.
Some other qualities to mention: relaxing and keeping my sanity “alive”. It’s getting harder and harder to focus on the studies, as I feel, I know this already, but truth is somewhere in between mark A and F, depending on the topic. Also, my brother was having homeoffice today and well, it didn’t helped me too much. It was somehow distracting me, although he didn’t had much MS Teams calls.
PS: derk, thank you for sending this my way!
Preparation
This is a pretty fussy sencha. First brews around 165 F for 20 sec were quite bitter and not very enjoyable. After some reading and experimenting, I recognized that about 150 F for 5 secs flash first infusion was best. +10 sec/subsequent infusion for about 5 infusions total.
If brewed in the latter way, most of the bitterness is gone and is replaced by umami and sweetness.
Dry leaf: seaweed.
Wet leaf: asparagus, wet hay.
Taste: umami, sweet.
Flavors: Asparagus, Hay, Seaweed, Sweet, Umami
I dumped the rest of this unceremoniously into my teapot, let it sit for a minute, and drank it. Thankfully, it’s not as strong as it used to be, but my cup leans into the lemon apricot fruit range of grassy tea. I’ve been contemplating on getting a fall order even though I’m waiting on a swap of so many teas. What-Cha has some cool experimental varieties, but I’m also in basic white person flavor mode right now. I have so many teas, but I only have one chai out of all of them. The fall mood is hitting me HARD the past few days.
It was nice to have a black tea bordering on white and oolong. I’m still going through moods with black tea. My gong fu ones have been a little bit too brisk or tea drunk potent for me lately for western. I still plow through my oolongs, but western or tumbler. I’ve been a hair more involved in work by setting up a chess club and managing to teach all grades of social studies for high school.
I initially complained about my schedule, but I have really good groups. Luckily, I’ve taught Civics, Economics, World and US History for nearly 6 years, so I mostly know what I’m doing. Civics and Econ alternate semester to semester, so it’s not too overwhelming, but I’m trying to move away from lecture and use more collaboration/student driven discussion. Shifting to more active learning also requires waaaay more prep time and work, so I’ve been juggling what I have with what I can borrow from other teachers, what I can improve. It feels like driving manual though since I have to shift my gears from class to class.
It’s nice to finish a straight black tea and enjoy it for the flavors as I go back into a productive work mode this Saturday.
Ah, the swap … The box is sitting by my desk, filling very, very slowly with baggies of tea. There’s at least 100 g of green oolong in there, including some of that SLX Tieguanyin. I think I’ll unearth that white tea from Wang and pack it up, even if it’s not as full as I’d like it to be.
If you could only have one, would you choose a Korean balhyocha or one of the Taiwanese black teas from Floating Leaves? They’re all vacuum sealed, which is why I’m asking. There’s not much hongcha in the box.
That’s okay! What company is the Balhyocha from again? I’m leaning towards the Floating Leaves Blacks. I’ve the Wang Small leaf black that I’ll send you in the next month too if you want it. I personally was not a fan, but I think you might like it more.
The balhyochas are all from Morning Crane. I have Jangguncha Yeong balhyocha, SOA balhyocha, Dosim Dawan So-ip-cha and Dae-ip-cha, and Jeong Jae Yeon Halmonicha. Due to the difficulty of navigating the vendor’s website, I can’t tell you much about any of them, though the Halmonicha is supposed to be good. I have the Alishan, SLX, and Lishan black teas from Floating Leaves.
It would be fun to try the Wang Small Leaf Black, though I worry that you’re sending me more tea than I’m sending you.
Lol Definitely Floating Leaves blacks. The lishan was a target of mine anyway.
Okay, I’ll open the Lishan Hongcha from Floating Leaves. :) I also want to try this tea!
I’ve had this tea for years, and am now just reviewing it. I had to remind myself I really don’t need more tea, and since I’m buying house, I have to actually go through my horde and manage my resources. I will still buy new tea, but I’m only going to pick teas that I know I really like as pure teas and some flavored ones from now on.
This tea is one of the ones I really liked from What-Cha, but I only drank it during warmer winter days or early spring. It would get pretty astringent during the summer months, so I would only have it every once in a while. I’m impressed it’s held up this well despite my neglect.It’s a fruitier black tea that had a lot of similarities to white tea for me. It’s almost muscatel, but it’s more grapey and floral. I kept tasting apricot and geranium, with more herbal qualities that sometimes reminded me of sage. I guess that’s how the astringency of it hits me with the dry qualities that come up here and there. I’ve mostly done western and gong fu, but I slightly prefer a shorter western session of 2 minutes with a generous 2 teaspoons or less. I got more fruity qualities western than gong fu-gong fu was more herbaceous and floral. Sometimes, the astringency and bitterness would overwhelm me, so I’d have to take breaks from it. I think I could finish it off western easier, and might tumbler fuel it for work this week to sip it down.
Maybe I can save some for Leafhopper if she wants some.
Flavors: Apricot, Astringent, Citrus, Dry Leaves, Drying, Floral, Fruity, Geranium, Muscatel, Orange Blossom, Rose, Sage, Straw, White Grapes
I hope you meant “go THROUGH your horde” of tea and not THROWING tea away! If you need to rehome any tea, I’m open to trying anything, no matter how old it is…
Yes, it’s through.
Sorry, I just saw this note. I initially thought I’d reviewed this tea, but it was the Guranse Spring. It would be nice to try the summer harvest.
