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Bit of a sad sipdown for this one. I fully intended to purchase more, but sadly Simpson and Vail seem to be out at the moment. Hopefully I’ll get my hands on more soon because this is really just a delightful CTC Assam. Simple and malty. Not much else, but sometimes that’s just what you need.

Sipdown 19/75

This is certainly the lightest Hoji Cha I’ve had to date. I do tend to prefer mine a bit more roasted, but that’s just a personal preference. This one is really quite nice. Smooth and mellow with just enough of that roasty hojicha flavor present to keep it from being dull. If I had more than a sample I’d have tried less water/another tea bag but sadly I only had a one to play with. Overall it’s not bad at all, but there are other hojichas I would prefer over this one.

Sipdown 18/75

I’m not usually super big on green teas. It’s not that I don’t like them, I really do enjoy some. It’s just I love black teas so much that I never want to sacrifice a cup of black tea for anything else. I usually relegate greens to bedtime duty. But it’s ones like this that make me rethink that status. This is my favorite (non-genmaicha) green. Not grassy like sencha. Sweet, fresh and just a little vegetal. Really a delightful tea.

Sipdown 17/75

Oh, this is definitely not for me. Ugh, it’s actually kind of awful. Tastes like sweet roasted dirt, no thanks. Down the drain it goes.
Sipdown 12/75

Sent off a couple teaspoons of this one to Sil and had just enough left over to make myself a last cup. Even though the leftover bits were quite small and broken it brewed up just lovely. Roasty with some mild creamy caramel notes. Yum.
I love hojicha as a nightcap so I’ll definitely consider picking this one up in teabag form for ease of use. I’m thankful to Bird Pick for sending me these samples and will certainly be placing an order in the future.
Sipdown 11/75

This one was one of the many free samples received in my Han Xiang orders. This comes in one of those individual packages, which I love. I packaged up what I thought was my last packet to send to Sil and found I had still had 1/2 a packet laying in my sample pile score! I really do love this tea. As soon as I have some room I fully interned to get a full sized package as this is both delicious and well priced. Taste-wise, it’s really quite the same as all the other un-smoked Lapsangs I’ve tried. While I love them I don’t find they vary widely. Nice toasty cocoa-y sweetness with a good bit of heft to it. Delicious.

Related note – Aliexpress can be a bit iffy at times, but I’ve had great luck with this seller, and he answers questions quite promptly. http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Lapsang-bell-2-bags-of-organic-black-tea-Free-shipping-Buy-get-more-Black-tea/2012116228.html

Sipdown(with some help from Sil) 9/75

This is another one I got in my swap with Cameron B.
Hojicha is one of my absolute favorite teas, with Hoji-Kukicha being even further up the list. So the idea of doctoring it with milk makes me nervous, but here goes. Okay, brewed it up extra strong and extra long while I heated up and frothed 3(ish) oz of soy milk.

Huh… it’s kind of nice. I think I would like it quite a bit if I had made it even stronger. Right now it’s a bit diluted by the milk, but the roasty tea goes surprisingly well with the sweet creamy milk. Defintely something I’ll experiment around with one of the many hoji-kukicha packages I have laying around. I actually just bought some hojicha powder so when it arrives I’ll have to try preparing it as a latte.

Sipdown 8/75

Sample from the lovely Cameron B.!

This is a different tasting Assam. I haven’t tasted one quite like it before. It’s very smooth and mellow, with some astringency and fruitiness. Unfortunately I didn’t find it as bold as mentioned. Seems a bit more like a Ceylon than any Assam I’ve had. Interesting for sure.

Sipdown 6/75

Big thanks to Ost who sold me this from her stash sale.

Usually I brew these types of teeny tiny CTC teas to go alongside super sweet or rich foods. The astringency really cuts through and stands up to those types well. Rarely do I bother with them on their own. Tonight I wanted something to go with my bar of Ghirardelli Cabernet Matinee dark chocolate which, while divine, is a bit too rich for my blood. I dug this out, brewed up a cup and then… promptly forgot about it. I usually brew CTC teas for 2-3 minutes max, but this one ended up well over that. Surprisingly it was barely bitter and was positively sublime with my chocolate.
This is pretty much just malt in a cup with a touch of astringency and a barely noticeable smidgen of fruitiness. Delightful really when you just want a hot hearty cup of something that screams tea! I’ll be adding this to the ever-growing list of teas to stock up on when I place my next S&V order. Very good for what it is.

Well to start this review off, I have to say I didn’t follow the directions because “2 heaping tsps” for 8oz seemed like way too much, but tasting this now I probably could have gone with it. At least I know for next time. I did follow their directions of whisking the matcha into cold milk, and then microwaving it. Which felt odd, but it seemed to work well.

So it did come out a bit light with 1 heaping tsp, but I quite like it. I made it with plain unsweetened soy milk. It tastes quite a bit less vegetal and bitter than plain matcha, as expected. It’s just super creamy and rich with a bit of roasty nuttiness from the soybeans. There is sugar in the ingredients list (but not listed on their website) but it’s not very sweet at all. Even for someone who usually can’t stand sweetened tea. Totally a decadent treat, and I’m kicking myself for not getting the strawberry while I was at it.

I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t like flavored matcha this much, because I really don’t need anymore tea interests. But oh well, off I go to browse RedLeafTea’s site…