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25jan: smells citrus. Tastes: citrus, earthy. Tastes complement each other well.

25Jan: small leaves, smells spicy, cinnamon. Tea is yummy, slightly cinnamony. I like this one.

Jan 25th: You know those teas you buy because the tasting notes sounded good online. This is one of those teas. I think I’ve found out that I don’t care for chai all that much. And caramel doesn’t belong in tea. Dry leaf smells: carmely, sugary, chai. This tea is okay when hot though the flavors don’t come through well. However, once the tea cools, the chai part is fine. It’s the caramel artificial flavoring that is not good. It pretty much ruins the tea for me. I might try it with sugar to see if it can fix the fake flavor.

I keep forgetting to add dates.
22Jan: lemony smell, tastes kind of lemon creamy vanilla. I don’t know I was quite confused by this tea and what I was tasting. Did this one in the gaiwan, but after tasting it I decided that the tea was not worth the time and effort that the gaiwan takes. I’ll finish the rest of the tea western style.
Tea fine but taste was odd. Not artificial odd, just confusing odd.

I didn’t have this one per directions, just made it as a straight tea. Very coconuty, not bad.

Fuzzy leaves, strongly scented with jasmine. Taste – jasmine, soft taste of whit tea with buttery mouthfeel. Relatively thick taste. Well scented – not too much, not overpowering like some jasmines can be. It never tastes overdone or over-jasmined. Scent hold through the second infusion. Taste fainter, still buttery, more of whit tea present in taste. I really like this tea. Very well done jasmine tea.

From Jan 18th: Sample sipdown. dry leaf- green beans, peas. Wet leaf smells cooked green vegatables. Drinking the tea tastes like eating dark leaves – spinach, collards? nope. A nice quality tea, but not what I want in a tea.

From Jan 18th: super long twisty leaves. Wet leaves smell spicy, malty. Aroma same. Tastes cinnamony, spicy, malty. Very nice

I decided to try this in my new gaiwan to see if I would get a different flavor profile than when I did it western style. I remember getting a lot of artificial hazelnut flavor.
I did a 5 sec rinse.
10 sec steep – creamy, hint of hazelnut and vanilla
10 s – repeat of 1st
15s – hazelnut, vanilla, creamy mouthfeel
20s – much more hazelnut in this steep
30s- vanilla oolong
45s- tasted good, I forgot to take notes
1 min- vanilla yum
1 min 30s- creamy, flavor’s gone, just left with tea. It’s good tea.
2 min- tea’s done
I like this tea much better in a gaiwan than western style. Using shorter steeps avoided the artificial taste I had the other time. I don’t think I’ll reorder, but I’ll enjoy drinking the rest. :)

10 jan- My Morning Mate + Citrus Lavender Sage = very nice flavored mate blend. I love Citrus Lavender Sage, but it’s expensive. So I just use it in blends, so I can stretch the flavor out. Both from Teavana.