537 Tasting Notes
100ml shibo, 200F, 5g (~10 or so steeps with varied timing) Sipdown
A lot of roast in the aroma of this tea. It’s a thick, slightly sweet tea with some minerality. Lightly roasted – which is in the aroma, but not in the liquor until it cools down toward room temperature. Slightly longer steeps (~20sec) bring out fruity and juicy notes. The aftertaste of this tea is long and sweet.
I wasn’t too excited to try this tea – most roasted oolongs are not for me. Pretty sure I received as a sample with my order. This one is an exception. I enjoyed this tea.
Flavors: Fruity, Mineral, Roasted, Sweet, Thick
Preparation
From W2T club:
100 ml shibo, 205F, 5g?
Taste is dark fruit like raisins. Roasted sour at the end of the sip that goes away as the steep count increases. Long lasting fruity aftertaste. It did get astringent as the steep count went on and became much more drying. I don’t mind the roast here as it goes away relatively quickly. I got 8 or so steeps.
Flavors: Drying, Fruity, Malt, Raisins, Roasted, Sour
Preparation
Sipdown @ work.
I finally purchased another variable temperature kettle for home and brought in the boil only kettle to work. Just in time too since the breakroom hot water (coffee) machine broke yesterday. It’s nice to have hotter water and a little bit of temperature variation.
100ml shibo, 200F, severe underleafing 2-3g max
Wish I had a little more leaf, but it’s a good recovery from the lukewarm tea I just had.
Sipdown.
Slightly overleafed today, but there wasn’t enough left for another cup. Chocolate and malt, a little bit of sweetness. And a bit of unpleasant taste – metallic and off at the very tail end. Aftertaste is creamy, unpleasant taste doesn’t stick around – so kind of a plus? I’ve had better keemuns than this tea.
Flavors: Chocolate, Creamy, Malt, Metallic, Sweet
Preparation
Backlog. Sipdown.
Oolong group buy: I got a little bit of roast off this tea, plus the usual sour nuts (it’s light). Mineral with some malt and honey. This was an okay tea. I reached for it more that some of the others that I’m torturing myself with. (why I don’t discard them…..)
Flavors: Malt, Mineral, Roasted, Sour
“torture teas”! That doesn’t sound fun!
Haha, sometimes I wonder that too, but I have guilt problems with throwing things away. So it’s quite nice that my husband is drinking many of the teas I truly don’t want as iced tea!
That’s what summer is for—getting rid of the second-stringers in preparation for THE SEASON.
AaaaaHHH! Gmathis, you said it! It won’t be long….except here it is going to be in the upper 90’s for a while, then we will have a cool day or two in about a month and a half, then it will be hot again, then another wait for a cool day….but you are right! THE SEASON is getting close. I can hardly wait!
Backlog. Sipdown.
From the Oolong group buy: Another charcoal roasted oolong. Another tea that will be unloved by my palate. All I can taste is the roast and sour nuts. Not an appealing flavor combination. The roast has mellowed somewhat, but I still can’t taste the tea.
Flavors: Nuts, Roasted, Sour
I really like Keemums. This example is fair to good but not great. I get chocolate and malt and some caramel but none of the flavors are very strong. There’s also a off astringent or metallic flavor towards the end.
This tea reminded me how much I missed having straight blacks at work. And that I should buy a better quality Keemum to drink, but that I wouldn’t buy this particular tea again.
Flavors: Astringent, Caramel, Chocolate, Malt, Metallic
