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More fancypants Chinese green tea from Teavivre, yay. This smells and tastes wonderful, sweetly nutty and buttery smooth. Like the other huang shan mao fengs I’ve had it’s relatively light, more aroma than taste; that said, it’s a lovely pick-me-up.

I’m becoming quite fond of my little glass teapot (giving my brew baskets a break!)—I love watching tea leaves expand.

What a treat—I wanted to try more hou kui greens and suddenly I’m finding them everywhere (but you know how that goes—once something’s in your scope of awareness you’re subconsciously on the lookout for it when before you’d just tune it out as unrecognizable).

Some of the longest tea leaves I’ve ever encountered—they stood up like a swirl of matchsticks in a jar, barely fitting in my glass teapot dry! Tickled me. I like how this is a perfect balance of savory and sweet—there’s some soup-satisfying vegetable flavor, can’t quite place it (it’s not the usual suspects like carrot or green bean or snap pea…KittyLovesTea mentions cabbage and I could see how that might be it; it is something more in that family, less green or sugary, rounder and fuller), but also a perfumed sweet element ever present. It feels light and delicate yet it has a lot of flavor and a surprisingly satisfying body. There’s a tinge of roastiness too, really yummy. Now I’m looking forward to the couple of other hou kuis headed my way.

I know I keep saying it but wow, I just can’t get over how much I love straight green tea now when I thought I hated it for like a decade. Turns out I just wasn’t familiar with Chinese ones. Yum!

So pretty I had to use my new glass teapot from Teavivre for this one—I can be a sucker for the appearance of tea leaves, particularly green ones, I admit.

It’s really delicate at first; this is one that builds up gradually the more you drink it until by the end of the cup you can smell and taste distinct elements. The second steep is stronger in aroma and darker in color too—makes sense, as by then the stars have begun to unfurl which I imagine would mean more area exposed (don’t quote me on that though as I’m no expert!). But even before the second steep I definitely smell some yummy artichoke, and the lemon really comes on at the end of the sip in a pleasing delicate way, no harsh acidity or anything like that. The site notes are right about it being refreshing; I appreciate the way it is without going into standard strongly citrus or fruity territory; it’s subtler than that.

It hasn’t been intentional but it seems somehow my prettiest teas come out of the cupboard Sunday afternoons. It’s the perfect time for them, when I can be slow and linger over a pot calmly before the craziness of the work week begins.

This was pretty relaxing. Not the most delicious therapeutic tisane I’ve tried but not bad either.

Oof, this is not for me. Got that tart-fruity thing going on up the wazoo, unsurprisingly—I mean cranberry + orange + hibiscus = of course. I tried it anyway because the discussions on Steepster made it sound interesting. It does have some clove-y warmth attempting to counter the astringency, but I’m not crazy about how they mesh somehow. This would be fine cold steeped with lots of syrup added, or turned into tea syrup for soda (that recipe has been a super helpful starting point, I wish I could remember which Steepster mentioned it!) I’m guessing. That’s how I’m going to use up the rest of it. I’m sure this tea would be great for some folks, it just isn’t my thing at all. I much prefer Whispering Pines Gingerade, which is maybe the only hibiscus/tart-centered blend I’ve had that I really, really like (the warmth of the ginger totally saves the day). Ah well. Can’t win ’em all.

Such a good day for a comforting pot of tea—it’s overcast and raining just enough to want something warm, a lazy Friday where I’ve gotten enough sleep for once, R only has a half day of work, and I’ve busted my butt all week so I can work slowly today, not too much to do. Tomorrow’s Courtney’s bridal shower, and soon I’ve got to put the finishing touches on our 2 final wedding trips for October. Yesterday’s news of the Pope has me feeling hopeful and surprised still. Working through Breaking Bad and reading today from the Times they’re auctioning off set memorabilia makes me sad and affectionate all over again about Gale’s notebook and Walt Whitman’s poetry—his books always seem to be inscribed and weirdly pivotal to people (Remember Monica Lewinsky’s copy? Right around when that was happening I was in the hospital for an extended stay and the one thing I remember my mom bringing me that helped me get through it was my well worn underlined and margin-annotated copy of Leaves of Grass. Then there’s Dead Poets Society…). Anyway, feeling pretty good.

These leaves are pretty dry, long and golden. There’s a satisfying quality to this tea that works really well with my mood and the weather. It’s got hints of woody astringency like a darjeeling/Nepali tea, but it’s also smooth and carby (while staying medium-bodied, not too thick) with a faint orchid thing going on. As it cools to tepid, it gets quite noticeably sweeter which I like.

Finally got my Steap Shoppe order sorted, turns out my package was sent out over 2 weeks ago 2-day Priority and USPS really dropped the ball (it’d been sitting in a sorting facility right here in town all this time, forgotten somehow despite SS springing for tracking and insurance!). Within 15 hours of contacting USPS about it it was delivered to my door, indicating it really was just sort of forgotten and languishing. Glad it’s resolved and I must say Steap Shoppe’s customer service when I asked them about it was excellent and helped me resolve the matter immediately.

This is quite an indulgence, which I guess is to be expected given all the sweet treat stuff in it—chocolate nibs, agave, maple crystals, vanilla, cinnamon—but it goes beyond the sweetness. Along with a wonderful subtly earthy aroma dry, there is (as many Steepsters have already enthused!) an uncanny bread-y quality, perhaps from the pu erh, in everything from the dry scent to the end of the swallow. It really does take the place of one’s morning cinnamon swirl toast like that. Not hard at all to see why it’s such a favorite. In the colder months especially I could definitely see making this a regular breakfast tea.

Love this, a very welcoming introduction to Yezi; I can see now why they’re confident and proud enough to offer near-free samples. I love whiskey including single malt scotch (Oban 14 and Lagavulin 16 4-eva), and I was a little wary of such big claims of a tea being just like scotch (figured it’d likely be a standard lapsang souchong where smokiness alone would translate to deeming it scotch-like without any other depth), but lo. This had some scotch-y wonderful qualities hot, along with some rich Laoshan Black/Bailin Gongfu-ish grain chewiness. But the scotch flavor really shines once it cools to tepid. Smoky, spicy, sweet, woody…so good. Perfect as a fall and winter after-meal in-the-library, leather-and-paper treat. So happy and thankful Yezi offered these samples!