612 Tasting Notes
5/5
Love this, goes right in that category in my mind of “reach for this when you crave the taste of tea you remember from a long time ago, just that thick blackblackblack flavor bordering on bitter but done really well” where A&D Double Knit Blend, Persimmon Tree Vintage Black, and Golden Moon Sinharaja fall. Where it’s both coffee-like in many ways and yet very…“old-fashioned tea” tasting. It’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea but when I do crave it it’s the strongest craving ever. So glad to have this one.
Preparation
You had to mention Sinharaja so this one is going on my shopping list!
Full disclosure, it’s not nearly as smooth and complex-shit-going-on-up-the-wazoo as Sinharaja (to me anyway). Sinharaja straddles the line between those “I just want the taste of pure black tea from my memories 10 years ago, but done well” teas and “whoa this is amazing, there’s so much going on AND it’s just satisying and comforting to boot”. I still can’t get over that Sin’s a ceylon and does all those things. Man. Now I want a cup. (:
ditto about drinking this months ago, not logging due to crazy hecticness and mind elsewhere at the time (bad me), cleaning out my greens stash for the summer and remembering i’d missed this. logging for posterity.
kind of funny now given i finally had NMTC Casablanca earlier today. it’s got to be sacrilegious to say this, but i thiiiiink i might prefer that one. it’s not the greatest comparison i realize since that’s got an earl thing going on and i’m a huge honkin’ sucker for earls, but the note about trying to do a twist on moroccan mint reminded me.
that said, a friend says this is super delicious cold steeped. i’ll do that with this last little sad bit of leaf i’ve got.
Preparation
5/5
Finishing up the dregs of a bunch of teas I drank months ago, like spring/early summer. It was a hectic time and anything that involved more thought to review I just didn’t. Didn’t even log, ack. I know this has got to have lost much of its punch, but on the other hand back when I first tried this I wasn’t madly in love with greens the way I am now that it’s 100F every day and has been for months. :( And wow. Even likely weakened in power this is incredible. I know the extent of my Verdant fangirlness has got to be annoying and easy to roll one’s eyes at, but g’ah. My two favorite greens are undoubtedly this and their Laoshan Bilochun. I love the way this has so much to it, where some of it’s all the stuff you love in a green and expect, but then there’s a lot more too. Some words that come to mind because my brain is tired and can’t string sentences right now: ice cream (yes!!), green bean, cream (so so creamy), oats/grain, REALLY buttery, raw sweet potato (there’s a subtle sweet starchy vegetable thing for sure), some spinach, unbelievable aroma. More comfort food-y sweet and satisfying than most greens but still with that fresh green vegetable element. Love.
Preparation
:) :) :)
No annoyances here. I’m a butiki fan girl so you’re in good company haha. Verdant has some real winners for sure :)
Yeah, I love Verdant! I’ll buy pretty much anything they come up with! I also Love Butiki. And Mandala.
I need to try Mandala, that is if I ever get through my durn stash of teas I’ve already got, ee. I hear nothing but great things!
I’ll never get through my stash, july! I have enough tea hear to supply a tea house for years probably, & yet I keep buying new things. I need to go back to the hiatus group, to crawl back in shame & recommit to recovery, but I’m in an avoidance pattern…
yeah i hear that. i think my MO lately has been to go loooong periods of time not buying tea, then going a spree, rinse, repeat. and i get the feeling i’m thankfully drifting out of the newbie “MUST TRY EVERYTHING FROM EVERYONE ZOMG EXCITEMENT” and settling in with shops i like now. hopefully. :b
Exuberant 4/5, tempted to make it 5/5. Still struggling with weird mental blocks about how I can’t put everyday pleasure things like this above stuff like, I dunno, gongfu tea, but I need to get over that.
Love this one, the way it’s the best things I crave from an Earl (just a couple days ago I was reading about how bilochun greens often have orange blossom notes and I was like “ah-HA! That’s why I’m a freak about them like never before with other greens…me and that darn orange floral stuff, whether it’s orange blossom or bergamot!”) but lightened up thanks to the geeen tea base and mint, really an Earl Grey + Moroccan Mint hybrid, ideal for this context (displaced Yankee who wants her Earl but in city that feels like the dog days of summer 9+ months out of the year :( ). A little surprised too as I’m not the biggest gunpowder green fan (I always want to like the idea of Moroccan tea, the whole gorgeous colored glass tumbler thing and the refreshing nature of it all, but anything that requires massive amounts of sugar to be palatable can kinda put me off…and that’s not an issue here).
It’s also a beautiful reddish gold color (quite bright!) in the cup.
Sometimes you hear of really novel blends and are like “I wonder why I’ve never seen that before, how cool!” and then you try them and think “…uh, that’s why”. This is definitely not a case of ambitious novelty with disappointing or weird offputting results. Feels rather East-meets-West in a good way.
Crossing my fingers it’s glorious cold steeped too, can’t wait to try it that way.
I really do adore NMTC. Still kicking my idiot self for going to Albuquerque this summer with time leftover to kill and totally blanking on the possibility of visiting the shop. D’OH.
Preparation
I always forget to use tea as a way to dust off the cobwebs in my brain upon first waking up—a throwback to my intermittent fasting days I reckon (I still use the window—don’t eat anything from 8pm to 12pm. Has made worrying about breakfast in the rush of work days a non-issue, which I like, plus when I DO eat breakfast-y foods on days off it always feels so special now, like just going for pancakes is a huge deal, whee). But the other day after dinner I was thinking about how if I don’t start drinking tea earlier in the day than I have been (I often forget to until well after lunch, eek) I will never be able to enjoy my brisk quite caffeinated stuff, of which I have a lot as it’s still my favorite category. So here we are, with a very decent and standard cup of breakfast-y tea with that traditional black tea taste I sometimes crave and miss like no other. Not a bad way to greet day at all. Only hope this doesn’t take me down a slippery slope of NEEDING caffeine first thing to even be sentient at all (oh coffee addict days, I really don’t miss you). We’ll see.
Preparation
Sounds about perfect for early mornings! Actually, I tend to feel that crash and burn particularly around lunchtime, so an extra shot of energy would be helpful! and here’s to IF—I’m currently doing the “eat stop eat” version, myself!
i’ve been really happy with IF, yeah! it must be fun to break your fast late in the day after your stop period, whee. i think IF makes me appreciate the flavors in food a lot more once i do in fact eat, if that makes sense. and yeah i don’t have weird glycemic crashes during the day nearly as much—man i hate those.
4/5 and while not absolutely perfect, the truth is that yes, as long as I still have room at all for flavored dessert teas in my life this’ll have a place among them
So I say all that about getting more mature and needing less hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-hammer sweet flavoring in tea, then I decide after dinner I really want a cup of this, my needs-to-be-sipped-down green tea stash be damned. Ha. Ah well. Must be all the talk of Haagen Dasz and dessert in general I went into with friends on FB. Anyway, it’s worth it—this is just what I wanted. The smell is fantastic, not just sweet but truly buttery and sweet-yeasty, indeed like stepping behind the case in a toasty, glorious patisserie. Like most dessert-y ATRs the flavor doesn’t quite live up to the aroma (what could though really…egads) but it’s still very enjoyable. This one doesn’t hold up too great to milk but it can take a pinch of sugar. Yum. I love that you can almost smell the sweet sticky filling inside bakery rolls here too, all those warm spices and gooey coated toasted nuts. Yum!
Preparation
hmmmm…. you’re inspiring me to sip this tonight….. =0)
sad my comment from last night never appeared apparently—i probably tried to post it somewhere besides the dashboard and didn’t notice it didn’t go through. oh well. i said something like “yay tea parties through the wires! bottoms up!” ha.
