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This came as a sample with my last TTC order. Its a Taiwanese wuyi tea pressed into a small puerh like brick. I had no idea how to brew it so I decided to steep half of the 10g brick in a 120ml gaiwan with short steeps starting at 10s.

The dry leaf had a tobacco and wet rock aroma. I caught a whiff of sandalwood and incense following a rinse. The first steep produced a clear, sorta greenish light golden liquor. Smooth, tobacco-ey, and slightly smokey. The color turned a darker amber with the next steep which was again smooth and roasty but also had hints of black currant and bamboo. Third steep was more or less the same. The fourth steep though was thick, oily, and somewhat pungent and this is where I lost interest and ended the session.

Not a bad tasting tea, but isn’t something I would pick out on my own. It might be appealing to those looking for something aged without the funk of puerh. I’ll just stick to regular yanchas when I’m in the mood for this type of tea.

The lone bright spot from my Taiwan Sourcing order. This is an excellent dong ding with a salted caramel and pumpernickel bread aroma and a subtle roast that brings out a crisp, light character. It starts with floral notes and then quickly transitions to a smooth toasted pecan flavor with a little fruitiness kicking in later. It’s a great tea for grandpa steeping. Never gets muddled or bitter as long as you don’t hit it with full boiling water.

Meh, yet another let-down from my Taiwan Sourcing order. So far I’m 0 for 3 with their green oolongs. All of the ones I’ve tried have been incredibly underwhelming. This one has a flat, nondescript oolong flavor. It’s brothy and mostly vegetal with a touch of green apple. There is a lot of broken leaf and dust in the bag leading to messy and uneven infusions. It only goes for about 4-5 steeps. Pretty disappointing overall.

Attended a seminar last night where dinner was served. I’ve been practicing intermittent fasting for a while now – fast for 16 hours, eat within a 8 hour window – and have become accustomed to having dinner no later than 4:30pm on most days. Eating this late made me feel heavy and desperate for some tea to help digest it all.

The only option was the Keurig machine in the lobby and since beggars can’t be choosers, I grabbed a K-cup of this and went for it. It’s been ages since I’ve had Celestial Seasonings. Even in my heathen days of tea bags, I was never impressed by it. The Keurig brewed up 6oz of a tongue-scalding, murky amber liquor. This tea isn’t grassy like a typical green tea. It’s brisk and has the familiar roasty taste of gunpowder green tea – another tea I used to drink a long time ago. Not one that I would normally go for but sipping it felt nostalgic and helped calm my stomach. Decent in a pinch and would be nicer with a squeeze of lemon.

Arrgghhh, I hate to write this review but there are few things more aggravating than opening a brand new packet of tea only to discover that it has gone stale. Shan Lin Xi rarely lets me down and I’m sure this one was good when fresh, but after a few steeps I could tell something about it was off.

The smell was promising enough. Out the bag, it smelled buttery sweet with a touch of vegetation. A rinse brought out fruity aromas of pear and banana along with a hint of marzipan. The brewed tea though was a different story. It tasted vegetal and musty like old books. There was none of the characteristic sweetness or minerality of oolong. The taste was more akin to a green tea. I’ve had two sessions with this tea and both times I gave up and ended up chucking it.

There’s a difference between a tea that doesn’t taste good and one that’s lost freshness. This belongs to the latter category. It’s the second tea from my Taiwan Sourcing order to suffer from this problem leading me to believe there’s a packaging issue. I noticed the pouches I’ve opened so far were missing those oxygen absorbing packets. These little things are critical to removing humidity and preventing spoilage, especially with green oolongs which don’t hold up as well as their roasted counterparts. I can always detect staleness in unroasted oolong that’s not vacuum sealed and/or doesn’t have the oxygen absorber inside.

I seldom throw out tea, especially costly ones, but sadly this one is going to hit the bin because it’s that bad.

Winter 2017 harvest.

Forgettable is how I would describe this tea. I was excited by the flowery description on the website and positive reviews, but unfortunately it didn’t live up to the hype. It’s fairly vegetal throughout with some honeyed notes and a mouthfeel on the thin side. By playing with the brewing parameters, I did manage to coax out some florals and little buttery flavor. It peaked around the 3rd steep and then tasted like an average green oolong.

For a high mountain tea, it had little to no depth of flavor. I don’t know if something was lost with age or what, but overall it tasted mediocre and kinda bland to me.

Revisited this tea after many months and the flavor seems to have changed. The cocoa and brown sugar notes are gone. It’s thicker, maltier, and has a musky flavor to it. Still quite drinkable but would be better blended with another black tea.

This was an okay gyokuro. It has a nice but elusive umami flavor. You have to nail down the perfect brewing parameters which I’ve only managed to achieve a couple of times. Most of the time, it has a basic green tea flavor with savory asparagus and wheatgrass overtones. Compared to other gyokuros I’ve tried, it’s on the light side and not quite as rich and buttery. There’s a fresh oceanic aroma in the leaf which I was hoping would come through in the tea but didn’t.

While most quality gyokuros give 4-5 good steeps, this goes only half the distance leaving me feeling short changed. It also doesn’t have that nice transition from umami to grassy sencha flavor.

Those who read my tasting notes know that I often favor standard grade teas over their expensive counterparts and I’ll take a sencha any day over gyokuro. Yet for some odd reason, I keep giving gyokuro a chance. Somehow I’ve convinced myself that I just haven’t found the right one yet.

Finally got around to trying the herbal teas I purchased from Verdant last year. I really liked their Wild Spring Laoshan Gan Zao Ye tea and picked up a sample of this and the Goji Leaf tea to have some caffeine-free options at night.

Out of the bag, the tea had an intense sweet fruity aroma. It looked and smelled very much like a green tea. In a heated teapot, the aroma turned a bit medicinal. The tea started off tasting like vegetable stew. I got notes of plantain, kale, and zucchini. Then it turned into more of a savory-herbaceous flavor. There was bay leaf and what tasted like ayurvedic herbs. A legume like flavor developed as it cooled.

I wasn’t too crazy about the flavor of this tea. It was more savory than the Gan Zao Ye which actually tastes like camellia sinensis. This one OTOH tasted of medicinal herbs. Not really my cuppa.

Discovered this one while rummaging through my kitchen pantry today. I remember buying it a long time ago and not liking it, but couldn’t remember specifically why. So I decided to do a quick taste test to jog my memory.

Prepared it according to directions by adding hot water to the matcha latte mix which had sugar and coconut creamer in it. It brewed up moldy green and smelled like boiled broccoli…not exactly inviting. It has a chalky taste typical of low grade matcha. There’s more sugar in it than green tea. The green tea flavor is there but isn’t very assertive. It’s kind of a generic green tea flavor without any umami or freshness to it. Pretty thin and watery compared to the matcha lattes I make at home.

While this isn’t the worst matcha drink I’ve had, it’s not great either. I can see how it might be appealing from a convenience standpoint however it’s not worth it when you can get much better results by throwing together matcha powder, sugar, and milk in a coffee mug.