6444 Tasting Notes
I made this as a matcha milk completely unaware of things like the chili and white tea in this blend. However, it is a tasty matcha milk. It tastes like a cookie…a ginger cookie. Alright…I spoke too soon. I just got a mouthful of ginger seaweed and grass. That good sip doesn’t offset the bad so now I am sad. Yeah, the rest was more bad. Very. Very. Bad!! I don’t know what went wrong but I can’t drink this again so into the swap box it goes.
Yeah the one matcha I’ve tried of theirs was seaweedy, and I haven’t yet felt the need to try another.
I’ve had several I tried and enjoyed and even this was very good at first. However, it clearly took a turn so I won’t be having this again.
You did not made me happy. It is only matcha I have from them and haven’t prepared it yet.
Sipdown (344)
This tea is one of the older ones in my stash. I got it from Sororitea Sisters and like the Beipu tea I had the other day, it got lost. Now I am finishing it off and not writing a proper Sororitea Sisters review for it because I don’t think the age has served it well.
Sometimes I find with rooibos teas, older ones in particular, they smell lotion-y when you steep them and then they taste off. This is one of those times but it is not tasting particularly off now that I’ve tried it. It’s got a hibiscus note and some citrus which covers the base. It is fruity/berry-filled but has a warmth to it. It’s beaten my low expectations but I am not a huge fan. Something tells me age is not the culprit either and that its the flavor profile and me that are not compatible. Oh well.
Sipdown (345)
Before I left for school in 2018, my friend was very nice and bought me a very pretty wooden box for storing teas. Unfortunately the box had been divided because it was meant for storing tea bags. I have had it on display in my apartment but have not been using it and last night I decided to change that. I took a hammer to the dividers and pulled out all the nails and then, since it wasn’t exactly smooth inside, covered it with duct tape. Not the most elegant job but now I am using it as my sipdown box, storing all the teas with on serving left in it.
This is one of the teas from the box. I have had the single serving for a while but it kept getting lost in my stash…until today. It’s a nice tea, always has been. It’s not spicy but the chili adds another level that stops this from being just another sweet cocoa tea. The chocolate comes through, as does sweetness from the pumpkin and the chili is the perfect foil to those flavors.
Sipdown (347)
I really thought I would like this one and I guess I was expecting something different because when I drank this I sort of had a “huh, that’s different” reaction.
It could be my fault since I overleafed this. Also, it was a sample from an old order in 2018 so it is an older tea. On top of that, the package says to refer to the website for brewing recommendations which likely would have been helpful if I tried it right away but that information doesn’t seem to be available anymore. I resorted to my usual and steeped this for 2.5 mins in 200F water.
The tea isn’t bad per se but its muddled for lack of a better word. There is distinct flavors such as some citrus and some raisin that seem to be fighting to come through the medium-bodied base tea. The base is just bolder than I’d like and a bit drying. There is a slight pastry note here to but its just not coming together for me.
I wanted to like this. I really did. But this tea is a miss for me. Thankfully there are countless other 52 Teas that I love.
Latte sipdown with a whole lot of whipped cream (248)
I was worried that the apple and pineapple and rosehip would curdle milk for a latte so I asked Roswell Strange and then got impatient and made the latte anyways and topped it with a bunch of whipped cream. Then Roswell Strange informed me it was part of an Iced Latte Collection and I can see it.
I am a bit shocked this actually has a lot of vanilla and coffee flavors. People are obsessed with this in the DAVIDsTEA fb group and while it is good, this is not a flavor profile I personally would reach for very often. Yet I am enjoying this latte very much, despite this actually having stevia in it since I think the coffee provides a nice counterbalance to the sweetness that stevia contributes. Plus, the milk could be muting it too. This is a nice tea but I don’t need more of it.
Sipdown (349)
This tea is old. VERY OLD. Since it is one of the first teas I was sent from Sororitea Sisters back in 2016. It got lost in my stash and while I probably should have written a Sororitea Sisters review for it, I don’t think it would be very fair since the age of this. Plus, I’m gong fu brewing it and I genuinely don’t know what I’m doing.
I weighed out 4 grams for my 100 ml gaiwan and soaked the tea briefly and then started steeping. My first step was for about 30 seconds in 200F water. Like so many of my other sessions, the tea is overwhelmingly metallic. Metallic and not much else. So I did something a bit wasteful and dumped the leaves. I then started over with the remaining 1.68 grams in my gaiwan.
Similar to my original attempt, I rinsed the leaves and then did an initial steep of approximately 30 seconds. This cup misses that overwhelming metallic flavour but unfortunately nothing took its place. It’s a very bland very slightly tea-flavoured water.
The second steep was steeped for a minute and 30 seconds. There is a bit more of the honeyed fruit tea flavour in this cup than in the last but it is still flat. With that said, my third steep was steeped for 3 minutes. This is just more of the same. Honeyed fruit. Subtle but there and nice enough but overall boring. At least it’s not metallic.
