New Tasting Notes

I didn’t intend to clean out the kitchen cabinets this afternoon, but a quest for a quarter jar of molasses turned into a petrified-ingredient-pitching odyssey.

The molasses hunt was specifically to try a glob in a cup of my favorite congou, which has been characterized in reviews (probably some of my own) as having molasses and apple peel appeal. It’s a perfect fit.

This reminds me of other delicious fruity 52teas green teas. The base is so smooth with not a hint of bitterness. The fruitiness is fresh and authentic. This one is simple, but it’s another reminder why I almost only ever get my green teas from 52teas. Every sip is so pillowy and delicious. So refreshing cold.

So tasty. Bergamot is light and balanced nicely with the custardy flavor.

I made a pot of this to drink last night with my family as we socialized. I was trying to taste the mango, but all I got was honey vanilla and pear. Very yummy and would make a good iced tea. Brewed the leaves again in a large mug and it was just as good this morning. I would add this to an order. :)

It seems like an interesting concept and I’m glad I added it to my latest SV order, but this was just a miss for me. It’s not bitter, it’s just too floral poppuri for me. I tried adding a little honey, and it softened the soapy taste, but not enough for me to like this tea.

I was teased yesterday about more tea coming into the house when there’s so much in the cabinet already. Decided it was time to maybe finish off some of the teas that have been hanging out in the “new to me” tin to see if they are keepers or ones to give away.
I’m fairly certain this was in my stocking last year. I’m a big fan of gingerbread so I tried to go into this with low expectations. Sometimes the names of the teas don’t match up to the actual flavors. I taste apple and ginger but weakly. A longer steep might have brought out more of the flavors. I steeped for about 4 minutes and should have let it sit for a bit longer but I was impatient. Overall, not a bad tea but as a Gingerbread lover, I wanted more spices and snap.

5.5g, 90 mL ZZZ

wet leaf: sweet, very light retired smoke

1. bitter medicinal that melts away. something like burnt rubber that was also in the Jing Chang Hao recently, and clove-like note in aftertaste. Peaceful and stilling, nice tea for a rainy Thanksgiving in solitude

2. medicinal sour. some warmth. light floral edge, and a lingering bitterness. Leaves are the greenest of the aged Yiwus I’ve had recently, so maybe also needs the most time to settle. Some lingering aftertaste, but lighter than those ones.

3. strong taste and thinner texture than the others. Hawthorn candy flakes note that seems to crop up in some aged Yiwus.

4. similar.

5. leafy taste. Mugged and topped up with extra hot water after a few hours for a pleasantly sweet cup.

Lots of good aspects are present that need some coaxing. Maybe DTH’s Fujian storage is not as intense as TW dry that the other Yiwus I have went through. With age should be more receptive to pushing and make the nicer aspects more obvious. Fairly relaxing, and maybe not the best choice for getting work done.

I bought the tea bag version of three of Ha Yun’s offerings because 1. I didn’t want to pony up for full bags of each and figured they’d probably use the same material and 2. i wanted to support someone who seems like a cooler version of me lol. The bag was $10 for 10 teabags and would’ve made a cute gift to someone but I wanted to try them myself lol. Leaves aren’t crushed like Lipton fannings, but also not fully intact, with a mix of full leaves and some crushed bits.

I don’t really know what I expected but it drinks like pretty normal nice-ish hongcha. Chocolate-y aroma, sweet, not too malty. The bags themselves are supposedly 1.5g/bag and say to steep at 90-100C for 2-3 min in 250 mL of water. I drank it the day before and heeded the 2 min. 90C guidance, but today did way longer at 100C after getting stuck on an awful Comcast call. Tea was fine, not much bitterness that i recall, just flavors a bit more muddled. Good to know going forward for grandpa steeps that so little tea is sufficient.

2024 sipdown no. 79

Thank you for sharing Cameron!

This tea is so perfume-y, it affected many others sent in this swap that I had to air out for some time.

Alas, it’s so scented that whatever taste may be there is drowned out, but when I really concentrate, I don’t pick up on any particular taste other than perhaps a perfume floral fruitiness? Perhaps this company should pivot into the perfume industry — at least with this tea XD. This is a share-down with a tea-inclined colleague!

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – November 2024 Tea #4 -A tea that means autumn to you 

In no way close to an actual sipdown, but this one is definitely one of my most autumn teas.  Caramel and apple and smoke on a black tea base that I wouldn’t call perfect for an autumn tea, as it’s a bit weak, but I have had weaker black teas… I think even the smoke flavor is fading a bit here. The age of this? I’d have to check back to when I was complaining there were no longer caramel cubes in the blend…

edited to add: after checking, this batch is now almost 4 years old. sigh.

you know, sometimes this really does it for me. i like to add a little milk and sugar. it’s very comforting. i think i prefer their irish breakfast though.

I got this for Christmas last year and have enjoyed sipping it down, I think I have just a few cups left. I use a lot of leaf and a short steep to get all the almondy goodness without any bitterness. It is snowing in IL today so this is a nice warming tea to drink. My only complaint is that the second steep is quite weak, so I wouldn’t go out of my way to purchase more of this tea.

I received a sample sachet with an order of tea from Harney & Sons. I really like English Breakfast tea, but I have to say that although this tea was nice, it had no distinguishing characteristics. It wasn’t offensive in any way, but…I don’t really have a reason to buy it. It was a mild, average-flavored black tea.

November Sipdown Prompt – a tea for which you are especially thankful

Happy Thanksgiving for those who celebrate! I am thankful for all my Steepster peeps – more than you know.

Apparently the point of this tea is that they don’t tell you what the flavors are, and I am a bit rubbish at pinning flavors down. What I do know, and Ashman concurred, is that it tastes like a black tea version of Jardin Sauvage, a green rooibos tea that we both enjoy very much. Mostly I get mango but I thought I got a bit of banana once in the first cup.

This morning I asked Ashman what he wanted for our breakfast tea and he said he wanted something with fruit or berry flavors. We only drank about half of the big pot because we had a lot to do to get lunch ready.

After lunch, we wanted to have tea with our pound cake and instead of making a new pot I offered to heat it (calm down calm down) by mixing it with my cold steeped English Breakfast from Rare Tea Co. Cache-cache was room temp at that point. The strange thing was that even with 12 ounces of a good black tea added, I fully tasted Cache-cache. It was delicious with our pound cake and homemade ice cream.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – November 2024 Tea #3 – A tea for which you are especially thankful

I hope all that celebrate are having a great day today.  Always thankful for the Steepster crew! As usual, I am about two months behind on reading tasting notes, so I hope you are all doing well. May have just sampled a little too much of the stuffing I just made.  oops.  This is always one of the teas I am most thankful for, as it is one of my favorites, always a perfect brew and also one of the rarest teas to find, not only because it is usually limited on the time it is sold, but also now due to the international shipping.  Also, it’s a perfect tea for this particular holiday.  So good. 

A sipdown! (M: 6 Y: 93)

A sad sipdown of tasty tea. But life is too short to drink bad tea. And all teas must be drank before they go bad. This one is from autumnal flush 2023; so year old tea. Nothing is telling me it’s “old”. I know… I have (and we all have) much older teas in our stashes.

I prepared it gongfu. And, oh boy, it works. First steeps were a bit weaker, however then the flavours I mentioned in my previous note started to glow. Baked bread with honey, stonefruity aftertaste, orange zest, all together with velvet mouthcoating feel. A little bit of astringency.

The aroma of used leaves is definitely a bread, made from rye, almost black one as mostly (or only) rye flour was used. And mixed with pumpkin seeds, that’s it; hints of dark malts are present as well.

A sipdown! (M: 5 Y: 92)

Cascadia. An area I would like to visit one day. But when? With whom? Let’s see if this tea broughts me there at least virtually.

OK, I don’t know what to expect… for some reason I am thinking about Douglas firs and another association is Douglas Fir tea by Juniper Ridge. But this tea contains juniper at least. And barley. That sounds good to me and suitable to Cascadia region.

If I remember right, I travelled through this region only virtually, no matter if I was train driver, truck driver or just looking at the maps and Street View. As I wrote, I hope to see it once with my own eyes and not on screen only.

Well, this tea, as it contains only two ingredients, tastes after those ingredients. Crushing juniper berries brought a piny twist to the, well roasted, barley. It was like drinking grain fields with pines on the horizon. The aroma is just like grain field. Harvest is coming in just a few days. Maybe the harvester just didn’t come yet today.

Now I want to visit Cascadia even more.

As the vendor description suggests, this tea lands somewhere in between a hong oolong from Taiwan and a wild black tea (e.g. taiwanese Shan Cha). It is more bitter than the former and more fruity than the latter. It also remains interesting for many infusions. Overall, I am quite happy with it, especially for drinking in this late autumn weather.

The aromas are flowery, vegetal, and leathery. The taste is spicy, bitter, floral, sweet, and woody. There are hints of mushrooms, nectarine, later on also malt. The mouthfeel is buttery and gets astringent towards the end of the session. The aftertaste is pungent, fragrant, and biting with a long-lasting sweetness.