New Tasting Notes

This was a recent whim purchase from the bulk jars at Fox Farm, our local indie place. Nice and fresh and maybe just a touch citrusy, especially with a spoonful of cocoa nibs tossed in as a counterpoint. Chocolate orange lite.

Sipdown

Ashman is still sick. Just a cold but he is sore and a bit miserable. He worked a half day and came home at lunch, so I made an Asian dumpling soup with frozen dumplings and fresh veggies and herbs in chicken broth, plus some red pepper flakes for a little heat to help clear his stuffy nose. We had some spring rolls on the side – again, just frozen ones I heated in the oven and some sweet chili sauce with a little kick. This tea was perfect with it.

I made three steeps with water at about 160F and kept the time to around thirty seconds. Second steep went long as I was multitasking unsuccessfully, but it was still perfect.

Always with this tea there is a lot of particulate matter in the pot but it does not cause any bitterness as “dregs” can sometimes do. This seemed especially mild today, perhaps because it was slightly less leaf since it was the last of the bag. It is so brothy and hearty. I will miss it.

I am so glad I finally got the hang of Japanese green tea. I really enjoy it!

Thank you to Davidson’s for donating tea to the MN Tea Society. It comes in good time too because everyone else has been sick and so now with all the anxiety and depression I’ve been dealing with the past few weeks, I’ve caught it too.

The aroma is very nice. Calming. Full of licorice root notes and ayurvedic herbal notes.
The flavoring is nice. Spicy and healing.

I’ve had maybe three Dancongs from Camellia Sinensis and have liked only one (the 2010 Mi Lan Xiang). Nonetheless, I had to order 25 g of this both because of the name and because it’s made by the same producer as their Feng Huang Hong Cha, another tea I love. This note is for the 2023 harvest. I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of peach, lychee, honey, orchid, grain, and roast. The first steep really delivers on the soft, sweet peach I was hoping for. It also has notes of lychee, apricot, honey, orchid, butter, grain, roast, and tannins, which kind of make the peach feel fuzzy. There’s a peachy aftertaste that reminds me of peach pits. The next steep has a little upfront roast but is mostly peach, orchid, other florals, honey, and lychee. Grain and roast become more prominent in steeps three and four, though the peach is holding strong and the florals are still evident. The aftertaste shifts to grilled peaches and honey. In the next four steeps, I get more charcoal, wood, cream, and florals, although the peach is going strong. The final steeps emphasize charcoal, roast, minerals, wood, tannins, and faint hints of peach.

This may not be the world’s most complex
Dancong, but the sweet, persistent peach makes me happy. It isn’t as heavily roasted as some other Dancongs, although this could be due to age. I’d highly recommend this tea for any peach lovers out there.

Hot, this isn’t bad. While I wouldn’t agree with honey tones, I do get a bit of a sweet vibe, maybe more towards fruity than honey.
The texture is smooth and there is a bit of thicker mouth feel than I would have normally expected.

As it cools, however, the flavor turns a bit. Its a little harsher and drier. Not bad, but less pleasant than it comes across as hot.

There might be a generic spice type scent to the leaves and brew, but nothing comes across in the flavor.

Its ok and I’ll finish my sample, but not something I will repurchase.

I love the lemongrass flavor here. There’s a lot of soft fruitiness. It also tastes quite candylike. The 2 oz bag disappeared super quickly. I’d order this again! As usual, I removed the marshmallows.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – February 2025 Tea #2 – Your oldest black tea

FACEPALM.  I really didn’t want to finish this tea, as I like it, and then I went and mistakenly added it to the same infuser as another tea.  argh.  So hilariously enough, the oldest tea I have of Frank’s went into the infuser with one of my newest 52Teas from Anne.  arghhhh.   Mango Coconut Pancakes, to be exact.  So I guess there are other flavor combinations that I could have added to the infuser together that  COULD have been worse… These two teas are fine together, if a bit jumbled. :/
2025 sipdowns: 9

This was JUST OKAY. I expected an extreme amount of sweet cinnamon, possibly because I have been spoiled by other similar teas. The cinnamon here though was mostly earthy tasting. Not really sweet. Only a hint of spices for a chai. Maybe this is because there isn’t much in the teabag… definitely not as much as I would usually add to an infuser.

This night has been a dark, cold, damp one and I find myself unable to slumber here in the wee hours, so I looked for a soothing tisane. I’ve had this one sealed up in my tea cabinet for a few years (time flies!) so I pulled it out and got to brewing. And I find that mastressalita added a note on it much more recently. Well, she did a fabulous job of reporting, so there is little more for me to add. I used 1-1/2 heaping tsp of material in a steel infusion basket with 8 oz boiling spring water, and let it steep for 5 min, as recommended by Tealyra. I also found the hibiscus very subtle, and to give a nice gentle tartness to an otherwise sweet-tasting cuppa. Though it really wasn’t very sweet, only giving the impression of sweetness! I did not discern any piney aroma or flavor, mainly just berries – berries – berries! Yes, there were notes of blackcurrents, but there was no such ingredient: it must be the reputed flavor of the buchu leaf. I really did enjoy the tea while hot, and I found as it cooled that the berry notes in aroma and flavor intensified, as did the sensation of sweetness. I loved how the sweet aftertaste wrapped itself around my tongue for many lingering minutes. I am resisting the urge to spike some sugar into the brew, because it seems like cheating — and unnecessary! I’ll rate this as an 85 for the pleasure I got out of the cup. Gonna brew a second cup right now…….
EDIT: Second cup was also good, but I wonder if the ingredients were truly caffeine/stimulent-free, because sleep did not finally arrive ’til 5 AM.

Time to open the 2nd day of Christmas door in my tea advent calendar…just a little late. No worries, it’s supposed to snow like 6 inches later this week, so we might as well roleplay as though Christmas is still around the corner.

Highly average earl grey tea. Tastes somewhat watered down. I do like the flavor of the bergamot, but something about the general taste just feels mediocre and lackluster. I’m finding myself missing that spark of freshness and vibrancy that I’ve come to expect from a really high-quality earl grey.

A sipdown! (M: 4 Y: 20)

Seems I have neglected this tea and when I was asked to brew a tea in a pot, I took this one. And… I never wrote a note before. I know, I bought back then just a small package, 25 grams.

Anyway, steeped 7.5 grams for 3 minutes, 80 °C water, teapot.

Yes, definitely it is past its prime; but still so delicious as all the teas from group buy I made. And I just wonder… what has happened to them as their website is defunct and I haven’t found them elsewhere. If you find anything about Georgian Organic Producers tea association please let me know. I found Facebook page Georgian Organic which has same logo, but if it is them? Hard to say… but they are quite active there!

Ah sorry, I digressed from tea itself.
Honestly, it is stronger than I have been expecting. A little too drying, but liquor is viscous and it is hay-like; with stonefruits and vegetal aftertaste. In some sips there are grassy sweetness, but sadly it is a bit rare; but that’s no surprise considering it is 3 years since harvest.

Not a veteran Oolong drinker by any means, but this was quite an experience.

First brew: 5g + 80ml @ 203 F for 30 sec.

Heavy floral notes sweetly colored with peach and mango infused honey that dances on the tongue

Teabag saved from a TTB. I don’t taste coconut, but I taste something desserty that’s adjacent to macadamia. I liked this better with milk and sugar. The rooibos base is a good choice for this dessert tea!

This is a fairly average, run-of-the-mill black tea. I don’t taste many chai elements here, unfortunately. The ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom are extremely muted, and it seems as though all I can really taste is…well, sadly, cheap black tea. Perhaps this is black tea that was in the same room as chai spices at some point? A disappointment, to be sure.

Many gingerbread teas I have tried were far away from real thing; with a few rare exceptions and this is one of those.

Dark molasses, thick texture, and spices … with cinnamon and cardamom most forward. Smooth sweet notes of vanilla are here present as well; and this being a caffeine-free tea means it is child-friendly. Mostly I would drink this one in bigger quantites in the winter months, but nobody says you can’t drink it in the middle of the hot, humid, summer. Definitely the best Nordqvist tea from the bunch I have received this time. I can’t decide if I would buy loose leaf or tea bags, though.

From Martin, thanks! This is clove and more clove, but it is cold in Chicago so I’m not minding the clove as it warms me up. It is a very one note tea, I can’t tell if there is green tea here or the goji berries. It was very smooth, and not astringent. Glad I got to try!

This tea is lovely! I’ve always really liked the flavor combination of peach/apricot with lavender but rarely find teas with this profile (the only one that comes to mind is a now discontinued Plum Deluxe blend). I’ve been preparing this as a cold brew, and it is very sweet, with a really soft peach flavor which leans a little toward candy due to the sweetness. The lavender is prominent in the flavor and blends beautifully with the peach, but doesn’t taste overly floral or perfumy. There is no tartness/tanginess in this tea, which would make this more approachable to the hibi-hating crowd. I personally wouldn’t have minded a little tartness to the peach, but the soft candied sweetness can be nice too, and works especially nice as a cold brew (no extra sweetener necessary!) This is a flavor combo that is simply a keeper for me, and I will have to get more of this sometime! (Though I would say this is more of a spring/summer sort of tea, so it may not be the most seasonally appropriate at the moment… I guess I’m just ready for the winter to be over already!)

Last but certainly not least of the sparkling teas from Numbere E that we split/enjoyed during Toronto Tea Festival on Sunday, to keep hydrated at our booth. This has always been my favourite of their flavours, and if I’m being honest I mostly drank this one all on my own. Truthfully I don’t get a lot of the lemon or the oolong from the profile (maybe in the light floral undertones). I’m just that big of a whore for a good blueberry product, and this one is incredibly thick and jammy tasting even for a sparkling tea. But that sparkling element keeps it from feeling heavy despite how rich the flavour is, and I adore that. If it was possible to take canned beverages as carry on for a flight then I would have easily brought a case of this one back with me…

Another that I picked up and shared with our Toronto Tea Festival booth gang this past Sunday. Probably my least favourite of the bunch, but not bad by any stretch. It’s very, very tart and tangy with distinct notes of hibiscus, cranberry, and orange. Mostly the hibiscus and cranberry, though. There was some sort of undertone that made me think of Thanksgiving at one point in a somewhat weird but not unwelcome way. Of course, cranberry always makes me go there a little anyway.

I think mostly it’s just the bottom of the list from this recent tasting because it’s the flavour I felt most confidant I could find similar of from elsewhere.

I picked up a few cans of Numbere E’s sparkling teas while at the Toronto Tea Festival on Sunday so that we’d have something cold to drink at our booth to keep hydrated with in between all the hot tea cuppings/speaking during the day.

In the past I wasn’t a fan of this and it was because I didn’t like the taste of the cucumber with the carbonation. This time around, I actually quite enjoyed the flavour and found the sparking cucumber really refreshing. Fun example of how palates can just so much with time! Definitely a cucumber forward flavour in that more mellow and cooling sort of way but with a little bit of a sharper greener edge to it alongside sweet mint notes and a bit of citrus brightness. Big “spa water” vibes that I appreciated a whole lot in the moment.