New Tasting Notes

This is perhaps the best Nilgiri tea I have had. It is very aromatic and tasty with a buttery mouthfeel and a pungent and protracted aftertaste.

The strong dry leaf smell has notes of jasmine, courgette flowers, compost, burdock, and camphor. The last one persists during the session and is complemented by meaty, vegetal, and herbaceous aromas.

The taste is savoury, floral and bitter, while the aftertaste is more spicy and sweet. There are flavours of butter, vegetables such as rapini and courgette, and various spices.

2025 sipdown no. 8

There are both baked cherry and honey notes, but neither are as robust as I anticipated. Regardless, I had no issue polishing off 25g and look forward to the other red oolongs I have to try.

I tried this in my gaiwan doing 15-30 second steeps, western with a 2 minute, 2.5 minute, and 3 minute steep. I personally enjoyed the 3 minute western steep best.

Harvest: Spring, March 2024
Origin: Chokechamroen, T.E., Doi Mae Salong, Thailand

Hot, this doesn’t taste like much. Cold with milk and sugar, it’s a pretty decent decaf EG! It’s smooth and well-balanced. The resteep was pretty hearty as well.

Sip down

I don’t always get the apple type flavor I did on the first try, but its still good. Still not sure if I want to rebuy.

I bought several Dancongs from Wuyi Origin in 2023 and have been trying them sporadically ever since, hoping the roast would fade and the underlying flavours would emerge. Based on the dry aroma, I’m not sure that waiting has been successful for this Dancong or for most of the others. I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, 180, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of charcoal, roast, hay, wood, orange, peach, and flowers. The first steep has notes of charcoal, roast, hay, wood, cream, orange, and peach. The peach is actually a little more noticeable than it was last time, including in the aftertaste, though the roast predominates. The next steep adds honey, orchid, minerals, and a bit more peach. With steeps three to six, I get more charcoal and roast, although there’s still a peachy aftertaste. By steep seven, I taste more florals and citrus, with mineral, roast, and wood. Subsequent steeps are quite roasty and tannic but with notes of hay, wood, peach, orange, orchid, violet, and grass. The final steeps fade into hay, roast, wood, minerals, tannins, and vague peach.

I may have spoken too soon when I said the roast on this tea wouldn’t fade. I definitely taste more peach and orange than the last time I tried it, though the roast is still prominent. I think this is a solid, high-quality Dancong that’s still too roasted for my liking.

I can’t believe I forgot about this one. My little bag of buckwheat goodness is about to celebrate a birthday, so it’s time to finish and enjoy it. However, it’s held up well and still tastes like church kid cookies—I pulled up my old note and we had a lovely conversation about it then.

Nature’s Own Factory does not appear to have restocked its cocoa grist version, which is a shame. I wonder if a homemade version with plain buckwheat tea and cocoa nibs would be a fair substitute.

Sipdown

This was one of my gifts from my daughter who lives with us and I thought I had reviewed it before, but no note here.

We really enjoyed this new blend from S&V. The base is nice, not too strong but not anemic which is something that really irks me with flavored teas sometimes. I still want to taste tea even with flavors!

There is a vanilla icing vibe to this, with light berry flavor – no terribly prominent but it is there.

The rest of this is winging its way to gmathis to experience the glommy icing vibe! (As per another note and comment!)

February 24 Sipdown Prompt – World Bartender Day: drink a boozy tea

This is probably my only boozy tea, other than a peach tea that just has boozy notes but isn’t really supposed to taste boozy.

This is not my first pouch of this and probably won’t be my last. It is so rich and chocolate-y, plus you can taste the base! I am so disappointment when a flavored tea has amthin, weak base.

I think of this as a cool weather tea so I don’t drink it all that often, but I do love it. It would make an awesome latte, and I wonder if it could do a cold latte well? This spring or summer might be time to find out.

This is a wonderful, sweet raw pu-erh that really reminds me of butternut squash or pumpkin. The fragrance of the steeped and hydrated leaves is like a cozy fall evening. I did oversteep this at first, as I tend to do with raws/shengs, but lowering the steep time significantly helped a lot to make it completely non-bitter.

This definitely tasted like strawberry lemonade! Unfortunately that’s a flavor I’ve never preferred, but points for accuracy! I didn’t notice the orange blossom. I just tasted the tartness and acidity. Saved this teabag from a previous TTB.

sigh. I hate to mention it on such a beloved tea. I steeped my older batch of this tea yesterday to compare, the new batch I just bought a month or two ago I steeped today, and tried to steep them exactly the same. Sadly, this is just not the same blend anymore. It’s still a great tea, but it isn’t a tea I would rate a 99 anymore. The black tea seems lighter, the flavors seem lighter without that extra pop of apple + cinnamon + bakey goodness french toast the older tea has. The older tea STILL has incomparable flavor to really any other tea. The older tea actually TASTES fresher and it is YEARS old. Hopefully this is just a one time thing for this tea and it goes back to being it’s great self with future batches. I’m very sad about it though.

2024 Advent Calendar #10

Looks like I skipped this day completely during advent as there’s 2 tea bags still hanging out in the “book”. Guess that day didn’t have time for a quite mug by the tree. Well, this morning I had the mug while in my “office” enjoying the quite now that school break is over. Last week was the first week since October that everyone in my family wasn’t battling some school illness. It’s been a tough season for colds/flu etc. My medicinal tea cabinet has been getting well used.

This one seems like an odd one for a Christmas Holiday calendar. Blueberries are delegated to only a summer treat in my mind. But since we’re having the first warm day in a looong time, it will do. Maybe I’ll work on my summer vacation plans.

I did enjoy this tea but I think I will enjoy the second mug of it iced with some sweetener mixed in. Maybe even with a little lemonade mixed in. Blueberry and hibiscus are the predominant flavors.

Looking at the website, it appears that this was a limited run. It’s currently sold out and possibly discontinued.

The crisp sencha has a nice bitterness without it ever getting overwhelming. Its mouthfeel is very smooth and soft and its aroma is sweet and floral with notes of rice and seaweed. The taste is grassy, vegetal and milky. One specific flavour I noticed is also kohlrabi.

I haven’t had much Gyokuro in recent years. I prepared this one in my first session with it with the following parameters:
50ml/40°C/2.5min
80ml/40°C/1.5min
110ml/50°C/30s
130ml/55°C/1.5min
160ml/55°C/5min

It was also a bit of a test session, since later in the week I organized a tea party with a focus on Japanese teas, and this is one of the teas that I brewed up there. The above preparation was a bit too heavy early on tbh, but the tea holds up well to these high leaf/water ratios.

As one would expect, it gives a thick liquor with a super long aftertaste. The first infusion is an umami feast – very brothy with a sweet finish. The second one is much more balanced with a very oily texture and additional bitter and grassy flavours. Later steeps are then progressively more vegetal and bitter with much less umami.

This is only a second tea of this type that I have tried as far as I can remember. I would like to see more of Japanese oolongs on the market though.

The aroma of dry leaves is sweet and toasty with notes of nectar and grass. During the session, it is much more floral with hints of orchid and burdock among other associations.

It is a full bodied tea with a thick creamy mouthfeel. The taste is a little bit like a green Taiwanese oolong. It is sweet, vegetal and mineral with a little bit of bitterness, lending to a long and sweet aftertaste. There are strong marine and grassy flavours, as well as those of custard, kale, lemon balm, lime zest.

A nice white tea that has quite a rustic character with a strong dry grass/hay presence to it. I like its smooth colloidal mouthfeel in particular.

The taste is sweet and vegetal with mild bitterness and flavours of gardenia, burdock, peanuts, and tree bark.

This tea is now sold out unfortunately, but if it comes back in stock, I would highly recommend it. With the inflated prices of Oriental Beauty in recent years, it is hard to come around such a great example at this price.

The tea has a lot of depth and complexity and is more robust than some of the Taiwanese high grades. The dry leaf aroma is super sweet with notes of flowers, nectar, beeswax, and maple syrup. Wet leaves then smell very perfumy. There are notes of petrichor, soap, rose, and forest floor.

The taste is generally very sweet. Floral and woody notes dominate, with fruity ones in close succession. There is, however, also a sort of mineral, savoury undercurrent, as well as mild bitterness, which helps to keep it a thoroughly engaging session. Some specific flavours I noticed include peach, charcoal, and sugarcane. The aftertaste is very long, a bit drying and refreshing.

The tea has a medium body and a pretty soft mouthfeel, it is not super thick, but very pleasant to drink.

This tea is from summer 2023. It’s the first hongcha I’ve seen from Da Yu Ling, so of course, I jumped at the chance to try it. I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of brown sugar, honey, smoke, plum, and spices. The first steep has notes of brown sugar, honey, grain, wood, and vague plumminess. It kind of reminds me of a Bai Hao without the muscatel. I get something like oakwood and smoke in steep two, along with the honey, grain, spice, and brown sugar. Steeps three and four are very sweet, with lots of honey and brown sugar with woody undertones. I still get some fruitiness, though it’s hard to identify specific fruits. The next few steeps are very similar, with honey, brown sugar, nectar, pine, malt, and wood. The final steeps fade elegantly into fainter brown sugar, honey, and wood, with none of the bitterness or tannins typical of the last few steeps of a black tea.

This tea is incredibly sweet and well balanced without having many identifiable flavours. The steeps didn’t change too much throughout the session, and it was a pleasure to drink for at least sixteen infusions. I tend to enjoy fruitier hongcha, but this is a personal preference and the tea is very nice. Is it as amazing as one would expect from Da Yu Ling? I found it very similar to the Lishan Black, so I would have to say no.

I can’t believe I had this matcha in my cabinet for a year and it’s my first time trying it. Probably have too much matcha! Delicious as an iced matcha latte with chai sugar and oat milk. The oat milk really brings out the flavor. 3 leaf definitely has the best flavored matcha’s. I will definitely keep this in my cabinet. Now I have a lot of matcha’s from Sipology to try.

Quite a lovely tea! Very “zen”-like. Something you could imagine yourself sipping if you were at a spa.
On all accounts, it really does live up to its name. It truly is calming and I can see how this could be used to relieve your stress. I’m sipping it on an already lazy Sunday afternoon but it would make a great cup to have after a long day at work as well.
Very herbal but what I predominantly taste is chamomile, all the lemons (balm/myrtle/grass) and spearmint. Everything else is blended together to give you that “herbal” impression.
I enjoy it and will be choosing this one quite often.

I bought a cake of this about 3 years ago, and it has improved since then! I love the mild briskness, and the maltiness on the tongue. Slightly floral scent, too. The cake was easy to pry apart, though the leaves were fragile and prone to shattering. Still for sale at YS, though at $30/250g it’s perhaps not the value previously reported — though it has improved, so perhaps it is actually still a value? It is surely potent. I brewed (western) 5g in 8 oz boiling spring water for a mere 15 sec each for three infusions, and 30 sec for the 4th, and the liquor has deepened from golden amber at start to golden brown on the 4th, with no drop in flavor or aroma yet. If anything, the aroma of honey has intensified, and the malty flavor is persisting. This is surprisingly good tea! I’ll rate it at 83 and have hopes that more aging will provide continued pleasure! Nice aftertaste, too!

Day 4 of the Inoki Bathhouse advent calendar. Love Japanese greens, so this was right up my alley. Off the bat, I really liked the color of the steeped leaves – a slightly less green version of how cooked spinach looks. As for the flavor, I was expecting something hojicha-esque but this wasn’t really. It was more like a mix between sencha and a light hojicha. Vegetal with a bit of nuttiness. This got finished off quickly!