Featured & New Tasting Notes

soo good. I’m going to be sad when this one is all gone, though maybe holts will have this or french breakfast in stores @ christmas. Over priced of course but i will splurge knowing i won’t be back to paris for a while haha

I’m trying to make more of an effort to drink ALL OF THE TEAS in my collection. The other day Sil made a comment about me having teas from 2012. Which I initially denied.
Guess what, tea sister, you’re right! LOL!
So, I’ve had this wonderful tea for 3 years. It’s awesomeness led me to hoard a ridiculous quantity of it. This is the very Oolong that inspired me to purchase my first yixing, and although other Wuyi oolongs get to have their turn in that tiny teapot, it was seasoned with this one, and will forever be dedicated to this one, until I run out…some sad day…
And it is just as wonderful as ever!
The dry aroma is of roasted barley & fruitiness…drop it into a preheated yixing and let it sit in there a few minutes to warm the leaf and it’s dark chocolate & raspberries, so heady and thick that I could just sit there huffing it forever…sigh…
Drinking it is pure delight…sweet, thick, with lingering tastes of berries, chocolate, and roastiness. And that incense like after-aroma in the sinuses. And a good tea buzz.
and in the later steeps, the waters of a Sacred Spring, lightly flavored, almost effervescent…

I have accomplished nothing today except breakfast & tea…I need to do SOMETHING!

This is the reblended version of Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha, from the “new” 52 Teas. I knew, instantly, upon opening the pouch that I was going to love this one. The scent coming off the dry leaf is just amazing – pure, creamy, marshmallowy wonderfulness. This looks to be about a 50/50 split between toasted rice and green tea leaves, but there’s also a fine coating of matcha on everything that makes it look rather different from its forerunner. There are a few shreds of marshmallow root also. The green tea leaves are fairly fine and spindly – some are long (around 2cm) but the majority are fairly finely shredded. I’m interested to see how this one works out! I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 2 minutes in water cooled to around 175 degrees. The resulting liquor is a bright yellow green, the scent toasty with an underlying sweetness.

To taste, this is pretty spot-on marshmallow treat. There’s a toastiness in the initial sip that’s perfectly reminiscent of the crispy rice base, followed quickly by the sweet, creamy, almost thick-tasting flavour of marshmallow. The green tea base is mild and fairly unobtrusive. I get a flash of it every now and then while I’m sipping away, but it really doesn’t interfere with what is, essentially, a sweet, dessert-like flavour. I wasn’t sure what the matcha would contribute, but I think it adds a mellow sweetness that works well here. It’s certainly not as grassy as I feared – indeed, grass really isn’t a feature here at all!

I was starting to become a little disillusioned with flavoured teas, but this one has encouraged me to keep trying. When they’re good, they’re brilliant, and this one is a prime example. It’s also inspired me to look up 52 Teas again – I’ll be buying more of their creations on the strength of this one alone. If you were a fan of the original Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha, you’d be a fool to overlook this reblend – it’s just as good (possibly even better!) I’d also recommend it to fans of sweet, dessert-style teas – this one’s a real (marshmallow) treat!

Apple flavoured candy is one of me faves. I’d say in the top three, after orange and cherry. Ok so top four, I think I do adore grape a little more. (sorry for the impromptu rhyming)
I know that sounds farish down the list but it really isn’t!
Anyhow this definitely tastes like sour apple candy with just a hint of apple peel thrown in. Heyyyyyy I bet it’d make an amazing cocktail!!! Yummm.
All of that said, there is an element of fakeness, which in this case I don’t mind so much.
Oh and minus points for barely being able to taste the tea! (83 down to 78)

For some reason, I thought this and the Qianjiazhai 2015 brick were the same tea, so I had my tastebuds all set for all those flavors…especially the fruity ones!

Turns out, this isn’t it after all. I’m kind of disappointed, but thus is life, right?
There is a mild sweetness, like meadow grasses, and underlying bitterness like a peppery olive oil, a little savory roasted plantain chip, and an herbaceous sage-like flavor.

I’m about 15 steeps in or so, and it has that refreshing high energy that I love so much from Sheng, good tea buzz happening, and the brew is getting a little sweeter. There is a little evergreen taste, maybe pine (not camphor), pumpkin seed, catnip, even a hint of lime, and that “sparkling fresh water from a lovely spring” kind of feeling.

Nothing wrong with it, I’m enjoying it now that I’m into it. It is both energizing to the body, and soothing to the tastes, kind of like the old herbal teas I used to drink back in the day.
This is, of course, a very young Sheng, and Master Han has never let me down, so I’m sure it will be interesting to sample from time to time and see if anything changes.

And I’ll probably have to order a cake of the other one…

What did I do? This tastes extra awesome today! I can really taste the fig in this, plus there’s a sweet honey-like note accompanying the figs. It’s all in the parameters.

I don’t have a variable temp kettle, neither do I keep a close eye on the steep time, but I did measure 4g of tea for my Nordic mug, and poured the water in a couple minutes after the kettle turned off. Then I let it steep for a couple minutes? Maybe 2.5 minutes? I’ll try this again with the last of it, and with more DF teas to see if I can pinpoint my optimal steeping parameters for these teas.

It’s like fig jam. Really, it is.

My giant Camellia Sinensis order arrived today!

There were so many goodies in the box, that it was incredibly hard to decide what to start with but I ultimately ended up using my new tea tray for the first time as well as the glass Gaiwan I purchased. The choice of what tea to Christen it with was very hard to make: I felt like it should have been one of the Camellia Sinensis teas I ordered or one of the samples they included but I couldn’t make up my mind so I instead went a very different route.

A little while back a tea friend here on Steepster, who wishes to remain unnamed for the purposes of this tea, sent me a sample of a greener oolong which I sort of then forgot I had until today when I was searching through samples to try. My bad.

I decided to drink that today; and since I don’t work until 4:30 I had plenty of time to have a nice informal Gong Fu session whilst watching some Gotham on Netflix. I’m not really a huge DC fan but I’ve always loved the very well written villains in the Batman comic universe so that aspect of the TV show really intrigues me. Harley Quinn has always been my favourite, but I have to say I REALLY enjoy the portrayal of The Penguin and The Riddler.

This is a gorgeous tea though! The stems are monstrous; the largest I pulled out of the infused leaf is longer in length than my hand. Damn! However, the leaves are a wonderful bright shade of green and have this really eloquent floral aroma that makes me think of fresh linen and the end of Spring/beginning of summer. Mmm! The steeped liquor is a lively yellow green just slightly heavier on the green side of things.

This is definitely a super floral tea; but in a natural, fresh and sweet way. And as much as I tasted wonderful floral notes (some sort of amalgamation of peony, magnolia, and gardenia perhaps?) and a super light almost bamboo-like vegetal sweetness I also tasted a lot of fruit notes. Something like fresh, sweet grapes, and almost a peachyness too. It was very enjoyable; and the most infusions the more I seemed to notice the fruit flavours as well.

I’d love to see this particular tea paired up with a “darker” kind of berry flavour. Something like blueberry, Saskatoon berry, or maybe blackberry? And perhaps white peaches. I can only imagine that would be divinely tasty.

Also here’s a link to some pictures!

https://www.facebook.com/EyeLikeCookies/media_set?set=a.10205892864334695.1073741829.1051291635&type=3&pnref=story

Pictures are of the things from the Camellia Sinensis order as well as the steeping of this oolong from earlier in the day. I’ve also got pictures thrown in there of the rabbit tattoo I had done a few months ago and some other assorted tea related things…

Photo quality is kind of crappy; I used my cell phone.

This is another of my older teas, so I have the original blend with the sweet potato. I consider myself lucky. I’m a little wary of black/green blends, probably because I’ve messed them up royally before, but I think I’ve worked out how to treat them now. I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 3.5 minutes in boiling water. I figured that would be okay, since there’s not a great deal of green tea in this blend as far as I can see. The scent of the brewed tea is sweet with a hint of spiciness lurking behind.

To taste, I’m picking up strong initial notes of sweet potato. It’s wonderfully creamy, sweet, and almost a little starchy in flavour. Underlying, there’s the thicker maltiness of the irish breakfast, with just a hint of something cinnamon-like. There’s also a very slight edge of sweetness from the vanilla, with just a touch of dankness from the green tea. It sounds odd, but it’s actually a combination that works pretty well in practice. It’s a really great autumn tea, with its delicious sweet potato notes and creamy sweetness. I’m not entirely sure where the spiciness is coming from, but it seems to build with successive sips and leaves a pleasant warmth at the back of the throat. I really enjoyed my cup, and I’ll savour the rest of my sample tin over the coming months. This might become my cold day go-to for a bit.

I drank this all morning. I think I’ve already probably written enough about it, so I’ll just say that I enjoy it, and now I’m moving on to Qianzaishai (probably misspelled) sheng, 2015 version. I think I’m going to make this Qianzaishai sheng week.

noms. work is ridiculously stupid at the moment so i needed a cup of delicious. i have a headache from the ineptitude of a number of people. this is fantastic. a calm away from the stupidity.

Yeah, so the first thing I want to say is unless you intentionally want the heat and cinnamon blast of Harney’s Cinnamon Spice, remove the bag after steeping. This will hold the cinnamon to a responsible level. This also has ginger in it, and although I can’t taste it, I am pretty sure it is helping build that awesome spicy blast.

Now if this stopped with the spice it could get boring in a hurry. That is where the orange fits in nicely. It adds a citrus zing. It also makes this very sweet. Do not add sugar until you taste. Even my Splenda monkey said, “Nope, not needed”, after tasting. I see no sugar or stevia in the ingredients. I don’t know how, except the orange, it is just sweet.

Basically, this is a teabag full of Redhots with an orange twist.

You know when you feel sick but don’t look sick? that’s how I am right now. My ear hurts, my head feels “full”, and my face and hands feel flushed. I’m also getting the chills, but am sometimes just fine. I do wish my body would make up its mind about being sick or not.

Anyway, this tea is two years old, and has lost pretty much all of it’s white chocolate flavouring, so is basically a slightly creamier peppermint tea. No peppercorn taste, either. It’s ok, though. It felt hot on my throat and that was heavenly. I think I’ll toss out the rest of the leaf though. This was my favourite dt blend two winters ago, and I’m excited that they’re bringing something similar back this winter. Although “similar” doesn’t necessarily mean better, as it could be like “as if white chocolate and peppermint weren’t enough (they so, so are), david thought he’d add in a touch of peach/apple/pineapple/whatever else that wouldn’t make sense” LOL.

I don’t have anything more to say. Oh no wait! Reading about mislena organizing her cupboard, I felt inspired to organize mine, and got rid of so many teas that were either too old or ones that I said i’d get around to but realistically never did. It feels so much more manageable now! It also helps that I’m not doing any more swapping, because those tiny little bags just end up piling up and getting neglected and that’s sad on so many levels.

So last week I stopped at DAVIDTEA after work around when I was starting to get sick/just realizing I was sick and I picked up some tea to drink later and grabbed a hot, “To Go” cup of this as well. I picked it out because it’s the new Tea of The Month but I realized much later it was actually probably a good choice because of the ginger as well since that’s a good thing to drink when you are sick.

I had a really neat experience at the store, though! I know two people who work at the DT in Regina – Zoey and Kandyce who are both former highschool classmates of mine. So, running into one of them wouldn’t have been startling. What was startling was running into someone else whom I also recognized but never would have imagined to see there. Who’s that? The manager of the SASKATOON DAVIDsTEA at which I frequently shopped (and even knew some of the employees outside of work as well because my ex Tyrell was friends with them). We both kind of just took a look at each other and were all “Uhh, what are you doing here?”. Turns out she’s in town the next few weeks training the new manager of the Regina store, and of course I just moved back here. I swear, I see her around all the time though: not just at DT but when I was working at Sobeys I saw her all the time there too. We chatted for a while and it was nice. Maybe I’ll stop in again next week and see if I can run into her again…

As for the tea I ordered, I was a little taken aback! I’m honestly not the biggest fan of Ginger Beer. Every time I’ve tried it it’s just been a little too concentrated and spicy for my liking. And actually, I’m also just not a huge fan of ginger in general. However, that said, I actually found this pretty enjoyable. It’s not like it didn’t taste like Ginger Beer either; the ‘zippyness’ and almost ‘bubbly’ ginger flavour was accurate to my memory of Ginger Beer and very well captured the spirit of the drink. This was just much lighter overall and didn’t have that ginger burn that comes with too concentrated ginger. I dislike that sensation so much.

Of course, ginger isn’t the only flavour going on in this blend. I also tasted notes of honey and apple, both of which were quite nice and provided a sweet juxtaposition from the ginger. However, the most interesting flavour I tasted was lime!? I’m not sure where that’s coming from at all because there are no ingredients that should be contributing that flavour however it’s definitely something I tasted, and I quite liked it. Maybe it’s because I was slightly sick and my sense of taste may have been a little off. I’m not sure.

Overall? I wouldn’t buy this again but I liked it and for me that’s more of a ‘win’ than I ever expected with this blend. If I did drink it again, it would probably only be to see if I could taste the lime again when I’m not sick.

I started sipping this one yesterday. I’m still sipping it today.
It is a lovely lovely lovely tea!! The first steeps were immediately sweet & fruity, and a few steeps in it developed a creamy marshmallow/vanilla mouth. I zipped over to crimson lotus thinking, “I need a cake of this one”, but there are no cakes to be had :(
Which is ok, because I probably shouldn’t be spending my money right now…
But it really is a lovely tea, just as lovely today as yesterday, with a lingering apricot aroma (the leaves smell awesome!) and taste, and a beautiful amber-orange color. I could drink this all day, and basically I’ve been sipping it for about 24 hours, so I guess I have!
Thanks so much Glen & Lamu for sharing a sample of this with me!

Final note: Today, in addition to still tasting sweet & lovely, it has that almost effervescent electric current of chaqi running through it, which is giving me a nice tea buzz from head to toe. Now I’d like to go take a nap…yawn…

I was positive I had written a note on one of my most beloved of shous but I don’t see one here…..

Simply EVERYTHING about this cake is beautiful – no surprise since it’s from Whispering Pines. It is presented in a gorgeous wrapper snuggled inside a handy storage envelope. As lovely as they are – the real beauty comes when you open the wrapper and see the abundance of golden leaves threaded throughout the cake.

After a very quick rinse, the first steep is a little light and carries notes of warm cocoa. This is one of the most accessible shous ever – there is zero funk and no barn or leather (not that barn and leather are bad things in shou – just not present here). This is probably the best shou to ease a new pu drinker into the dark side. It is the shou you give your best friend when you are trying to turn them into your pu drinking partner. It is sweet creamy deliciousness that wouldn’t be challenging for someone who might be a little hesitant – in other words – it’s a perfect “gateway drug” and it WILL get you hooked.

The following steeps are thick and syrupy with a mouth-coating sweetness and the cocoa note becomes stronger. As I steep through, brown sugar, caramel, dates, creamy vanilla and a little mineral background make welcome appearances.

In my distant past, I knew a very charming man I nicknamed Mr. Silk. That guy was smooooooth. I may nickname Huron Mr. Silk as well – it is super creamy-dreamy and almost slinky.

I got 8 or 9 delightful steeps and a nice laid back relaxation – a lovely ride.

This is a special shou and it needs a special song. I really like the Radiohead song “Reckoner”, but it is much better by Gnarls Barkley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUmmsMeHAaE

My session on Instagram: https://instagram.com/p/8yCfFTwx4T/

HIGHLY recommended!

First of all, a huge thank you to Crimson Lotus Tea for this sheng sample! Sorry it has taken me so long to write a note on it, I recall drinking the first half of my sample a while ago but trying to log it and the page not working on Steepster :( but luckily today it is working!

I didn’t have much left in my second half of the sample, but there was just enough for a gongfu session. After a short rinse of about 4s, I steeped for maybe 6 seconds in the gaiwan and poured into my pitcher then cup. The leaves smell nicely vegetal and slightly smoky. I used freshly boiled water left a few seconds to cool.

The first steeping is oh so mellow and smooth and sweet. It went down like nothing! A sweet aftertaste lingers, fruity, a mild apricot flavor for now. The second steep also smells lovely mmm, can’t even describe it it just smells good. The flavor is also delicious, even a bit sweeter I think, like a light marshmallow note with dewy leaves and a fruity aftertaste. It becomes a bit smoky as it cools, but nothing overwhelming, just tasty sheng-like tobacco notes. This is so good. It’s so easy to drink! I also haven’t had sheng in ages, so it is a very welcome change. I will continue to steep this throughout the evening, funnily enough, I chose a sheng hoping the caffeine would invigorate me to start cleaning. This tea, however, is providing more of the mellow flavors and feeling that cause me to relax, which is also not a bad thing haha. Maybe the caffeine will hit later :D

Overall, a delicious sheng, easy to drink and no strange notes about it, just clean, sweet tea with fruity notes. Creamy and light mouthfeel too, very light and fluffy. I recall enjoying the first half of my sample as well, so this is a winner in my books! Thanks again to Crimson Lotus Tea for the lovely sample!

Another tea from DT! There are a few blends from them that I really like, and because they’re right down the street and easily available to me, and also don’t have many of the same problems associated with small businesses, I’m always particularly excited when I like a tea from them. Also, I flat-out refuse to become one of “those people” who looks down my nose at an entire company, although i do of course understand how tastes can evolve. I feel similarly about perfume. I am a huge, huge fragrance lover (as in I love them a lot, not as in I am huge, although I guess to some I am haha), and started my journey by falling in love with a lot of department store offerings, and then discovered a whole other world of niche fragrances and it just blew my mind: that there could be smaller perfume houses with a budget dedicated entirely to sourcing high quality ingredients to make such beautiful scent profiles that I could not find anywhere else, but I never gave up on the department stores, because I’m just never one to turn down an opportunity to fall in love with something. I just love the feeling of loving wonderful things. LOL I must sound so annoying, sorry I’ll stop.

This tea is so wonderfully thick and creamy all on its own. That said, a spot of cream just takes this tea to the next level and amplifies the creamy flavours tenfold. I was also perusing facebook earlier and saw omgsrsly talking about vanilla sugar, and realized that I have some of that as well. I am so, so going to throw in some vanilla sugar next time I brew this up. The people who liken the scent of this to bubblegum are probably right, although I imagine that’s the “pear”. You can’t really smell the cranberry in this, although if you inhale deeply enough you might pick up on some tartness. The taste feels similar: the pear up front followed by a hefty dose of cream and a very subtle tang of what could be cranberry but will inevitably keep this tea from ever being cloying or “kid-like”. I really hope dt always keeps this in stock. I also think it’ll do really well in a travel mug, and I intend to do just that when I pick up some more later on. Great, great tea. I also woke up with a scratchy throat this morning and this tea felt heavenly against it.

yay for interesting teas! thanks for sending me this one omgsrsly i am quite enjoying this this afternoon. we tired the dog out at the dog park and then proceeded to make orange cupcakes with marshmallow cream frosting, dry rub ribs and later there will be awesome potatoes and salad in the house too!

this tea is just different. I can’t place the aroma, though there’s a familiarity to it. there’s a slight almost mint, but not mint taste to this one..the taste kind of reminds me of what outside smells like on the west coast…those early mornings on the island when the tide’s going out, it’s rained over night, and you’re walking through the trees on the trails… inhale….breath deeply…that’s what this tastes like. so good.

Yep. Agreed with all the other notes here, this is a standard Assam, albeit a nice one.
Smooth, fruity, and a hint of malty yum. There’s also a lingering dry pucker in the back of my mouth at times. I don’t often find this type of astringency in tea!
Not every sip mind you, and the other ones are rather wet and a tad sour.

On a more personal note… I’ve had some rather strange dreams the last few days. I don’t often remember them and yet these ones have yet to fade. Not sure what to think about that!

My parents found this new tea place just outside of Duncan, BC. And of course it’s really infusing (whoa autocorrect! That should be ‘confusing’…) here on Steepster because there’s already a “Teafarm” and “The Tea Farm”…

But this tea. I made it in my dads pretty green beehive tea pot, which I think is 24oz, and used 1 tbsp tea and water off the boil.

It’s pretty nice. A good basic yunnan black. Tending towards bitterness, and not super complex, but a nice tea to sit here sipping while nomming leftovers for lunch and baking pumpkin pie for dinner tonight. Hints of spices, but nothing super unique.

Haha. And mom just asked what I thought about this tea becuase she bought two darjeelings as well but thought they were too light. So I teased her because her idea is " boiling water or perish!!!" for her teas, but these two darjeelings should probably be steeped more like greens. But she has a bi lo chun that she steeps with boiling water, so…. ;) We are two very different types of tea people!

First tea from this morning. Not much more to write except that it was tasty delicious and the perfect start to what is going to be s long day of dog. Sitting.

mmmm thank you keychange for a revisit with this tea. I should have made it in latte form but it was nice to just have a dark and delicious cup today on this cool afternoon. :) It’s nice to revisit old favourites

I have to admit, the only reason I bought this tea was because it has ‘mushroom’ in the title and it intrigued me since I’m very allergic to mushrooms. Though the tea itself has little to nothing to do with mushrooms, it still felt kind of cool to get to say I was ‘having them’. #TeaOnTheEdge #ButNot2Edgy

I only bought a sample amount; two blooms. When I opened up the package I was pretty taken aback because the smell was very pungent and defined. It certainly smelled strongly of apricots but also something sort of akin to sweet and sour sauce? I wasn’t expecting that level of smell at all, though it was intriguing to say the least.

I made three 12 oz. infusions of this one over the course of a work day, making sure to take note of the differences. I certainly freaked out a few coworkers at my new job; they saw this unfurled tea bloom from a distance/in passing in my mug in the breakroom and assumed something fungal was growing in my mug and that’s because the bloom certainly wasn’t the most attractive one I’ve come across – there’s no “flower” tied into it just an arrangement of white tea leaves tethered together. Which is fine: I wasn’t drinking this tea for the aesthetics however I’ll admit I did expect the “mushroom” to tie in with the overall shape of the bloom but it certainly didn’t look like any mushroom I’ve seen.

The first infusion was a mix of sharp, lively, tangy notes of apricot and peach. Again, the intensity of the ‘tang’ reminded me a little of sweet and sour sauce. Actually, in particular I couldn’t help but think of a very particular flavour from highschool cooking class I’ve only experienced once: we made vegetarian meatballs with a “sweet and sour sauce” that used apricot jam and ketchup in the sauce and this was quite similar to my memory of that sauce. There was also a very slightly malty taste to the finish of this infusion.

The second infusion was about 50/50 malt and apricot/peach with less of the piercing tang. It was probably the smoothest infusion overall and I’d say my favourite. Finally, the third infusion was more malt than anything else with light notes of apricot and a bit of a peppery finish. I swear there were also very light cocoa notes on the top of the sip as well.

Overall, I thought this was surprisingly delightful – more so than I actually expected it would be if I’m being completely honest/transparent. What started off as a bit of a ‘gag’ purchase actually resulted in a wonderful tea session and intriguing learning experience. Also, credit where credit is due: What-Cha has done a marvelous job describing the overall flavour of this tea on their page for it. While I was taken back by the intensity of the apricot notes there’s no doubt in my mind that their flavour description was super accurate. I absolutely recommend trying this tea!

Nicole sneaked some Shang Tea samples in with my TeaLeaves order… I’ll pay her back soon enough though :)
To me, which is probably going to be different from others, the taste of this tea is like a strong white tea had a child with some Oriental Beauty and this is the child. The taste is brisk and reminds you of what you are drinking with a slap across your taste buds, but that slap is packed with flavor so it is welcomed.
The best part about this tea, for me at least, is watching the color come to life as you steep this tea. I steeped my sample size three times and then half steeped another to see if the dark liquid still came about. Almost a solid brown color unlike Shang Tea’s website, however preparations could be different as I used 190’ish. Yes, this is good; however, I am not a fan of Oriental beauty (which this is not) so the notes of ‘spice’ that come through the brisk flavor of this tea don’t appeal so much to me. The word rich does describe this tea :)