Featured & New Tasting Notes

I’m legit on a tea streak. Three cups and it’s just half past noon?! Ahh I love tea tons :)

This is just your usual black tea. Nothing too special.
I think I added too much sugar though, but it’s still pretty yummy!

Thank you tons to TeaNTees for sending this my way!

ALSO sorta pointless since I haven’t been on in forever and I’m sure none of you missed my pointless posts about life, buuuuut it was just publicly announced yesterday, I got the Lead position in my department! For those of you who forgot, I work at Disneyland and it’s tons of fun and I’ve been there for almost a year and a half now. I decided to apply for Lead aaaand they announced everyone yesterday. I’m quite chuffed :)

My mom continues to drink teas from my stash without letting me know (I’m talking things other than what I’m brewing for her/to share with her) including some of the more pricey ones so I’m returning the favor and drinking her teas…

I don’t know how she still has any of this left to be honest; I gave her a 20g bag as a Christmas present two years ago! And it still looked really full. What’s up with that mom!? My tea’s good enough but yours isn’t? I cold brewed it though; and man did I miss this tea! It makes the best creamy peppermint cold brew ever – like white chocolate bark but with increased refreshment/coolness.

Also, I just finished the written part of my Tea 103 exam and I crushed it! I ended up getting 94% which was 47/50 questions. I’m really proud of that; I don’t remember for sure but I think that’s a slight improvement on last time’s exam? Something is telling me I got 90% last time…

Ineffable rock-candy sweetness with notes of corn and hay, the broth generously lubricates the mouth and is quite persistent in the throat. I’m really amazed at the consistency of this tea that steep to steep pumps out consistently sweet, clean, full-bodied mouth-watering liquor with no ebb in flavor and no bitterness. People talk about price per gram of tea, but maybe there should be a price-per-excellent-infusion category in which the Guang Feng Zhai would challenge for supremacy.

Labor Day weekend was not the restful idyll I had hoped for (unscheduled elder care needs at Dad’s farm, followed up with minor yucks of my own, and a day of catching up what I had to let go the other two days) so this morning called for some MUSCLE to get me moving. This Kaimosi fills the bill: stout, sharp, and a little fruity undertone I had not noticed the first time I tried it. I still intend to try it with some milk, but to this point, I’ve needed the tea hit so fiercely each time I’ve steeped this, I haven’t stopped to dilute it!

I’m following up with my Peanut Butter Cup + Salted Caramel experiment here since I added more of the former than the latter into the mix.

3g of this plus nearly 3g of Salted Caramel wasn’t as caramelly as I would have liked but it was a lot like what I imagined. If I added more Salted Caramel to this in the future I’m sure I’d be closer to achieving that Snickers vibe I’m trying to get.

Oddly enough, with light cream, I didn’t care for this cup as much as I did when I added some to the strictly Peanut Butter Cup… cup that I had when I first tried it.

It’s an experiment worthy of repeating, at least.

Up first for today in the long weekend of not waiting to drink the favorites is this delectable GM. A practically perfect, consistent, GM. Lovely leaves and superior flavor. Such a smooth way to begin the day.

Another gongfu session of this from last night.

I followed the advice mrmopar gave after my previous session and stuck with shorter steeps at a lower temperature this time around. 6.5g of leaf in a gaiwan with 90C water and steeps ranging from 5-30 seconds.

Mrmopar was right – brewing at a lower temperature with short steeps does get rid of a lot of that bitterness. I think I’ll stick to 90C as my default temperature for young shengs from now on.

How was this tea based on these new steeping parameters? Fruity, vegetal, with a typical “sheng” tart flavour. It kind of reminded me of vanilla yogurt. No smoke. Some astringency on later steeps as it coated my tongue. However, near the end of the session I was developing a headache and I felt bloated from having over a litre of liquid in my belly.

This wasn’t bad, but I don’t think I’ve been quite as seduced by this poundcake as other Steeptsterites. Considering that Paul from White2Tea has announced he only has about 100 cakes of this left in his new warehouse, I’m happy to let others have their chance with it.

In the meantime, I used up about half of the free sample I got from the W2T sale. I’m going to send the rest off to Ubacat, since she expressed some interest in it.

My brother and I had an adventure today.

We left the house this afternoon with two goals in mind:

1. Go the the library so I could print resumes
2. Pick up some of the Fall Collection teas from DAVIDsTEA

So, we actually started by going to the bank so my brother could take out some cash to buy a lock for school next week, then we drove to what we thought was the closest library. At this point, it’s been two years since I lived in Regina and over those two years I only came to visit about five times – I’ve unlearned the direction to a lot of places in the city that weren’t ones I regularly went to. So, it took us a while to find the library. When we did find it, we realized that it’s no longer a library anymore – the building has been split up into a Senior’s Home and a Hardware store. That definitely through a wrench into our plans…

So, the only other library in town we thought we could find was the one downtown – so we drove downtown. However, Liam has virtually no sense of direction and I don’t really know where anything is in the city/the street names so we kind of got lost downtown. We drove around completely clueless for quite some time, and then when we finally thought we knew where we were we accidentally would up driving into the middle of a park. Yikes! To be fair, the area we drove into was paved (with cobblestone) and there was a stoplight and crossing walk and it VERY MUCH looked like a continuation of the road, but turns out it’s an area intended for food trucks and us being there was probably at least a little illegal.

After we drove out of the part, we realized neither of us had change for the parking meter so we had to leave downtown and go through a Robin’s Donuts drive-through to break a twenty. Then we had to drive back downtown – this time heading to the mall because we’d given up on finding the library today. On our way to the mall to stop at DAVIDsTEA what did we find!? The library! So we parked, and went to put money in the meter, which was free because it’s Sunday. Crap! What a waste of time! So, we walked over to the library. Guess what! Turns out that not only is it closed on Monday for Labour Day but today, as well. Another colossal waste of time.

From there we stopped at DAVIDsTEA, and it was basically smooth sailing afterwards: I picked up 20g of Peanut Butter Cup, Cranberry Orange Muffin, Spiced Apple (which I keep wanting to call Spiced Fig because of the fig in it), and Nutty By Nature as well as top ups of Creme Brulee which I can’t believe they’re discontinuing! and Guava Cadabra.

And after all of that, I needed a drink so I got this blend as a hot latte. I’ve been slowly revisiting teas from DT that I used to stock/have tried in the past to see how I feel about them now, and this one just seemed to fit my mood. Plus, my brother loves mint so I thought maybe I could convince him to try this one. I actually didn’t mind it; but I just thought it was really weak overall and not an exciting or interesting tea. I feel justified in my old opinion that this is a tea not worth getting stocked, even though it hit the spot today.

guys i’m so tired. 2 days in a row of wandering and walking and running wedding errands. I am SO glad it’s along weekend and SO glad tomorrow is “winery” day. this kicked off my day and while it was a decent cup, it wasn’t quite what i wanted.

This is not really a winner in my opinion. I was suckered in by the cute packaging and thinking these loose leaf puerh packets would be good for travel. I have been done a few short steeps (of around 10 seconds) in my yixing teapot. I am finding the fermentation flavor to be too strong in this. Yes the dreaded fishy flavor that we all hate in puerh, it smells funky too. After the third steep I decided to water it down some and that made it sort of palatable but it also seems bitter to me. It’s sad but life is too short to be drinking yucky tea. I will contact Dragon Tea house to see about getting a refund.

I finished off the rest of what I had from the monthly subscription this morning and now I’m sad. This is such an amazingly delicious and unique black tea. Like a spicy potato tea. I used the remaining 5.5g in my shibo and it was perfect! It also lasted more than the usual 3-4 steeps I get from black teas. Although it’s no longer available, I heard that more might be coming in this autumn, so I will definitely pick some up, maybe with some samples of the other Spring puerh I haven’t yet tried.

Starting my morning with this one today, dark & rich & I can feel the energy spreading throughout my body. Feels good.

Wednesday morning my mom and I were too tired from moving to unpack right away, so we found one of the boxes with tea things in it and she went through and sniffed all of the tins of tea until she found one she liked; this is the one she picked and she would not believe me that it’s a blend of pure, unflavored teas.

The reason she would’ve believe me was that to her it tasted like, and I quote, “one of the best chocolate teas she’d ever had”. We enjoyed about a pots worth each while watching The Walking Dead on Netflix. I stopped watching in Season 3 and she’s on Season 5 so I was a little confused, but mostly I just liked getting to curl up on the couch and share this tea with her. It makes me happy she can appreciate tea other than DAVIDsTEA. Too bad it turns out she has expensive taste…

But really; this is very chocolatey, but also has notes of dark cherries, malt, and maybe even to a lesser extent bran? Or at least that what I got out of Wednesday’s pots of tea.

I was honored to have a very limited pu-erh shared with me on Monday. I was at Shang Tea and Shang shared a pu-erh with me from one of his friend’s farms. It is called Meng Hai County Pu-erh because of the county it comes from. It is a shu from 2006. Fermented 6 weeks. It was the only pu-erh served in the Olympics Tea House in 2008.

I liked it quite a bit in the store. I told Shang it was pretty much the first pu I’d had that I could honestly say I really did like. I came home with some.

Making it here at home and I could not duplicate the flavor. Not even close. It was much more like what I expect of pu – earthy and musty but not in a way I enjoy. I could drink it but it would never be my choice. So I emailed to find out how it was prepared at the shop that day. Found out that by that point in the day, the pot had been mixed with Golden Needle King! That would explain why I thought it was drinkable. I lumme some Shang Golden Needle.

I didn’t make an entry for this tea as they only have a very limited amount in the store and it is outrageously expensive. If you are in town and interested, stop by the shop and inquire. :) I’d be interested to hear what a real pu-head thinks of this.

From the EU TTB

I’m a bit of a sucker for flavoured teas, so I had to give this one a go. I figured it for a green, but I didn’t realise it was a white/green blend at the time I was drinking it. I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 2.5 minutes in water cooled to around 175 degrees.

I have to say, I really like it. There’s a tangy, not-quite-sharp but pretty flavour-accurate lime, with a mildly sweet, deliciously creamy smoothness from the coconut. They’re not strong, in-your-face flavours, but rather light and refreshing. A perfect summer cocktail – only tea! The green base is pretty perfect; it’s mildly grassy, which works really well with the coconut, and fairly unobtrusive unless you’re really looking for it. This one reminds me a little of 52Teas Lime Jello Salad. A very enjoyable cup!

Good morning Steepster. I have been drinking this as my morning tea this week and it’s a decent cuppa, it does have me pining for a really good yunnan black. I would say this is kind of average but it does have a nice malty heft this morning.

I was at Peet’s the other day and saw they are bringing back some of their tinned teas but with a Mighty Leaf label on them. I don’t know if they will relaunch the entire line; I only saw about 10 of them in the store and this wasn’t one.

What are your favorite yunnan blacks? Are there any I need to try? One of my recent favorites came from a hole in the wall shop in Oakland’s Chinatown. I do feel I need to do a significant number of sipdowns before buying a lot of new stuff, but maybe I can afford one or two really good ones ;)

Nothing to say that hasn’t already been said.
I’m still enjoying this tea, & still have quite a bit of it to enjoy!
I can’t quite get motivated to do anything this morning (although I already meditated, did tai chi, went for a 45 minutes walk, and ate breakfast).
I think I’ll make another cup & go take a hot bubble bath.
Yup…that sounds good…

This was my choice tea at Remedy yesterday. I wanted their Chocolate Mint but they were out! The smell of these sachets, though? A heavenly waft of bergamot. I’m so used to EGC that this plays tricks on my mind and makes me expect a creamy note in the taste.

Without any additives, this is smooth and packed with bergamot. Maybe not the strongest bergamot I’ve had, but it’s oh so prevalent. It’s a great option to have when you’re out and about and have a hankering for Earl Grey when then house Earl Greys at places like Second Cup are on the weaker, boring side.

With maple sugar and cream, it’s good but I think I prefer it before I added these gimmicks to them. The bergamot stands very well on its own, plus the base is smooth so no need to calm it down with milk/cream/sugar.

The dry leaf aroma sure smells like blackberries! Oddly enough, the brewed tea has no aroma whatsoever. Thank goodness that doesn’t translate into a flavorless tea! The sip is clean, hay-like white tea with a punch of vanilla and a subtle hint of blackberry. I’m definitely getting more cream than berry in the cup. This is good! It’s not big on flavor but all the expected notes are there. The berry comes out more as it cools. I will enjoy the rest of this one but I don’t think I’ll re-purchase it. I simply have too much tea!

Having a tea the same colours as the Irish flag sounded cool. So I got this tea. The scent is more on the strawberry side, with some coconut. There is a sweet, creamy berry flavour. Not sure what I was expecting, but the tea is more smooth in the second cup.

Goes well with lemon pastries.

Due to an very odd and somewhat distressing set of events last night, I did not sleep well at all.
This is a problem, as I have a job interview ish thing today- lunch with a lady who needs a personal assistant. So I want to make a good impression and not be a tired mess. Ugh.
Two things will help! Concealer (the wonder makeup), and tea.
Forget my sipdown attempts today- its all about the classic, beloved teas. May this delicious fruity cup lead me through the day triumphantly.

tea from earlier today. We’ve had a nice lazy-ish sort of day today as our first weekend where we were both in town and for the most part, he wasn’t working. I enjoy this one, but it’s not my favourite assam. it’s a little drying while also feeling very juicy. That being said, i still really love these offerings from JW and they always make for an enjoyable cup to reflect on.

I’ve decided to stop hoarding the leaf for this blend, and just work on sipping it down.

Vanilla bean, vanilla custard, vanilla cake… Vanilla everything!

And on top of that mouth watering vanilla flavor, this cold brew had a lovely soft floral quality, honey notes, and a subtle graham/woody flavour from the rooibos base. This leaf might be somewhat older, but that hasn’t changed the wonderful flavour yet! I’d still like to try more teas with tonka beans in them though; I think they’re the key to this wonderful ‘triple threat’ vanilla flavour – but I can’t be sure if I don’t have something to compare with.

Old leaf; but not spent leaf.

Thank you Boychik for this sample. This is an outstanding raw tea. It is strong and punchy sheng. There was a fair amount of bitterness to the early steeps. I gave this tea fourteen steeps in a 50ml gaiwan. I would say I found bitterness in the first eight steeps. Then the transformation began. There was still a potency to this tea even in the fourteenth steep. It became something quite pleasant but still strong. I suspect that this tea is a good one for aging. Its strong and slightly bitter character makes me feel this. This one has a potent aftertaste to it also. After fourteen steeps I am starting to feel its qi. This is one I would consider buying if WHite2Tea has any left during their Black Friday sale.

I steeped this fourteen times in a 50ml gaiwan with 4g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, 2 min, 2.5 min and 3 min. I think this tea would have gone 20 steeps and I may save the leaves for tomorrow.