Featured & New Tasting Notes

Thank you Marzipan for this one. You were right. I loved this one! Sweet honeydew with a bit of honey on the side. I wasn’t such a fan of this hot but I LOVED this one iced. So good.

http://www.cuppageek.com/index.php/2015/05/20/tea-of-the-day-golden-honey-dew-from-lupicia-teas/

Thank you for the sample WymmTea

I had a lot of trouble with this one. The first few steeps were dominated by a sour note that just didn’t agree with me. I noticed others noted a sour cherry note so I guess that must be it? I finally found a later steep when it had sweetened up I could actually enjoy, but all in all I would say that this is not a sheng for me!

This is from the recent Red Leaf Tea side by side blind taste test. If you were included but haven’t completed your survey yet stop reading now.

Last weekend we rented a cabin on the lake in a nearby state park. It was our 34th anniversary. I grabbed one of my numbered matcha samples from the test that I really liked – Kiss Me Organics. First thing each morning I mixed a heavy tsp of it with 12oz of cold milk and a double shot of Splenda Sat on the porch swing and watched as the misty rain washed across the lake. Beautiful and relaxing. The cold frap was more delicious than one from Starbucks because even with two packets of Splenda, it was not sickening sweet like SB. I thought it could not be any better. While the setting and circumstances had a lot to do with it, I really did like that culinary grade matcha.

This morning, back at home, I grabbed Starter Matcha from Red Leaf and mixed a new glass with the same amounts. The results were even more delicious, in my opinion, though the scenery in my den was not as exciting. Seriously, this makes a dark green tea with a nice grassy flavor and long smooth aftertaste. The best part is, this is one third the price of the previous matcha and even cheaper than the Tradition brand matcha I have been using on a daily basis by about a fourth (1.31/oz my old matcha compared to $0.94/oz Red Leaf).

I know my daily matcha in the past has been a slight bit of a compromise, although I wouldn’t drink it everyday if I did not like it. With this Starter Matcha, I am getting way more wonderful flavor and it will save me money. I actually rated this second highest in the blind test – before I knew what a great deal it is.

I put a pound of this and a pound of the Deluxe Matcha (my highest rated in the test) in the cart. Placed my gift certificate order. Went to Amazon to order some unrelated stuff, came back to my email to make sure the Amazon confirmation had been sent, and discovered the Red Leaf order had already been processed and shipped! Don’t know if they are always this on top of it but that was fast. That was a late afternoon. Two days later the package arrived. I now have enough matcha in cold storage to last a year. I’m a happy den camper.

today is a holiday in canada for a lot of folks…which means for us, cleaning the house, trying to get outside and using it as a day for the two of us to catch up on things we haven’t had time to work on. It also means being able to drink a few more teas. Today i needed something delicious to kick off my day so i opted for this one. I really need to see if anyone’s written about 2015 harvest since i’ll be running out of this one soon and need to decide on 2014 or the 2015. I think the rest of the day is going to be a little bit of more new teas and finishing up a couple for some sipdowns :)

Was super excited when my first month’s teas arrived on Saturday from Handmade Tea. I ripped open the pkg and was a little puzzled by the tea. Roasted Chocolate Pineapple Tea Mate. Yeah. . I wasn’t so sure. But the packaging was fantastic! A wax sealed envelope. So fun!

Brewed up the tea and was insanely impressed. This tasted just like a robust coffee with dark chocolate notes. I never picked up any of the pineapple but that may be just because I need to shake up the bag. Super impressed with this. So is the boyfriend. I am going to have to hide this one if I want to keep any of it for myself.

http://www.cuppageek.com/index.php/2015/05/18/tea-of-the-day-roasted-chocolate-pineapple/

Sweet sipdown. This one was one of the true dessert teas I enjoyed over the past few years. The graham cracker note made it really stand out for me. I added a dash of milk and it came out like a strawberry pie. Probably good this was it though because I think the strawberry note was starting to get a teensy bit artificial as it aged.

This was the very last Butiki tea I had left, so this sipdown may be a little bittersweet when all is said and done. Hope everyone is having a wonderful Monday!

I don’t think I’ll ever get over the smell of this tea. It is just so rich and vibrant. The taste is refreshing and sweet but the smell is what truly gets me each time.

Drinking a big 16oz to-go cup of this at work today.

I’ve gotten really attached to this flavor and am going to miss it when I run out!

Sheng/Shou TTB
This is a very nice young sheng. Small amounts of astringency and flavorful notes of sweetness and grape skins. This will get much better with age, but it a pleasant drinker right now.

More Streetshop88! On my last order, I asked my wife to choose a tea based on how she felt about looking at it. Sort of an ESP kind of thing. This is the one she chose. I ordered a cake knowing nothing about it. It turned out to be a pretty good tea. It is very light in flavor, but quite smooth. The cake is really nice, it has a pretty wrapper which uses very thick high quality paper. I like that. The leaf quality is very good, big leaves. The soup is medium brown, no fermentation flavor. There is not much complexity, but it feels nice and my wife likes it. If you’re looking for a light safe non earthy ripe pu erh to try, I think this is a good one. Anyone know what company this is from the picture?

Good morning :)

First cup of the day. Yum, as usual.

I have a huge amount of this stuff. I don’t understand my need to hoard it!

Just a short tasting note here. I honestly didn’t know what this was and thought it was a black tea so I used boiling water with it. It still came out fine though, just reminds me of genmaicha. I don’t think I am picking up the black soybean flavor… it is nutty and rice-y though. Not a bad morning cuppa, I don’t think I need to get any more though.

Overall the tea is fairly smooth and easy to drink. Smoke detected in the aroma of the dry leaf but this barely appeared in the tea soup. Orange liquor with a woody base, hints of nutty notes and a light sweetness. Not much (if any) bitterness found and no astringency. Good mouthfeel with a nice tingling on the tongue. The flavor held up nicely through 6-7 steeps. My experience with this tea was rather pleasant and enjoyable for sipping through the day yesterday.
—-Some recent tea notes for samples obtained from finepuer mentioned dry, flavorless tea and I can say that for this one, I opened the three sample boxes I had and dumped the chunks into a small yixing crock to sit for two weeks before trying. When I opened the boxes and plastic bags, there was really no aroma but after storing in the yixing for two weeks, there was a sweet, floral aroma with a little smoke and the results of brewing the leaves were very pleasant.

I’ve had this one a few times now without writing a note. I picked this as my morning tea since i have a bit of time this morning before work gets a little crazy. I also desperately need to get through more of my puerh since my cupboard is back over 100. sigh I’m a fan of this one…if i had any sort of set up for storing puerh, i’d likely pick up a cake/box of this one. It’s very smooth and has creamy mushroom and brown sugar notes in it. I’ve only done a couple steepings but there’s no fermentation flavours here to throw things off and it’s just an overall good time. yum.

Thank you so much for the samples Wymmtea

This is a particularly awesome sheng! SO creamy and sweet and floral but still complex and interesting. Definitely just my style and up my alley. This is one I would drink again and definitely purchase if I could afford a cake :)

This is from the recent Red Leaf Tea side by side blind taste test. If you were included but haven’t completed your survey yet stop reading now.

Looking back at my notes, I didn’t rate this as well as I thought I did. Hmmm. Anyway, I am now exploring these in a frappuccino style. Matcha, cold milk, and Splenda. This one is very dark (before milk), has a solid flavor and sweetness, along with a lingering aftertaste. I think my initial reaction lowered the score because of some bitterness, although I noted that I liked what the bitterness added. Cold, I don’t notice any negative in the taste. The problem with this one is the price tag. That is a lot of money for kitchen grade powder. Solid flavor – high price tag.

Backlog

For some reason I totally keep forgetting to write this tasting note…probably because It was a massive disappointment. xD
I was expecting it at the very least to just be a normal jasmine tea. But no.
It hardly tasted like jasmine. They went superrr light on the jasmine and it was mainly just grass flavor. Which is why I don’t drink green teas since I don’t like grass flavors. xD
So yeah, this one was awful. Jasmine Butterfly WAYYYYY better! One of the best Jasmine teas of all time in my book. At least so far! So like a year and a half in officially :P
Anywho, Liquid Proust sent me such a generous sample of this one which was so sweet-and thank you soo much for that! Really was very nice of you. But this one wasn’t my cup of tea…soo yeah. :/ Donut worry though! I will try my best to find a good home for it when I can!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there!
I just got home from playing a Mother’s Day gig, & I’m finally sampling this tea, sent to me from Sil.

My taste buds have been off for awhile, thanks to horrible allergies this year, so I’m not gonna give a great description here, but what I can say is this cup of tea makes me think of a light spring rain. It has a delicate fresh quality to it.

I need to sort out the teas from MissB and get them out to the girls. However, silly me forgot to pick up bags and labels so it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. However, it did tempt me in to make another cup of this just because. there should be SOME perks to getting a giant box of tea that needs to be repackaged and shipped out haha. For me, it’s getting to have 1-2 cups of things while i sort through them rather than having to add to me cupboard. This is a pretty tasty vanilla tea. Not my ultimate favourite, but still damn good. Thanks again for all the great (and not so great) shares MissB! :)

Happy Mothers day, to all who celebrate it! My mother and I are doing our tradition, of going to a local festival and shopping. Hooray for a girls day!
This is one of my favorite spring teas. Really light and pleasant. I’m almost through this packet, which is sad, but hey, that’s gotta happen sometime.

is it time to go home yet? I am so looking forward to the weekend. This version of this tea is delicious! I think it’s funny that zhu rong and yu lu sort of swapped for me last harvest since previous to that, it was the other way around – i preferred zhu. ah well, both decent offerings. :)

I swear this tea is keeping me from killing people. Or at least yelling at them. To be honest, I’d rather have a plate of cookies right now rather than a tea that taste like cookies, but since I don’t want to consume a bunch of unnecessary calories I’ll stick to this yummy tea and continue to not yell at – or kill – the people I’m forced to interact with today.

It’s almost the weekend. It’s almost the weekend. It’s almost the weekend….

Enjoying multiple steeping of this beloved tea this morning. I keep thinking I’m going out in the garden, & overtime I set foot outside, it starts raining. Then when I come in it stops. LOL
This tea is kind of like LB, but without the bean taste.

Sipdown…
A delicious breakfast tea with some wonderful chocolate-y notes. I’ve been finishing some things off lately, which is good. However this is gone but not forgotten. It is definitely going in my re-purchase list as it’s one of my favorite breakfast teas. Very malty and chocolate-y, and perfect with a bit of soymilk.