Featured & New Tasting Notes

Had this tea last night AND this morning! So delicious.

Mostly I went for it because I have no milk of any kind, and I’m not interested in getting dressed in outside clothes to go buy milk. :)

Still, it was an excellent choice.

(1st steep 4 minutes, 2nd steep 6 minutes)

I think I am in danger as I really enjoyed this introduction to Sheng. I loved the mix of exotic woods, spice, fruit, floral notes, leather, honey, vegetal notes and cream. I also loved the warming sensation it produced in my body. Can see why people can get addicted to this style of tea. It was also really long lasting I ended up getting 27 steeps out of one tuocha steeped in a 140 ml gaiwan. Thanks so much to TeaVivre for the chance to sample this tea. It has definitely left me with a desire to sample more.

I used short steeps and near boiling water for this tea.

10s rinse.

5s: slightly darker broth than my average green tea.

Sweet, straw like nnotes, honey, cocoa, cotton flower in the scent with flavours of cotton flower, straw, honey, cocoa, hint of ffruit, plum, and a touch of artichoke and leather. The tea had a creamy buttery texture and produced a slight tingling on the underside of the tongue.

7s deeper gold colour. With regards to the scent and taste, the leather note is stronger, with hints of aged cedar mixed with sandalwood, honey, floral notes and cocoa.
There are some vegetal green tea notes, with spinach, artichoke and spice, hint of frackensence. Plum. Creamyspicy woody, honeyed floral taste overlying some bitterness

9s frackensence, cedar, plum, floral notes, aged spicy woods, honey.
Cream, artichoke with spinach, exotic wood and spices, some honey, over some bitter tones. It presents a warming sensation in my body.

11s similar to above but a little sweeter and fruitier smelling.
Cream, spinach and artichoke frakinsence, aged cedar, allspice, honey, leather,plum, aftertaste of spice. Warming in the body, cooling in the mouth.

15s. Spice, plum, hint of spicy floral.

Cream, exotic woods and spices, indistinct savoury veg, hint of leather,

20s. Floral mixed with woody notes_ plum and artichoke.
Similar to above still spicy exotic woods, veg,plum, and honey over bitter notes, a little more drying in the mouth.

23s. Spice, cotton flower, plum, brighter than last steeps.

Even blending of above flavours exotic spices devolving into a spicy floral note cream, fruit. Gardenia.

26s similar to above but slightly more bitter and spicy floral notes are slightly biting.

30s tart intro to scent mix.
Cream honey ,veg note, gardenia, plum and a touch of exotic woods.

34s More honey and plum, bitter veg tone and gardenia mixed with exotic woods.

40s bright spice over letter, woods and greens, smell a little of perfume.
Frakinsence, cream, aged cedar, artichoke, plum.

46s. Cream, plum than other notes in succession.

54s. Plum, cream, woody notes, spice. Honey

62s same as above with some floral notes. Honey move forward with cream.

70s Much more intensely sweet with hints of licorice to the honey, plum, spice. A mild woody dryness and lots of warmth and heat produced in the. Front of the mouth yielding to a cooling.

80s similar to above but slightly creamier.

90s slightly stronger cedar, and spice notes, very warming.

120s. above mixed with bitter sweet greens

130s honey, spice, greens, cream.

140 s similar but a little weak.

160 s same.

180s. Licorice woody notes, spice, plum

3.30min plum, woody notes, licorice, spice.

5 min creamy soft with licorice appearing with spice and honey.

6 min. Honey, cream, sweet cooked greens, faint hint of spice.

Thanks again I really enjoyed it!

This tea made me so so so so so so so so so SO happy. Of happiness.

Only one rinse was needed and the color is deeper than ruby, like a garnet. And AllanK was right – zero fermentation flavor, no dirty flavors. This tastes like chocolate mushrooms. That may not sound appetizing, but I assure you, it’s the fucking BOMB, yo.

This is my new fave shou. Thanks for the sample, Allan!!!!

I did one session with three steeps, then another, then another. A total of 9 steeps, which got smoother as they went along.

From the start, I felt buzzy. At one point during the 2nd session, I realized that I dazed out. When I came to, I felt kind of dizzy and happy. Tea drunk, indeed!

I also kept staring into the cup, kind of mesmerized by the color.

To sum up: WOW. So yumz. Much happy. Wow. So garnet. Tea drunkies.

http://instagram.com/p/soFo2-vkcf/

This sample from k s was welcome; as (wouldn’t you know it) I was awake hours too early on a Saturday morning—gentle rain on the roof is such an unnatural sound of late, it woke me. So I steeped this a little long and strong to get the bleary eyes open while watching a Veggie Tales kids’ show on one of the few analog channels left in our area. (Haven’t Veggied since my son was a little ‘un. They haven’t changed much.)

I’m seeing “peppery” in the reviews for this one; may be I was just too sleepy to notice that. My sleepy brain registered “starchy and crusty,” but in a good way, like rye bread toast crust.

I can’t really sleep tonight so might as well drink good tea, right?

I had this tea twice today. Such a lovely shou.

I like how sweet and smooth it is. I find myself craving it.

It’s not overly complicated and complex, but sometimes, that’s just what I’m seeking.

I have mentioned that this tea was like a hug on my last review and I stand by it. Definitely a hugger!

At this rate, the little cake won’t last very long.

Sorry Mandala for not being more eloquent tonight…

Pic from earlier:

http://instagram.com/p/slg21QQh7c/

Sipdown (132)!

Many thanks to my Nina’s Paris dealer VariaTEA for the sample! I’m always up for trying another of Nina’s teas – they so, so rarely ever disappoint. This one absolutely holds true to that standard, as well!

So I made this in my timolino for work. Dry and steeping I really didn’t get much of any sort of smell from this so I was going in to this with relatively low expectations but still holding onto to some hope because this is Nina’s and Nina’s Paris knows tea. And it was such a joy to sip on while I was walking home after a long day! So cheers for that!

The black base was very smooth with just the faintest floral hint to it. Bitter and Astringent are totally foreign words in regard to this one. And then marrying beautifully with the base was this very rich and juicy orange flavour with a silky creaminess to it that reminded me of a very natural creamsicle type treat (but hot). Not fake orange flavoured syrup frozen over ice cream but something much higher quality, and richer.

There’s also chocolate in this blend, but I found it to actually be very light handed; just enough to sweeten things up and keep this from feeling monotone (or rather “duotone”?). I might not have even recognized it in the blend if I hadn’t looked this one up prior to making it.

So conclusion: this is simple and pretty straight forward, but really really good! There’s no need for me to stock both Three Friends (another sweet Orange/Black) but if I was out of that one I’d be perfectly content with stocking either of these two blends. Both are masterfully executed.

Also hey – here’s a random link ( http://donottouch.org/ ) for a neat-o crowd sourced music video you should all check out! Aside from just being pretty fun, the music/song itself is kinda cool and catchy too.

Having GO at the end of the day is as satisfying as having GO in the morning.

I wasn’t planning on having it now, but a tea friend invited me to have a cup with her, so I did :-)

And let me tell you that it made a very satisfied fairy out of me.

It’s such a comfort tea, no matter what the season is. I drank it all summer long, and we’re about to spend our first autumn season together.

A pure vanilla dream it is, with plenty of chocolate gooeyness. If someone can’t get the chocolate in this well…sorry but I am totally judging you!!!

My pic:

http://instagram.com/p/slJDrDQh3p/

Another puerh from my mystery sample box :D

Oh wow, this sheng is SUPER smooth! I would not have guessed it is so young! I am REALLY digging on this one. It has fruity notes that I always appreciate in a sheng, as well as a brisk energy. I’m really glad I randomly chose this one this morning, it is a winner!

Lewis & Clarke TTB

Tea of the morning! I’ve been wanting to try this particular tea for a long time, mostly because of the hype it gets around here. The leaves look exactly like Laoshan Green but black. :P They’re thin and brittle and curled into little loops in some cases. Dry scent is pure cocoa, yum! I did a 3 minute steep as per usual for black teas.

Brewed, this tea smells very similar to Fujian black teas that I’ve tried – it has that same savory dill note. This tea also tastes similar to my idea of a Fujian tea. It’s strong and has robust flavors with that dill note along with dark grain and some lovely cocoa. This tea, however, has a nice burnt brown sugar or caramel flavor to it that really adds depth. And it’s a teensy bit sweeter, especially in the end and aftertaste, and there’s a touch of cinnamon.

Overall, quite good, but not mind-blowing. :)

This is a bit of a revelation. I still have half a pound of this from my hasty mega-purchase a few years ago. I constantly give it away, but it reproduces like gremlins.

Knowing its tendency to become a bit bitter and dry, I steeped it quick (about 2.5 minutes) and added a small splash of milk and a bit of honey. This brings it back to sweet, creamy, vanilla. Not my favourite and I definitely regret buying so much but this will make it really easy to drink some more at work. No re-steeping, dear heaven.

I’ve progressed to book 11 of 14 WoT!!!!!!!!!!!!!.. and this tea is gone. If you think those exclamation marks are a sign of a diseased mind just you wait until I hit book 14 AND get my refill of With Open Eyes (yes, I’m going to sync these events up somehow).

Goodbye for now, steadfast tea.

Wow. It’s been so long since I’ve written a note on steepster that I…don’t really know what to say. I feel as though I first fell off the tasting note bandwagon, and then as the summer sweltered hotter and hotter, I sort of fell off the hot tea bandwagon as well. And as my samples continued to pile up around me, I just turned a blind eye to it all (har har) and chugged water. What a mistake it was to abandon tea for so long. I had this as a latte yesterday while at DT (where I of course picked up the green carry mug, omg omg omg), and made it again for myself first thing this morning. Nothing calms an anxiety-ridden heart like a cup of tea, and that, my friends, is a scientific fact.

What this tea tastes like: my goodness, I don’t even know if I have a tea vocabulary anymore. I get the thick, almost waxy and candle-like (in the best way possible) breadiness that lends this tea so, so well to having milk or cream in it, and the flavours I generally associate with pumpkin. I am no expert on what authentic pumpkin tastes like, but I know I like this tea for it’s pumpkin flavor, chai spices (although those aren’t too strong for me, I don’t think) and the candle-y breadiness that I love so much.

Let’s see how long it is until I write again! I’ve missed you guys!

Wow.

I took a gamble on this one and Garret did not lead me astray. Thanks so much, G-Mac. You picked a real beauty!

Method: 6g, 6oz, 200 degrees, rinse-10-15-20, sheng yixing and Goldie

Aroma: Smells very strongly of grape and smoked apricots, but it has a freshness that was very pleasant.

Flavor: First, this feels like butter. It’s creamy and so very smooth. It’s fruity and sweet, with almost no bitterness and only the lightest astringency on the finish. It made me feel all warm and it did not take long for my tea drunk wooziness to start. I have a sheng glow. A nuttiness starts to emerge, too.

I adore this tea. It’s amazeballs!

http://instagram.com/p/sicksFPkTp/
http://instagram.com/p/sidY09vkVP/

I was very surprised to get a Mandala box that I didn’t remember ordering. When I opened it, I found a note from Garret saying it was a surprise from my Teaplet Sarsonator and that my other Teaplet, the Lovely Tea Fairy was getting one too. At that point, this had not been released on the Mandala site and it made me cry. Sarsy went to a LOT of trouble working with Garret to make this amazing surprise happen and I heart them both a LOT.

Today we finally all three have our supply of this and we are having a Teaplet sheng party. And Holy Crap. This is so incredibly delicious.

I put 5 grams in the wee shengxing and away I went. The rinse was divine. The liquor is pale and golden and a premiere of coming attractions.

This is so fruity and smooth. It tastes like apricot jam with exactly zero astringency or bitterness. No smoke to be found either. There is that catch at the back of my throat that tells me I’m shengin’

I got a lovely and immediate full body creeping warmth and relaxation. I can’t EVEN believe this is a baby sheng. I love baby shengs, but this one tastes like it has a little age on it. It keeps getting better as I go through the steeps.

LTF remarked that it reminds her of my favorite (until now??) Mandala sheng, Wild Mountain Green and I agree in that there is a load of fruit, in this case apricot and a load of smooth and it makes for a gorgeously happy relaxed tea drunk.

THANK YOU MY DARLING SARSY!!!! And also Garret for making it happen!

It makes me feel all reverb-y y’all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4_5593-skQ

Feeling a bit exhausted. Things are a little too hectic at the moment. So I could whine, or curl up in a ball and hide, or I could just have a cup of tea (maybe six). I choose the tea. I finished off the sample. I am not sure if I have more of it somewhere or not. If so I’ll stumble on it later and be surprised. I have always really liked this one. The leaf is beautiful. The wet leaf scent is so vegetal and inviting. The best part though, is just sitting quietly with the cup and enjoying it. Excellent refresher.

I’m back at home from my marketing communications class, which should be really interesting I think. I found out I got an A in my writing class and that made me happy!

Figured I would have a warm cup of something. I hope this doesn’t keep me awake since it’s green tea. But when you look in the package it is so full of cinnamon chips and other spices I figure it has 1/2 the caffeine of a normal green tea.

Looking over the reviews, this seems to be a tea that people either love or hate. It’s very strong in the cinnamon department, for sure. I know there’s supposed to be an orange element in here but I can barely taste that over the cinnamon and clove. It is very spicy and even numbs my tongue when I’m drinking it (due to the pepper, I think). I thought this was good with a bit of soymilk in it, which made it more chai like. I may try with a bit of sweetener too. Overall I liked it fairly well but it isn’t for wimps. At least it isn’t as strong as the hot cinnamon spice from Harney and Sons, which literally made me want to throw up.

HI AGAIN. I GOT THE JOB! So now I have to find a new apartment in Atlanta. That’s kind of going horribly because there’s a service that finds places and will check for specials and the guy basically wasted my day by not sending that until 4:50 today…place I’m really interested in of course closed their office at 5. I need to move hopefully in 17 days otherwise I’m going to have such a time crunch if I have to wait until the next weekend. Ugh.

Anyway! I’m trying to drink more stuff while I also work on getting rid of stuff. I am going to be doing the whole garage sale-esque thing and I’ve started working on it but it’s a bit time consuming.

I even bought a new tumbler at work today for like $7.70 so that maybe I will have more. Which I am going to work on while I move…my friend said wine makes you more productive though, ha.

So I bought the set of 6 oz of this tea, plus a nice stoneware tumbler and a tin back when it was on clearance. I’m pretty sure I had this tea before from someone, and I liked it so I figured it made sense iced. And it was good…I sweetened it just a bit and sucked it down.

I always thought the cherry might make this taste like medicine but it’s just refreshing. It turns hibiscus pink but it’s not too tart, or maybe making the decision to sweeten right away took away from that.

Just definitely a good tea to have iced since it’s suddenly decided to be summer again here. More on the fruit side than the green tea side but of course it is Teavana.

I bought this one during Stacy’s birthday sale, and it’s been sitting in my cupboard, waiting to be tried, ever since. Now that I’ve reached my cupboard goal of under 100 teas, I’ve been going a bit crazy with drinking Butiki teas for the past couple of days… :P Butterscotch is one of my absolute favorite flavors, so this one was a no-brainer when I was making my order. The White Rhino buds are huge and beautiful, half golden and half dark. There are also a lot of flower petals mixed in, I assume for visual interest? Dry scent is very sweet and candylike, primarily butterscotch but I can smell a hint of mocha too. I imagine Stacy giggling with mischievous glee when writing some of these instructions… “level teaspoons” for this tea… not exactly possible. :P I just kind of guestimated what two teaspoons would look like.

Yum! Brewed, this tea smells very similar to the butterscotch disc candies that I love so much. I can also smell the hazelnut and a bit of coffee. I must say, the flavor was much lighter than I was expecting, since I had heard White Rhino described as somewhere between white and black teas. The butterscotch is definitely the main attraction, and it’s perfectly dead-on for butterscotch candies. The texture is very creamy and smooth, and I attribute that to the nuttiness from the hazelnut flavor. I must say, I don’t really detect any coffee or chocolate, but I definitely don’t miss it. The base tea itself is rather silent as well, though I do catch a bit of grain and I’m sure it contributes to the creamy texture.

I can imagine this being delicious and decadent with a bit of sugar or even a bit of soy milk, but I’m currently trying to abstain from adding things to tea. Still delicious au naturel!

On a side note, this is my 400th tasting note! Woo!

I am sitting in my living room watching the dog sleep in his chair as a torrential downpour floods my garden and the last candle from tea party is about to gutter out. Youngest has become passionate about cooking and has made the most wonderful meals and treats for the past few months. Today’s tea party treat was Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake.

This was the first tea of tea party, chosen because it is unflavored and won’t compete with the dessert, and has enough natural flavor to stand out and complement at the same time. I had forgotten how great it is, but thanks to the generosity of K S, we had three magnificent teas for tea time today that brought sighs…every single one of them.

Though the flavors section mentions astringency. I only tasted rich, malty goodness. Bready, yes. Cocoa, yes. This is a real tea shelf necessity and I am glad I got to refresh my memory on this one before placing my Teavivre order.

Thank you, KS, it was sooooo good. I wish where we have the option to recommend a tea, our choices were “No”, “Yes”, and “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Tea of the morning here. For some reason I haven’t been drinking this one much, I guess I don’t normally associate ceylons with a morning tea and I haven’t been drinking many black afternoon teas. I made this too strong by accident and it is extremely brisk but ended up getting mellow with a tsp of sugar and some soymilk. When it is made correctly, it has a nice fruity flavor.

Job searching has its ups and downs. I had two interviews last week and I didn’t want one of the jobs, the other one didn’t want me. So it’s back to the drawing board, I guess. But I’m trying not too get too discouraged because I want something that’s a good fit.

Hooray! I’m having this tea in celebration of getting my cupboard down to under 100 teas. As of right now, I’m at 99! :D I am expecting a few teas but I will continue to sip down some things, so hopefully I’ll still be under 100 when those get here!

This tea is so yummy. I’m having a really hard time not adding sugar, since I know it would really push the chocolate flavor over the top… It’s an addiction. :P Holding strong though!

Oh look! Steepster is behaving :-)

Let’s post a review!!

This was one of very few teas I hadn’t tried yet from WP.

I was curious, cause although Keemun are sometimes not my favourite teas to drink when too heavy on the smoke, the taste profile of Pine Peak seemed very different.

Well I agree: definitely not your usual full bodied keemun.

It’s much lighter, and I had to steep longer (for my tastes) and add a bit more leaves to achieve a satisfying cup. Once I did that, it was super tasty.

No trace of smoke or strong earthy notes here.

This is the fruit and grain keemun type. I get raisins and barley mostly. It is sweet and a little malty.

There is some kind of light pine taste to it, a little woodsy especially as it cools down.

I see myself drinking this on a regular basis, as a very nice everyday cup.

It’s raining this afternoon, took out my happy ladybug teapot, girly tea time!

http://instagram.com/p/sdQTcIwh7e/

Good morning Steepster—

It is foggy and gloomy over here, but what else is new? This is San Francisco!

Maybe this tea seems like a strange choice for the morning time, but it actually goes well with the banana flavored instant oatmeal I am having. I like the cinnamon – banana flavor here and it goes really well with soymilk and a bit of coconut sugar.

Hello, hello, hello…. Is anybody in there?

Broken Steepster is not much fun.

I had this one yesterday. This is a really nice young sheng. The first cup is almost subdued. Sure it is slightly bright like raw sheng tends to be but not in an overpowering way. It is slightly mineral and slightly mushroom, yet neither are strong or offensive. Crisp, I think fits this nicely. The aftertaste really hangs on and seems floral to me. The second cup has a bolder but similar flavor. I detect some hints of leather. The third is the brightest, with an almost puckering bitterness. Cup four returns to a much milder cup with apricot notes. The aftertaste lingers and changes from cup to cup. It starts floral then seems more like a tieguanyin. By cup four it has a combination of both. These have all been about 8 oz cups. I have no idea how far it will go but it shows no signs of letting up. Very nice. Thank you Teavivre for this lovely sample.