Featured & New Tasting Notes

This tea was a lot better back when my palette was so under developed; I really got the butterscotch/rum flavour from it as a whole because I was knowledgeable about all the different things that makes that flavour up. Now I can pick apart all the contributing flavours and I notice what they bring to the tea individually more so that how they pair all together.

I think that’s why, all in all, I don’t reach for this or think about it as often now. That being said, when I do make it I still enjoy it – just in a much different way. I think it’s a pretty good coconut black, with some extra butter notes to it – it’s just not the same “OMG IT DOES TASTE LIKE RUM!” experience.

I guess developing your palette is a trade off; you can appreciate teas you otherwise wouldn’t have because all the nuances and finer details might have been missed, but things that you once enjoyed become maybe a little too simple…

Anyway, still a decent enough tea to end the night on! I’m not as let down as I maybe seem to be…

At least I did one of my chai’s right tonight – this one! I much prefer it with cream than straight, and like this it’s a wonderfully rich and delicious hot chocolate with chai spices. Exactly as described!

Terri sent more of this my way and I think i love it a little more than the first time. Bumping the rating up a bit but i am going to pass the rest of this on to someone who hasn’t had a chance to try it. Sharing is caring! This + maple made my day when we went out to the nerd store to pick up a game!

Of course it’s the case that this tea is no longer available and I made the creamiest, most delicious cup of it I’ve pretty much ever had. It was a most delightful cup of creamed white chocolate and peppermint milk. I still have the rest of the tin to get through, and it’s not a tea I reach for as often as I should given how much I like it when I do have it, but still: there’s something about approaching an eventual sip down knowing that you perhaps won’t be able to restock this tea again. ever.

In other news, Mr. Keychange and I, along with a few family members, went and looked at wedding venues today! I intended on drinking much more tea than I did, but that’s also because I woke up like twenty minutes before our wedding planner arrived to whisk us off. But we’ve chosen our venue, and have reserved a date! so so excited!

Oh, and i’m a complete tool and sent sil the timolino without the steeping basket in it! the poor girl was ridiculously polite and didn’t even say anything about it, when all at once it struck me last night while I was in bed. Definitely an ‘oh shit’ moment. Anyway, rectifying that one, obviously. LOL

Thank you Sil for this sample.
I’ve been wary of trying this one as it’s so beloved by everyone and that may influence my rating (as much as I will try not to let it) due to expectations. Well it’s time I finally try it, and on my black tea day. This tea smells sweet and chocolatey with malt and smoke, a very nice introduction.

Once steeped it has an amazing smoky chocolate scent that is sweet yet malty. The flavour matches it’s wonderful scent for the most part. I can note chocolate, caramel, smoke, malt and dark fruit notes like fermented plum. It’s of medium strength with a nice sweetness and remains very smooth throughout. Has a little dryness in the after taste.

I really enjoyed my pot of this today and so did my husband, it reminded me a little of Teavivre’s Fengqing Dragon Pearl. I would definitely buy some of this for regular use if I was in US/CAN.

This morning, I’ve been sipping on Special Dark. It’s my second review of it.

You know a tea is good when at the end of your cup, just to make sure you’re not leaving one tiny drop behind, you make a slurping sound that could totally compete with your vacuum cleaner.

I was in the mood for a decadent cocoa mouthfeel and that’s what I got. I like to steep it longer than suggested, not that there’s anything wrong with the predetermined parameters, but just because I can achieve a more bittersweet dark chocolate taste that way.

I still get raisiny notes as well, dried fruits.

I broke 3, yes, 3 Yixing clay pots in a short while. (Expensive habit).

Now that I have replaced them all, I’m very carefully preparing for the seasoning. One will be dedicated to oolong, one for Sheng and one for Shou. This being my favourite shou pu’erh of the moment, it’s been elected to serve as my seasoning tea. It brakes my heart to sacrifice it, but it’s an investment that will pay back I’m sure :-)

(Have to remember to order more than one once next time!)

mmmmm other tea i set aside to drink today even though neither will get me a sipdown (and i need 4 each day this weekend at least!) This of course means that I am now going to need to buy 4 tins from A&D whenever i get around to ordering. I pretty much stalk their website looking at teh quantity of this one to make sure i can get in on an order..and i mean if i’m picking up this one, i might as well also get red tail, tiger and one other since the 3 pack is a deal. I think? i had landed on double knit over caravan, though i enjoyed them both. That being said….i’m trying REALLY hard to make it through march with no orders…
I’m a fan of this. As terri said, it’s not a desert island tea but it is a damn fine tea. And i am also a fan of their tins so..yeah. loving this! especially with my bagel and creamcheese heh

Sipdown (199/201)!

I’m extremely sad to say that the sipdown for this one, which I hoped would be an enjoyable departing cup, was a disappointing mess!

For some reason I cannot explain (because I brewed it no differently than usual) this still up to be incredibly bitter and dry tasting – enough so that I couldn’t stand to fight my way through the mug, and I ended up dumping the cup after four or five sips.

What a let down!

However, I’m ready to move on; more cupboard space and back under 200!

I also just noticed this was my second pumpkin tea of the day, and I almost made some Pumpkin Pie matcha for “Pie/Pi Day”, though I’m about two hours late, except I ran out of milk. That would have been three Pumpkin teas in one day…

Pi Day is also my birthday so we have been celebrating! LOL! Well, it is probably a lot more subdued than most people’s celebrations, but that’s how we roll. Hubby took me out for steak, and although I love it, I rarely eat red meat. We have been eating a lot of vegetarian meals lately, we always have but we have increased it over the past few months. I knew I wanted to have puerh tonight just to make sure my tummy stays happy.

My cake of Red Rhyme is almost fully depleted now. I think I will be able to make this one more time. I made four steeps of 22 ounces each with what I broke off the cake tonight, and my hubby and my son and I drank it while playing game after game of Dominion.

Even though I had chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting AND filling – with strawberries on the side – after dinner, my tummy isn’t complaining. Oh, and there was buttered and seasoned popcorn during Futurama as well.

Even the fourth steep was plenty dark. Each steep was four minutes because we like a good strong puerh when it is high quality and not fishy. This one had a clean, slightly metallic or mineral fresh taste tonight that kept me pushing my cup to hubby for more.

I told him we are getting quite low on puerh, but he assured me that he knew there were ways to make more appear. LOL!

Bagged tea and pop tarts for breakfast, because it’s quick/easy and I’m still so exhausted from last night/work this week. At least I have all weekend off!

I’m really happy with my tea choice for the most part though; I’m just slightly regretting not picking something with lots of caffeine like a mate; maybe that’d be just a touch more helpful with feeling “bright eyed and bushy tailed”. At least this is tasty!

Tre just got up and immediately started bitching about the dishes not being done. Excuse me!? I’ve been doing all the dishes for the last month: you want a frying pan so you can make eggs? Fucking wash it yourself.

This is a fairly old one that I received ages ago from Autumn Hearth I believe the name was. I have made a note of it, but she modified her name later on and now appears to not be around anymore.

I’m not certain about these recommendations. I’ve been told 30 seconds steeping and I’ve previously heard that with this type of green it’s important to brew the first steep rather coolly, so I went for the lowest setting on my kettle which was 60°C. I’m just not sure that’s warm enough and/or long enough. I mean, I know I’m used to black tea which is tastes far stronger than the average green, but even so. This tastes rather thin on these parameters. It doesn’t have a detectable aroma at all and the flavour is mostly a juicy, veg-y splash in some otherwise fairly lukewarm water. Husband thought it was rather nice, but I thought it was mostly just a cup of warm water.

Not impressed at this point, I decided to go for a second steep and make the water 70°C this time and I gave it 45 seconds. This time it has an aroma, although it’s not a very strong one. It smells like vegetable water, sort of, and with that ‘fat’ note that I associate with green tea. I can’t really explain that one, it just smells fat to me. If a smell could have a shape, that’s what it would be. It has also picked up a smidge of astringency right on the first sip, but other than that it’s still mainly a cup of warm water. That veg-y note is coming through after a while though. It’s a sort of building up note, and it takes half a small cup to get it in any noticable way. It’s mostly right as I swallow and as an aftertaste.

Hm. I don’t dare make the water any warmer, because I think it will probably definitely go all bitter if I do, and I don’t dare make the steeping time longer either for the same reason, so I think I’ve reached a dead end here.

I shan’t rate this because I honestly don’t know how to rate warm water… Honestly, I think the leaf was just too old.

I still love this one. It’s just easy to drink, not fussy, not finicky – let it steep for 6 minutes on your desk and it just gets deeper with out anything nasty happening.
Honestly this one reminds me a little of Special Dark – yes this is more pu’erh esq – but it has a hint of chocolate and a lot of the notes of Special Dark. Smooth, cocoa notes, bit sweet, touch of earthy, just fabulous. It resteeps forever, doesn’t really go through too many drastic changes, just cup after cup of awesomeness.
If you like Special Dark, I’m suggesting you think of this one as it’s little brother. Similar, but just not quite as in your face.

In spite of my lack of posting over the last few days, I’ve drank my usual amount of teas:
Golden Fleece
Persian Princess
Golden Monkey Black
…just to name a few…
So, now I’m having this, & I really need it!
5G + 4oz blue lotus porcelain beautiful tiny teapot X (rinse) 15sec/30/45/ etc
I warmed the leaf in the preheated pot, & it smells like some kind of heaven.
…sigh…just letting go & breathing for a few minutes, that’s all I need.
The Breatharians are a sect of people who claim to live on oxygen & water alone. They tend to become very thin & frail, meditate a lot, & there are stories about the famous leader of that belief, who appeared much more robust than the others, & was seen secretly eating a hamburger somewhere, LOL.
I have no desire to give up food, of course, & I have no doubt that my body needs it. But sometimes it’s nice to just sit & breath. To sit & breath in the aroma of something wonderful, like this the lime flowers in my sunroom (the meyer lemon & kumquats are also getting ready to start blooming…oh heaven!). And of course, like this tea. The aroma is cream of wheat cereal, with a big blob of butter melted on it, drizzled with a really good honey. Once I rinsed the leaves, the honey aroma became even more real & prominent.
I could get by just on the aroma of this…I could almost just breath it, but no, I drank the rinse water, I wouldn’t want to waste a precious drop. I’m drinking multiple cups, & with each cup, like magic, I’m becoming happier. This tea has excellent qi, & in spite of it’s lighter golden appearance, brews up into a rich & dark cup of tongue tingling sweetness. I’m sure I could go on & on, but I think I’m gonna do a little Taichi, to further enhance my mood, & then work on my taxes, for a little while anyway. Namaste.

you know…when you’re SOOO close to finishing a tea that you think you can and then there’s just enough in the bag left that you can’t justify adding it to the cup because there’s really just enough to have another full cup of tea with what’s left? Story of my life with this tea hahaha. That’s not a terrible thing because i do love it, but i was certain this would be a sipdown! I’m not trying to sipdown things today but apparently i’m on a roll with them :) I’ll be sad when this one is gone, but i know it’ll be rotated in to my cupboard again, so no real complaints here :)

Sipdown (202/204)!

This note was much longer last night, but to my chagrin we lost our internet connection and I lost my tasting note (and couldn’t watch any TV finish my backlog).

Had this as a cold brew at work. In total, this sat for nine/ten(ish) hours. I’m actually really happy I discovered this one as a cold brew, because it was great for using up leaf, gets an older tea out of the way and tastes a lot better than the hot version. Win win win!

And as far as work goes, I feel like I’m really getting into a rhythm – not just with the job itself but with having a routine and consistent bedtime/wake up time. I feel like I was at a point where I really needed that.

But yes; this is gone now and I’m pretty ok with that. More cupboard space and all that. It was cool having this hand picked for me, though – and I still adore the name. I wont be surprised if I find it being added to future RiverTea orders.

And hey, I’m officially 19! I think that means it’s time to try some tea infused martinis…

My stomach still isn’t feeling entirely back to normal yet, and I also woke up for no reason at about 4:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep. Actually, that’s a lie: there is a reason. yesterday morning, I woke up feeling incredibly weak and exhausted, and knew I wasn’t going to make it into work. I ended up sleeping until about 4:00 in the afternoon, at which point I forced my zombie-like body to at least sit up. There are those people who, even in the absence of any sort of structure that requires them to be up at a certain time, will nevertheless maintain a fairly consistent and conventional sleep schedule—they may sleep and wake a bit later than the average business shift workers, but still sleep at night and are awake during the day. I, on the other hand, will revert to god knows what in the absence of structure. I think it’s due to a condition called “delayed sleep phase”, where you actually do sleep for a normal number of hours, but it’ll always be later than those in your time zone (and unfortunately this condition isn’t just corrected by, like, taking off to England, so I sadly can’t use that as an excuse). Anyway, sorry. You didn’t come here to read about my poor sleep habits.

I knew I wanted a lighter tea this morning, and that a black tea might feel too harsh on my stomach. This cup was a bit varied for me. Some sips brought me right back to the creamy wonderland of cantaloupe goodness I remembered, while others left something to be desired. There’s also the fact that this tea is more delicately flavoured, so won’t necessarily hit you over the head with intensity, and sometimes it takes a few sips to really recognize that and appreciate the nuances. But appreciate them I did. I’m dangerously close to a sip down on this one, but am probably due for a Butiki order soon anyway.

having a couple of my “green” teas before i switch to some of the caffeine free options i have tonight. Not because caffeine bothers me but because i feel compelled to also drink those up. I just finished looking at my cupboard list/spreadsheet and it turns out that i’ve tried 1600 teas! (well that i’ve logged anyway). I like even numbers… I’m also having a great night because the snow has been falling all afternoon and it’s fluffy and beautiful outside tonight! And i might just work from home tomorrow…so that’s always a good tea time! I’m seriously itching to place an order but i am TRYING to hold back. It’s hard….i want more cacao…and some verdant staples…and mandala…and damn fine tea and new companies… sigh resistance IS futile…but maybe i can manage to hold out for one more week to get me into late march! Especially since not having samples (though some are inbound in swaps) has me able to focus on my older teas! Only 14 teas left before i’m within 6 months of my oldest tea…i won’t make it for the end of March i don’t think…but it’s always a possibility :)
2-May
2-June
6-July
2-August
2-September

Oh the games i play with myself to encourage me to do this, that or another thing and have fun doing it!

This is very tasty this “morning”.

I slept through my alarm, and am still exhausted. Pain takes a lot of energy to deal with!

So now I’m off to the clinic to see my x-ray results, then to work for a few hours to hopefully manage the next step in an experiment. Not too sure about that, due to the sore, but I’ll see. If not, I have paperwork to do and I can do the next step tomorrow.

(1 tea bag for 12 oz, 1/8 tsp sugar, almond milk)

Same as many of you – yesterday it was sunny and near 70 F. This morning woke up to a rumbling rainy day. Now its below freezing and spitting white crap. I hate winter. Go away!

Also yesterday I spent most of the day researching, organizing, then actually preparing my taxes. So many new and unique things happened last year with our finances that it was a challenge. But its done. Today I had to calculate Estimated Taxes so I don’t get a penalty like the state is trying to charge me now. How are mere mortals supposed to know this stuff?

Basically what I am saying is I need a simple moment of relaxing and refreshing. That is where the last of this tea comes in. It isn’t pretentious. It is just simple green tea done right. It has enough depth to be interesting along with a bit of bite. Floral and green and just what I needed today. Inexpensively delicious.

A perfectly simple tea to end the evening with, and a perfectly simple tasting note to match.

Holy butts I can’t believe I turn 19 in one day! Ahhh!

HELLO Steepsters! It’s been MONTHS and MONTHS and I’m back! I’ve missed you! I just have to get used to the changes around here! LOL

Anyhow…LOVING this tea!
I enjoy sharing tea with friends and family…however…Assam Black Tea #8 from Zi Chun Tea Company is one that is quite hard to part with!

Read my full review:
http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/03/11/assam-black-8-zi-chun/

Another sample from Dinosara!

I don’t know that I’d exactly call it chestnut, but it is definitely nutty and delicious!

Really! It’s SO good. Reminiscent of chestnuts roasting outside on a cold day, really.

I’m having it with a little sugar and almond milk because I don’t want to be getting ready for work right now. So tired. So sore. And first up I have a 2 hour meeting of sitting in uncomfortable chairs, which… no. Maybe I’ll sit on the floor.

Anyways. This tea. Delicious. But if you’re completely and totally anti-smoke, don’t try it. It is roasting chestnuts, and all that entails.

It’s going on my wishlist too. :)

(1.5 tsp/12 oz)

I woke up with a stomach that was out of sorts, felt nauseated, stood outside for a while and inhaled the (temporarily nice) fresh air, and came to work. Now I’m sitting here nauseated again. How annoying. I think I’m just going to try and hang in there as long as possible, but I really hate stumbling into my boss’ office and letting her know I won’t last the day. I just feel I should generally have better discretion than that, and just not go in as opposed to going in to try your best and just look as though you’re trying to prove a point. ugh I’m overthinking things. What else is new.

Anyway, this tea is just lovely. A touch of astringency in the most refreshing way possible, and I never thought that a straight black tea could taste refreshing. But there’s also a fair dose of malt and sweet, and a hint of apple woodiness from what I’m assuming is the Darjeeling. This tea really does taste quite complex, but is so effortlessly beautiful in your mouth. I got 8 oz of it (what? it didn’t come in smaller amounts!), so am happy to share, but also don’t anticipate having any issue at all finishing it. I like it a lot better than Scottish Morn, because I just found that tea to be astringent and strong but not much else. And I don’t know that I really like very strong but otherwise uninteresting teas. This is a lot more complex, while still having enough strength to be a legitimately awesome morning tea. Absolutely recommend!

I cold steeped this one over night (12 hour total), and then poured it into a water bottle for my first day of work. It was great having some refreshing tea with me while training to make everything feel more comfortable/at home.

Taste wise, it was flawlessly amazing and just like it tastes hot, expect – well, you know, cold! I love how full out pineapple this one is! Umph!

As far as the first work day went? Really well! I thought the job seemed easy enough and that I was picking things up really quickly and the people who are (temporarily, until construction in my store is finished) my coworkers are all really cool! The break room is huge, and has a nice tea set up so for the month or so I’m at that location I think I’ll bring some simple tea equiptment or matcha over so I can make things fresh while on break! Very, very exciting!

Plus I have my schedule for the next two weeks and I’m getting plenty of hours! All good things!