New Tasting Notes
Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – February 2025 Tea #6 -Your most “past date” tea
If only every tea had a “past date” on it, I might not have such a huge collection of tea. It might be a reality check once in a while. This is probably the oldest tea I have with me, so I thought I would include it for this prompt. It amazes me that a SMALL SAMPLE that I gave a rating of 94 to would take me TWELVE years to finish. See: reality check. This isn’t a tea I didn’t like! I guess I was hoarding it, knowing it’s such a unique blend. I was able to find another shop that has it: Eastern Leaf calls it Organic Lemongrass Ginger Carrot Apple Herbal Tea. Maybe one day.
2025 sipdowns: 10
2025 unique sipdowns: 9
Quite a subtle black tea that is not as robust as most examples of the category on the market. Its aromas are very floral with rose being the primary association for me. The taste is bitter and has a woody astringency as well as coffee-like sourness. There are notes of sap, peanuts, earth at first. Later, more of a “Japanese” character comes forward. The taste has more umami and hints of shellfish and wheat, as well as molasses and allspice in the aftertaste.
Flavors: Allspice, Astringent, Bitter, Coffee, Earth, Floral, Molasses, Peanut, Rose, Sap, Shellfish, Sour, Umami, Wheat, Wood
Preparation
I really like many Jing Gu teas and this one is one of my favourite ones among them. It also shows how well teas from this region can age, I am really happy with its progression in my home storage.
The tea has quite a vegetal and savoury character with plenty of bitterness, but its taste profile is really hard to describe. What I can say with certainty is that it makes me want to drink more. The aroma has a sage note. The taste notes include dry earth, bread, sunflower seeds, cocoa beans, parsnips, almonds and also a strong fennel one that persists into the aftertaste. The tea is thick, oily and a bit spicy.
Flavors: Almond, Bitter, Bread, Cocoa, Earth, Fennel, Oily, Parsley, Roots, Sage, Spicy, Sunflower Seed, Thick, Vegetal
Preparation
Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – February 2025 Tea #5- A tea you hoard
Well, even though I’m still hoarding two small samples of this Very Good Tea, I went and ordered from Golden Moon anyway. I noticed they still have their Madagascar Vanilla tea, so I couldn’t resist. Anyway, I have tried this a couple of times with various levels of leaf in the mug. It just isn’t as molasses/berry special as it once was. It was once such a unique leaf. Now, it isn’t exactly a BAD tea but now it’s just kind of decent. Nothing very unique about it. It’s still tasty, especially for a Ceylon leaf and Ceylon isn’t usually my thing. ah well… It’s all a gamble when it’s new tea harvests, I suppose. And the other samples of Sinharaja I had are probably some of the oldest teas I have, so I certainly couldn’t expect it to be the same flavor after all these years. The WORLD has changed since then. Ceylon has changed. The tea must change.
It’s been a l-o-o-o-o-o-ng time since I’ve tried this, but I remember liking it.
I have been thinking lately about their Vanilla Jasmine or Jasmine Vanilla, whichever it was. I don’t NEED more tea. I have been resisting for now. What a great tea that was, though.
Yep, I had to get the sample size of Vanilla Jasmine too.
They have sample sizes? Did you just enable?
Well, I should say one ounce sizes, not exactly samples!
Close enough!
Sipdown
The first time I had this, I noted that I would like to try with Bordeaux cookies sometime, and I realized today that I have some stashed away! I said in the original note that I had trouble finding the lemon flavor but the berry and lavender flavors were there.
Today the lemon and berry were more front and the lavender was present as well, but perhaps a little more subtle. The lemon almost came across minty to me.
While it was a good tea, the pairing with Bordeaux cookies was not the best choice to me. It is possible that the mix of ingredients in the infuser had changed or that the cookies changed my perception of the tea, just as cheddar cheese can make unsweetened tea taste sweeter, but lemon and these particular cookies didn’t make my heart sing.
The bottom line – the first time the lemon was hiding, this time the lemon said, “here I am!”
Countdown To Catching Up – Tea 2
This is one of my faves from my recent blends. It’s warm & cozy without being too spicy – making it the perfect cuppa for yesterday – maybe not today, but I’ll just transport myself to yesterday in my head since I was out adulting yesterday (aka running errands: grocery shopping, doctor appointments, – you know, all that less than fun stuff that still has to be done & I didn’t really have the time to sit down with a lovely cuppa.)
This tea is also incredibly tasty, so even though it’s not “that” season any longer & we are quickly moving into Spring, this is still so good that I’m going to be enjoying it well into spring.
The black tea base is nice & smooth, the spices are warm & inviting & this makes a fantastic latte if you wanna go that way with it, but I’m currently sipping it hot, no dairy & just a little bit of sugar to bring out the spices a little more. There are notes of maple here – while blending it, I decided that if I were having an actual gingerbread scone, that instead of clotted cream, perhaps some maple butter would be more appropriate & that little bit of maple really elevates the flavor of this cup.
I don’t rate my own teas, but if I were to rate this, I’d probably give it an 89. Yeah, not a perfect score & that’s just fine with me. This tea isn’t perfect, but, I also don’t know what else I would have done to make it better. A delightful, delicious tea that brings a smile to my face every time I sip it.
A strong peppermint that is still potent after many years in my quarantine jar (where all mint teas go so they don’t contaminate my fruity ones) because it was in a sealed plastic wrapper.
Nothing particularly notable since all peppermints are pretty much the same. It is stronger than some other peppermints I have tried.
Flavors: Menthol, Peppermint
Preparation
I had two lovely cups of this tea today (one plain, one with a dash of unsweetened soy milk) and enjoyed both. I am your average rooibos enjoyer but I particularly love vanilla rooiboses. The woody mineral notes and the honey/sweet notes go so well with the aromatic vanilla.
What I like about this blend is that the rooibos has a lot of that sweetness I associate with honeybush, which is interesting. And the vanilla is quite intense, so you can rebrew it a second time and get a strong second cup.
Flavors: Honey, Mineral, Rooibos, Sweet, Vanilla, Wood
Preparation
Picked this up at last year’s Toronto Tea Festival and just getting around to it now (egads!). It’s spicy, ginger-forward and warming, with a richer tea taste to it than other chai I’ve tried. It’s really good, very enjoyable but I noticed a lot of fennel in it. Luckily, the flavor didn’t transfer too much to the brew. Picky note from me: this chai is a bit more finely chopped, so it tended to clog both my chai pot and the filter in my teapot when I decanted it.
Flavors: Ginger, Spices
