1737 Tasting Notes
Mint Chocolate Rooibos was included as a part of a sampler set of .5 ounce envelopes which I recently ordered from DavidsTEA as a way of familiarizing myself with their wares. I had never heard of this company before Steepster!
To be honest, I would never, ever have ordered a beverage by the name of Mint Chocolate Rooibos, left to my own devices. And this brew explains why.
Q: What happens when you mix mint, chocolate, and rooibos together in boiling water and allow it to steep for several minutes?
A: You get a beverage which smacks simultaneously of mint, chocolate, and rooibos!
So we have truth in advertising here! I drank the cup, and maybe the next time I’m craving some Junior Mints, I’ll reach for this packet again. It’s fine, just not me. Too many bells and whistles.
Preparation
Another yummy pot of Tazo Earl Grey Blanc loose leaf is making me realize that vanilla and Earl Grey really do work beautifully together! I’ll definitely be exploring more variations on the haute Earl Grey theme…
For now, let us simply rejoice that winter—and with it occasions for hot tea—will be with us here in Boston for another three months—or more!
Sencha Shizuoka is a light and refreshing sencha, as it should be! The color of the brew is very pale yellowish green. The dried leaves are rather fragrant, with the scent of something akin to spinach. The taste is clean and only slightly vegetal.
I drank my first cup right after my first meal of the day (which never takes place before noon…): a bowl of steaming Scottish oatmeal with molasses brown sugar and a dash of salt. Now feeling good despite the antarctic weather outside!
This is my first tea from Thé Santé, which does not seem to get that much air time around these parts. I’ll have to review the rest of the items from my order as well! Mostly Japanese…
So far so good.
As an experiment, I tried the second infusion using hotter water and a two-minute steeping time. It was very good and not at all bitter!
Preparation
I’m giving Harney & Sons Chamomile another try, and the first interesting difference from the last time is that this sachet contained visible chamomile buds. It must have been the luck of the draw last time, but the contents of the sachet were completely pulverized.
The scent of the dried flower is somewhat bitter, but the golden yellow brew is pretty smooth. In fact, I like this better than last time and am increasing my rating.
I’ll have to compare this sachet format with the filter bag at some point.
I don’t have a huge amount of experience with oolong, and I recall having encountered some in the past which did not agree with me. Out of curiosity, I decided to gamble on the Touch Organic Oolong at TJMAXX because I was pleasantly surprised by their generic China green filter bags.
This light golden brown brew smells remarkably like genmaicha to me. There is a seriously cereal-esque flavor here—popped brown rice, to be more precise! The brew wafts vaguely also of barley tea, which I never really understood and have never been able to drink. But this taste is a lot closer to genmaicha than to barley. Does it taste like oolong? That is the question.
I finished the cup, so clearly this is potable. I’ll probably drink this now and then—whenever I am craving genmaicha but have none on hand. Perhaps I’ll use some of these highly economic bags (five cents each) to take an oolong bath…
update: okay, now I’m getting the weird headache-y feeling which I recall having experienced in the past with some oolong and jasmine teas. Having second thoughts. Not quite to the point of gag reflex, but something has gone wrong here… Probably won’t drink this tea after all.
Is it possible to be allergic to some treatments of oolong????
Preparation
How are you with black or green tea?
I did have a pomegranate oolong tea that did that to me, but very inconsistently — I drank all of it and was fine most of the time, but a handful of times it gave me a vague headache, very weird.
Starfevre: I love black tea and green tea, and I never, ever feel nauseous from either one of them! There is something in jasmine and oolong which appears to be incompatible with me, alas. It’s a strange sensation. I should say that I sometimes feel that way with very light-roasted coffees as well. I only like dark roast, preferably super-dark roasted. So maybe it has something to do with being neither fully cooked (black) nor quite raw (green)? I don’t know. It’s too bad, though…
Yeah, that is too bad. Only suggestion I have is to try a quality oolong, maybe an organic one and see if it still does the same. Honeybush gives me a headache so I understand your frustration in taking out an entire type of tea from your life.
Another bizarre case where I have found the cup prepared using a filter bag better than the previous pots using loose tea! Probably this is because the filter bags are carefully constructed so that even the most inept tea brewer on the planet cannot mess up.
Delicious and smooth today—with light cream as before. Glad that I have a box of 50 of these filter bags—now 49 and soon to descend…
This still seems a bit tannic to me, but maybe it is the extra citrus added?
When in doubt, drink sencha.
When not in doubt, drink sencha.
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Therefore, drink sencha.
