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I popped over to Vancouver Island a week back to attend the Victoria Tea Festival, and while getting off the bus, I noticed a chocolate shop. I decided to pop in, because I still had about ten minutes before the doors opened, and… ended up pre-gaming the festival by buying this tea (plus some rosemary dark chocolate, which was really nice).

I brought the little travel-tin, and I find myself continuously reaching for it. This is a sweet, subtle earl grey cream, and it has a different kind of vanilla note that I don’t often encounter, but is very nostalgic of… Something. I don’t quite know what. The closest is that it’s orange creamsicle-like tea from DavidsTea?

The base is light, not too bitter, perhaps a little flavourless, but the vanilla/cream lingers pleasantly, and the “bergamot orange” listed on the ingredients is definitely “orange”, and not so much “bergamot”, weirdly.

I was at back-to-back festivals, and forgot to review some of the teas I sipped throughout them, so we’ll see if I ever catch up on that backlog. Enjoying this pre-festival tea.

Batch-tasting this at work right now, and just generally vibing with how it turned out. It’s similar in vibe to Vanilla Jasmine… An oolong to help round things out, milky, gentle, floral rosey-like lychee, sweet and slightly tropical coconut note. Lychee on its own can be very powdery-floral to me, grandma-esque, but it’s made slightly creamy with the coconut. It’s probably too light for milk, but also really inviting iced… If I hadn’t gone for lychee, I think this could have tasted really nice with rose instead. Rose Coconut Milk, hmm.

Definitely another tea that I held onto my original test-batch for. Been drinking a lot of this, and a lot of No.9 in between batch-tasting and pre-shipment sample-tasting. One of our main big blenders is out of commission and being worked on, so drinking this and staring forlornly out at it.

The most current batch of this needs to rest a bit though; the ratio tastes a little off, so I’m holding it back.

I roughly "gongu"d this so that I could use a smaller amount in my 100mL gaiwan. Three minutes.

Smell: Bergamot first, very well balanced. Light sweet trichome smell. Brewed, stronger trichome and malty sweetness. I’ve worked around very dusty, trichome-heavy teas for so long that I associate a smell with them now, a sort of thick, sweet dust.

Taste: malt, burnt sugar. Not getting any bergamot! As it cools, I get a bit of bitterness at the back of the throat, bergamot-adjacent. From there, the bergamot builds a bit with sips, but doesn’t get very strong. A little light, but the bonus is it doesn’t hide the notes of the tea at all. Citrus, grapefruit, molasses, honey.

Second steep at 7 minutes—smell the bergamot on the liquor now. Taste is light, citrus/grapefruit, honey. Most of the stronger notes from the previous steep are gone.

I feel like the pairing is well-done, sweet, light, balanced. It would be interesting to compare this tea fresh, as I’m sure the bergamot’s dissipated a lot.

Derk sent several extra samples with the Nepal tea box, and while I tasted all of them while recovering, I kept forgetting to type up my tasting notes. So once again, I’m trying to get back into the habit of transferring my tasting notes from my notebook.

97°c/22 seconds, no rinse, cold vessel.
Smell: On leaf, camphor and not much else.
Liquor: Pale yellow.
Taste: Quite light, hint of smoke and vegetable broth.

27 seconds – Liquore more orange. Touch of savouryness to aroma. Taste—brothy, layered smoke, touch of bitterness. Brightness—not quite sour, but makes me salivate.

37 seconds – Pale orange. Juicy, slightly tart and astringent. Brothy, light smoke and very clean. Slight floral notes, but definitely not a focal point.

37 seconds – Slight medicinal/“clean” smell on the nose. Taste has developed a “clean” note as well. Not chlorinated, just fresh—summrey? Floraly, iodine. Savoury, broth. Juicy, subtle smoke continues, but the astringency/bitterness has disipated. Salivating note persists.

42 seconds – Less of the “clean” note. Leaning back into broth. Vegetal, herbaceous, cooked.

60 seconds – “Clean” smell is back. Brothy, but no smoke. The floral notes and iodine becoming more priminent.

Lose track after this steep.

Following in the tradition of Nikaido’s other “well I have to, it’s got such a nice name” teas, it also helps that this honestly smells vibrant, fruity, fresh and delicious. This was actually the first tea I tried out of the bunch—as soon as I smelled it, I knew it’d make a nice iced tea, so I brewed it hot and poured it over ice the moment I’d gotten home that day.

I usually have a contentious relationship with flavoured greens… They seem to have trouble holding flavours as well as black teas, and don’t often live up to the smell. But I was glad I was right on this one—it made an excellent iced tea when I sipped it way back.

Hot, it’s still smooth and fruity. It has a lasting berry/generic curranty kind of taste, maybe the slightest bit of pineapple. The oolong in this blend I think helps round it out a bit more so that any straight vegetal notes of the green tea don’t overwhelm the fruit flavours that were added. As it cools, I get a silkyness on the tongue that feels like vanilla.

I think I definitely prefer this one iced, though it’s been a bit since I’ve had it that way. Vanilla tends to get lost in iced teas for me, but I remember it being wonderfully light, fruity and fresh.

So several weeks back I finally got hit hard by an ongoing health-problem, and landed in the ER after family medicine wasn’t cutting it. Cue several more ER trips, and finally an OR waitinglist layover, I got rolled into surgery on Tuesday and have been slowly recovering from home. July’s fucking sucked.

I’ve got a bunch of samples I want to try, gifted from derk during the travelling Nepal teabox, but Horrible Timing has them taunting me from a side table. I had to shift to working from home, which meant putting work-teas first.

But I’m stuck at home for a while now healing, which seems like a nice time to catch up.

Drinking the wash of this at 20 seconds, very light toastyness. Hasn’t fully opened yet.

First proper steep at 20 seconds isn’t overly complex, some grains, lightly sweet, toasty but leaning sliiightly burnt. No sourness in the roast.

Second, 20 seconds again, burnt and toasted, strong mineral note, and a bit of charred wood. Not getting a whole lot of nuance, the fruit noted in other descriptions not really coming through for me.

Third, 20 seconds, became lighter and sweeter. Despite being a pretty heavy roast, it really has zero sourness. The sweetness is definitely more starch-sugars than anything fruity. Since I’m not sure what year this sample’s from, it could be that it could use a re-roast to bring out some character, but it’s still quite pleasant.

Visiting family out in the Okanagan this week, so I indiscriminately packed a bunch of old samples I hadn’t visited in a while.

Gongfu, a bit slapdash in the setup I brought with me. About 95c water (mobile, so I can’t use the slider).

First steep was very light, but it quickly evolved into a well rounded, deeply aromatic and sweet mouthfeel. Stronger than some Taiwanese versions. Also surprising as I’ve had this sample quite a few years.

Cinnamon, slight savoury bright note, honey, a bit of malt and grain in the corners of your mouth. Makes me almost think of buckwheat honey, but definitely not that strong and deep. Slightest astringent on the tip of the tongue, Darjeelinglike notes of muscatel grape, a rose flavour, a little bit of stewed peach or apricot. But the fruit is very minor.