4337 Tasting Notes
I am loath to actually finish this one, as it has one of the tea photos I love the most on the Steepster profile. Such a rainbow of colors. But I have ONE steep session remaining with this one. The flavor is mellow and capital P Pleasant. It’s a great balance/mix of ingredients so I can appreciate that this is named “Feng Shui”.
additional notes: I really wanted to buy more of this one, since I liked it so much from their one ounce pouch sale a couple years ago. I tried the old harvest again to remind myself what I loved about it. It’s so sweet and malty. This harvest seems like a different tea! Less sweet and malty and more like a brisk traditional assam. But also it seems more like the flavor profile of keemun?! I tried using the same steep parameters with the old and new harvests. I do like the older one better, but the new harvest isn’t bad either. Just seems like every other assam I’ve ever had.
Another apple tea from StarFevre! Thank you! Originally, when I first tried this in the year that StarFevre sent it over, it had an apple flavor that was quite good. At this point, the apple flavor is so OFF, due to the age of the tea, so much so that it will be the rare tea that I actually give up on and just throw in the garbage. I hate to do it, but the flavor is just Not Right at this point. I tried it yesterday and again today and I just can’t do bad tea. It was ONCE okay though! I will just have to think of all those teas I DIDN’T give up on! And I will not count this as a sipdown.
Totally counts as a sipdown, come on! :P
Nah, I feel to guilty about chucking it to count it as a sipdown.
*too
I miss Nature’s Tea Leaf. I had just fallen in love with several of their varieties when they closed up shop.
I agree, gmathis! If only we knew Nature’s source for their teas!
Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – July 2023 Tea #5 – An apple tea
I’m also trying to write notes for all the teas from StarFevre that I haven’t written for yet… from that big box I received years ago! Thank you again! I have been drinking them, just not writing notes. This is a Frank era apple blend THAT STILL TASTES LIKE APPLE. Nice. I do love that the description says the white tea tastes like “hay” — accurate and also appropriate for a pony/apple tea. It’s a good apple tea, aging great! A horse might enjoy this tea with the two favorite horsey things — hay and apples. I like it too!
2023 Ode To Tea – Part II – E
Finished off the last teabag I had of this! Again, the satchet teabag was already broken within the sealed package, so I had to dump the leaves into an infuser. The bergamot was still good enough. The richness of the black tea was still good enough. But…. nothing spectacular for me.
2023 sipdowns: 61
2023 Ode To Tea – Part II – D
Maybe it was the amount of leaf I used to finish this one, but this was quite the robust Darj! I do appreciate a dark Darj. Very rich and auburn colored. I’m a bit sad now this will be gone from the cupboard now that I have revisited this and I remember it is one of my favorite Darjeelings.
2023 sipdowns: 60
additional notes: Steeping up a cup or two of this in honor of a wonderful short story collection I just finished reading: ’I’m Fine, but you Appear to Be Sinking’ by Leyna Krow. I love underappreciated treasure box short story collections. There are plenty of squid in this book. Am I just now realizing the big sickle shaped yunnan leaves here have probably inspired the tentacles in the photo? I think this tea is growing on me… or my aging black teas are mostly faded at this point, so maybe the Aging Better teas are raising in my estimation? I can almost pick apart the flavors of the different type leaves in this one.
I almost used the Cherry Bakewell tea earlier for ‘C’ but that was for another prompt and IMO would be cheating. Since I have a billion ‘C’ teas, I found another for the alphabet challenge. This was a solid black tea!
2023 sipdowns: 59
Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – July 2023 Tea #4 – July 16 – National Cherry Day
I forgot about the cherry prompt a couple days ago, even though I ate actual cherries that just happened to be in the fridge that day. So I finished a cherry tea yesterday. I was never a huge fan of this blend, so I don’t believe I will miss it much.
2023 sipdowns: 58
