White Monkey

Trying to get around to reviewing things that I’ve neglected lately, so I finally opened this sampler package. Delicate looking fluffy greens, aroma of sweet clover.
I just took the last sip.
Mild taste of alfalfa, slightly sweet, very bland compared to the other greens I’ve been drinking of late.
Now my mouth is dry.

I wasn’t looking to add a tasting note when I decided to make this. The downside of my Zojirushi is that once my temp is set to 175, I really have a hard time justifying bumping it up to 205 for one cup of black tea, because it takes what seems like ages for the temperature to go down again…so I wind up looking for other teas I can drink at a lower heat setting. I hadn’t had this one before, and it sounded like a good, mellow choice for a cup of tea to watch the sun come up with (on the tail end of a long stretch of consciousness, having been up all night).

It’s good. I like it. The other notes have said virtually everything that I could say about it — sweet, vegetal, light — with the exception of the fact that I got a slightly smoky scent at one point that made me wonder if I was losing my mind. Of course I think it’s not smoky in the least — it’s just the vegetal note — and for one odd moment my tongue misreferenced. Strange. It seems to combine good, basic green tea flavor with some qualities of white tea that I like, so while I doubt I’ll ever be ranting or raving about it, it surprised me with how much I liked it. Enough to write this very unambitious tasting note, at least! Perpetually drinkable.

The cup brews to a rather pretty light yellow. First steep was sweeter, second steep is still good. I’m not sure how many more I would take it to, though.

So I just returned from the gym and a hard core workout that was fueled by some dark Yorkshire Harrogate which I am so in love with. But I needed a green soft tea for my palette and I chose this one because I’m running out of greens and its only 1 of 2 I have left. Genuis I know. I’m very pleased…I let the brew cool more which is what I’ve been working on lately after continuous attempts at sipping it hot and not getting a burnt tongue. Well my attempts were futile to say the least! So now I’m detecting so many different notes with this tea that I’m finally letting roll around my mouth and REALLY taste for a change. WOW! DUH. I thought I just liked everything hot hot hot, but I’ll leave that to The Cure for now. There is such sweetness apparent now! I taste a sugar cookie like taste with this tea and its really good! Subtle and sweet and just plain good. I’ve taken it thru 2 steeps already with great results and am hoping for a 3rd. Yum…just a delicate sweetness of a biscuit and honey…good times. Third times a charm right? Let me go see..

The leaves smell perfect – that buttery toast scent. And I love how cute and curled and twisted the leaves are.
I smelled the liquor as it was brewing – it went through a couple interesting cycles. First it smelled just a buttery and wonderful as the leaves did. Then it went through a bitter cycle and then caramel notes came out. I’d be interested to try this next time, stopping it after 1 minute.
The final scent of the liquor is a caramel creamy scent.
The flavor I found lacking. None of the butteryness or creaminess came through. There was some nuttiness, but in a more bitter way than I like. The aftertaste has some nice mellow nutty notes though.

Geeze, what is it with me and being so critical? Am I too picky? I think I’m just comparing all teas to the one incredible tea I had a few years ago. I had a small sample of Jade Tie Guan Yin from teaspring and no other tea I’ve had recently has been as good. Yes, it was an oolong and this is a green so it’s not a fair comparison but it was just such an example, to my palate, of a really complex interesting tea.

I’m having a green tea type of day. Not really I just got in my adagio sample order in which I ordered several different samples of green tea. This one is slightly sweet and has the faintest hints of butter when I do that slurpy thing with my mouth. I like it but do not love it.

Savory, steamed veggie-like aroma. Starchy like a boiled potato.

Fresh, green leaf taste. Somewhat bitter. Very light. More boiled potato manifests itself, as it cools. But it stays amazingly fresh and green in flavor—like I can almost detect the chlorophyll.

Pretty satisfactory tea experience. It’s tasty, but a bit too mild for me. I will definitely finish up my sample tin, though.

Seemed very refreshing to me this morning! :)

The leaves are absolutely beautiful with the mix of green and white slightly crumpled curled forms. The scent dry was of a nice green tea with bit of “grass”(vegetal?) edge to it. When wet, the leaves smelled light, sweet, slightly grassy. I found this tea lovely through the whole pot, since instead of like so many greens, the grassy note is not allowed to become the loudest, and instead as a note in the harmony of the drink.

Wonderfully sweet and vegetal with just a hint of a buttery note. I love playing with the curly leaves before steeping and the fat, juicy buds afterwards.

When I think about a generic Chinese green tea, this exact flavor profile jumps to mind: slightly sweet and smoky with a vegetal background. There is absolutely nothing memorable about it but it isn’t unpleasant either. This particular tea is also on the mellow side with the dry finish that bites you on the tongue after each sip.

The second infusion is virtually identical to the first and I didn’t like the tea enough to go on with the third. The leaf looks and smells nice, the value is here but still the flavor is awfully boring.