Gorgeous Geisha

Adventaggedon Day 1: Tea 3/7

I had mixed feelings about this being the first tea in the T2 advent because it’s not very festive at all – plus I think using Geisha in the name of a tea that doesn’t have any link to Geishas is also very weird. However it’s a pretty notorious blend from T2 that I’ve wanted to try for a while!

Overall my thoughts were that it’s fine but kind of unexciting. The green tea base, while always not my favourite, is smooth and I think it works well with the strawberry note because it almost gives it a more natural slightly underripe strawberry kind of taste. Pair that with the cream flavour and it’s just a nice straight forward/no frills strawberries and cream profile which is what it’s trying to be. I just thought it was a little flat overall.

Advent Day…. 13?

Didn’t drink this on the day of and I’m pretty sure it was from yesterday. I cold steeped this, the scent just seemed to be calling for it. It’s a little astringent, but I bet that would go away if I were to have it on ice and dilute it. It does have a tasty strawberry flavor to it that is very bright. Cream would probably be delicious in this as well. As good as this is, it doesn’t seem any different than any other green strawberry tea I’ve had. I think I had a tin from Kusmi and one from Lupicia and maybe somewhere else. Some other flavor combo would have made it stand out to me. Cinnamon, maybe a chocolate, almond… something to make it more dynamic.

First of all – the smell – DIVINE. You can instantly smell lots of strawberries, mouthwatering, juicy, creamy and just delicious!
The flavour doesn’t disappoint. It’s a crowd pleaser, very creamy and easy to enjoy. I think this could be a great entry-level green tea for anyone who doesn’t like (or just think they don’t like) green tea. When properly brewed it’s not bitter at all, it’s sweet, but not sickly sweet. Well-balanced and subtle. Creamy goodness. The strawberries do leave a significant aftertaste but it’s not artificial at all. How T2 did it – I have no idea, must be some wizardry.
I will be buying more for sure. It would make a great gift for someone whom you don’t know what to give, for anyone really. Superb!

Another Sampler Sipdown.

The dry leaves smelled of strawberries and cream. It was lovely. The brewed tea was weak. The flavor profile was not as fruity as I would have liked this time to be as well. The sencha tea which was the base was missing from the flavor profile altogether.
The flavor profiles from this tea reminds me of a similar tea from Murchie’s that was better in my opinion.

Another meh tea from the sampler.

This always seems like it should be a full-on pure green tea, from the name, but it’s a total strawberry pudding. With milk it’s a bit like a strawberry blancmange, it’s also great with honey/sugar or just plain. If you’re green tea averse or find green teas bitter, give this a go.

I really like green tea but if I’m not in the mood it can be a bit too bitter for me to want to finish. This just adds a bit of sweetness to the mix with the strawberry flavoring that makes me want it all the time.

Sampler Sunday! This is the last of the mass discounted T2 sampler stash I bought back in January 2018. This is a strawberry-flavored green tea.

The steeped tea has a lovely sweet-yet-tangy berry aroma wafting from the cup, and it’s a very bright yellow color. The flavor is quite nice, but I think if this had been steeped any longer than the two minutes this would have gone vegetal astringent — that was probably the maximum for the amount of leaf that was in my doubin as it tastes quite bold and just verging at being pushed for a green tea. Thankfully, it is not, and also thankfully the green tea base itself isn’t overwhelmed as I am tasting a really nice grassy flavor from the tea that I think compliments the strawberry well, especially to bring out a “spring garden” sort of vibe. The strawberry in this is actually really nice and I think I prefer it to a lot of strawberry flavorings I’ve tried, because there is a nice tart bite to it! It hits the tongue with the typical candy-strawberry mellow flavor that I usually get from strawberry flavoring but very quickly turns tangy and berry-like on the back of the tongue, and since tart/tangy flavors are particular favorites of mine, I find it very appealing. I do think that if I could compare this side-by-side with Lupicia’s Tokio that the base green tea from Lupicia was better and they also had a comparable noteworthy strawberry flavor, so if I wanted to stock a strawberry green I’d go for Lupicia; Lupicia also sells in smaller sizes (50g) compared to T2 (100g). Size matters. * shifty eyes *

Nice pot for Tea-ster. I don’t celebrate myself, but wish well to my Steepster crew that does!

This was a surprising one. It’s interesting to try samples without reading full descriptions, and oddly, the first impression I had from this was “melon” — which is not a flavor I usually want or look for outside of actually eating the real fruit … but I found this delightful. Okay, now I get that this is strawberry, but to me it does not scream strawberry. I do get the creaminess, unexpected (to me) in a green tea, and the fruitiness, which don’t necessarily seem that compatible in my mind (creamy, fruity … green tea??), but for me it really is nice, and I could drink it all day because it’s also light and refreshing.

340/365

This is pretty simple – a sencha base with strawberries and cream flavouring. The dry leaf smells fruity – mouthwateringly so – but I wouldn’t necessarily have said strawberry straight off the bat. Fruit punch, maybe?

Fortunately, it tastes like strawberry. It’s quite subtle, but it has a really delicious background creaminess. They definitely nailed that aspect! The strawberry is candy-like and obviously not natural, but it’s not glaringly artificial either. I feel like it strikes a nice balance, and it’s pleasantly sweet and desserty without being cloying. The sencha base is smooth and very lightly vegetal, but that works well with the strawberry so no complaints.

While I’d say this is a nice strawberry green, it’s probably not one I’d go out and buy in full-size since the packaging is so awful – and, to be honest, there are lots of similar teas out there. This one’s good, but it’s not exceptional. Just…nice.

Talk about damning with faint praise!

Work – 4:00 PM

There’s not really much to be said about this tea.

It’s an unremarkable Japanese green tea that tastes of grass and dried leaves with an unremarkable artificial strawberry candy-like flavoring.

Meh.

There are definitely better strawberry green teas.