Mountain Organic Indonesian Green Tea

I kept skeptically thinking this was just a really lightly oxidized oolong. Perhaps it is from an oolong cultivar. The rolling style is very similar to beaded oolong, and indeed the scent gives some really fresh mountain greenery notes that I’m used to in high quality high mountain oolongs. The flavor is really sweet and delightful. It definitely has a plum or cherry taste to it and hints of floral, the type you get from high mountain oolong. It’s light too, the flavor isn’t really all that strong. I might be prone to use more tea leaf if I were to make this again, but I only had one sample. This is a good oolong-lover’s green tea or for someone who doesn’t really like vegetal tasting greens.

Finishing up this sample. Now I wish I had thought to taste this one alongside the Indonesian oolong so I could taste the difference, because this is a very oolong-y green tea. :) It comes all rolled up like an oolong, and the flavour is light and sweet the way some green oolongs are. Lightly vegetal, maybe slightly floral, like a breeze across a meadow. :) There’s a little bit of astringency as it cools, and it doesn’t have that lingering creaminess that I associate with oolongs, so maybe that’s what makes this more of a green tea. It’s nice, but I don’t feel particularly compelled to order more. :)

Marco Polo TTB

I’m soo excited about this box, I can’t even believe it. Like WOW.

I think this might be the tea labeled ‘the vert/green tea’, it’s the closest name for it on Steepster anyhoo.

This is a tightly rolled green tea! Surprising because lately I’ve seen alot of the flash fried, flat varieties. This is a refreshing change.

I put the water in and took the trash out. I came back and realized that I had forgotten to time it. Ooops. But it’s a recommended 5 min steep, so it certainly wasn’t oversteeped for the first infusion. Probably understeeped. Regardless- the taste is of a fresh spring green. Buttery and mellow and absolutely no astringency or drying. Usually for me water is a type of refreshing, and tea is a completely different type. This wanders into ‘ice cold water’ refreshing, even though it’s warm. I suppose more of a hydrating taste/feel that I get out of this.

Let’s talk about the leaves. I mentioned the dry leaf is rolled. Rolled/twisted and dark stripy green is how it starts. Then in the water it blooms. It slowly unfurls and it’s soo big! It’s like stewed greens in my Ingenuitea pot. Soo awesome. Tea for some reason seems better to be when it’s accompanied by a show. =)

Lewis & Clarke TTB

I must admit, I’m fairly enamored with these Tea at Sea teas so far. I love the nontraditional rolled shape (well, nontraditional for black and green teas). This tea looks just like a green oolong, it’s like it’s in disguise! The dry scent screams “green tea”, however. It’s a lovely mild vegetal and sweet smell with a slight grassiness. I decided to brew for 3 minutes just because it seemed like that time worked well for other Steepsterites.

Once brewed, the aroma is quite mild. I can catch some sweetness and a vegetal scent, but not a lot else. The tastes also can out very mild (I probably should have used more tea or steeped longer, but I’d rather err on the understeeped side). The flavor that is there is quite delicious though! I find that it’s somewhere between a green tea and a green oolong. It has that lovely sweet vegetal flavor, similar to butternut squash or mild spinach, and there’s also a light seaweed or marine note. But then it also has a light fruitiness that reminds me of the peach notes common in green oolong. Overall, very sweet, mild, and creamy. Love it! :)

L&CTTB

This is what this box is about. It was trying teas that I might not have, and finding ones I really like.

This is the second tea from Tea At Sea that I have tried, and I really like it.

It looks like an oolong, but it’s not. It’s a really nice green, vegetal but also creamy-like.

I seem to have come down with a bug that a co-worker had last week. I thought I was safe, but last night I had a little bit of a scratchy throat. I figured it was just my allergies. Then I woke up this morning feeling lousy. All stuffed, throat raw. Of course, we have football tickets and it’s the first game of the season and all that jazz. I go to the game anyway. Now I’m miserable. At least the team won and there weren’t any storms or anything.

From the Unflavored TTB.

Method: Test tube steeper. 1st infusion 5 minutes, 2nd 10 minutes.

First I was surprised that the steeping instructions recommended a five-minute infusion. Then I was surprised to see that the leaves were rolled and looked similar to a lightly oxidized oolong. These were perfect to watch in the test tube steeper. Their color change from lightly brown and muted dark green to a green that look alive as the plants in the backyard garden.

I think this one was beginning to fade – I didn’t get much from the dry leaf aroma. The wet leaf aroma has notes of seaweed and rice. The liquor is pale yellow-green and clear. Texture is creamy. Medium-bodied with sweet corn and floral flavors. The aftertaste is citrus-y and kind of prickly. A very interesting green tea.

After reading the description and smelling the tea, I knew I was going to like it. As such, I decided to try yyz steeping parameters, my first time trying the little water short steeping method (what is that style called again?), hoping for a more sort of special process.
1 tsp, 4 oz water, 185 degrees, 45 seconds
Boy oh boy is this good. One of the few teas I’ve ever had that I feel absolutely no desire to add anything to (I think theres been 2, maybe 3 so far). Sort of vegetal, sort of nutty, with a very pleasant mouth feel, almost buttery. I enjoyed rolling the tea around in my mouth and just savoring the flavor.
60 sec steeping
Still delicious and nutty and vegetal, and buttery.
80 sec steeping
More nutty, less vegetal, and I’m getting notes of something fruity. I’m also so of noticing a pleasent sort metallic or maybe mineral sort of taste at the end of the sip. I feel like I’m getting better at detecting notes that aren’t specific added flavors (;
100 sec steeping
Oddly this steeping I noticed more vegetal and less nutty. Still buttery texture. The end of the sip this time is super fresh almost like the feeling of jumping into water, if that makes any since. It’s also more minerally. This steeping really reminds me of the ocean for some reason. I don’t taste seaweed exactly, but it tastes like how swimming in the ocean feels, kind of. I don’t know.
I notice that when I write my tasting notes as I sip, instead of right after I finish, they sound crazier, and make me sound really amateurish, haha. Either way I really enjoyed this tea, and I’m going to have to order more!

Samples Only TTB

BLECH. This tastes like seaweed. I brewed it according to instructions and didn’t oversteep. It tasted terrible. Even with sugar, it was awful.

Another green tea I can’t stand.
It tasted and smelled of seaweed. Yuck. >_<
I even eat nori with rice or sushi but THIS was just … yuuuck.

Shame. Such CUTE packaging ;_;

This tea is delightfully smooth and pleasant. The taste is very clean and smells sweet and vegetal. The sip opens with sweet grassiness and finishes with roasted rice. It has a nice, creamy mouth-feel and reminds me more of an oolong than a green. The aftertaste brings it back to a nice sophisticated green tea, similar to a green tea bread. It has no bitterness or astringency.

Thank you Tea At Sea for the samples! I’m just trying this one now, sorry! I used half my sample package it looked like — 1 1/3 teaspoon. I’ll mention right now that the looks of these leaves and the way they taste is more like OOLONG than a green tea: the green bundles. I’ve never had a green tea like this that was so much like an oolong.

Steep #1 // 30 minutes after boiling // 2 1/2 min steep
The steep color is a very light mellow yellow. If this is a green tea it tastes like the mao feng types: like creamed corn or breaded corn. But the mao feng is also crossed with an oolong. There is a butteriness, a sweetness, a nuttiness, hints of vegetation (well, maybe because tea is.) It’s really very tasty. Almost like a milk oolong…

Steep #2 // 22 min after boiling // 2-3 min steep
This was another delicious cup. Less like a milk oolong this time around. But the leaves didn’t get that “oversteeped” flavor. The flavor of this one didn’t change like an oolong typically would, it was like the first steep but with slightly less flavor. I’d rather have that than the sharp oversteeped flavor. I really like this one, but I’d consider this an oolong and not a green tea.

Sidenote: I wrote this note before I noticed I mentioned most of the flavor notes that Steepster mentions! I guess my tasting is getting more refined!