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“Beware the spicy salad! Holy smokes, dad! Your hot peppers are strong this year! whew! Now I wish I had a cup of iced tea instead of this tasty cup of hot tea. :( Luckily I had a cup of this...” Read full tasting note
“After some fun experimenting with hazelnut this morning I was in the mood for a straight tea, though nothing too light so I opted for this over Ali Shan. Unfortunately like the Dong Ding this one...” Read full tasting note
Tea sample from Taiwan via allisontsui
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Beware the spicy salad! Holy smokes, dad! Your hot peppers are strong this year! whew! Now I wish I had a cup of iced tea instead of this tasty cup of hot tea. :( Luckily I had a cup of this before eating my dinner. I don’t think I could taste anything other than burning right now. :)
First of all, thank you Allison Tsui, for sharing this wonderful sample with me. It’s a tasty Oriental Beauty. The smell of the dry leaves had me expecting great things. It was roasty and fruity and yummy smelling. The dry leaf looks great too. I love the varied shapes and colors. Dark brown, rust red, fuzzy white. Lovely.
My first sip of this left an impression of wet cardboard with an underlying flavor of plum and honey. This sounds bad, but it’s really not. Upon further sipping, I’m also finding flavors of toasty autumn, like with many dark oolongs. A very tasty tea.
On a side note, I’ve been trying to drink my stash down so I have had no new notes of late. I also find myself constantly wanting a black tea. I need to order some because I seriously have none. Stash depleting time is seriously the worst time to discover a whole new love for a whole new tea. I need more tea parties.
Had a weekend with my friends this past weekend. Made many pots of tea in hopes of conversion. They are still addicted to coffee, and sadly non-reactive to my favorite oolong. They liked 52 Tea’s Neapolitan Honeybush though! I’m all out of that now. ah wells. They’ll never get me to drink coffee and beer so we are even. :)
After some fun experimenting with hazelnut this morning I was in the mood for a straight tea, though nothing too light so I opted for this over Ali Shan. Unfortunately like the Dong Ding this one was crushed in the mail, this one possibly in both it’s journey from Canada and from Taiwan as Allison mentioned something about the Oriental Beauty when I asked about the leaves in the Dong Ding. Makes me sad to see tea bag sized shreds in a loose leaf sample pouch, but it is what it is.
That being said I didn’t have high hopes, but this one surprised me, it was pretty pleasant cup and I was able to get a good second steep out of it. It had nice cool camphor notes in addition to the champagne and leather notes. It actually reminded me of what I first came to love about Oriental Beauty, was only missing butteryness. My only issue was all the floaty bits that weren’t caught by my mesh strainer that got astringent. But overall it was actually less dry and sour than some lose leaf Oriental Beauties I’ve had. I’m sure this is amazing when in whole leaf form. Thank you allisontsui for your generosity.
Im sorry :( Im kinda alone in the tea world here too.
Yes, me too. My oldest daughter will drink peppermint tea on occasion. My youngest on the rarest of occasions will ask for a cup of tea but we’re talking maybe three or four times a year. My hubby tolerates my many incoming tea packages but has no interest in exploring the world of tea with me. I’m the tea weirdo in my family.
Hubby will taste tea now and then but only sits and shares tea with me once in a great while usually when I do a long session with pu-erh IF he likes the pu-erh at that time.
My daughter only will drink a few, – muscat oolong from lupicia and a couple others.
Only my daughter will even try matcha.
This is why we all have each other :)
It’s just nice to share something you love with people you care about, right? Seems like this love is something I’m destined to keep to myself. :)
I find the coffee habit so weird though. I went to college with these people and they never drank coffee then. It wasn’t until they started working full-time that something happened to them, and coffee became a necessity. I, on the other hand, drank tea all through college and drink even more tea today. What did I miss?
Nothing – I am sure they were drinking sub par coffee. I do love a GOOD coffee and I don’t mean starbucks but still you can’t miss what you never had nor do you need in your life.
True enough. :) I guess I’m just wondering what turned my friend from “Ew, coffee” to “Need coffee!!” To be honest, I think I could seriously get into coffee too except that the caffeine content is too high for me. The few times I’ve had GOOD coffee, I felt like I was going to die from convulsions. Even from Arabica beans, the supposedly gently caffeinated variety. :) …and I don’t drink alcohol because I get a pounding headache from half a bottle of beer. I have to explain why I’m not drinking every time I go out with new people. And I can’t drink soda or other carbonated beverages because they seriously hurt my tummy somehow. Also no milk cause lactose intolerant. No juice cause it’s too sweet. I don’t drink anything most other people like to drink! Just tea and water for me! I love being able to come to Steepster and talk to people about tea and be understood!
And to think, I never would have found this community if Teavana hadn’t absorbed SpecialTeas and forced me to look around for a new cheap source for my favorite chai. :) As Ma Ingalls used to say, “there’s no great loss without some small gain,” or something like that.
Wow, that’s a long reply. Spent too much time alone today. :D
Anywho! Any Steepsterite who comes to NYC can look me up and I’ll take you on a tea tour of the city!
I also only drink tea & water. I’m allergic to dairy, can’t handle sugar, coffee bothers my kidneys, alcohol is a BIG no-no. But with tea, we have so many options, so I’m happy!