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Rishi was the first ‘real’ tea company I was introduced to. I’ve kept this tea stocked in my tea cupboard consistently for five years, and I return to it to measure other teas, to measure my own palate.
This time, the Jasmine seems unbalanced. I taste the sweet gentleness of the green tea first, and then an astringent, pungent Jasmine taste after. There isn’t a connection between the sweetness and the astringency – the flavor just jumps from the first to the second without warning. Surely, this can’t be how it’s always tasted, right?

This tea reminds me of coffee – not so much in the flavor, but in the thickness. Sometimes tea can be thin tasting, pleasant, but tasting more of water than of much else. This tea has serious weight and body, and could definitely serve as a morning pick-me-up in the place of strong coffee.

I’m tasting tobacco on the breath out. Way better than any morning cigarette I’ve ever had.

This tea tastes luxurious, and it’s making me think about other luxurious things. While sipping and letting my mind wander, I thought about going to the grocery store. Instead of my usual spare fare, I pictured buying steaks for dinner. Though the tea doesn’t have any meaty flavors, it somehow makes me want to go on tasting decadent things.

I taste this tea mainly with my tongue and the roof of my mouth. It feels somehow like there are rows of complexity between the two (which is perhaps my breath). My tongue tastes sweetness, while the breath and roof carry a light bitterness.

I definitely taste chocolate, but it feels more balanced than other chocolaty teas. A milk chocolate with a small amount of sweetener, or maybe white chocolate. Usually I take time enjoying my tea, but this one was gone before it even got a chance to cool off.

The older I get, the less I enjoy sugar. It’s even gotten to the point these days where I barely like chocolate. Any kind of sugar just leaves this sour, chemical taste in my mouth. Does anyone else experience this?

Black Beauty is like how I remember chocolate tasting. Wonderful and dark, without any off flavors. I tasted this tea in my mouth for almost an hour afterwards – and the whole time, it felt like eating chocolate.

Some teas build up in your mouth, and you only feel like you get to know them by the end of the cup. Somehow, this tea feels like it front-ended everything. The first sip contained an incredible amount of flavor – but I forgot what it tasted like before the last sip.

Some of these well-loved teas get the most imaginative flavor descriptions in tasting notes. People taste orange, plum, blackberries – never just fruit. They taste particular loafs of bread and specific vintages of honey. I just love reading through them. My palate is not so finely tuned.
What I’m noticing most here is that this is a very “breathy” tea. After I take a sip, I can sit, breathing in and out for a few minutes, and I re-taste the tea on every breath out. The breathing is almost more pleasant than the actual drinking of the tea. Overall, the tea affects every portion of my mouth. Whether while drinking, or on the breath out, the flavor hits everything – my gums, all of my tongue, the roof of my mouth. My teeth? That is perhaps stretching the point… but my teeth do taste rather like this tea as I tongue them.

Getting a lot of chocolate and a roasted flavors from this tea. A mild malty sweetness afterwards. A definite structure of tannin and strong black tea underneath holding it all together.
I can see myself happily sipping this on a workday afternoon while the rest of my coworkers reach for their chocolate stashes.

I get a feeling that it takes a while to truly get to know this complicated tea. On first impression – this is a more well rounded cup than my other favorite oolongs. The flavor is strong altogether, but it doesn’t have a bitter or astringent note that other strongly flavored teas sometimes have. Also, I’m tasting a lot more grassy green flavors than I usually do in a ‘dark’ oolong. It coats the tongue somehow, but also manages to stay light.