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Once upon a time I found a very sweet note in this tea. As if sugar had been added to it when I hadn’t actually put anything in it at all. I’ve been trying to find that sweetness again, but I just can’t. I feel a bit like Sophistre in the quest for caramel notes in her Jackee Muntz from Andrews & Dunham. Only not yet as frustrated with the lack of success.

Keyword here is “yet”.

How the heck did I do that?

I do hope I’ll figure it out. I know it’s there. I know I didn’t dream it up. I’ll just have to play with temperature and steeping time a little more. I’m beginning to suspect the secret lies in the temperature, because altering the steeping time hasn’t really yielded any results. Or, actually, that’s not true, there has been some results. A fair number of yummy cups, yes. Sweet notes, no.

If the temperature is indeed the key to this puzzle, then I guess I’ll have to invest in a thermometer of some kind. Just… counts money Not right now.

In the meantime, I can bypass the frustrating hunt for sweet notes. Yes, I know this pinch of cane sugar is cheating, but it gives me (almost) what I want without the hassle. So sue me.

Good morning, Steepsterites.

I got this one from TeaEqualsBliss, and actually tried it for the first time a little while ago. I took backlog notes then, so this post is going to be a combination of three different sessions with this particular tea.

The first time I had it, I paid attention to the aroma, something I neglected to do with the other two times. It actually smelled like milk chocolate. Not cocoa, like so many supposedly chocolate-flavoured teas do, but real chocolate that you could eat.

I found the flavour to be sort of hazel nutty and chocolate-nutty, but no the same sort of milk chocolate that I had found in the aroma. That was a little disappointing. It had an ever so slightly flowery note which makes me wonder what those orange bits in the leaves are. Given that it’s a valentine’s blend, my first instinct is rose petals, but orange rose petals? Anyway, it was possibly a little oversteeped as it had turned ever so sllightly bitter. And as for the strawberries, uh, where exactly were they? I couldn’t find even the smallest hint of fruit in either aroma or flavour.

All in all, I wasn’t particularly impressed and would have given it around 40-50. It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t good either.

Second session was last night when I decided to take a cup with me to bed while reading. Not really sure what I did. I used the regular amount of leaf and boiling water. Then I winged it on the steeping time and eventually poured a cup, suspecting that it had had just a wee bit too much.

That was a whole other story! The chocolate-y bits of the flavour and the slightly floral bits were more milk-chocolate-y this time but otherwise the same as before. But THERE! There they were, the elusive strawberries. Very very clearly. A fruity sweetness just underneath all the chocolate-y notes.

Much, much better, but still not something that I would say was amazingly awesome. Based only on this session I would have gone up to 65-70 points.

Encouraged by the second session I decided to make up another pot of it this morning. I wanted that sweet strawberry and milk chocolate again. Just a shame that I didn’t actually know how I had really brewed it the day before. I used standard amount of leaves and boiling water, but when it came to the steeping time I had no clue. So I had to wing it.

And guess what I got. First session again. Slightly bitter, very hazel nutty and not even remotely sweet or fruity. Apparently this is a tea that has to be steeped just so to be at its best.

I’m rating it as a compromise between these three sessions.

Yes, yes, I know, I’m supposed to be eddicated in japanese greens. But I had that lovely sencha yesterday (and this morning) and tonight I was supposed to have one of the other ones for a bit of comparison. Thing is, though, I’m absolutely and completely pooped. Weird really with how little I’ve had to do (apart, that is, from my previous post. Said pathologist is a very friendly guy. Just… keeping track of him is like herding fleas sometimes)

Anyway, I don’t think I can think well enough to actually sit here and learn stuff about green tea. So I thought I’d just go for something I know, something that I don’t have to think that much about. I’ve got a generic gunpowder of unknown origins and that one is fairly… ordinary.

But then I saw this tin. And realised how long ago it’s been since I had any. That is so not okay!

Oh my yummy Pai Mu Tan! Nomtastic!

You know… disregarding the fact that I was impatient with the water and didn’t let it get cool enough, so it’s gone a bit bitter. The walnut stopped being so obviously walnut. It still has that round, slick flavour though, so all is not lost and it’s still a lovely cup.

Just ever so slightly abused. Bit like me. Thank all deities tomorrow’s wednesday!

Just sitting here waiting for the pathologist to show up, so I figured I might as well start telling you about my morning travel-cup tea today. Because you know how it is. Start doing something else, and they’ll show up. Quite surprised he isn’t here already, actually.

Anyway, I was feeling lazy this morning but I wanted to bring some tea along. I don’t always, it depends on what I feel like and how (yup, there he was, and now he’s run off again) sleepy I’m feeling. This morning I wondered whether or not to brew up a batch something or other inconsequential, but I couldn’t be bothered and the leaves from last night were right there

I have to say though that third steep wasn’t as successful as the first two. Very little flavour to speak of. So either it can only do two proper good steeps that I can be bothered to drink or it’s just not suited for travelling. I tried drinking some of it with the lid off too, but I didn’t really get much out of it. It wasn’t that it just tasted like warm water, but it wasn’t the same thing as last night either. Thinner maybe. A bit more… generic, sort of.

It’s difficult to explain, but it’s not really something I think I’ll do again. I’d probably try a third steep at home in my proper porcelain teapot and see how that goes, but not for travelling. Definitely not for travelling.

And the pathologist left again… We’ll never get done.

I can haz stealth tea!

As in I once mentioned not being very familiar with japanese greens apart from some sencha way back when and a few assorted and barely remembered samples. And genmaicha, of course, which is almost a category all to itself. This lead to a swap between EvaPeva and myself, only yours truly sent out a package and then forgot all about.

Imagine my surprise when I find a big yellow envelope in my letterbox this afternoon! This day started out with some pretty solid reluctance to go to work, finding out that work wasn’t actually so bad (following up Uber-Bad tuesday with a day in which everything just works.) and then coming home to this! Only downside is now I’m wondering if I’ve ripped EvaPeva off, because… pokes selection Wow. Let’s just say that I am most definitely about to be edumacated in japanese greens!

Anyway, after wibbling for a while about which one to try first (and writing the intro to this post), I decided on a sencha because that’s always the first one that comes to my mind when I think ‘japanese green’ and because there seems to have been an outbreak of people singing the praises of sencha lately. I was feeling a little inspired by that.

The leaves have a lovely colour. Such a deep, dark green, like pine needles. That’s one of my favourite colours, so that’s a few points in favour right there. They have a sweet, grassy smell too which is actually really nice. It’s funny, I’m sure I’ve used the word ‘grassy’ before, but it wasn’t until I smelled this one that I really feel like I figured out what I actually mean with that.

I don’t own a fancy-pants thermometer and usually when I need water of a lower temperature than boiling I just wait and let it cool off for a bit and wing it from there. I have a funny instinct that with this one I should wait just a wee bit longer than I usually do. Not sure why, it’s just an feeling, so I’m going with that and arming myself with patience here. (Maybe at this point I ought to actually go to Adagio’s site and look it up…). So here we are. Waiting. Patiently. Or something.

Okay, I’ve waited long enough!

It has that funny radioactive neon yellow-y green colour that makes me wonder if tea can actually glow in the dark (wouldn’t it we cool if it could?). I always thought that the smell of genmaicha must be largely due to the popped rice, because it had this toasted sort of smell. Not like popcorn, but something kind of along the lines. I’ve just discovered that that wasn’t really the rice at all. Not unless someone invented invisible rice. It’s a green sort of toasty though. I have a suspicion that I ought to be able to recognise this aroma as being similar to something else. Just can’t think what it could be. Asparagus maybe? Or something like that.

For such a relatively pale tea it sure does have a lot of flavour. A LOT lot! I’m thinking spinach here. And a little butter.
Second cup has a bit of a bite to it what with the way I have the leaves loose in the pot and all, but it’s still that same spinach-y flavour underneath. With a little butter. And a lot of bite. This is also where that toasty, slightly nutty, flavour comes out more. I don’t think I’ve been oversteeping my genmaicha, as I was barely even steeping it at all, but I’m definitely recognising the flavour from there.

…Sooo, if I drink a tea that smells like asparagus and tastes like spinach, does that mean I can get out of eating my greens?

Anyway, lesson the first in japanese green: Very nice! I could fall for this one. Next will be to see how this particular one holds up to other senchas. An adventure for another day.

Can’t be bothered to actually type out a whole entire post on this right now… This is what a ‘raw’ post looks like… Take it as a silly interlude or some thing…

must live up to pu ti cha
colour as orange as an orange (artistic leaves!)

can’t find chocolate-y note, may have somth to do w steep time and temp. also not sure ab leaf am in this pot

taste alm black, but not quite. sweeter than aver black and strangely w a peppery note.

Can find same sort of floral sweetness that is more floral than sweet.

live up to pu ti cha? yes, tastewise (special wise it can’t cos not sanctified)

knocking off a few for non-sanctifiedness, 85-90

Here’s another Irish breakfast that TeaEqualsBliss sent me. It’s been a while since I had the one from Adagio and all I remember about that one at the moment is that I could pick up the cardboard-y Assam and that the Assam and Ceylon, none of which I’m completely sold on on their own (especially the Ceylon), came together to show me whole new levels. We shall see how this one fares in comparison.

The leaves are all golden and large and pretty so that’s a good start right there. After steeping it has that honey-y Assam smell and it’s pretty strong in the beginning, but once the cup has been sitting for a bit it it goes away and becomes more of a hint. Underneath that it just smells rather like a Ceylon and it’s making me hesitant to taste it because it makes me expect that wildly astringent, tannic flavour.

Oh well, here goes.

Yes. Ceylon. Definitely. Not as astringent as I had feared, but there is definitely some of it there. The Assam cardboard-y quality is there too, but it’s just sort of flat and it gives me a funny aftertaste. Normally I like it when a tea lasts, when there’s a lingering aftertaste, but this one is really kind of odd and borderline unpleasant.

I don’t have any milk around the place at the moment which I believe would improve that a whole lot, but half a teaspoon of cane sugar seems to bring out the honey note of both teas a little more and that helps.

Astringency levels are rising though, which I could definitely have lived without.

I have a smaller sample of this than I do of Adagio’s Irish Breakfast, and I’ll have to say that I really prefer Adagio’s here. I’m planning on investing in an Irish Breakfast from AC Perch’s rather than getting Adagio’s, but this is making me wonder if it might not be best to stick with Adagio and not rock the boat. I probably will still get AC Perch’s because I’ve been otherwise so pleased with their teas, which is definitely not something I can say for Adagio, but I’m feeling a bit apprehensive about it all right now. I do wish AC Perch’s would offer samples instead of that 100g minimum limit.

This is what’s for dessert today.

Lovely. Really, it is.

It’s just… I’m really craving the infamous raspberry oolong tonight and I’m coming to the conclusion that I have precious few fruity teas in the flat.

I’ll sip this and read a few pages of my book while waiting for Top Gear to come on.

(And OMG I just realised something completely unrelated RE Mariages Freres…!!! No, I’m not saying. Don’t want to get my own hopes up. Be_LIEVE_ me, if I’m right, my Steepsterites, you will find out. All in due time.)

The last of this, and thereby also the last of three different Darjeeling teas I once received as a gift from a friend I met elsewhere on the internet. She lives, or lived at the time as she appears to have disappeared from the internet, in Darjeeling and from what I understood bought her tea more or less directly from the estate. Cool, eh? She sent me this white tea, a first flush and a muscatel. I finished off the latter two long ago.

I had this on the to-be-finished pile, but I was finally inspired to finish off the rest of it now when I watched a program on Viasat History with Victoria Wood travelling around the Commonwealth and visiting the former British colonies and specifically places that were named after Queen Victoria, as she were. Naturally she also came to Darjeeling and was presented with the idea of ‘white tea’, supposedly for the first time. “Everybody knows tea is brown. Two sugars. And milk. Indian tea. From China.” or some such I believe her bemused quote was.

Anyway, she visited an organic tea plantation, the owner of which was called Rajah. I remembered that Makaibari is organic and I thought I remembered having heard that the owner was called Rajah, but they didn’t say anything about estate name or even family names, so I wasn’t sure until they gave her a cup of white Darjeeling tea called Silver Tips Imperial, which had fetched a record-high price making it the most expensive tea in the world at the time. Then I was sure. It was this one.

Cool!

Victoria Wood found that she liked it and that it was quite subtle in flavour. Rajah told her that it had four ‘layers’ or ‘levels’ or some such of flavour, but unfortunately didn’t go further into the subject. Or if he did, they didn’t show it. My tongue isn’t really developed enough to discern whether or not it does and I’m not experienced enough with Darjeelings in general either, but seeing as the Estate has been owned by his family for generations I trust the man to know what he’s talking about.

I can only find a nutty basic flavour with a flowery note on top. Maybe a hint of grass. Rather nice but not overwhelming for anything else than it being so unusual.

I do wish I knew what those four levels Rajah mentioned were. Like having a cheat-sheet to tea.

Last of my sample! Another one off the to-be-finished pile. I’m beginning to believe there’s hope for me there.

I put all my Adagio samples on that pile. I don’t know. Some of them were really nice, but none of them has been delicious enough that I wanted more, and most of them I’ve just grown bored with. This one is the last of the fruity ones, not counting the Valentine sample that TeaEqualsBliss sent me and in which I can’t for the life of me find any strawberries try as I might. (I haven’t posted about this yet, but I have taken notes. It’s one of the ones I’ll be backlogging eventually when I can put a post together)

But this isn’t about the Valentine.

For a fruity tea, this one is definitely decent. Slightly artificial in flavour, I think, but all in all decent. I seem to be more pleased with Adagio’s fruit flavours than with their other flavours. The cinnamon is seriously getting nowhere.

It’s not one I’m sad that I’ve finished off. On the contrary it was rather a WIN-moment that the pile had become a little smaller.

I don’t know. I used to be enamoured with Adagio because of their enormous selection of interesting flavours. Now I think I’ve just fallen out of love with them all together.