3986 Tasting Notes

70
drank Sweet Apple Cider by DAVIDsTEA
3986 tasting notes

Another tea from the fall collection! This one is a mix of little baby dried apple pieces, crushed dried green leaves, and other tiny stuff. Dry, it smells exactly like those green and brown Caramel Apple Pops that I see around the holidays. There’s also some vanilla in there too. I steeped almost 2 teaspoons for 5 minutes in boiling water.

Brewed, it still smells similar to those suckers, but with a bit more tartness present. Hmm, I’m not sure what to say about this one… It’s unexpectedly weak, considering I used a lot of leaf. The beginning of the sip is sweet and somewhat vague apple/vanilla melange, but then midway through I’m slapped in the face with a very tart, sharp green apple-y flavor. Yowza! And then at the end there’s a weird aftertaste that’s almost mineral or chalky in nature.

This is a weird one, and it seems such a simple concept to mess up… >>

Flavors: Apple, Apple Skins, Candy, Green Apple, Sweet, Tart, Vanilla

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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93
drank Assam #8 by Tealux
3986 tasting notes

Yay, I have so many new and untried black tea samples now (thanks to Blodeuyn)! I was sad because I didn’t have any more new teas to drink in the morning. Huzzah! This one is first because I really want to try more Assams, although I have a sneaking suspicion that it’ll be very close to the Taiwanese Assams I’ve already tried, just based on the smell. But onward, to tea! The leaves are large and supple, definitely shorter but thicker than the usual creepy tree branch teas. Dry scent is incredibly sweet with lots of honey, along with cocoa and malt. I brewed mine for 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

As soon as I poured the hot water over my tea, I smelled cinnamon. Oops… I may have used the same infuser that I used for Snickerdoodle last night! :x Luckily for me, the brewed tea itself does not smell strongly of cinnamon, so I think it’ll be okay! Brewed aroma is very strong brown sugar with malt and sweet dried fruit notes (maybe a touch of cinnamon?). Yummm… There’s definitely a tad bit of cinnamon here, and I don’t know whether it’s inherent in this tea, or whether it’s from the infuser… Either way, it goes beautifully! This tea has a little bit of an earthy undertone, which I wasn’t expecting. However, on top there is a layer of lovely dark brown sugar flavor, along with fruit and malt notes. Oh man, I really hope that slight cinnamon flavor is meant to be there, because it pairs beautifully with the brown sugar. I suppose my next cup will tell me! :P

Flavors: Brown Sugar, Cinnamon, Dried Fruit, Earth, Hay, Malt, Sweet, Sweet Potatoes

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
Ost

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE this one!!!!!

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75
drank Snickerdoodle by DAVIDsTEA
3986 tasting notes

Another Diablo III tea! I dunno why I put off trying this one for so long, as it was the fall collection tea that I was most excited about. The dry leaf is a mix of rooibos and little chunks of things that aren’t really identifiable. Dry scent is sweet cinnamon with a little bit of a pastry note. I steeped mine at boiling for 5 minutes.

Hm, this tea reminds me of a milder version of Harney’s Hot Cinnamon Spice. It definitely tastes more like cinnamon candy than real cinnamon, which is a shame. There is a little bit of a nutty and/or pastry note there, and I feel like this tea would be really on point if they hadn’t mucked up the cinnamon part of it. And I’m not sure I like that it’s presweetened… I like sweet, but I know a lot of people around here don’t.

I added a touch of milk to mine and I think it improved it, so I’ll have to try this one as a hot latte and see how it is! :P

Flavors: Butter, Candy, Cinnamon, Nuts, Pastries, Sweet

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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88

Okay, so this isn’t going to be a very good note… Curse you, Diablo III, for causing me to ignore my teas! Ahem. These oolong pellets are super dark in color, almost black. Dry scent is roasty and sweet with mild cocoa notes. I brewed it for 5 minutes at 200 degrees.

It’s pretty tasty! Definitely reminds me of coffee, as a lot of really dark and roasted oolongs do. Also somewhat sweet and with a little bit of dark cocoa flavor. Yummy, and even very good cold! There’s no bitterness here whatsoever. :)

Flavors: Autumn Leaf Pile, Cocoa, Coffee, Roasted, Sweet

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 5 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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85

So another Butiki tea that I haven’t tried before, and another oolong! I’m unsure whether this is roasted or just oxidized? The pellets are very dark brown, but I don’t really get any of that roasty smell from them. They smell more mineral and earthy with some honey sweetness. Either way, onward! I steeped for 4 minutes at 185 degrees.

The brewed tea does smell somewhat roasty, but not enough for me to confirm one way or the other… It also has an almost winey scent to it, along with wood and some sweetness. Hm, that wine note is also present in the taste, which is very interesting to me. The flavor says, “yes, I am roasted” and looking this tea up on Butiki’s website, that is correct. This definitely tastes what I would imagine an aged tea tastes like, it has an almost alcoholic quality to it. It’s actually really reminding me of a mixture of red wine and scotch! Overall, a very interesting tea.

Flavors: Alcohol, Red Wine, Roasted, Scotch, Wood

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 4 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
Butiki Teas

This tea was charcoal roasted every 2-3 years. It is only lightly oxidized.

Cameron B.

It’s definitely very unique, and I enjoyed it! :) Thanks for the info.

Butiki Teas

So glad that you enjoyed it! :)

SarsyPie

Wow, sounds awesome!

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85
drank Gui Fei Oolong by Butiki Teas
3986 tasting notes

I’m not sure why I still have a few Butiki teas that I haven’t tried yet, even though I bought them in July. This one is tightly rolled with a surprising amount of stems attached. The color ranges from caramel to dark chocolate, and it pretty much just smells like roasty oolong. I steeped mine for 4 minutes at 185 degrees.

Once the tea is brewed, it still has a fairly strong roasty aroma. It also smells creamy and nutty, with a little bit of fruitiness. This is probably my favorite of the roasted oolongs I’ve tried so far, although I’m not sure the genre is for me. The main flavor is roasty with nutty and sweet undertones. I taste a little bit of fruitiness that reminds me of apples, and there’s a lovely lingering sweet aftertaste, not quite honey but nectar perhaps? Overall, quite tasty. :)

Flavors: Apple, Honey, Nectar, Nuts, Roasted, Sweet

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 4 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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65

Here we go, the last tea from this month’s Blends Club. I don’t have any experience with raspberry leaf, so I have no concept of what this might taste like. I will say that this is the most annoying tea ever to measure… It’s big fluffy raspberry leaf mixed with tiny pieces of citrus peel and rooibos, so you have to stir it ten times to give it anywhere near combined, and even then the rooibos immediately plummets to the bottom, taking most of the citrus peel with it. Ugh. I had to empty my pouch into a tin to be able to leaf this properly and make sure I got some of everything. Not off to a good start! The dry leaf smells vaguely sweet and musty, I guess from the raspberry leaf? I steeped about two teaspoons for 5 minutes in boiling water.

Once the tea is steeped, I can definitely smell the rooibos along with that odd musty somewhat raw herbal/grassy scent. The taste is pretty meh, I guess I’m not a fan of raspberry leaf. It’s very musty and dry in the mouth, but the aftertaste is nice enough. I guess I could draw some connections to chamomile…? But in a weird raw herb way. Not for me!

Flavors: Drying, Grass, Herbs, Musty, Rooibos

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
Dinosara

Yeah raspberry leaf is not something I drink for its flavor, purely for its medicinal qualities! But I can’t do rooibos so I won’t be trying this one anyway.

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So… this tea. This is definitely the one I’m least excited about. It’s a shame because I’ve tried the base tea plain and really enjoyed it, but when I open the pouch I can see (and smell) a ton of lavender… :( Now, lavender’s not as bad as a lot of other florals in my opinion (*cough*rose*cough*), in fact there’s something about it that reminds me of citrus. But lavender is all I can smell here, and that’s never good… Visually, this tea is a mix of wiry green tea leaves, lavender buds, coriander, juniper berries, and some other small chunks of herbal-y things. I brewed mine for 3 minutes at 175.

Hmm, yeah, I pretty much just smell lavender in the brewed tea as well, with a little bit of coriander mixed in. Ooh, and it tastes like almost pure lavender as well. I can’t even tell that there’s green tea in this blend, which is rather sad to me. Lavender tea! :(

Not rating as I feel somewhat biased… Although clearly this is a very heavy-handed blend, and that speaks to me of poor blending.

Flavors: Coriander, Lavender

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 3 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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80

This tea is the start of what I have decided to be a day of trying several yet untried teas. I mostly want to do this because I’d like to get my list of rehoming teas up soon so they won’t be sitting on my counter, and I don’t have that many teas that I haven’t tried yet. But I have yet to break into any of the Blends Club teas, so away we go! This tea is the one that smells the best to me, so it’s going first. The oolong pellets here are very loosely rolled, and it gives the appearance that they’re not rolled at all, but are a bunch of very tiny leaves. I was very confused when I first opened the packet and saw them, lol… There are lots of little (and some big) chunks of random “herbal-y” things mixed in with the tea leaves (ingredients include tulsi, sarsaparilla, schisandra berry, and blue lotus). Dry scent is an interesting combination of savory herbal and licorice-like sarsaparilla. I let mine steep for 4 minutes at 190 degrees.

Wow, the brewed aroma is very different! It’s a lovely melange of creamy, nutty, slightly spicy, sweet, and a slight vegetal note. Taste-wise, there’s definitely a slight sharp spiciness from the sarsaparilla that presents itself mostly at the beginning of the sip. I do get flashes of licorice-like flavor throughout, but the tea itself is quite creamy and nutty in flavor, which is rather lovely. I have no concept of what schisandra berry and blue lotus taste like, so I can’t comment on what they contribute here, but I do get a light hint of something similar to pine. Overall, this is rather tasty and I can see it being an excellent latte. It’s almost chai-like in a sense. :)

Flavors: Creamy, Licorice, Nutty, Pine, Spices, Sweet

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 4 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
mrs.stenhouse12

Lol, my bag of this honestly smells like pickles. No idea how I will bring myself to try it hahaha

Cameron B.

HAH. I know the feeling, I’ve had pickle-smelling tea before. I definitely don’t get pickles from this one though! :P

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70
drank Hot Lips (Organic) by DAVIDsTEA
3986 tasting notes

This was a bonus sample that Roswell Strange included in our swap. It is extremely smelly, ha ha… It definitely reminds me of Harney & Sons’s Hot Cinnamon Spice in that it basically smells exactly like Red Hots candy or any type of cinnamon candy really. This one is a green tea however, compared to black. The leaves are rather large and sencha-ish, and they’re mixed with red flower petals, cinnamon bark, and a few red peppercorns. I steeped about 1.5 teaspoons for 3 minutes at 175 degrees.

Brewed aroma is pretty much still cinnamon candy. And it tastes like cinnamon candy too, with a little bit of green tea at the beginning of the sip. The only real difference between this tea and Hot Cinnamon Spice is that this one isn’t sweet. Overall, not bad, but not something I’d regularly drink. :)

Flavors: Candy, Cinnamon, Grass

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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Bio

Hi, I’m Cameron! I’m a 30-something software engineer currently living in Austin, Texas with my husband and our two pugs, Gobo and Ume. I tend to cycle between my different hobbies, and they include piano, knitting, video games, board games, miniature painting, planners, bento, KBeauty, and – of course – TEA! But really, what I’m best at is “collecting” hobby-related things… ;)

~ 2024 SIPDOWN CHALLENGE! ~
- January Sipdowns: 6
- Total 2024 Sipdowns: 6

I prefer my tea lukewarm or at room temperature and without milk or sugar. I steep Western style, and fluctuate between using big mugs or small teapots depending on the season. Occasionally I’ll brew Gongfu style when I’m in the mood. I’ll also often use a kyusu for Japanese teas.

I am always up for a swap! Just let me know if you’d like to try something in my cupboard.

Tea Preferences:
I enjoy both flavored and unflavored teas in many forms. These days, I drink mostly flavored teas, and I tend to gravitate most toward black, green, oolong, and herbal varieties. I do have a special fondness for straight Japanese green teas, however. I also enjoy maté, rooibos, and honeybush. I love matcha and drink it often! Fruit tisanes are not a favorite, but I’m always willing to try them.

I do not sweeten my teas, and pre-sweetened teas are usually too sweet for me. I also do not enjoy stevia.

Fruit: All of them! My ‘go-to’s tend to be in the red fruits, stonefruit, or citrus spectra. I also really love apple, banana, berry, fig, lychee, melon, pear, and rhubarb flavors. Tropical fruits aren’t among my favorites, but I still enjoy them once in a while – especially passionfruit, mango, and pineapple. I am not generally a fan of coconut in tea, though there are some exceptions.

Dessert: I love creamy vanilla and marshmallow flavors, along with anything in the caramel family such as butterscotch, toffee, or maple. Chocolate is also a favorite, though I’m often disappointed by it in tea. And don’t forget anything buttery, cakey, or cookie-y!

Floral: I’m a little bit more particular in this category. I very much enjoy jasmine, even strong jasmine, along with sakura, chamomile, and elderflower. Osmanthus is also a favorite of mine. But I’m not crazy about rose or lavender flavors, and I prefer hibiscus in moderation only.

Spices: I don’t generally find myself drawn to masala chai, but I do enjoy spices combined with other flavors. My favorite spices are the warm ones, especially cinnamon, nutmeg, anise, and cardamom. A bit of heat from black pepper or chili is okay too, as long as it’s not overwhelming! Ginger can be a lovely accent, but I find it difficult to drink as a starring flavor.

Aromatics: I’m obsessed with Earl Grey! I also love cooling flavors such as mint (especially spearmint), pine, juniper, and eucalyptus. I am not a fan of strong rosemary or sage in tea.

Favorite Companies:
3 Leaf
Bird & Blend
Dammann Frères
Harney & Sons
Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms
Lupicia
Old Barrel Tea Co
Simpson & Vail
Taiwan Tea Crafts
TeaVivre

Tea Rating Scale:
90-100: Outstanding! Permanent cupboard resident
80-89: Great – a possible staple
70-79: Good, but I wouldn’t buy it
60-69: It’s decent
50-59: Meh… I may or may not have finished the cup
40-49: Ick. Couldn’t finish it.
00-39: Repulsive, I spat it out

I will sometimes refrain from rating a tea if I feel I’m too biased due to my personal dislikes, or if I suspect the sample has been compromised by age or scent contamination.

Cupboard Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZEuKf1-ppR-VXajO4vV39zU1N3zjFJteEPAynqD2yl0/edit?usp=sharing

Location

Austin, Texas

Website

https://www.instagram.com/tea...

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