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I decided to do my first-ever gong fu session with this tea. I was having a rather bad day – my car was towed because of the registration being expired, so now I have to sort all of that out and go get it this week. So I had hoped that this would cheer me up. I based my parameters mostly off of Sarsonator’s recent tasting note (I believe it was a milk oolong from TeaVivre), but I used less tea per water as was suggested in the comments. And I also used 200 degree water because I seem to be uncomfortable going for boiling on any teas besides herbal and rooibos. :P So sue me!

The parameters: 5g tea per 4 ounces of water, 10s rinse/25s/35s/45s/55s

Used two of my noble cups from David’s. They’re about 10 ounces total and came with lids, so I figured they were perfect! Hard to pour, but I got the hang of it…
(http://imgur.com/du542o8)

Rinse (10s): extremely light vegetal flavor with floral notes, light peach aftertaste

Steep 1 (25s): creamy and peachy, light vegetal background with floral aftertaste

Steep 2 (35s): creamy, buttery, quite floral with slightly bitter vegetal taste, peach aftertaste

Steep 3 (45s): quite floral and vegetal, apricot aftertaste

Steep 4 (55s): extremely floral with some vegetal notes, light apricot/peach aftertaste

I could have gone for more steeps, but I found myself liking this less and less as it steadily became more floral. I want more of that lovely creamy peach steep! I have enough left for a smaller session, so I might try this one again with shorter steeps. If anyone has suggestions, I would love them! I did enjoy this tea, but I was looking for more of that milk creaminess that I got in the first couple of steeps. I’m finding that green oolongs tend to be too floral for me.

This is my last free sample from Good Life Teas. Honestly I don’t expect much from it, considering it contains both hibiscus and rose hips… There are chunks of apple in here and some flower petals. It smells lovely and fruity, not terribly tart. Steeped for 5 minutes.

The aroma is quite tart, but still fruity. I added a teaspoon of sugar before I even tasted it because I could tell it was going to be too tart without it. The flavor is actually not bad. It is quite tart from the hibiscus, but I can also taste the apple and orange in there. It definitely needs sugar though, as it is still very tart even with the amount I added. Overall, good but not great. I would drink this again but I don’t know if I’d purchase it.

Yum, this is perfect right now. I wanted something a little refreshing and light after drinking a lot of black teas, and this is really hitting the spot. I did shorter (2 minute) steep for a lighter flavor and added some sugar. Delicious, light and just minty enough! Rating is getting a bit bumped. ;)

I’m suddenly very sad that I’m almost out of this one. Gave out too many samples! :P Luckily, I have quite a bit of Kusmi’s ginger lemon, and that fills a similar niche for me.

This was the chai I chose when making my Whispering Pines order. Looking back, I’m not sure why I chose this one, I must have been in a chocolatey mood! And I do enjoy the tea used as its base – their Fujian Black. Anyway! Dry, it has the small, dark Fujian leaves mixed with chunks of spices. I see whole cloves and cinnamon bark among other things. I have to say, the smell shocked me. It is so gingery! And for some reason I get menthol (I don’t think I selected to have the mint added, but I may be wrong!). It’s like inhaling Vicks Vaporub, and it definitely clears your sinuses! I am not the hugest ginger fan, so this got me worried…

The brewed aroma is less intense, but still smells strongly of ginger. I can pick up on the other spices now, particularly the clove and cinnamon. The taste is also extreme ginger. I had to add sugar and vanilla soy milk to be able to drink it, really. But once it has additions, it’s pleasant enough. I can taste the chocolate (definitely a milk chocolate with the milk added) and the ginger is quite strong but the sharpness is reduced. I would definitely drink this one latte-style from now on, so I can add more milk without watering it down.

Overall, I’m not going to rate this one because whether or not someone likes ginger is definitely a personal preference. It’s weird, I didn’t see anyone mention super strong ginger in their notes. I guess I could try stirring up the tea some more, but considering the super strong ginger and menthol aroma, I doubt that would change it. I’m definitely not in love with this one. :(

Yum yum, more Whispering Pines! I really love these light, golden Yunnans so far, from every company. This one has beautiful, puffy golden leaves that are covered in fuzz. Their scent is lovely – light malt and creamy honey with a surprisingly strong stonefruit note.

The first time, I followed the package instructions and steeped for 3 minutes. The aroma was honey-glazed toast with some golden raisin fruitiness. The taste: lightly malty with honey and dried fruits (apricot?). Maybe a little bit of cocoa. There was also this weird bitterness that I didn’t expect.

So I did a 2 minute steep (new leaves) to see if the bitterness would go away. Mm, love the flavor of this one. It reminded me of a buttery croissant with a touch of honey. There’s also a light toasty note that makes me imagine toasted almonds atop the aforementioned croissant. Maybe a little stonefruit in the aftertaste? This steep wasn’t bitter, but it was almost bitter. It had the potential to be bitter. But it was still delicious.

So my question is, what else should I change to prevent the bitterness? Is it overleafing maybe? I am usually a little bit generous with my leaf measurement, and since the recommendation is in volume and not weight, it’s hard to be precise with a larger leaf. Any suggestions (or measurements in grams) would be appreciated!

Yay, I got this in the mail today! It certainly has gotten a lot of hype recently (I blame TheTeaFairy…) so I knew it had to be good. And I love genmaicha and most straight black teas so I figured how could it possibly be wrong? So I ordered an ounce when it came back in stock just to try it out. Dry, this tea is quite beautiful. The black tea leaves are long, jet black, and twisty. There is quite the melange of rice – long grains, short grains, toasted, puffed, popped. And there are dark little cocoa nibs along with a few oxidized oolong leaves. It smells quite lovely with very strong cocoa and a bit of toastiness. I used the average preparation here on Steepster (and I got to use my new scale and filtered water!).

Mm, the brewed aroma is pure toasty roastiness! There’s a bit of chocolate in there too, but I mostly smell that lovely toasted rice goodness. Mm, definitely a genmaicha. The toasted rice flavor in this tea reminds me of lovely crisp toast. There’s also a nice strong cocoa flavor from the nibs, and some nuttiness from the rice. These combine to remind me a bit of chocolate hazelnut spread, which goes perfectly with the toast! ;) I think I also get a little bit of raisin fruitiness, especially in the aftertaste. Overall, this is very lovely and I can see why it’s so popular. If it’s still in stock when I allow myself to order more tea, I may get some more. And I really want to try that Minnesota Blend…

This sample came from the lovely and generous Nicole (I’m actually over halfway through the box I think, huzzah!). The leaves are like beautiful Goldilocks curls! They’re large and ringlet-y with just a little bit of dark among the gold. Gorgeous! The dry scent is very mild, but lovely. It’s all sweet hay and honey. There’s a tad bit of malt but it’s very light. So excited for this one! I steeped (excitedly) for 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

So the brewed aroma is much more powerful! There’s a lot of malt and breadiness. I kind of hovered over this one like a little bee while waiting for it to cool enough. So I noticed that when it was freshly brewed and still steaming, there was a lovely honey scent and a tart fruitiness reminiscent of dried cherries. As it cooled further, it transformed into a darker molasses and raisin aroma. Loved them both!

At first sip, I noticed an unusual autumn leaf flavor. It was definitely a lighter version of this taste than I have previously experienced, and it was quite lovely. Sort of a nice mellow roasty note! Then this gave way to lovely creamy and smooth malt, which made me picture biting into a nice fluffy, soft loaf of bread. Mmm! There was definitely also a touch of honey that just accented the bread flavor perfectly. I wouldn’t have complained if there had been more honey, but it’s amazing as-is. Would absolutely buy and drink this! :D

Just as an afterthought, I noticed after I had already brewed this that the recommended temperature is about 185-195 degrees. But I didn’t experience any negative effects from brewing it at a higher temperature. So my question is, is there any reason for me to lower the temperature? Will the flavor be drastically different? Thanks guys. :)

Another free sample from Good Life Tea. Looks like black tea leaves with some blue flower petals mixed in. It smells pretty vanilla-y, which is a good sign for me, since I love vanilla. Steeped 3 minutes.

It smells quite floral, which I didn’t expect. There’s definitely very a perfumey quality to it alongside the vanilla. It tastes quite perfumey to me too, which is not a good thing. And I don’t really taste the black tea at all, mostly just floral perfumey bergamot with a tiny bit of vanilla. Adding sugar helps but not by much. Overall, this is not a tea I would drink or purchase. The flavoring is just too floral and has an almost alcoholic taste to it.

Backlog from last night! The first of my free samples from Good Life Tea. I’m not generally a huge fan of chocolate teas, but this was included in the sampler that I chose, so here goes! The dry leaf is basically red rooibos with flower petals in it. Apparently it also has cacao bean pieces, but I wasn’t looking that closely since it was fairly late. I remember smelling it and thinking it was minty, which I did not expect…

It was actually better than I expected. The rooibos base wasn’t terribly offensive like it sometimes can be. The chocolate flavor was nice enough, definitely not a deep or complex chocolate but more similar to milk chocolate. There was a lot of mint flavor, which is not even listed anywhere in the product description, nor is it implied by the name. My one complaint is that I feel rooibos isn’t a great base for chocolate because the brew ends up being rather thin. Black tea would’ve been much better.

I do believe that it’s an issue that the mint flavor is not mentioned anywhere, and it’s at least as strong as the chocolate, making this more of a mint chocolate chip tea in my opinion. So I believe the name should be changed, or at the very least, the description needs to include mint.

I purchased this one from Shadowfall in her stash sale. I’ve become much more of a black tea drinker lately, but I do enjoy the occasional green and Verdant has such a good reputation around here, so I figured why not? And it’s a small sample size so it was cheap! The leaves are similar to the Yin Gou Mei “eyebrow tea” that I got in a Simple Loose Leaf box. They’re thin and very stiff, and they’ve been shaped into little loops and “u” shapes. The color is a dull green/blue/grey. I started out with a one minute steep and ended up going to two minutes total after testing it.

The aroma is surprisingly roasty, with sweet and buttery squash. I definitely taste toasted grains in this, specifically oats. It’s creamy and buttery in texture with a bit of mild squash taste. I definitely see where the vanilla soy milk descriptor comes from. There’s the sweetness of freshly shelled peas, and a lovely vanilla note near the end. The aftertaste is roasty and vegetal.

Definitely a different flavor profile than I have experienced in a green tea before! In a way, it reminds me of a milk oolong, but without the floral and fruit notes that green oolongs often have. I’m glad I got the chance to try it!