4125 Tasting Notes
Yay, the last of my provided TeaVivre samples! And I only have one Green Terrace sample left, but it’s slated for gong fu style since it’s a milk oolong. And then that’ll be it for review-required samples for me until I get the ones from Good Life Tea! So, this one. The leaves are dark and slightly twisty, and there are a (very) few golden tips. Mm I love the smell! Very malty with sweet honey and a lovely tart stonefruit aroma. I did a 3 minute steep here.
Brewed aroma is… alarming. Lol. Completely different from the dry version! I immediately detect smoke and earthiness with the ubiquitous malt. Maybe a tiny hint of those stonefruits? Woah, this is quite smoky! There’s also earthiness and the taste of wood. A tiny bit of bitterness that goes well with these flavors. Not as malty as I would expect from this type of tea. There’s a little bit of a deep rich flavor that I would associate with molasses. And when I least expect it, there’s a lovely stonefruit aftertaste! Similar to plums and apricots mixed together.
I can see definite parallels between this tea and the Harney & Sons Tippy Yunnan, which is a good sign because they are both lower-grade. So maybe my taste buds are halfway decent! Lol. I definitely added sugar to this, it’s too powerful for me without it. And it would definitely take milk well if you chose to add some. A definite kick-in-the-pants morning tea! :)
Flavors: Earth, Malt, Molasses, Smoke, Stonefruit, Wood
Preparation
Hooray for TeaVivre and their lovely free samples! I’m telling myself that I need to try all five of my samples before I start drinking all of the swap tea I’ve gotten lately. Seriously, it’s taking over the kitchen! Since I promised reviews for these samples I feel like I’m making someone wait if I take too long… Which is a weird thing to think. :P
This looks similar to the other golden monkey tea I’ve had (Harney & Sons). The leaves a thin and slightly curly, mostly dark with some golden tips. It smells extremely malty, which is not a bad thing! There’s also some honey and tart stonefruit in there. I walked on the wild side and brewed it for 3 minutes.
Wow, the brewed aroma is even more malty than before, which I didn’t think possible! There’s also a smoky tobacco note along with honey and sweet potato. Oh my… If I had to choose one word for this tea, it would be “masculine”. This is manly stuff! All this maltiness and then that smoky tobacco taste as well. Plus I can taste leather and a dark richness that reminds me of molasses without the sweetness. Sweet potato adds a little cream and butter that helps smooth it out. It’s not super strong but the flavors are bold and really catch your attention! MAN TEA! But women enjoy it too. ;)
Flavors: Leather, Malt, Molasses, Smoke, Sweet Potatoes, Tobacco
Preparation
I seem to have had a different experience with this one than other people… :P Most of the other notes described a lighter tea with a lot of sweet potato. Hmm! I enjoyed it though.
whatshesaid, they tasted completely different to me so it’s hard to compare… I need to taste the Harney & Sons version again first. :P
I have so much tea to try right now, but I figured I should probably get through the teas I have that were provided in exchange for reviews. Don’t want to make anyone wait! Confession: I have never had an oxidized oolong before. However, I have great faith that I will enjoy this category of teas since they seem similar to some black teas. The dry leaf for this one is very beautiful. The leaves are large and dark, and they’re slightly twisted. They seem so light and fragile in comparison to black tea leaves. The scent is quite mild but sweet, with fruit and honey notes. I checked Green Terrace’s website for parameters, and I used the middle of both temperature and time.
The aroma reminds me of raisins, sweet but with deep and dark flavor. Maybe a bit of dried cherry too, along with some honey. This tea just says “autumn” to me. There’s something about the taste that reminds me of the autumn leaves, kind of woodsy but in a mild and slightly toasty way. It seems so full of dark dried fruits – raisins, cherries, dates, figs… Yum! And there’s a lovely burnt sugar note somewhere in there too.
Such a great experience for my first dark oolong! I have enough left to do some gong fu, so I’ll add this one to that list… Before boychik yells at me! ;)
Thanks again to Green Terrace Teas for providing this sample for review.
Flavors: Autumn Leaf Pile, Burnt Sugar, Dried Fruit, Raisins
Preparation
Hah, we’ll see if it makes me feel that way too. What were your steeping parameters for your gong fu session?
It’s a little confusing because they have one page with all of their brewing instructions, instead of them being with each tea.
Another of my samples from TeaTiff. I wasn’t really sure what region this tea was from, so I looked it up on their website. Turns out it’s actually fermented from white tea buds which seems unusual. And it’s from the Fujian province. The leaves are quite small and thin, and very dark with a few golden spots. I can’t really tell you much about the smell because everything from this package smells like milk oolong! Heh. I brewed mine for 2 minutes.
The aroma reminds me of a Yunnan tea. There’s a definite bread scent with honey and malt, and something else… Maybe a touch of creaminess? But wow, this doesn’t taste like any other black tea I’ve tried. I can definitely tell that it’s made from white tea. It has that lovely smooth hay flavor, but mixed with some malt and a little bit of a bread. There’s a deep flavor in the background that reminds me of molasses, but without being sweet.
While I did enjoy it, I found the flavor a bit light. I have enough for one more cup, so I think I’ll hold off on a rating until I try this at a 3 minute steep! :)
Flavors: Bread, Hay, Malt, Molasses
Preparation
Oh man, note to self, wrap milk oolong in tin foil when I send it next time. Sorry to have smell contaminated everything. I hope it isn’t affecting the taste.
TeaTiff, I haven’t had any problems with the taste, and I happen to like the smell of milk oolong. :P So not really a big issue!
I’m jumping on the MzPriss and TheTeaFairy bandwagon this morning with this tea. This is one of my free samples from TeaVivre that I hadn’t tried yet and I figured now’s as good a time as any! This is my first time trying a Fujian black tea. The leaves look very different than the other blacks I’ve been having lately – they’re very thin and extremely dark with a few scattered golden tips. The smell is quite unusual, it’s quite musty and earthy with dark bread and malt notes. I decided to be brave and steep it for 3 minutes! :P
Wow, the brewed aroma is very different from the dry! It smells like a completely different tea. Very sweet honey or caramel over baked bread with raisins, mmm… This would definitely be a breakfast tea for me, as the overall taste is quite bold and strong. It has a grain-like malty quality about it without quite tasting like bread. I seem to get a little tiny bit of smokey savoriness at the beginning of the sip. I was surprised to not taste the caramel or honey sweetness that a lot of others mentioned… Then I added a touch of sugar to the second half of my cup and a lovely dark honey or molasses flavor came out. I wouldn’t necessarily call it caramel because I don’t get any butter. This tea leaves an aftertaste on my tongue that reminds me of strong coffee!
Overall, quite good and a nice bold tea to take for breakfast. Would definitely stand up to some milk, although that’s not something I generally add to tea. Thanks again to Angel at TeaVivre!
Flavors: Coffee, Grain, Honey, Malt, Molasses
Preparation
I included the Fujian Black Tea in my Whispering Pines order, so I’m excited to try that one, too. :)
Oh please, everything from Whispering Pines is a good one! :P
But yes, I am very impatient to get that order… I chose several straight blacks than I’m anxious to try!
Has anyone sent you any Bai Lin Kung Fu from Shang? Like all their teas, it’s made from fermented white. I really like Teavivre’s but I may prefer Shang, I can’t decide.
Nicole, I think the only Shang tea I’ve tried is the Golden Needle King, and I just tried it today. :P But I really don’t need any more samples right now! I blame you! Lol.
I’ve had this for a while now and haven’t written a note on it yet. I’ve actually made it twice before, but both times I came out weirdly bitter so I figured I’d give it a couple more tries before rating it. It’s a mixture of chamomile flowers, cinnamon bark, and pieces of dried apple with peel. It smells very strongly of apple and only lightly of spice. I steeped it for 5 minutes.
The aroma is nice. I get a lot more cinnamon than in the dry leaf, then chamomile and the sweetness from the apple. Unfortunately, I got the same odd bitterness this time as I have before. I can only assume it’s from leaving the peel on the apple pieces, although no one else has mentioned this in their notes so… I’m not sure what’s going on there. It makes it hard to drink, even with sugar added. So disappointed… :(
Flavors: Apple, Bitter, Cinnamon
Preparation
I got this sample for free with my Adagio order. All I had to do was share on Facebook, and since I changed the setting the “private”, no one even had to see it. Win/win! Dry tea looks like honeybush with yellow flower petals and a few dried fruit pieces. It smells very artificial – like apricot candy. Steeped 5 minutes.
The aroma is fairly ho-hum… Just honeybush and apricot candy. The taste is even more so. There’s not enough apricot flavor, even with added sugar. So it mostly tastes like peppery honeybush and a little fake apricot. No thanks. :P
Flavors: Apricot, Candy, Pepper, Wood
Preparation
Aw, the very last Star Wars tea! To be honest, I was not very excited for this one, mostly because it’s all white teas with coconut and I felt going by color was quite juvenile (all white items because storm troopers are white). And to continue with the honesty, the smell is quite weird. Visually, it’s broken-up bai mudan leaves with some shredded coconut and small pieces of apple tossed in. For some reason, it smells very tart and odd. I think it must be the pear flavor, but who knows? Not super appetizing. Brewed for 3 minutes.
Luckily, the brewed tea smells nothing like the leaf. I smell the soft hay of the white tea which blends well with the cucumber. I also get sweetness from the apple and a hint of coconut. It tastes pretty good, too! Very mild of course, but the cucumber and the creaminess of the coconut meld together beautifully. There’s a pear crispness at the beginning of the sip, too. Very light and I’m sure this would be extremely refreshing as an iced tea. I will definitely have to try it that way! :)
As for the fandom element, I think I just have a different concept of how to assign a tea to a character. The creator claims this is for storm troopers because it’s relaxing after a long day of work. I guess that’s valid. If I were to make a tea for a storm trooper, I would go with the concept of a strong breakfast tea blend to fuel them up for taking orders all day! :)
Edit: Adding a short rant since this is the last tea of this sampler for me to try. So I went to review these teas and get my rewards points, but I couldn’t find any way to review it. So I sent Adagio an email asking about it, and they informed me that fandom samplers can’t be reviewed… “Our technology folks are aware of the problem, but the solution has so far eluded them.” So basically I get to miss out on the 36 points I could have gotten from these teas because I bought them as a sampler and not separately… Annoyed.
Flavors: Coconut, Cucumber, Hay, Pear
Preparation
The final tea from my Simple Loose Leaf July box. Honestly I had no idea what to expect out of this one since I have little to no experience with Chinese green teas. The leaves are cute, they’re quite thin and they look rolled, then shaped into little “U” shapes and hoops. The color is on the grey side of green. They smell a bit musty and vegetal, and there’s a tart fruity scent that reminds me of dried cranberries. I steeped for 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
The brewed tea smells vegetal and a bit grassy with a hay note. The flavor is quite mild, which seems to be a common factor in Chinese green teas. It’s a bit grassy and reminds me of a lighter version of sencha. I also detect a hint of floral and there’s a fruity element mid-sip. It’s quite astringent for a green tea. As I let it cool, I started to get more sweetness and a white-tea-like hay note.
Overall, I’m glad I got to experience a new-to-me tea, but this isn’t really something that I would enjoy drinking on a regular basis. It’s a bit too light for me.
Flavors: Astringent, Cranberry, Floral, Grass, Hay
Preparation
It’s not super horribly astringent, but I don’t usually associate astringency with green teas. I would love to send you some if you want to try it. :)
If you promise it won’t give me cotton mouth or anything! I love me some vegetal greens, but I hate when I encounter astringency in some of them. I can’t believe that it’s desirable to some people. I don’t want to drink something that going to dry my mouth out, that’s counter productive haha.
Well supposedly there’s good astringency and bad astringency. I don’t think I’ve experienced the good kind yet…
I purchased this from Shadowfall in her recent stash sale. Had to scoop up those Whispering Pines teas! I’ve actually never had a keemun before but I was willing to take the risk for such a reasonable price! :) The leaves are small, short, and extremely dark. I would describe it as “generic black tea” and I don’t mean that in a bad way. Dry, it smells a little musty with honey and raisin notes. Steeped for 3 minutes.
My first impression of the aroma was that it smells like an English Breakfast. There’s a little smoke and honey in there. The taste is quite bold! The strong flavor is the main event but it also has some very nice subtle accompaniments. There’s a lovely honey quality to it, and a very light smoke in the background. It’s a tad malty. I added about half a teaspoon of sugar and it brought out some lovely dark fruit notes that remind me of raisins or dates. This tea is a bit bold for me, but the sugar really helped the round out the flavor and I’m sure it would take milk very well.
A great experience for my very first Keemun! Thanks Shadowfall!
Flavors: Dates, Honey, Malt, Raisins, Smoke
Preparation
Interesting…I haven’t tried this one, but then again, it isn’t selling anymore, at least not under this name. Wonder if it was just replaced by Pine Peak Kummun.
I just ordered some Pine Peak so I can definitely let you know if I think it tastes the same. :P If not, I can definitely send you some to try!
I disagree, Tippy Yunnan I just couldn’t stand while this one is decent no frills everyday affordable tea