4369 Tasting Notes

drank Paris London by Mariage Frères
4369 tasting notes

This tea was one of Ellyn’s gifts for me in the Pass the Stash 2.0 TTB. I’ve kind of been putting off trying it because, well, it looks like potpourri basically, and I am not a floral tea gal. But it’s Mariage Freres, so I have to try it at least. Dry leaf has large white tea leaves along with small black ones, rose petals, and a ton of lavender. Dry scent is sweet and floral with a spicy note. I followed the directions in the tea’s description here on Steepster and did a 5 minute steep.

Smells very… lavender. I can catch a little bit of rose, which does nothing to improve my opinion. There’s also a citrusy quality which I assume is coming from the lavender. First taste and… noop. This is basically lavender tea. I get a little bit of white tea flavor in the aftertaste, but otherwise all I can taste is lavender. Interestingly enough, it has a certain limey quality to it, but that’s not enough to make it drinkable for me. Not going to rate due to bias, and this one is going into the rehoming box.

Flavors: Citrus, Floral, Hay, Lavender, Lime

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

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85
drank Troika by Kusmi Tea
4369 tasting notes

Sipdown! (106)

Hooray, another old one down! I generally add soy milk to earl grey blends, but I’m having this last cup without it out of respect for this tea. Wow, that sounded weird… :P

Lovely mandarin and orange flavor that blends perfectly with the bergamot, which is not overly powerful. Yum! I would keep this one around if I weren’t already keeping two of the Russian Blends. Goodbye, old friend!

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

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93

Sipdown! (107)

Aw, I’m sad to see this one go, but I couldn’t bring myself to keep the two servings I had left when I can easily order more when there are fewer teas in my cupboard. This is a very lovely tea, combining very strong honey flavor with grain and fruity notes. My final cup was a little bit bitter but that was due to overleafing – I didn’t want to have a tiny awkward amount of tea left over. :P

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
Sil

heh go go sipdowns!

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88

Sipdown! (108)

This tea really grew on me as worked my way through the sample packets. The balance of strawberry and oolong is just perfect, and it’s a very inoffensive green oolong with no floral grossness. I will definitely be repurchasing this one with my next TeaVivre order, whenever that is. Yum!

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 4 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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90

Sipdown! (111)

It’s been a long time since I’ve had this one. I pulled it out of the cupboard so I could send a sample to Dinosara, and I ended up only having one serving’s worth left over, so I figured I might as well sip it down!

Yummy rich sweet potato and wheat bread, om nom nom. Gotta love those full-bud Yunnans! :D

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

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I purchased this from a stash sale quite a few weeks ago (I don’t remember whose sale it was). Not sure what I was thinking, since I haven’t really liked milk oolong or green oolong in general in the past. So it’s been sitting around, taking up one of my tins for some time now. I decided I might as well try it before I automatically move it to the rehoming box. The leaves are tightly rolled and in a variety of sizes, and the color is somewhere in the green/yellow/brown spectrum. Dry scent is grassy and vegetal with sweetened condensed milk and peaches. I brewed about 1.5 teaspoons of leaf for 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

The brewed aroma is pretty much what I’d expect from this type of oolong – buttery vegetal green with cream and some peach notes. And the taste is pretty much along those lines, too. I do appreciate that there’s not really much floral here, even in the aftertaste. It is definitely too light in flavor for my tastes. I will say that this tea tastes creamier and more milky than any other milk oolong I’ve tried, so that’s nice. But it’s still a “no” for me. :)

Flavors: Butter, Cream, Floral, Peach, Vegetal

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
Whispering Pines Tea Company

Woww, this is an old tea! Haha :P

Blodeuyn

Do you have any left?

Whispering Pines Tea Company

Nope, I haven’t sold this in probably ~6-8 months.

Cameron B.

I have some more, Blodeuyn.

Cheri

I’ll swap something with you for it, even if it is old.

Blodeuyn

What Cheri said. ;)

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Sipdown! (114)

This was a sample from Stephanie, also known as “Lover of Dancongs”. I’ve been trying to get some more experience with these teas, so I requested this one in our recent swap. The leaves are beautiful – they’re very long and straight, and tightly twisted. Very dark in color. I asked Stephanie for her Western-style brewing parameters and I ended up doing 190 degree for 5 minutes.

Brewed aroma is very strongly apricot. And it’s a rather tart-smelling apricot! Yum. There’s also the ubiquitous roastiness and a bit of floral. Whoa, the taste! Very strong due to the long steep, and the stonefruit flavor is very strong and lovely. There’s also a darker dried fruit flavor, maybe prune or raisin. It’s roasty and there’s a bit of autumn leaf, but it’s in the background which is unusual in my experience. My only issue with this tea is that the floral element is fairly strong, and it almost borders on being soapy near the end. And that kind of prevents me from wanting to drink this again. Curse you, floral! Not rating because of the bias, lul. :D

Flavors: Apricot, Autumn Leaf Pile, Dried Fruit, Floral, Honey, Roasted

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 5 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
Stephanie

I love that stone fruity aspect of it :)

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drank Red Robe Da Hong Pao by teasenz
4369 tasting notes

This sample was provided for free in exchange for review. You can find this tea here: http://www.teasenz.com/da-hong-pao-oolong-tea#.U_ZTaPldXX8

I’m using the gong fu parameters suggested by boychik for this one. The dry leaves are large and loosely twisted. They look so brittle and fragile! Very dark in color, almost black. Dry scent is autumn leaves but there’s also a honey sweetness and dried fruits. I did a 10s rinse and then 10/10/15/15s steeps. The water was 200 degrees.

The brewed aroma was pretty similar across all steeps – mostly autumn leaves and roastiness with a touch of honey and sometimes fruit. I found that the flavor also didn’t seem to change much, except for one steep which was unexpectedly heavy on the earth and mineral tastes. The overall flavor was fairly roasty with that familiar dry leaf taste along with some sweet and somewhat floral honey notes. I also got some elements that reminded me of white tea – namely grain and hay flavors. There was some dried fruit that poked its head in once in a while, and a nice baked bread and creamy nut (cashew?) aftertaste.

Overall, this seems to be of good quality compared to other similar teas I’ve tried, but I am by no means an expert. I did enjoy the experience, but I think this genre of teas may not be for me. :P

Flavors: Autumn Leaf Pile, Bread, Earth, Grain, Hay, Honey, Mineral, Nuts, Raisins, Roasted

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 5 g 3 OZ / 100 ML
boychik

I’m no expert;). At least you didn’t dump the cup

Cameron B.

I don’t hate these teas, I just don’t love them either. :P

boychik

Don’t know this particular tea but some I’ve tried recently fr Jing Tea Shop and Tao Tea Leaf completely blew my mind. They are not created equal.

Marzipan

Maybe you would like Oriental Beauty? They are a notch lighter.

TheTeaFairy

I’m no expert either, but I do know there are a lot of “wuyi teas” out there, that aren’t really from the wuyi mountains. Not saying this isn’t though..I checked their website, good da hong pao teas (big red robe) are usually on the pricy side, wonder how they can afford to sell theirs at only 9.95 for 70g. Maybe it’s just a lower grade?

I second what Boychik said, haven’t tried JTS, but Tao Tea Leaf Da Hong Pao is just amazing :-)

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65
drank R2D2 by Adagio Custom Blends
4369 tasting notes

Sipdown! (117)

So I’m trying this new thing where I never add sweetener to teas unless they really need it and/or aren’t drinkable without. I figured I should try to shake my dependence on flavored teas being sweet and try to enjoy them more sans additions. Just because!

This one isn’t too bad unsweetened. It’s not as tart as I would expect considering it contains both hibiscus and rose hips. But overall, this is not a great tea either – it’s just kind of blah tasting and doesn’t have much of a flavor. There’s something kind of roasty about it, I guess it must be the green tea? Not sure.

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

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80

I have two of these straws, I believe they came from TeaTiff originally. I guess I’d just forgotten I had them because this is the first time I’ve tried one. There is no English on the packet, so I read the Steepster description to find out how much water I was supposed to use. I mixed it up in a glass with 16 ounces of water. I must say, the powder did not want to dissolve easily – I often have the same problem with Crystal Light mixes and that sort of thing. It would probably work better if it was done in a water bottle so it could be shaken. Eventually, it dissolved, but there is definitely a little layer of sediment at the bottom of the glass that settles after you stop stirring it.

The flavor is actually quite good. It tastes similar to a mild sencha – vegetal and somewhat grassy but with a little bit of natural sweetness. I could definitely see myself drinking these straws if I had a busier lifestyle and was out running errands or going to school a lot. They would be very convenient!

Flavors: Grass, Spinach, Sweet, Vegetal

Preparation
16 OZ / 473 ML
Cheri

Sounds interesting.

Cameron B.

Yeah, I would rate it higher if it dissolved more easily and stayed dissolved. :P

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Profile

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, Korean skincare, and – of course – TEA! But really, what I’m best at is “collecting” hobby-related things… ;)

~ 2025 SIPDOWN CHALLENGE! ~
- July sipdowns: 0
- Total 2025 sipdowns: 103

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.

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

I tend to reach for fruitier flavors rather than desserty ones these days, but I do have favorites from both categories. Willing to try anything once! There are a few ingredients/flavors that aren’t generally my jam, such as coconut, rose, lavender, and chocolate flavoring. But I also have teas that I love with some of those things, too! :)

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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