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So, I had intended to buy one sample of this tea…accidentally bought two and due to some miscommunication, wasn’t able to amend that.

I am not quite sure how to feel about this one yet. Session started out normal enough. The leaves were green and very nicely twisted, so I only got about 5g into the gaiwan. Nice, sweet vegetal aroma and a very light yellow liquor.

The flavor started out more or less as I would expect of a greener oolong. A sweet, beany vegetal flavor without too much in the way of floral notes in this case. I enjoyed it will enough for the first few steeps and rhinkle was undecided until she hit one steep that she said tasted like foot odor. I brushed her comment off since she’s got a cold and kept drinking once our break was over.

And then…I got the same thing. Not in the body, but in the aftertaste of a single steep, the odor of sweaty feet filled my nostrils. It was very strange, as after that, the taste evolved into something pineappley, with a tropical fruit blend aftertaste, something I’ve tasted in another sample I tried recently.

Over continued steeps, a mouth coating viscosity developed, and I enjoyed that for a few steeps before the flavor overall started to die off. Going to have to play around with this one more soon to get the best out of it!

Still working my way through my BF W2T samples and this is today’s pick. Been getting a nice aroma from the sample bag, so I’ve been looking forward to this, though I pretty much have said that about every sample. Very easily separated 7g off of this sample chunk and spent a few seconds looking around for my strainer, so I ended up skipping the wash and just drinking from the start.

I’m getting fruity, floral, herbaceous and hay in the first steep. Smooth with a bit of viscosity. More grass and hay in the second steep, with the florals lingering at the end. Some appreciable bitterness and astringency start to emerge in steep three.

Sipped on this throughout the morning until the flavors started to fade with flash steeps, at which point I was still left with a nice mouthfeel to enjoy. The leaves are still giving off plenty of aroma, so I’m going to let them rest a while and then I will probably revisit them tomorrow.

Lunch tea. Roasted nuts. Dry finish with some returning sweetness. Enjoyable and easy to drink. I believe I’ll be able to get some more out of this one tomorrow, so I’ll come back to it.

I finally drank this today. (And finally caught up on my notes!!!) I wasn’t really sure how to approach it. Since it is made from roasted tencha—the leaves generally used to make matcha—does that mean one prepares it like matcha? I spent time contemplating and researching this in the past and didn’t get anywhere, which is part of why I’m only trying this now. Being lazy and short on time, I decided to just pour in the minimum amount of water recommended on the package and whisk to stir it up.

Did that. This tea looks like the ugliest matcha you can imagine. But it tastes just like houjicha. There is a bit of a sour note at the very front, and the rest is roasty with a lingering creamy finish. And unlike my usual go-to houjicha, which is a karigane type (which equals even less caffeine than usual), I definitely felt the caffeine in this. So I could see it serving as an alternative to matcha when I need a boost in the morning.

I decided to drink this yesterday when I couldn’t make up my mind on starting a tea or not. This being an iron cake is no lie. I started it early in the day, did four steeps (washes) with long rests in between each before it started to open up. Long like…I went to do dishes after one, went to groom my two dogs after another, went skating after another…you get the idea. I’m glad the chunk I pulled out of my sample was perfectly sized at 7g so I didn’t have to do anything to it.

Once the leaves did separate themselves from one another, their quality became apparent. I steeped this tea out throughout the afternoon and evening of yesterday and continued with it this morning. I didn’t get much out of it as far as complexity goes. It mostly tasted vegetal in the way green tea does, which I found interesting.

I will certainly give this one another try, but at this point it’s one that I would rather let mature than drink at this exact moment.

This was my other Saturday day, another one with a fairly sweet fragrance coming off the dry leaves, which were loose in the sample bag. They took on a freshly fired aroma (if that makes any sense) upon being woken by water. The wash comes out a light amber and I give it a taste. It has a super light hint of sour fruit flavor.

Once I get into proper steeps, this tea becomes warm, buttery fruit, like the filling of a pie. Easy to drink. Tastes good. Affordable.

This was my first tea to get me through a Saturday of homework this past weekend. Actually managed to get through all of my homework in just a few hours, so I really got to spend more time with the tea.

The dry leaves had that great, sweet, fruity, floral aroma that I’ve noticed in a lot of the w2t samples I’ve had. Liquor comes out a nice gold and is light in flavor to start. It’s got that fresh suntea taste I’ve mentioned before, mixed with light honey.

The flavor comes through more in the next steep and really tastes like a light, wild honey. I get that through most of the session that day. I revisit this tea the next day and it’s smooth, thick and light with an enjoyable buttery aftertaste.

My puerh pick for Friday. And it seems it was the puerh pick for many this past weekend! The sweet, fruity, floral fragrance of the sample bag had me looking forward to this one for quite a while.

Steeped 7 grams of this at work and decided to sip the wash, because I sometimes do that. Glad I did this time, as it was full of flavor. Very light gold in color, but with a mouth coating viscosity, floral head notes, sweet hay body and light honey finish. And that flavor just lingered. Needless to say, the rest of the wash was consumed.

A nice sour fruitness developed in the first proper steep, with a spiced herbaceous aftertaste that began to mingle with the lingering aroma and huigan.

The florals and hay start to take on a bit more of a piney-ness after a few steeps, and the exhaled aroma is that of spinach.

Some bitterness starts to come out in later steeps, but it doesn’t eliminate the mouth coating sweetness.

Eventually, the flavor mellows out to a nice lingering peach. I practically flash steeped this entire session and Pin rewarded me greatly for doing so!

Second sample of our TTC order that we got around to trying. Steeped this one up at work last week as well. The first thing I noticed—and something I noticed throughout the entire session—was that it smelled kind of like kids’ bubblegum. A tropical fruit, sweet kind smell. This came through in the flavor as well, for me, as well.

The liquor steeped out nice and gold in this one, becoming more amber a few steeps in, and the texture was nice and smooth. This seems like it would taste really good cold.

I continued with leaves these into the following day, and they produced a second day steep that was sweet and cooling in the mouth, warming in the body and a very nice flavor to start the morning with.

Made a very specific selection of teas to try to TTC recently and this is one of them. Steeped 8 grams of this at work last week with just a quick rinse to help wake up the leaves. The liquor came out an extremely light yellow and produced an immediate camphor flavor and sensation. Very smooth with a sweet, nutty baked goods flavor.

I drank some the next day as well, and got a more golden liquor that was thick and viscous. The flavor was crisp and nicely vegetal, and some of the cooling sensation still remained. I look forward to playing around with the rest of this sample.