1294 Tasting Notes
Day 12 of the Tea Thoughts box. Nazanin sourced this specifically for this box, and as far as I can tell is not selling it. Thanks to Roswell Strange for adding it to the database! Confession: I actually opened this one in advance and enjoyed it over the weekend so I could gong fu and savor it. I got two sessions out of the 14g in the packet. Probably could have split it up better and gotten 3 sessions, but I was eyeballing it.
The dry leaf smells very roasted and mineral. For some reason it specifically made me think of the smell of iron. Which, duh, tracks. The first steep definitely has that roastiness to it, but not as strong as the aroma of the dry leaf. This reminds me a lot of tieguanyin, and that’s because it is the same thing. I guess I had never seen this specific name for it before? I was literally sitting here wondering what the difference is between Iron Buddha and tieguanyin. A quick internet search revealed that there’s none, it’s the same thing, I just didn’t know that. I got what felt like endless steeps out of the leaf, with a pretty consistent flavor profile throughout. Eventually I stopped because I was trying not to over-caffeinate but it still kept me awake until almost 3am. The second time, I cut myself off earlier in the day in the interest of sleep!
Day 10 of the Tea Thoughts winter countdown box. Gong fu’d this just so I’d have an excuse to use the teeny tea tray again. This brews up a pale, medium-bodied liquor. It’s savory with notes of hay and mildly sweet crisp greens, like asparagus or snap peas. Slightly dry at the end of the sip. Perfectly cozy yesterday when it was pouring rain and I was super tired. Later steeps got a little bitter, so keeping steep time short is clutch.
Day 5 of my DIY advent. I’d forgotten that there was a non-Adagio tea in here. The Harney and Adagio orders arrived at the same time, so I included this Harney sample when I was making up the packets. I save chamomile teas/blends for bedtime in hopes that they will help me sleep. They never do! But I keep doing it anyway because hope springs eternal I guess. I like this specific chamomile! It’s got that clean chamomile flavor, a bit apple-like and very mildly sweet. None of that dry hay note that can sometimes creep in with chamomile and make it taste stale.
Day 10 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent. I don’t get how “pomegranate” translates to “après ski,” but I’m also not a winter sports person so this might just be a knowledge gap on my part. The dry leaf smells strongly and not unpleasantly of pomegranate. The flavor is the same – sweet pomegranate with a touch of astringency. Nice hot, better iced. Reminds me of those bottled raspberry iced teas.
Day 9 of the Plum Deluxe herbal advent (2024). They included this in the calendar two years ago. I don’t really mind though because 1) they don’t frequently do repeats and 2) I personally appreciate a good ginger blend because I have so many pain issues and ginger helps a bit. I had a good day today overall – went to see a movie, walked a lot – but I spent the first half of the day stuck in bed with a pretty bad migraine. So this ginger blend is perfect for easing the lingering bits of that and hopefully preventing any flare-up from that long walk. I steeped it for 9 minutes. Flavor-wise, the ginger is the primary note. It has that nice gingery bite, which lingers after the sip. I can’t quite taste the lemon unless I go looking for it. The liquorice root is definitely noticeable though because it creates that unctuous feeling on the tongue. Not so strongly as to feel gross, but unignorable. Overall, one that arrived with perfect timing and I’ve already finished off while writing this note!
Day 10 of the Lupicia advent calendar. There’s a whole pretty travel tin of this, which is very exciting! The art is beautiful. Day 9 was matcha-covered peanuts; I noshed on some today while drinking this. The Lupicia website suggests that this blend is good as an iced tea. I set it up as a cold brew first thing this morning and actually starting drinking it about 7 hours later. It’s like a green tea version of Jingle Bells. That same juicy grape flavor is dominant, over a smooth and slightly grassy base. I know they say there’s citrus flavor in here, but I’m just not picking up on any. Which I’m fine with, actually. I do like this as a cold brew and it’ll probably get finished off quickly once the weather heats up.
Day 8 of the Lupicia advent calendar. There’s one sachet of this, which I’m actually totally fine with. When I realized that this is a classic-style black tea blend that includes Darjeeling and therefore has a high likelihood of pain, I decided to give it to my iron-stomached black-tea-drinking partner instead. He asked for it as a cold brew, so it brewed overnight in the fridge. I had a few sips for science and the rest was his. This was very low on the astringency, perhaps because we cold brewed it. The best way I can describe it is “like Lipton but better.” It tastes like a standard black tea but smoother and a little fruity. Report from partner: “I added some agave, it was fine, it just tasted like black tea.”
We’re finally getting some much-needed rain! While I’m happy about that for macro reasons, it is still a migraine trigger for me. So detouring from my advent teas today to get some anti-inflammatories into my system. We just restocked on this during Harney’s BF sale, so we likely won’t run out for a while. But this has become a go-to around here for migraines and post-workout.
Day 8 of the Tea Thoughts winter countdown box. Oh, whew, another black tea that doesn’t hurt! This is so much better than I expected it to be, and I know already that my tasting note isn’t going to do it justice. So just know that I found this fairly complex and quite enjoyable. I got three hot Western-style steeps and an overnight cold steep out of it. Rich, cocoa, black bread, almost jammy notes. The cold steep had very similar flavors, just a bit lighter, probably because it was the last steep.
Day 4 of the DIY Adagio calendar. I intentionally saved this for bedtime because the name makes it seem like it would be soothing. Unfortunately, it seems to actually be better suited to being a mid-morning tea soda, filling the gaps between cups of caffeinated tea. The dry leaf smells like sweet lemonade. The brew itself is conspicuously missing any tartness. What I have instead is a candy-like lemon sweetness and the barest whisper of lavender. There’s a thing about how a proper dry martini is made with gin and a glance at the vermouth bottle. That’s what this blend reminds me of – candy lemon with a glance at the lavender. This is drinkable, I can see where in the flavor portfolio it fits, but it just isn’t what I expected at all. And for what it is, it’s missing depth and complexity to make it great.
