415 Tasting Notes
This is the last sample from Tea Side I was given to review. Thanks for allowing me to try this Bai Hao, as it’s one of my favourite types of oolong. I’ve tasted Bai Hao from Taiwan, China, India, and Vietnam, and am glad to add Thailand to that list. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 30, 20, 30, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 120, 180, and 240 seconds.
The dry aroma is of autumn leaves, peach, and muscatel. The first steep has notes of apricot, peach, muscatel, stewed pear, autumn leaves, wood, and malt. The fruit intensifies in the second steep, and it indeed begins to taste like a honey black oolong, as Arby noted. The next couple steeps reveal sap and more honey, though also more malt and black tea-type flavours. There’s a tiny bit of citrus in the sixth steep, along with the pear, peach, and muscatel notes, but at this point, its transformation into a black tea is accelerating. By steep seven, it’s a malty, slightly fruity tea with some tannins, although it never loses its muscatel and stewed fruit notes completely.
While I found much to like about this Dongfang Meiren, it has more black tea notes than I’m used to in this type of oolong. Still, this is a minor complaint and it’s overall a pleasant tea. I imagine it would take well to Western or cold brewing.
Flavors: Apricot, Autumn Leaf Pile, Citrus, Honey, Malt, Muscatel, Peach, Pear, Sap, Stewed Fruits, Tannin, Wood
Preparation
After my marathon gongfu session with Tillerman’s Shan Lin Xi, it was too late to have any more caffeine, so I chose this herbal. I don’t usually buy bagged tea, but keep some of this on hand since it’s simple and convenient. I steeped one bag (no idea how many grams) in a 355 ml mug at around boiling for 4, 6, and 10 minutes.
The flavour is predominantly vanilla and chamomile, with a bit of mint and possibly some sweetness from the blackberry leaves (though the vanilla is also sweet, so who knows?). The rose gets completely lost. The flavour doesn’t change over the three steeps and the tea is soothing and pleasant.
Sometimes you need something comforting and uncomplicated, and this tea fills the bill perfectly!
ETA: How can Steepster not have chamomile in its list of flavours?
Flavors: Honey, Mint, Sweet, Vanilla
Preparation
Well, I finally caved and got six teas from Tillerman, just in time for no one to be able to read my notes. That figures. I was also certain there were some reviews of Shan Lin Xi oolongs from this company that I could use as points of reference, but I can’t find any, possibly due to all the Steepster glitches. As I’ve probably said before, Shan Lin Xi oolongs are among my favourites and this one was affordable, so into my cart it went. More or less according to the vendor’s instructions, I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at boiling for 30, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 60, 75, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus a few long steeps.
The dry aroma is of resin and sweet flowers. The first steep has heady notes of orchid, lilac, and sweet pea, plus slight resin, custard, grass, and butter. The second steep has herbs, spinach, lettuce, grass, custard sweetness, and flowers. This tea has gone vegetal really quickly, and I wonder if I oversteeped it. The body is still smooth and heavy, and maybe this is what is meant by “good grip?” The third steep gives off a waft of some sort of “mountain glade” air freshener, which is probably a combination of flowers and sweetness and is actually kind of appealing. The tea achieves a good balance of vegetal, floral, and resin in the next three or so rounds, and there’s a tiny bit of cooked pineapple in the liquor and at the bottom of the cup. The next couple steeps introduce more veggies, including spinach and kale, and a condensed milk sweetness. As expected, the final few steeps are more or less grassy and vegetal.
This tea fits my idea of what a Shan Lin Xi should be, though it has fewer fruity notes than its counterpart from Floating Leaves. (They’re both somewhat pricy U.S. companies made even less affordable by the exchange rate, so I naturally tend to compare them.) As the session progressed, my rating went up from an 80 to an 83 to an 86, which is a fair indication of its quality. Surprisingly, Tillerman’s steeping parameters worked, and I might start subjecting all my high mountain oolongs to boiling water now.
Flavors: Butter, Custard, Floral, Grass, Herbaceous, Kale, Lettuce, Milk, Orchid, Pineapple, Resin, Spinach, Sweet, Vegetal
Preparation
I bought this tea in 2018 because it was recommended as being fruity. I was a bit skeptical since this is a Wuyi oolong, but I decided to go for it. (I believe a 15% off sale was involved.) I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.
The dry aroma is of strawberries, grain, honey, and roast. The first steep has notes of honey, walnuts, grain, wood, roast, and flowers. There’s an indistinct fruity aftertaste. In the second steep, I get peach, raisin, and strawberry, along with more roasted nuts, honey, grain, and wood. The floral notes become more prominent in the next couple steeps, but honestly, this is still mainly about the wood, nuts, and roast. I don’t get any spice, as Roswell Strange did. The tea doesn’t change much over the session, fading to wood, minerals, nuts, honey, and roast near the end.
While this tea doesn’t really change my mind about Wuyi oolongs, it indeed has some fruity elements. I enjoyed how smooth and sweet it is and won’t have trouble finishing the bag.
Flavors: Floral, Grain, Honey, Mineral, Peach, Raisins, Roasted, Roasted Nuts, Strawberry, Walnut, Wood
Preparation
Oh, Leafhopper. Yours is the only note on my dashboard. It’s like the internet gods have picked you!
Also, I am intrigued by strawberry note tea.
Ya, earlier today the Dashboard was just completely missing… now it just seems to not be loading anything in the history that was prior to this note.
Yes, I was surprised when this review showed up on my dashboard and assumed it wouldn’t appear on anyone else’s. Glad that notes are starting to be posted again. The strawberry flavour in the tea is kind of faint and mostly consists of sweetness.
Yay! The Great Steepster Freeze of 2020 is finally over! I’m glad all my notes were actually saved and I don’t need to repost them.
I haven’t tried too many aged teas, so this is a learning experience. Thanks to Fong Mong for the sample. I didn’t know how to steep this tea, so I used my old parameters of all 7 g, 120 ml, 200F, and rounds of 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus a few long steeps.
The dry aroma is of old wood, char, and roast. The first steep has notes of oak, sandalwood, chicory, minerals, and roast. The roast and minerals get stronger in steep two, and a honey element emerges. The flavours keep getting more intense as the session continues, and there’s definitely a bit of decayed wood in there, too. Generally, this is a smooth, woody tea with a sophisticated profile. The smoke and roast are more noticeable in later rounds, but this tea doesn’t evolve too much over the session.
While it’s not something I’d typically drink, I enjoyed this aged oolong for its exotic woodiness and smoothness. As khboyd said in a review, it reminds me of a Wuyi oolong. I’m sure it would have been even better in the fall or winter. I can’t wait for this unusually hot summer to end, not least because drinking hot tea in this heat is kind of annoying.
Flavors: Char, Decayed Wood, Honey, Mineral, Oak, Roasted, Smoke, Smooth, Wood
Preparation
Eh! Drinking hot tea in August IS annoying! I was desperate this morning so I was forced to drink a hot cuppa, which was not the torture I thought it would be.
We’ve had some days that were over 30C here in Ontario, but I tend not to cold brew because it requires more leaf and I don’t get as many resteeps. I guess I’d rather save money than have cold tea. I do, however, sometimes cold brew old teas I want to get rid of.
I generally will brew a big pot of hot tea at night as I am doing the dinner dishes, pour it into a jug and chill it overnight. That way I can get a few hot brews out of the leaves without having to cold brew-which I also think is a waste and does not taste as good as hot brew that’s chilled. It’s been consistently over 32.22C here (90s Fahrenheit) on the U.S. East coast with 98% humidity. We had tornadoes yesterday-and even they did not cool it off. I made sure to brew up tea after dinner so I can have a big, cold glass tomorrow at breakfast.
Yikes, that’s hot! I’ve also made hot tea and then put it in the fridge. I’m not sure if it makes more tea than cold steeping; I might have to do a comparison. I actually haven’t made a big Western pot of tea in quite a while. I usually do gongfu sessions or steep it in a mug using a Finum infuser.
I am a tea barbarian. That is one reason why I don’t review. When I first tried pu erh, I would put a chunk in 2 cups of water in a Pyrex measuring cup then put that in the microwave for 2 minutes. I brew Western 95% of the time. To me, tea just tastes like tea. I so love these lyrical tasting notes folks write and wish I could get all that from my tea. So I get it vicariously here instead.
This is the last of the six teas I bought from Cha Yi. It’s a darker Taiwanese oolong from spring 2020, which I grabbed near the beginning of June when this year’s teas were few and far between. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus three or four uncounted infusions.
The dry aroma is of berry jam, honey, and cookies. The first steep has notes of stewed raspberry, blackberry, currant, other red fruits, plum, honey, and cookies. The second steep adds some malt and mild tannins, mimicking the bite in raspberries and other berries. The third to sixth steeps are a lovely combination of peach, plum, muscatel, honey, cookies, and berries and have a long, fruity aftertaste. Honey and roast become more prominent in the seventh steep, although there’s still lots of berries and muscatel. The final steeps have notes of berries, muscatel, malt, pastries, butter, roast, earth, and minerals.
This is a fruity, crowd-pleasing oolong with many of the flavours I like. Featuring the typical jammy, stonefruit notes of Hong Shui oolongs, this tea is really enjoyable and is well worth the price. It’s also incredibly persistent, lasting well beyond the number of steeps I had planned. Definitely consider getting it if you buy from this company.
Flavors: Berries, Black Currant, Blackberry, Butter, Cookie, Earth, Honey, Jam, Malt, Mineral, Muscatel, Pastries, Peach, Plum, Raspberry, Red Fruits, Roasted, Stewed Fruits, Tannin
Preparation
I bought this back in 2018 based on the catalogue description. I have a well-known weakness for Mi Xiang black teas—and anything else with pronounced honey and fruity flavours. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.
The dry aroma is of honey, malt, stonefruit, and muscatel. The first steep has notes of honey, malt, cookies, wood, nectarine, blood orange, and muscatel. The second steep adds plums, apricots, brown sugar, and additional malt. The tea is a bit drying in the mouth. In the third to sixth steeps, the plum, apricot, and muscatel notes get stronger and the tea has a typical Mi Xiang profile. The final rounds feature honey, malt, wood, tannins, faint plum, earth, and minerals.
Compared to the Mi Xiang Hong Cha from Cha Yi that I drank a few days ago, this tea has more pastry notes and a wider variety of fruit, but the flavour peters out more quickly. This could be due to the fact that this tea is two years old now. Honestly, though, this is a minor fault and I’d be happy to drink either of these teas.
Flavors: Apricot, Blood Orange, Brown Sugar, Cookie, Earth, Honey, Malt, Mineral, Muscatel, Plum, Stonefruit, Tannin, Wood
Preparation
Thanks to Fong Mong for the free sample, and sorry for taking so long to review it. Fushoushan is one of my favourite mountains, and I somehow wanted to find a way to get two sessions out of the leaves. However, this didn’t work out. I steeped the generous 7 g in a 120 ml teapot at 190F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.
The dry aroma is of apricots, orchids, honey, and other flowers. The first steep has notes of apricot, orchid, lilac, honeysuckle, sweet pea, honey, cream, spinach, nutmeg, and grass. The second steep adds notes of brown sugar, herbs, and arugula, and the florals and stonefruit get stronger. The next couple steeps have a nice balance of stonefruit, herbaceous, sweet, spicy, and floral flavours, with hints of custard and caramel. The spinach and grass start taking over in steep five, although the floral, honey, and herbs are still prominent. The session ends with spinach, veggies, grass, and florals.
This is a nuanced and complex oolong that checks all the boxes for a good high mountain tea. The nutmeg and stonefruit are particularly pleasant. While the Shan Lin Xi and Li Shan are probably better bets in terms of the price, this Fushoushan is a nice treat.
Flavors: Apricot, Brown Sugar, Caramel, Cream, Custard, Floral, Grass, Herbaceous, Honey, Honeysuckle, Nutmeg, Orchid, Spinach, Vegetal
Preparation
I am glad to see this! I was thinking they had closed, but it was Nuvola that closed. I need to look at Fong Mong again.
They’ve rebranded as jLteaco, but they’re still open. I’ve liked most of the teas I’ve had from them and their prices are reasonable. Too bad Taiwan still isn’t shipping to Canada.
I bought this tea in February along with a bunch of other herbals. It was a choice between this and lemon myrtle, and I can’t remember why I picked the verbena. I’ve been drinking it off and on, and despite how simple it is, I’ve been enjoying it. For this session, I steeped around 4 g of leaf in a 355 ml mug using boiling water for 3.5, 5, and 10 minutes.
Dry, the leaf smells of lemon and herbs. The tea has notes of lemon, herbs, camphor, and honey. If chamomile tea tasted like lemon, it would taste like this, if that makes any sense. It has a long lemon and herbaceous aftertaste. The flavour doesn’t change over the three steeps.
I’d recommend this tea for those looking for an herbal tisane that doesn’t have any of the usual suspects (hibiscus, rosehips, licorice, or mint). While I’m dubious of the health benefits, it is indeed a nice, calming infusion to have at the end of the day.
Flavors: Camphor, Herbaceous, Honey, Lemon
Preparation
I bought this in 2018 to compare it with the fresh spring Mi Lan Xiang. I wish I’d added it to the database then, as it’s been taken off the Camellia Sinensis website. Since I don’t have a catalogue description, I can’t say whether this is an aged version of their regular Mi Lan Xiang or a different iteration of this Dan Cong. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.
The dry aroma is of roast, char, honey, wood, and faint guava. The first steep has well-integrated notes of honey, roast, barley, orchid, guava, wood, and roasted nuts. The second steep adds lychee and hops. Far from being only in the aftertaste, these flavours present themselves up front as well. They continue in the next couple steeps, and I also get a hint of orange. The char and roast become more prominent in steep five, but not to the point that they obscure the honey, guava, lychee, and orchid. Wood and incense appear in steep seven, and the roast gets stronger, though it’s still not overpowering. The persistence of the signature honey orchid flavours is amazing. The session ends predictably with honey, roast, and minerals.
If this is indeed an older version of the same tea, which seems likely given that some flavours are found in both, it represents a marked improvement. The roast level is about the same, but rather than hiding around the edges, the honey, fruit, and floral notes are front and centre. If I hadn’t read the labels, I’d have pegged this as the newer Dan Cong. I’m glad I had the chance to compare these two teas, and will keep an eye out for older Dan Congs in the future.
Flavors: Char, Floral, Grain, Guava, Honey, Hops, Lychee, Mineral, Orange, Orchid, Roast Nuts, Roasted, Roasted Barley, Wood
Preparation
Just posting here because it’s the most recent post in my dashboard – but is anyone else having issues posting notes now/their dashboard stuck? Both VariaTEA and I tried writing notes today and the note appears to “post” but then the tasting note isn’t visible on the dash/our personal tea logs/or the specific tea page… Definitely not what usually happens when posting a tasting note glitches…
Yep, this is also my most recent tasting note showing on the dashboard.
tea-sipper, do you mind trying to post a tasting note to see if you have the same issue?
I posted a tasting note about an hour ago and it doesn’t appear on the dashboard, only my tealog
When I click on YOUR tealog, the last one I see is Banofee
…Welp, I tried posting about the issue on the discussion board and the same thing happened – comment appear to “post” but then it neither appeared in the thread and the discussion thread also didn’t get bumped back up to the first one on the board…
So it’s quite possible that comments are the only thing posting right now?
Also not seeing e-mail notifications for any comments on tasting notes that I liked.
@tea-sipper – I wrote Banoffee yesterday before whatever is happening started happening; the last one I attempted to write was for Keemun Congfu…
This seems too consistent across multiple users to be one of the weird glitches the only affects a few people, and inconsistently. I wonder if it’s the result of Adagio attempting to fix something??
Fingers crossed it’s a short lived issue & we get back to normal quickly.
Well, I wrote a message to the Steepster FB page but I don’t know if it’s being monitored anymore and, if so, by who…
Everybody’s notes are showing up in /recent. The last to show up on my dashboard is this one, posted 15 hours ago. In /discuss, the last thread to show as being active was 16 hours ago.
I guess it’s good they’re not totally lost? That’s weird though – in seven years I don’t think I’ve ever seen this happen, especially with the discussion board too. The dashboard, years back when Jason was still actively supporting the site, used to “freeze” occasionally but IIRC the recent section always froze with it & it never affected the DB at the same time…
I just posted a reply to a thread in /discuss. It posted but did not update to the first page, nor did it show in the Recent Activity tab on my dashboard. The last update in my Recent Activity tab was 16 hours ago, and in my Notices tab 2o hours ago. It looks like there was a big bot thread bump 20 hours ago, and it seems the offender was deleted. I wonder if all of the issues are related to that massive bump.
Hm, now my post to the thread is missing.
And now user reviews in /recent are missing.
I think some of us should have grabbed Michael @ Adagio’s e-mail before this happened. haha
derk My posts to the discussion board, responding to Arby appeared to be posted but they are nowhere to be seen. The last tea reviews I see under ‘recent’ are 7 hours old. I thought the board was oddly slow today…
Just popping in here to say I’m having the same issues with my tasting notes from last night. Also, this is the most recent post on my dashboard (from 17 hours ago). White Antlers – I did see your post to Arby a few minutes ago, but now it has disappeared.
I’m having the same issues. This is the most recent post on my dashboard, I wrote a review that hasn’t shown up in my tealog, and my reply to a discussion thread posts but doesn’t show up. Seems like Steepster is definitely broken.
Shae Weird. Just weird.
I posted a note this morning. It was a little dodgy then seemed to go through. It is on my tealog but never made it here.
Ashmanra, after you mentioned it, I saw the note in your tealog but not on my dashboard. I hope they can sort out these issues.
ashmanra If it’s the note for Huang Jin Gui, it’s up. I see it. Posted 6 hours ago.
LuckyMe’s tasting note for a baozhong oolong is now the last tasting note on /recent. Everything else posted after that has disappeared. I checked on my phone which has never been logged into Steepster, and while logged in on my laptop.
Same on my Kindle and lap top. That last tasting note was 17 hours ago. Odd, though…when I click on ashmanra’s name, I see her last tasting note from 7 hours ago.
Yep, Huang Jin Gui was posted this morning! That is the last one I have done, but it doesn’t show up anywhere but my tealog.
I just successfully posted another review, only to have it not show up on my tealog or dashboard. Weirdly, the submitted review said I had 208 notes, which would be accurate if the two reviews I posted today showed up (my tealog says I have 206 notes). Hopefully this means they’re in the database and will appear eventually.
Mine is stuck too. 15 hours behind.
Same problem here. My posts and tasting notes since the past 24 hours have stopped showing. Frustrating…
a day ago… last tasting note :/
Damn, I was really hoping to wake up this morning to a functional site…
Same here. This is frustrating!
Same. I’m hoping Michael, or whoever else might be running the site, looks at it this week. Michael said in one of the discussion threads that we should see upgrades next month. I’m really hoping that doesn’t mean that they aren’t planning on working on Steepster until August.
Yup – I’m not sure who to email about the issue. I already reached out on FB, but my message hasn’t been read yet (and I don’t know if anyone monitors the FB account anymore). I guess one option COULD be Jason? He could potentially redirect to Adagio/Michael – but I’m feeling conflicted on whether that’s an appropriate ask since he’s no longer the site owner. Isn’t that a big like asking your old manager who has since resigned to call the current manager to complain about an issue with your schedule? It’s not his problem anymore…
I submitted an e-ticket using the “contact us” button at the bottom of the discussions page. If the site has legally changed hands that should go to the new admin. Other than that, I don’t know what to do.
Personally, I wouldn’t reach out to Jason. Not his site, not his problem.
I tried to find a phone number or email address for Adagio’s head office, but with no luck. Maybe try to message them on social media?
I’ve been in the middle of the “updating the database” project, and those pages are also stuck. That is, after I edit a page, it says the tea page is updated, but shows the old tea page, without the updates. If I click “Edit” again, however, the page I’m given to edit has all the edits I just made… they just aren’t showing on the public website anywhere.
Here, I did my librarian thing and this is Michael’s contact info, for anyone who wants it:
Media contact:
Michael Cramer
e-mail: michael@adagio.com
Marketing Manager
(973) 253-7400 ext.111
Thank you always for your librarian skills, Mastress Alita. :D
Librarians are awesome. :) Both of my sisters are librarians, and I jokingly call them Google1 and Google2.
Mastress Alita, this is great! Has anyone contacted Michael, and is there an update?
Can’t believe we’re still frozen – this might be the longest freeze ever in Steepster history…
What’s curious is that nothing in this thread about the freeze can be seen on the front page where this tea note is featured.
Never mind, Leafhopper isn’t one of the featured people anymore. :/
Ooh, I’m glad I made it to the front page of Steepster, if only temporarily. :) Has anyone gotten a response from Michael?
I haven’t received a reply yet. Also, it was a tea note from three days ago, not this one. :) I should be slower to speak.
Thank you Mastress Alita.
Veronica, whichever note it was, I’m still happy! Too bad there hasn’t been a response. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.
Leafhopper, absolutely! Your tasting notes are awesome, and you’ve been on the front page a few times that I’ve seen. I just don’t want to spread false information. There’s enough problems here without me adding to them.
I totally understand. Let’s hope we wake up to a working Steepster tomorrow morning.
…nope :/
Can anyone else suddenly access their inbox? I’m not sure if the messages are actually going through, though. I wish Adagio would provide a service update on when the site will be working again.
No, I cannot access mine. It took me 10 minutes to log in this morning. I kept getting the 503 error.
not updating either
It’s not only US and Canada thing :/
Anyone hear anything?
I’m not the most tech-savvy person on the planet, but wouldn’t a company typically make changes in a test environment before pushing those changes to production so that there is minimal impact to the site? We do this at work and I asked my husband, who works in Technology, and he is baffled that this would even be happening. Assuming this freeze is due to Adagio’s updates, of course.
“Traveler’s log, Day 4. Still trapped in Mi Lan Xiang 2010. Still no word from the new Overlords who had repeatedly said, ‘Trust us, everything will be fine!’ Leafhopper wasn’t expecting such a rush, and the tea is running low. We’ve been abandoned to rot away in this lone tea review, the last of its kind before The Great Steepster Freeze of 2020 began. I fear soon we will grow restless and desperate enough to resort to eating each other…”
Mastress Alita, lol
LOL! Yes, we are stranded and getting restless.
Whether this is a bug they can’t fix or part of their efforts to update the server, Adagio’s failure to give us any information is very frustrating.
haha. I think something like this happened before about a year ago where things were stuck? Though not to this extent. But I remember things being stranded in the last posted tasting note. This might be something that Jason had to fix behind the scenes a lot that the new owners didn’t know about…
Yes, Steepster did periodically freeze for a few hours or even a day or so, but never for this long.
I keep checking in… Aww.
On a positive note, this tasting note now shows up in the list of the most popular notes on Steepster…
LOL! Yes, people seem to have a lot to say about this tea. :D
Plenty of brand new spam in the Discussion section.
I don’t see any spam, and the last discussion post is four days ago. Who’d have thought I’d actually want to see more recent spam posts?
Weird, Leafhopper. I logged in earlier today and there was half a page of new spam there. Some of it was just a few hours old.
here’s one from today:
What Are The Benefits Of Using Buzz B Gone?
buzzbsuper in General Tea Discussion about 4 hours ago
0 about 4 hours ago
White Antlers, now I’m getting some spam from three days ago, but nothing more recent. Steepster sure is acting weird.
It sure is, Leafhopper. I think a lot of us are seeing different things, but what we want to be seeing (and doing) still isn’t working. : P
White Antlers, I’m humbled. Thank you! I will fulfill your request.
Derk, I just looked at your tealog and saw an entry with no notes that was posted ten hours ago. I’m heartened that our reviews might still be in the database, though who knows at this point? It may be worthwhile contacting Jason if Adagio doesn’t know how to fix this bug.
Also, checking my own tealog doesn’t magically bring up the three reviews I posted since this debacle began.
Just thought I’d let you all in on some potentially happy news. Yes, at first glance everything is well behind on my end, but after some finagling, I can get some of the newer things to show up. This to me says that our posts are being saved in the database.
For instance, if I go to my Tealog, the newest item that shows up is 4 days old, but if I change the sort order to Most popular, then change it back to New, my newer tasting notes all suddenly show up :)
derk The pleasure is mine! Enjoy. : )
MandyJS, this works! I can get my last three reviews to show up. I’m glad my tasting notes are being saved.
@MandyJS – Genius! Worked for me too. I also tried this on the Discussion Board and it seems to work there as well – it gave me the chance to flag all the spam from the last four days (though w/ the weird cacheing issue it’s still showing up even after I marked it). Some of the edits I’ve made in discussions, like the Samurai TTB thread, still aren’t displaying – but it’s a start!
(And of course, once again, it’s the users finding work arounds for the glitches…)
So I just got a message back from the Steepster FB Account:
“Hi, thank you so much for letting us know. Things may be a little spotty while we begin making the transition of Steepster over to Adagio. I’ll pass this along to our team and hopefully we can get things working properly again soon”.
Anyone else get any response back?
…day six.
Yep, this is the longest time Steepster has been down since I started using the site.
All of the comments are finally showing up on the tea tasting note page (it wasn’t before for me), although the likes and comments still don’t show up on your profile.
I was wondering why there was only one note in the last days of the dashboard. I had the same issues trying to upload a note, today, 7/31/2020 2:27 PM Eastern time. So essentially, Adagio is absorbing this site and they now own it?
Adagio definitely owns it, though it’s questionable how well they’re absorbing it!
Mmmmm. Lovely. And here I was having great luck trying Wang Family Teas roasted teas and green oolongs, Whispering Pines with Lorien, and a new Georgia/Estonia company called Renegade Tea. The Renegade ones are all on the lighter end and are more grandpa style teas, but they do have some quirks.
Can I also get more background about the Adagio absorption? (I know they used to have their own site for tea notes too).
I can still post reviews and it looks like they’re being added to the database, though no one can see them. (If a tree falls in the forest without anyone hearing it, does it make a sound?) I just got six teas from Tillerman (plus a customs charge, yay!) that I’m eager to write about.
For more info about Adagio, you can look at the discussion thread called “The Future of Steepster.”
I just saw what looked like Daylon’s latest review from 2 hours ago, but maybe times and updates are still fubar…
It was mine, and I did write it 2 hours ago.
Daylon, I had to click on your profile to see the review, but it did show up. Still nothing on my dashboard since this Mi Lan Xiang review.
My Dashboard and the Discussion Boards, edits to tea entries in the database, etc. still aren’t showing up “in real time” (everything there is still showing stuff from 6 days ago, or how it appeared six days ago). Yes, there are “workarounds” to see more current postings (like going to someone’s individual tea log, switching the Discussion Board from “Recent Replies” to “Date Posted”, which really just brings up the hordes of new spam, etc.) I can still post tea reviews, but they only show up on my Tasting Notes page, not in the Dashboard. At this point I almost wonder if I should just close down Steepster and check back in a month to see if anything has finally changed. It’s getting ridiculous…
I commented on Daylon’s most recent review. The comment appeared to post but when I went back, it was gone.
Mastress Alita you might have a good idea to check back here in a month. I’ve only stuck around because I sent out some tea care packages to folks and wanted to be sure they arrived safely. I never post reviews even though I drink lots of tea every day. Maybe waiting a month and coming back will bring wonderful, happy surprises. Or so we can dream and hope…
Has anyone other than me gotten a reply back to the message they sent out?
I have a few more replies that I’ve gotten since the one I posted above – I’m not sure if I’m talking w/ Michael or someone else, but this has been through the Steepster FB account:
I asked if the delay spam accounts I’ve flagged being cleared was related to the cache errors/glitch and this was the response…
Unfortunately, the transition of the website is ongoing and proceeding less smoothly than we had expected. The damage to the original code is more pervasive than we had anticipated, but we remain optimistic about the site’s future. Please bear with us as we go through the difficult migration.
After that I asked if they could provide a rough estimate of the timeline for the remainder of the migration based on the current challenges they’ve come across and pace of the migration thus far. This was the response:
It’s really hard to say. Like I said, the issues are deeply rooted and we want to take the time to get it right. But we are working on it and hoping to get it up and running ASAP.
So it looks like what we’re all experiencing is directly related to the migration of Steepster over to Adagio. While I think some advance warning that the migration had started and could (though clearly it did) cause issues would have been VERY appreciated, Adagio is definitely aware of the problems we’re experiencing and is actively working on fixing them. No ETA on how long it will take, but it sounds like this will definitely be temporary.
Possibly related, and possibly not, for a brief moment I saw a new thread on the discussion board today called “Tea 123” and while my first impression was that it might be spam or a user trying to figure out why nothing was recent, what I actually think it might be is Adagio trying to test/trial updates relating to the migration.
The account is an old one from about ten years ago that has primarily only reviewed Adagio teas, and the only recent tasting note was an Adagio blend with the comment “Lorem Ipsum”. I don’t recognize the username at all but the hyperlink for their user profile is https://steepster.com/adagio – and whatever you first signed up your account as is the default address, so def seems like this was Adagio’s OG account from like a decade ago…
So they’re clearly trying – I’ll give ’em that.
Maybe you’re the only one who contacted them, Roswell? I didn’t want to send a rush of e-mails if others were… so thank you for doing that Roswell. Just as long as they are trying to fix the problems, I’m okay with it. I’m still drinking tea…
I didn’t contact them either. I’m glad Adagio is aware of the issues and is trying to fix them.
Discussion page has some info updated.
It’s good to see the update, though it would be nice to have an ETA.
Is there an update from Adagio on the discussion board? I’m not seeing it.
Neither do I Shae :(
you have to first find the ‘future of steepster’ thread, then go to the fourth page, where you will be able to see there is a fifth page and that’s where Michael has written a small message.
No 5th page for me on ‘Future of Steepster.’
The last post I see on this topic is Leafhopper’s inquiry about the site working on the IE platform, and that was 10 days ago.
The fifth page only shows up for me when I’m ON the fourth page.
This is what Michael wrote there:
The past two weeks had been very frustrating as our intention was to dedicate time and effort to address the many deficiencies you’d identified for us to fix. Unfortunately, this work can’t begin until we receive access to the Steepster server, which has yet to occur. We will continue to work with Steepter’s founders on finding a solution that will permit us to begin at last the task of making this website easier for all to use. Please accept my sincere apology for the unforeseen delay and your frustrations. I share them as well.
There’s going to be so much backlogging once the site is up and running again. :)
Thanks, Angrboda.
I can’t even add new tea, add or remove from my database either. Still can never respond or write in forum :P or update my profile for over a year… However, how nice to see all of you writing on this thread hehe. Thank you for all your updates!
Thank you for posting Michael’s comment here for us, Angrboda.
Steepster has been frozen for ten days now. Let’s hope Adagio gives us another update on their progress.
Well, we know a tasting note can have over 100 comments now. I’m at least grateful that I can access old tasting notes for reference while Steepster is being worked on (and the site isn’t completely missing for ten days and counting.)
Could it be? Are we fixed?? I’m getting email notifications and new notes in my feed!!
Same here, and my dashboard has updated! Amazing!
THANK YOU Steepster overlords!
Same Shae! I started to get email notifications and I knew something is happening. And now I checked, and all notes are there!
Thank you everybody involved!
Mastress Alita: that traveller’s log, lol.
Yep, that traveller’s log was great!
