414 Tasting Notes

drank Bancha Masudaen by Nio Teas
414 tasting notes

This bancha is another first for me. I’m still waiting for my scale, so these generously offered pre-packed samples are proving to be very helpful (though to be honest, I wish I had more black teas and oolongs). I steeped 5 g of leaf in 150 ml of 160F water for 60, 20, 30, 40, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

With its collection of twigs and leaves, this bancha definitely looks like a rustic stem tea. The dry aroma is of grass, honey, butter, and roast. As another reviewer mentioned, this tea tastes a lot like genmaicha, with grass, roasted grains, honey, hay, and seaweed impressions. It reminds me of something served at a sushi restaurant. The next couple steeps have flavours of toasted rice, saline, spinach, and butter, along with grass and gentle roast. The final steeps have notes of earth, metal, popped rice, and grass.

This is a pleasant tea that I probably steeped too many times. I think it would go well with food and am craving sushi now. :)

Use LEAFHOPPER10OFF to get a 10% discount (I get a small commission when you use this code). Their holiday sale is going on for a while, and the code should still be good in 2024.

Flavors: Butter, Earth, Grain, Grass, Hay, Honey, Metallic, Nori, Roasted, Saline, Spinach, Toasted Rice, Vegetal

Preparation
160 °F / 71 °C 1 min, 0 sec 5 g 5 OZ / 150 ML

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83

It’s great that Nio included a shincha in my bunch of samples! I assume this is from the 2022 harvest, though it doesn’t say so on the package. I steeped 5 g of leaf in 150 ml of 140F water for 45, 20, 20, 20, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is promising, with notes of stonefruit, florals, spinach, cream, and grass. The first steep is quite vegetal, with notes of squash, spinach, kale, grass, umami, and nectarine, particularly in the aroma and aftertaste. Steep two has even more veggies and a thicker body, with squash, asparagus, kale, spinach, cream, and that lovely nectarine. Subsequent steeps have more umami and less cruciferous punch, and I get apple, grass, nectarine, and spinach. The fruit is better integrated into the grassier, softer later steeps, although the tea is a bit drying in the mouth.

The apple and nectarine make this a fun shincha, particularly in the later steeps. I’m less enthused about the veggies. I think lower temperatures definitely help to tame them.

Nio Teas is having a holiday sale with up to 64% off. Get an additional 10% off with the code LEAFHOPPER10OFF (I get a small commission when you use this code).

Flavors: Apple, Asparagus, Cream, Floral, Grass, Green, Kale, Nectarine, Spinach, Squash, Thick, Umami, Vegetal

Preparation
140 °F / 60 °C 0 min, 45 sec 5 g 5 OZ / 150 ML

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Thanks to Derk for this generous sample. I think I’ve had one Yushan oolong before, but it wasn’t memorable. I have higher expectations for this one! I steeped the entire 6 g in 120 ml of 195F water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is very floral—lily, lilac, honeysuckle, orchid—with some herbaceous undertones. The first steep has all these floral notes, along with spinach, cream, grass, and vanilla. Butter, herbs, and ethereal florals are more prominent in steep two, which has a nice, thick body. The next two steeps bring soft, creamy florals, coriander, and something that could be melon. Unlike Derk, I’m really not getting much fruit here. The next few steeps are more grassy and herbaceous, though I do get hints of melon and green apple. The florals, spinach and grass continue through the final steeps.

This tea is very soft, and many of the more interesting flavours fade quickly. I would have liked more fruit and vanilla, though the tea remained quite sweet throughout the session. This could be due to its age, or to the fact that the sample has been in a plastic baggie for a while. If all Yushan teas have a similar profile, I’d be happy to try more of them, though I’ll always prefer fruitier oolongs.

Flavors: Butter, Coriander, Cream, Floral, Grass, Green Apple, Herbaceous, Honeysuckle, Lilac, Lily, Melon, Orchid, Spinach, Sweet, Vanilla, Vegetal

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 6 g 4 OZ / 120 ML

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95

I finally have the time to devote to this generous sample from Derk, which I’ve looked forward to drinking for a while. I love everything about Ruby Eighteen except the tannins, and it appears that this tea may be pleasantly low on them. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot using 195F water for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus many longer steeps.

The dry aroma is of milk chocolate–covered cherries (thanks, Beerandbeancurd), wintergreen, and malt. The wintergreen aroma from the wet leaf is amazing! The first steep has subtle notes of milk chocolate, cherry, earth, malt, tobacco, tannins, and wintergreen. I get a nice blast of wintergreen in the second steep, plus milk chocolate and very realistic-tasting stewed cherries. Maybe there’s some other stewed fruit in there as well. I notice hints of orange along with the cherries in the next two steeps, as well as wintergreen, malt, wood, herbs, tannins, earth, and fainter chocolate. The tea is beginning to be noticeably drying in the mouth, but who cares when I also get that wintergreen aftertaste? Steeps five and six have less chocolate, but still have that pronounced menthol/wintergreen hit, plus more tobacco, honey, and raisins. Steeps seven and eight are more tannic, drying, malty, earthy, and herbaceous, though still yummy and minty fresh. I detect some raspberry at the bottom of the cup. The next few steeps have higher levels of tannins, but also wintergreen, a bit of cocoa, honey, malt, minerals, earth, and cherry. The aftertaste is of honey and maybe a bit of sassafras, which is missing in the actual tea. I couldn’t let this tea go, even when it was mostly sweet, malty tannin water.

I was right to wait until I could savour this beauty. It did have some tannins, but those chocolate-covered cherries were wonderful. This is the most wintergreen-heavy Ruby Eighteen I’ve had, with the best variety of fruit and most balanced profile. This tea has probably ruined me for any other Ruby Eighteens for a while.

Thanks, Derk, for the sample! Let me know if you decide to buy from this company again because I want more of this tea!

Flavors: Cherry, Cocoa, Drying, Earth, Herbaceous, Honey, Malt, Milk Chocolate, Mineral, Orange, Raisins, Raspberry, Sarsaparilla, Stewed Fruits, Tannin, Tobacco, Wintergreen, Wood

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 6 g 4 OZ / 120 ML
derk

You’re very welcome and I’ll be sure to let you know. Probably around April is when my cupboard will have decreased enough in size to warrant another purchase.

I don’t know if it’s my water (unfiltered city tap) or what, but I get very little tannin from this tea until late in a session.

Leafhopper

Were you using less leaf? I dumped the entire sample into my teapot.

derk

I’ve been bowling this at ~1g:100mL. It’s a strong tea; 1g:20mL might be too much for gongfu.

Leafhopper

Yes, I think so. I’m surprised the tea doesn’t get tannic when you bowl steep it. I’m definitely considering getting 60 g of it in spite of the price. I’ll see what I think once I try the other Song samples. :)

derk

I brewed 3g in a 300mL mug with steeper basket today, filtered bottled water maybe 195F and still experienced very little tannin in comparison to other Ruby 18s. Mystery.

Leafhopper

I’d love to solve this mystery with more of this tea! :P I’ll try 5 g in 120 ml if I have it again.

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80

I still don’t have a working scale, so these pre-measured Nio samples are the perfect solution. This is my first hojicha, and unless the name has changed, it’s a different one from what other reviewers received. There’s a lot of tea in this pouch, and I hope they didn’t actually give me 10 g instead of 5. I steeped the contents in 150 ml of 175F water for 60, 20, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of caramel, autumn leaves, roast, and cacao. The first steep is full of cozy roast and caramel, with notes of barley, minerals, and charcoal. I understand why people compare hojicha to coffee. It looks like this is a 5 g sample after all, as it doesn’t destroy my tongue with bitterness; the larger leaves must have made me think there was more. The next couple steeps have notes of roasted grain, caramel, coffee, autumn leaves, minerals, wood, faint grass, and charcoal. The final steeps are weaker, but similar in terms of flavour, emphasizing the roast and minerality. The tea never gets excessively bitter or grassy.

This is a perfect winter tea, though one I’d need to be in the mood for. I’m enjoying these “nontraditional” Japanese green teas quite a bit!

Get a 10% discount with the code LEAFHOPPER10OFF (I get a small commission when you use this code).

Flavors: Autumn Leaf Pile, Cacao, Caramel, Charcoal, Coffee, Grain, Grass, Mineral, Roasted, Roasted Barley, Toasty, Wood

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 1 min, 0 sec 5 g 4 OZ / 120 ML
ashmanra

I love lapsang with ice cream but since I have become more caffeine sensitive I have started doing a pot of hojicha with my ice cream instead! It is very good!

Leafhopper

I imagine this would present a nice contrast of flavours!

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88

My tea scale broke yesterday, so until I get a replacement, I won’t be drinking anything nice. It’ll be samples and old teas for a few days. I’ll probably dig up some of Derk’s swap samples, which I think are all 6 g, and some of those Nio teas. (Okay, it looks like I’ll be drinking some nice teas after all…)

Unfortunately, I thought this was a sample of the Premium Dragonwell, which I’ve already reviewed, instead of the Superfine, which apparently I have not. I did two bowl sessions of roughly 2.5 g of leaf in 250 ml of 185F water, starting at 2 minutes and refilling when needed.

The dry aroma is of buttery chestnuts, with hints of florals and citrus. The first steep has notes of chestnuts, butter, cream, citrus, grass, orchid, and lettuce. The leaves float near the top of the cup well past the two-minute mark, making drinking kind of a challenge, but it’s worth it. Subsequent rounds emphasize butter, chestnuts, asparagus, spinach, orchids, herbs, and grass. Long steeps create a vegetal tea with no bitterness and surprise hints of citrus and herbs.

This tea is more complex than I remember the Premium Dragonwell being. The best before date is October 2023, so it’s held up pretty well. I should really compare these teas while they’re both fresh.

Flavors: Asparagus, Butter, Chestnut, Citrus, Cream, Floral, Grass, Herbaceous, Lettuce, Nutty, Orchid, Spinach, Vegetal

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 2 min, 0 sec 3 g 8 OZ / 250 ML
Leafhopper

Apparently, I did write a note about this tea and got totally different flavours. I feel dumb. Also, isn’t Steepster supposed to list your own notes first?

Martin Bednář

Steepster is doing different and weird things…

Leafhopper

Indeed! :) I didn’t want to go through the 100+ tasting notes on that tea to see if I’d written about it, and assumed my note would be listed first anyway.

Mastress Alita

There is no logistical ordering to notes on a tea page at all that I’ve found. They don’t list yours first, they don’t even list all the rest in some sort of “oldest to newest” or “newest to oldest”… it is just pure pandemonium. I just write all my notes on an external file and copy/paste into Steepster, so I can always do a Ctrl+F search on that document to find my old tasting note.

Leafhopper

I may need to start doing this. I kind of assumed that Steepster was ranking users in some way, though definitely not by number of tasting notes or Roswell would always come first. :P However, for a while, I was seeing my notes on the first page.

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76

I bought this Bai Hao in my big Black Friday 2022 haul and have been drinking it for the past few months. I believe it’s from the 2022 harvest, though I’m posting my review here because this entry already has some notes. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot using 195F water for 30, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of autumn leaves, dried flowers, honey, muscatel, and lemon. The first steep has notes of buckwheat honey, muscatel, orange, and lemon over a background of wood, tannins, and autumn leaves. The tea is soft, but the aftertaste is tannic. I get candied citrus, florals, and lots of honey in the second steep. The next couple rounds continue the honey/muscatel/citrus theme, though the dryness is more evident. The fruit gets fainter in subsequent steeps, and wood, autumn leaves, minerals, and tannins become more pronounced.

This tea peaked early in the session and though it had all the citrus, honey, and muscatel notes typical of a good Bai Hao, the autumn leaves and tannins detracted from the flavour. I’d say this was due to it having been open a while, but I felt the same way when I first drank it. Their Crimson Lishan has many of the same flavours and is a much more dynamic tea in my opinion.

Flavors: Autumn Leaf Pile, Buckwheat, Drying, Floral, Honey, Lemon, Mineral, Muscatel, Orange, Tannin, Wood

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 0 min, 30 sec 6 g 4 OZ / 120 ML

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82

I remember having a not-very-enjoyable example of this tea a few years ago, but I’ll usually try a tea again to see if my tastes have changed. This is related to dragonwell, which I’m beginning to drink more of during the spring. I steeped 5 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of plum, wood, and malt. The first steep has notes of plum, plum skin, wood, milk, honey, tobacco, and malt. The next steep has more wood and minerals, with a thick, fuzzy texture. The soft plum is noticeable in the next couple steeps, as are minerals, wood, honey, tobacco, and malt. I get some tannins, but not much astringency. There’s a more milky aroma in steeps five and six, with softer plum notes coupled with more wood, honey, minerals, and tannins. The plum aroma is very distinct in the next few steeps, though the tea mainly features wood, malt, honey, minerals, and tannins. I get some grass and floral hints in the final steeps, though only at the bottom of the cup.

Because of its malt, minerality, honey, and unassuming character, this tea has some superficial similarities to mass-market teabags, though it’s a lot more nuanced. It doesn’t get overly astringent and the plummy fruitiness is elegantly in the background (though maybe a bit too elegantly for me). I like flavours that are a bit more in your face, but I think that speaks to my preferences rather than to the quality of the tea.

Flavors: Floral, Grass, Honey, Malt, Milk, Mineral, Plum, Smooth, Soft, Tannin, Tobacco, Wood

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 4 OZ / 120 ML

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85
drank Sencha Isagawa by Nio Teas
414 tasting notes

Thanks to Nio for this sample! The website says it features citrus and minerality, which sounds promising. I steeped 5 g of leaf in 150 ml of 140F water for 60, 20, 20, 30, 40, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry leaf aroma is of citrus, spinach, and sweet grass. The first steep has punchy notes of spinach, cucumber, and grass, followed by orange, apricot, and butter. It’s kind of drying in the mouth. The next steep gives me bok choy and minerals, with a sweet, lingering peachy/apricot aftertaste. The stonefruit persists through the next few steeps, and the spinach also seems to get less aggressive. The tea ends with sweet grass, minerals, lettuce, and faint stonefruit.

This sencha is another winner for me. There’s some of that vegetal kick, but the stonefruit and citrus are lovely. I imagine this would be nice cold brewed.

Use LEAFHOPPER10OFF for a 10% discount (I get a small commission when you use this code). Their Black Friday sale ends in a few hours, though the code will continue to work indefinitely.

I’ll give you guys a break from all the Nio posts after this, though I have about a dozen more samples to try. I’m thinking of devoting either December or January to sipdowns, as I have miscellaneous bits of tea from swaps to enjoy as well.

Flavors: Apricot, Bok Choy, Butter, Citrus, Cucumber, Grass, Lettuce, Mineral, Orange, Peach, Spinach, Vegetal

Preparation
140 °F / 60 °C 1 min, 0 sec 5 g 5 OZ / 150 ML

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80

This sencha is from the yabukita cultivar, which is supposed to be quite vegetal and fruity. I steeped 5 g of leaf in 150 ml of 140F water for 60, 20, 20, 30, 40, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of apple, squash, spinach, cream, and grass. The first steep has notes of apple, squash, mango, spinach, kale, and grass. The next steep initially tastes like lettuce and bitter grass clippings, but the cooked apple, mango, and tropical fruit (passionfruit?) bloom in the aftertaste and the bottom of the cup. That fruitiness persists through the next few steeps, sometimes overtaking the grassiness and sometimes not. The final few steeps are vaguely fruity and less aggressively vegetal, with a sweet, grassy flavour.

I would have liked this tea more if it hadn’t been so vegetal. As it is, the tropical fruit was fun and the last few steeps had a nice balance. Those with a higher tolerance for cruciferous veggies might really enjoy this sencha. Based on the few teas I’ve tried, I like the saemidori cultivar more than the yabukita.

Get a 10% discount with the code LEAFHOPPER10OFF (I get a small commission when you use this code).

Flavors: Apple, Bitter, Cream, Grass, Green, Kale, Lettuce, Mango, Passion Fruit, Spinach, Squash, Sweet, Tropical, Vegetal

Preparation
140 °F / 60 °C 1 min, 0 sec 5 g 4 OZ / 120 ML

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Since I discovered Teavana’s Monkey Picked Oolong four years ago, I’ve been fascinated by loose-leaf tea. I’m glad to say that my oolong tastes have evolved, and that I now like nearly every tea that comes from Taiwan, oolong or not, particularly the bug-bitten varieties. I also find myself drinking Yunnan blacks and Darjeelings from time to time, as well as a few other curiosities.

However, while online reviews might make me feel like an expert, I know that I still have some work to do to actually pick up those flavours myself. I hope that by making me describe what I’m tasting, Steepster can improve my appreciation of teas I already enjoy and make me more open to new possibilities (maybe even puerh!).

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