39 Tasting Notes

This tastes like mildly spicy green peppers and roasted seaweed, and not in a good way. I’ll reroast the rest and see what happens.

Flavors: Green Pepper, Seaweed, Wood

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drank Oolong by Imperial Organic
39 tasting notes

The bag has a roasted yet floral Tieguanyin or low elevation Taiwanese oolong smell. It’s definitely dark roasted, brewing red colored tea with a deep floral, nutty, and roasted aroma. There’s a slight caramelized sweetness, but it mostly tastes like almonds and peanuts to me. It tastes like a green oolong that was dark roasted, rather than a more traditionally processed oolong with a little more oxidation, so no fruit or spice or anything else that makes me love darker oolongs. To be fair, this was a dollar or two at Walmart, so I didn’t expect a great traditional style Tieguanyin or Dong Ding, and for what it is it’s actually fine, but it’s way too nutty for me to want more.

Flavors: Almond, Caramel, Floral, Nuts, Peanut, Roasted, Vegetal

Preparation
Boiling 2 min, 0 sec 10 OZ / 295 ML

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drank Keemun Concerto by Adagio Teas
39 tasting notes

I decided to try this in my gaiwan again with a lower temperature to see if I could get anything interesting from longer infusions. The result was interesting: unsweetened cocoa, malt, and grains with a stronger pine and smoke aroma. There’s only a hint of Keemun tang here. The longer steeps are thick, sticking to my throat in a way that makes me think of very dark chocolate. Now that the leaves have opened up completely, I realize I used a lot more leaves than I did the first couple times, so that probably has something to do with the drastic difference compared to what I’ve been tasting.

Shortening the brewing time to about 15 seconds, I was expecting to say it’s back to the usual tangy fruit and red wine, but it’s not. Apparently that comes out at higher temperatures. Lacking the smokiness of the longer brews, pine is the most obvious note in the aroma. The flavor is sweeter and lighter. There’s a fruity note I’m having trouble identifying, but it’s not tangy, and I’m not getting anything wine-like out of this.

Back up to boiling. I’m tasting some of the tang and spice of the first few times I brewed this, but it’s behind a very strong milk chocolate flavor. After this the flavor started fading and the mouthfeel thinned, so long infusions became necessary rather than experimental. I know what I want to try next time, at least: lots of leaves, boiling water, long steeps. And suddenly the taste of tropical fruit and caramel fills my mouth. Cheap black tea with a strong hui gan? That’s a first for me.

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I don’t feel like writing a long tasting note. This is quite fruity, tasting like a mix of stone fruits, berries, and tangy tropical fruits, and a mild floral aroma. It reminds me of Ethiopian coffee.

Flavors: Apricot, Autumn Leaf Pile, Floral, Grapes, Mineral, Peach, Pineapple, Strawberry, Tangy, Tropical

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 10 OZ / 295 ML

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drank Keemun Concerto by Adagio Teas
39 tasting notes

Brewed in a mug this time. I’m actually getting a little more of the fruity tartness and wine-like flavor that I love in Keemun this way than I was in my gaiwan, which is the opposite of the last Keemun I had.

Flavors: Berries, Black Pepper, Fruity, Green Apple, Melon, Red Wine, Smoked

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drank Oolong Tea by Meijer
39 tasting notes

When I opened a bag and smelled it, my first thought was that it smelled like a lightly roasted Taiwanese oolong. It’s very floral, much brighter than my medium to dark roasted Taiwanese oolongs, but it still smells a bit roasted to me. There’s a citrusy, almost creamy aspect to the aroma as well. I decided to use boiling water and brew it longer than I would brew an Anxi oolong because in my experience, Taiwanese oolongs taste better that way.

Tasting it, it’s slightly creamy, and the lemony note in the aroma is quite strong in the cup without tasting sour. There’s a bit of woodiness, that sort of roasted nut flavor that comes from roasting, even a light cinnamon note in the finish. It’s a little too astringent, but not unbearable, and that’s probably only because I brewed it so long anyway. While it’s obviously not going to beat a high quality oolong, it’s pretty good for being so cheap.

Flavors: Cinnamon, Floral, Herbs, Lemon, Nuts, Wood

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drank Rooibos by Meijer
39 tasting notes

This is the first time I’ve had rooibos, and it’s completely different from what I expected. The aroma is mostly wood and camphor. It tastes a lot closer to shou puerh than black tea to me because of the earthy and woody flavors, lack of tannins, and even its particular sweetness, which was unexpected because I’ve heard it described as an herbal replacement for black tea and that’s how it seems to be used in blends. There’s a mild spiciness, not like pepper, but like herbs that are also a little spicy.

This was better than I expected, and I’ll keep some around for when I’ve had too much caffeine or want something different from what I usually drink.

Flavors: Camphor, Earth, Herbs, Medicinal, Spices, Wood

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Tastes like artificial fruit flavoring and…pencils? Extremely astringent even though I brewed it for less than three minutes. I’m going to make something else now…

Flavors: Artificial, Astringent, Fruity, Wood

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drank Keemun Concerto by Adagio Teas
39 tasting notes

The tangy fruit notes aren’t as strong in this as I prefer in Keemun, but it’s still recognizably Keemun. The biggest complaints I have are the tiny leaf size and that longer infusions are dull, woody, and a bit bitter rather than sweet and chocolaty like a better Keemun. I didn’t count, but I probably got around seven or eight infusions in my gaiwan despite the broken leaves. Now that I know that long infusions aren’t worth it, I can probably get even more out of it. In the later infusions, the fruitiness faded and I noticed a sweet potato note. There was a mild peppery spiciness in every infusion.

Overall, I think this is good and I’ll certainly have no trouble finishing what I have of it, but it’s not an outstanding example of this type of tea, either.

Flavors: Fruity, Pine, Red Wine, Smoke, Sweet Potatoes, Tangy

derk

Do you have a recommendation for a keemun or three? I really enjoyed this tea and want to try a few more.

RyanG

I’m having trouble remembering exactly which ones I’ve had except that I recently had Culinary Teas’ Imperial Keemun Mao Feng, which I remember being like a higher quality version of this, with clearer and more pronounced fruit notes and more of that red wine-like taste, plus some chocolate when brewed for a while.

Aside from that, Teavivre and Harney have several of varying price and quality. I’ll probably try some from both soon.

derk

Thanks for the recs :)

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Cold brewed for about four hours. This tastes like cranberries, raisins, figs, malt, and a little dark chocolate. Slight bitterness, but nowhere near as bitter as when I’ve tried brewing it hot. This tea reminds me a lot of an Assam because of the maltiness, dried fruit notes, and how tannic it is.

Flavors: Cranberry, Dark Chocolate, Fig, Malt, Raisins

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Bio

I mostly drink roasted oolongs, Chinese black tea, Darjeeling, and occasionally sheng puerh, aged white tea, or Japanese green tea. Assam, Ceylon, etc., don’t interest me much, and I don’t like flavored tea except Earl Grey and chai.

I don’t think rating tea is very helpful when everyone rates on a different scale and looks for different things in tea, so I will probably never rate anything I review.

Aside from tea, I also like single origin coffee, wine, and craft beer. Other interests include listening to and making music, music-related electronics, sci-fi and fantasy, writing, and cooking.

Location

Michigan

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