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Backlogging from earlier today.

The smell of this is so potent, it’s amazing, almost make me want to eat the pearls themselves. The smell definitely stays when you steep… but one thing that doesn’t seem to stay, is any sort of flavor. I don’t really know how this is considered green tea with how light it is, by the taste of it and sight of the tea, you’d think it was a white tea. I definitely think the steep time on this is way off. I originally steeped it for 3 1/2 minutes which didn’t seem like enough. I went about it again with new tea, this time for 7 minutes, definitely got more flavor with no bitter aftertaste like you’d normally get with greens from over-steeping. I think I just need to get better at steeping this one and it will turn out fine.

I’ve made this many times before in the past, but it has always been in much larger quantities and steeped for sometimes up a few hours or even overnight. The flavor of those always turned our really nice, but it was being made for a semi-sweet ice tea (made with a half cup of sugar and 1 gallon of tea ratio). Even when I sampled it at Teavana it tasted much different than it did when I brewed it this time.

Backlogging from yesterday, so just a quick note.

This tea isn’t really half bad. Definitely can taste the cloves in it, but it makes a nice spicy chai for when you’re on the go. What kind of weirded me out at first when I opened this, was the oily bag the tea was contained in, but then I noticed the ingredients and was a little more ok with the sight of an oily teabag.

Just needed something quick in the morning to kinda wake me up and get me started. With the xanthines in this tea, it was just the thing I needed. And with the nice energy boost from this, I won’t be feeling left jittery or cracked out later on.

This tea has a nice sort of vegetal/earthy taste, almost reminds me of a weak green tea. The lemongrass is a nice addition to this, gives it a nice subtle lemon flavoring. I don’t really notice any bitterness to it which apparently happens with a hand full of yerba mate teas.

This has got to be one of my favorite Samovar teas.

Just got home from a long day at work, feet are killing me, I’m just beat. I ended up having stir fry for dinner, and this tea makes a great after meal tea. It really helped offset the oily tastes from this stir fry. After eating a bowl of the stir fry, I was fairly full, but after drinking this tea, I now feel much more satisfied as far as fullness is concerned. This tea could definitely be a meal on it’s own.

The first sip, this tea has a nice nuttiness to it, like most genmaicha. But a couple sips after that the nuttiness gets a bit sweeter, and for some reason brings thoughts of Cracker Jacks, just with a little less caramel flavor. With the following sips, intertwined with the sweet/roasted nut/popcorn-like flavor from the genmai, are nice hints of mildly sweet grass-like flavors from the sencha.

I really enjoy genmaicha, I probably drank it almost half the time that I was visiting my girlfriend (she is a JET) in Japan (which wasn’t too long, about a week and a half, but what an amazing week and a half). So drinking this always kind of brings back nice memories. But with this tea, there is one thing that sets it apart from the others. There is an amazing full bodied milkiness to this tea due to the matcha. The sweet, toasty, creaminess is just amazing.

The color and aroma of this are both amazing. The deep green color is just amazing, I guess from the matcha. I can definitely relate the smell to brine with hints of grass. Almost reminds me of opening a jar of lotus root in brine that you would get from an international food market. While not one of the most amazing of smells, it is definitely recognizable.

2nd Steep: 5 minutes – Still nutty and a bit creamy. There is a little bit of residual matcha in this steeping. The color comparison of the first and second steep are like night and day. Second steep gives off a slightly green/amber color.

3rd Steep: 8 minutes – Pretty much tastes like a typical genmaicha, which is not a problem at all with me since I like genmaicha.

Felt a little under the weather today, this tea made for a great pick me up. This tea has a nice calming quality to it. It is refreshing and smooth which makes this a great tea to help you relax. This tea is very aromatic with scents of pomegranate and peony. I found that steeping the tea for longer than directed on the bag allow the delicate aromas to develop (I would recommend 6-7 minutes increasing the times for the following brews). And if you do this at a lower temperature it really helps bring out the flavors of this tea without the bitterness of steeping at higher temps. The taste is smooth and buttery, with slight floral notes that have a sweetness to them. The tastes get stronger and more complex with each time you steep this. I definitely will get more of this when I run out of the current supply that I have. I highly recommend this tea.