2036 Tasting Notes

85

Another A&D first tasting. So lucky am I!

The dry leaves are gorgeous. Long, twisty, and tippy, and variegated in color on a continuum from forest green to silver. In the tin, they have notes of sweet pea, asparagus, and yellow squash. Why is there no yellow squash option in flavors?

Also, why does clicking flavors take me directly to some Windows sign in thing instead of Outlook, like it used to? Freaky and annoying. But I digress.

The steeped tea is pale yellow and clear. The aroma is mild and vegetal, with the notes mentioned above. Next time I might try the water a bit hotter as A&D suggests.

The tea is tasty and mild. It’s not as juicy as some Chinese greens, and I wish it were a bit moreso. But at this point I can’t rule out user error. Next time I’ll try hotter water and longer steep time.

Flavors: Asparagus, Peas

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 1 min, 30 sec 2 tsp 17 OZ / 500 ML

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88

Can someone who knows how please fix the broken image for this? I tried but couldn’t get it to work.

Eureka! I finally got sea green foam today for the first time in a long time. The secret? MORE MATCHA.

O-Cha recommends 1.5 to 1.75 chashaku. I did 2. I sifted. I heated the water to 175 in the Breville, then measured .5 cups and whisked. The foam came almost instantaneously!

I also used a different bowl. Not sure whether that makes a difference. I can’t think of why it should.

In any case, everything worked very nicely.

I don’t know whether it is psychological or not, but I think matcha tastes better with foam. Is it just that thing where a sandwich tastes better if someone else makes it? Or is it real?

This has a fluffy mouthfeel from the foam. It has a mild flavor with a slight downturn that isn’t sour or bitter but could be headed that way. In any case, it is pleasant, not disturbing.

It has an interesting, sweet pea note at the front of the sip and a grassy, seaweed finish. Not marine, like yesterday’s. More reminiscent of a field than an ocean.

My success today makes me want to go back and try all of the other matchas that were a miss in the foam department over again.

All in good time.

Flavors: Grass, Peas, Seaweed

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C
__Morgana__

Thanks to whoever fixed the image. What is the trick there? I could get the picture to show up in the additional pics but not in the one that is next to the name.

Cameron B.

I fixed it. You just have to select the “Featured” option next to the photo that you want displayed as the main image when you’re editing the tea.

__Morgana__

Huh. Is that in the screen you get after you click on edit tea? Or some other screen? I don’t recall seeing anything like that.

Cameron B.

Yes, it’s the screen you get when you click “Edit Tea”. On the left side, at the top there is the featured image, and on the bottom there are small thumbnails of all the tea’s images. Underneath each thumbnail is a “Featured?” option and a “Delete” option.

I don’t believe an image that you’d just added will show up in the small thumbnails though, so that may be why you didn’t see it there.

__Morgana__

Weird. I don’t get any thumbnails at the bottom. Just something that says “Featured.”

Cameron B.

Oh, that is weird. Sounds like for some reason the images aren’t loading for you.

Cameron B.

Here’s what it looks like for me: https://imgur.com/H2odPgN

__Morgana__

I have never had anything display under the “choose image” button. I wonder what that is about?

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92

I have a number of A&D teas I haven’t tasted yet, and I get to do that as part of my “taste every tea in the cupboard and write a note about it” project. It’s always a pleasure to drink A&D so I’m really excited that I get to do this.

The leaves of this are pretty — very tippy, and they smell earthy and a little minerally. Also a little like something baked. Baked sweet potato, maybe.

The steeped tea definitely has a sweet smell like sweet potatoes. It has a stewed fruity aspect to it as well. Prunes? The color is a clear, dark chestnut.

The tea has a bit of Assam throat grab, a sort of a bite (well, they did name it after a tiger, right)? But it isn’t as harsh as a lot of other Assams I’ve had. It’s strong, but more smooth than harsh, and the tea itself has a pleasant malty mildness which is a little surprising. It’s not at all bitter, not what I’d call “stout” (which is basically my way of saying heavy on the stomach). None of that here.

The aftertaste has a sweet, mocha note.

It’s a truly lovely Assam.

Flavors: Earth, Malt, Mineral, Mocha, Stewed Fruits, Sweet Potatoes

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 17 OZ / 500 ML
Cameron B.

Yummy. This is one of the teas on my list to order from Andrews & Dunham. ❤

__Morgana__

I am worried about them. They haven’t said anything on social media for a while.

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68
drank So Long by THEODOR
2036 tasting notes

Sipdown no. no 124 of 2018 (no. 480 total).

I sent this directly to the front of the cold tea line, and it made an ok cold tea.

The thing I liked most about it was there was a lot of it, so it took the guess work out of what got sent to the front of the cold tea line for a while.

But now it’s gone and I will have to make those decisions again.

Bah. So long, So Long.

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92

It feels like forever since I’ve had something that called itself an Earl Grey. I am surprised I missed it as much as I do. I wouldn’t count Earl Greys as among my favorite teas. I’m not sure they’re even in the top ten, though I do enjoy them a lot when I’m in the right mood.

Also, I haven’t really met an Andrews and Dunham tea that I didn’t like.

I thought that might change when I cracked open the tin because the dry tea smells heavily and only of bergamot. Strongly citrus. It even has an edge of perfume to it. When I do have Earl Grey, I like the ones that are bergamot-citrus, usually a lot more than the ones that are than bergamot-perfume.

After steeping, the perfume aspect goes away, fortunately. The aroma mellows substantially, to a light lemon-orange scent over tea with a mocha note. The tea is dark amber and clear.

This is a lovely Earl Grey. My favorite always and forever will be Samovar’s followed by ATR’s Earl Grey Shanghai which is no longer available. While I prefer the Yunnan base of the Samovar and ATR, this is a very mellow blend. The bergamot is definitely central, but not sharp or overpowering, and it integrates well with the base. I’m not sure what the base is, just that it isn’t Yunnan. It doesn’t have the color of Ceylon after steeping. Assam, perhaps?

In any case, I like it a lot. I’m bumping ATR’s rating just so I can rate this high.

I am a little worried about Andrews & Dunham, though. The last thing I see on their Facebook page is from September.

Anyone have any news?

Flavors: Bergamot, Citrus, Lemon, Mocha, Orange, Perfume

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 17 OZ / 500 ML

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82

The best straight chamomile I ever had was Samovar’s back when they offered a straight chamomile. Everything else I’ve had, even the good ones, haven’t matched theirs.

What made it so good? For me, it was the creamy texture and the sweetness, that made the flowers seem fresh. I’ve had way too many chamomiles that taste sour, and the drink tastes like a bunch of old potpourri flowers accidentally fell into hot water.

So I was pretty excited to give this a try.

In the packet, I smell mostly spearmint and a hint of citrus. There’s the slightest, creamy smell that I hope is the chamomile.

The steeped tea looks just like its picture, and it has a wonderful minty/lemony smell that is intermingled with a sweet chamomile, green apple-like aroma.

Its a very nice rendition of chamomile with just enough going on to keep it me from dwelling on the chamomile aspect. It’s all the good things I remember about their straight chamomile, but with added interest that makes it a very relaxing option.

I kind of like it better than Yellow and Blue, and I liked that better than the straight chamomile.

Flavors: Green Apple, Lemon, Spearmint

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML

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93

Last caffeine of the day, but first let’s play count the pu-erhs that I have in my cupboard but haven’t written about.

This is going to be a lot because I’m sort of afraid of pu-erh. Not of how it tastes, but of making it correctly.

But I’m thinking that when I’ve made it through all the blacks in the cupboard I’ll have to gird my loins and go after these.

It’s not as intimidating as I thought. I have 21 untasted, unwritten about pu-erhs in the cupboard. However, I have many, many more samples that I have not entered in the cupboard.

What I’ve been doing with the oolongs is probably what I’ll do with the pu-erhs. I’ll taste a max of 2 per tasting a day, one a sample and one in the cupboard, until I get to the end of either of those groups.

This one has beautiful, chocolate to black colored leaves that are big and twisty. They have a sharp wood-mineral-stonefruit note in the tin.

Short steeps after rinsing. Starting at 15 sec at 195F. In the gaiwan.

The color is a really pretty apricot, and clear. I smell apricot-like stonefruit as well, and something darker and sweeter, like brown sugar. The sharpness of the dry leaf aroma isn’t apparent in the sip. It’s quite smooth. The tea has an earthy, slightly sweet flavor that also brings in a note of rocks after rain.

The second steep brought out an unexpected floral note and a hint of something that straddles cocoa and smoke. There’s a deceptiveness to this tea. It seems pretty straightforward, but the more you taste it the more it reveals its complexity.

The third steep heads back to the stonefruit notes but still with a floral aspect. If asked, I’d say I prefer green oolongs to dark. But when I drink something like this, I am reminded that I also quite enjoy dark oolongs. The aftertaste of the third steep has something about it that makes me think of masculine decor and hunting lodges. Dark wood, leather, cigars. I don’t really taste leather, I just think of it. But I do taste a wood note, and a tobacco one.

The fourth steep makes me think of dark sweet things like molasses, though I don’t think it really tastes like molasses so much as caramelized sugar.

I was so enjoying the flavor parade that I went for a fifth steep (I’m really fighting impatience here, as I must must must get on the Peloton imminently or I won’t have time to exercise before my haircut). I could do more were I not short of time.

The last steep didn’t change much from the previous one, which makes me feel less bad about not sitting with this longer.

This is all kinds of interesting and complex. For that, I give it high marks.

Flavors: Apricot, Brown Sugar, Cocoa, Earth, Floral, Mineral, Molasses, Smoke, Stonefruit, Tobacco, Wet Rocks, Wood

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C

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89

Playing count-the-oolongs left in the cupboard without tasting notes isn’t nearly as fun as the black tea and green tea exercise because it is just a reminder of my embarrassing excess.

I have 40 oolongs in the cupboard that have yet to be tasted or written about.

And that number is also misleading, because I have many more oolong samples that aren’t entered in the cupboard.

There’s only one thing to do: persist.

I’m a little upset about this one. I had it all ready to go for a tasting last weekend, sitting in the gaiwan. And then I got busy and forgot about it.

I was going to resume where I left off today, but discovered that my house cleaners tossed the unused tea and washed the gaiwan. Nice of them to wash the gaiwan, but I wish they’d realized it had tea that should be preserved in it.

So I have less of this than I thought I had, and because it is an ATR tea, there won’t be more.

Anyway. Steeped in the gaiwan at 195F with short steeps after rinsing starting at 15 seconds.

Have any of you found that your interest in tea has led to some insights about yourself?

Mine has.

I never thought of myself as a type A person, or as someone who is constantly on the go. I’ve always had an impatient streak, but not because I had too much to do and needed to get on to the next thing. Just because I’m wired that way. Which is amusing because I have a reputation at work for being much more patient than other people.

I do think of myself as someone who throws herself into whatever she’s doing rather completely, which pushes out of the picture time for other things. But eventually, because of that intensity I burn out and turn to one or more of those other things. Which is why I drop off of Steepster for months and years at a time.

But now, I think there’s a real possibility I have developed adult onset ADHD. I’m constantly interrupted by emails and instant messages at work, so I’m constantly having to shift mental focus from one thing to another. Also, the older I get the more I find I have to do. So sometimes I just have to cut things short to move on to the next thing that must get done.

Today I have to get my hair cut and colored, but I also want to work out and it’s almost noon already. So watch me totally fail to savor this tea for the number of steeps it probably deserves. Generally, I can sit through about 4 or 5 steeps without feeling compelled to move on to the next thing.

I am hopeful, though, that after I race through the exercise of tasting everything I have at least once, I’ll feel the internal pressure to do so lifted and will be able to revisit some of these from a more relaxed place.

So. About this tea.

In the packet, it has a floral, green aroma. Of the flowers listed in the description, I definitely smell orchid and lilac. I am not sure I know what narcissus smells like. I don’t smell jasmine, or at least I don’t smell it as a differentiated aroma. When I think of lily smell, I think of the vanilla of stargazer lilies and I don’t smell that here either.

The tea is a medium butter-golden yellow that darkens with longer steeps. It has a butter-cream, floral smell.

The flavor is everything I like about greener oolongs. Buttery, floral, flavorful but delicate. It’s mild, not astringent, not bitter. There are a couple of unexpected aspects to it, one of which is that I sort of taste the paper that’s described as a wrapping. It’s not nearly as prominent as the paper flavor in some decafs, though. And the other of which is that the tea doesn’t seem to have much of a grassy or vegetal quality. It’s pretty much flowered butter, all the time.

I’m really upset about the loss of the gaiwan full of tea now. I like this a lot.

Flavors: Butter, Cream, Floral, Orchid, Paper

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C

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94

Sipdown no. 123 of 2018 (no. 479 total). A sample.

Just enough to both taste for note-taking purposes and sipdown in a single steep.

The walnut smell coming out of the packet is quite intense. It’s not just walnut, though. It’s a sort of a sweet, candied walnut. That is likely the effect of the coconut and pineapple in the blend. It also says it has almond, which is interesting. Not sure why something called walnut would muddy the waters with almond?

But apparently, David knows what he’s doing because after steeping, what I mostly get is toasted walnut in the aroma. Some coconut, but not really any fruit and not any other nut. The tea is a lemon yellow color and cloudy.

The flavor is on the nose. It tastes exactly like what it advertised itself as, for which it gets some ridiculous number of points in my book. The coconut and pineapple are taste-able, but they mostly act as boosters of the toasted walnut flavor.

And the almonds? As the tea cools, I smell them as I stick my nose into cup to sip, but they, too, boost the toasted walnut flavor by enriching the nuttiness.

Pretty much a home run if you want a green toasted walnut tea.

Flavors: Almond, Coconut, Pineapple, Toasted, Walnut

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 1 min, 30 sec 2 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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82
drank Matcha Miyabi by Den's Tea
2036 tasting notes

Matcha people, I need your help please.

I am totally sucking at making matcha lately. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

Today I followed the directions to the letter with a never before opened tin of matcha.

One spoon, sifted. 3 oz water at 180F. Whisk in W motion.

I was unable to get the light green froth. Mine is olive green with just a tiny bit of bubbles at the top.

Am I not using enough matcha?

Apart from my seeming inability to prepare this correctly, I’m enjoying it. It’s creamier than the matcha I’ve been taking to work. I wouldn’t call it sweet, but it’s not sour or particularly bitter — just a tiny down note in the aftertaste.

It tastes very pleasantly of the ocean.

Flavors: Creamy, Marine, Seaweed

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C

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Bio

I got obsessed with tea in 2010 for a while, then other things intruded, then I cycled back to it. I seem to be continuing that in for a while, out for a while cycle. I have a short attention span, but no shortage of tea.

I’m a mom, writer, gamer, lawyer, reader, runner, traveler, and enjoyer of life, literature, art, music, thought and kindness, in no particular order. I write fantasy and science fiction under the name J. J. Roth.

Personal biases: I drink tea without additives. If a tea needs milk or sugar to improve its flavor, its unlikely I’ll rate it high. The exception is chai, which I drink with milk/sugar or substitute. Rooibos and honeybush were my gateway drugs, but as my tastes developed they became less appealing — I still enjoy nicely done blends. I do not mix well with tulsi or yerba mate, and savory teas are more often a miss than a hit with me. I used to hate hibiscus, but I’ve turned that corner. Licorice, not so much.

Since I find others’ rating legends helpful, I added my own. But I don’t really find myself hating most things I try.

I try to rate teas in relation to others of the same type, for example, Earl Greys against other Earl Greys. But if a tea rates very high with me, it’s a stand out against all other teas I’ve tried.

95-100 A once in a lifetime experience; the best there is

90-94 Excellent; first rate; top notch; really terrific; will definitely buy more

80-89 Very good; will likely buy more

70-79 Good; would enjoy again, might buy again

60-69 Okay; wouldn’t pass up if offered, but likely won’t buy again

Below 60 Meh, so-so, iffy, or ick. The lower the number, the closer to ick.

I don’t swap. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that I have way more tea than any one person needs and am not lacking for new things to try. Also, I have way too much going on already in daily life and the additional commitment to get packages to people adds to my already high stress level. (Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does.)

That said, I enjoy reading folks’ notes, talking about what I drink, and getting to “know” people virtually here on Steepster so I can get ideas of other things I might want to try if I can ever again justify buying more tea. I also like keeping track of what I drink and what I thought about it.

My current process for tea note generation is described in my note on this tea: https://steepster.com/teas/mariage-freres/6990-the-des-impressionnistes

Location

Bay Area, California

Website

http://www.jjroth.net

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