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After doing a rough count of my as yet untasted and unwritten about black teas, which I must now revise, I did a similar count of greens.

I have 24 untasted green teas according to my cupboard. Of those, 11 are matcha.

I’ve been taking matcha to work lately. I was scared of doing that at first, but then my BFF the internet showed me the way: I’m using the shake in the thermos method and it works just fine for a quick method in the morning.

The first time I tried it, it didn’t work so well. I used water that was too hot, and I didn’t shake long enough. The tea tasted ok, but the were a lot of undissolved matcha grains at the bottom and I got a mouth full of them in my last sip.

Here’s what I’ve found works:

1 matcha spoon (the bamboo ones) per 4 oz water. My timolino holds 12 oz, so that’s 3 spoons.

12 oz water heated to 175.

Spoon matcha into timolino, then add water, close lid and shake. I shake 100 times. Et voila.

But I digress. Actually, this was a digression to a digression. Let’s get back to the most recent point of divergence: the green teas in my cupboard.

I will say there are a couple of those that I don’t think I’ve seen in a while, so I could have failed to remove some teas in which case I’d have even fewer. But for now, I’m leaving the cupboard as is.

Now, stepping laterally into another digression: revised count of untasted, un-written about black teas (NOT including this tea): 13

And finally, back to the topic at hand. This tea.

This is a “tea of the holidays” so I’m having it over Veterans Day weekend. It has a citrus-floral smell in the packet.

After steeping it’s less citrusy and floral in aroma. It smells a little malty, with a caramel note. I know I used the word chestnut to describe a tea’s color already today, but I can’t think of a better one for this. It’s that color they use to describe brown horses that has a tinge of orange to it.

I think the caramel note is vanilla, somewhere on the continuum between chocolate and vanilla. I’m now thinking that caramel is on that continuum somewhere between the two.

The flavor is much milder than I expected. I expected a dominant citrus, but that’s not the case. The citrus is very gently represented in the blend, almost totally in the background.

Which makes it rather difficult to find something about this tea that makes it special. It’s obviously high quality and tastes just fine. It’s just a bit plain for what I’m wanting when I decide to drink a flavored black tea.

I’m getting closer and closer to having tasted all the black teas in my cupboard once with a note to show for it. By current count I have 15 still untasted and unwritten about including this one.

Two caveats, though. First, I went looking for the Upton Castleton darjeeling today and I couldn’t find it. So I suppose it is possible I put that one in there by accident, but I don’t know for sure. I’m leaving it in for now because sometimes things turn up. There may be others that fit that description as well. Second, I am hoping that after this long weekend, I’ll have reduced that number to nine. If I continue at my current pace, I’ll have gotten through them all by the end of the month, what with Thanksgiving falling in the middle there.

So yay.

I’ll be a little sad when there’s nothing left to discover for the first time with my black teas, though. This one for example.

Everyone says it tastes like Marco Polo by Mariage. I wish I had tasted that more recently,
though I clearly loved it because I gave it a 92. I got some strawberry with that one. I’m not really getting strawberry with this so much. Maybe a little.

In the tin I smell berry fruit, raspberry maybe. And a cocoa note. I smell even more raspberry in the steeped tea. Not much of a cocoa note, though, more of a cream one. The tea is chestnut colored and clear.

The flavor starts out like the smell, but there’s more to it than that. In the aftertaste there’s a pleasant caramel note that has a touch of sweetness.

Just a really wonderful taste to start the day with.

Jasmine green, a perpetual favorite of mine if done right.

Done right to me means:

1. The jasmine smells and tastes like the essence of flowers rather than a flavoring agent.
2. The jasmine is integrated into the tea, rather than smelling and tasting pasted on.
3. The tea base is both a great delivery vehicle for the jasmine and not completely overpowered by it to the point where it disappears.
4. Extra points for juicy, flowery goodness.

This tea, which is a vibrant, clear golden color after steeping gets high marks on the first three. The underlying tea contributes a soft, buttery aspect to the tea.

It could be juicier. But 3 out of 4 ain’t bad.

Catching up on my TV watching this morning. Kids’ piano recitals this afternoon.

And I voted yesterday so I don’t have to think about how to work it in on Tuesday.

The tea smells very lemony in the tin. Tart, with some other spices in the mix though I can’t tease out individual smells.

After steeping, the tea is a medium gold color, with suspended particles in it and smells like a less tart version of the dry leaf smell.

Lemon is definitely the main flavor here, and it’s a nice one. It’s not sweet, but it is neither bitter nor too tart. Whatever other spice (clove?) might be in the mix gives it a sort of sultry flavor, which keeps it from being too perky.

It’s a very nice lemon flavored green tea. I’m trying to remember whether I’ve tasted others of this type and I’m not remembering, though it seems very likely. It’s times like these I would love a meaningful way to search my own notes.

So right before this I had Gauguin, and when I tasted this I thought: Gauguin without the fruitiness.

There are some other differences. The smell in the tin is more intense with this tea and it has an almond pastry note in the dry leaf. It steeps a little less dark than the Gauguin, though the leaf looks similar. This is more of a clear, dark amber.

I totally get the macaron aspect in the aroma of the steeped tea, which, come to think of it I got in Gauguin as well. Some of what gives it that aspect is, I think, the coconut. Some of it is the cocoa and caramel notes. I wish the pistachio was more pronounced as I love pistachio.

The flavor is very reminiscent of the Gauguin of this morning, but without the fruitiness. I kind of like the addition of the fruitiness, but it’s otherwise too close to call.

This tea is something of a mystery. I can’t find any information about it online, and The O Dor no longer sells it.

It’s definitely a black tea, not CTC, and it has bits of what look like dried fruit in it. The dry leaf has caramel and cocoa notes. I am thinking it is likely an Assam base or at least has Assam in the base. The steeped tea has that, as well as some fruity notes and a little smoke. The tea is dark brownish red and clear.

The tea reminds me a little of the Mariage Freres Wedding Imperial from yesterday, except that it isn’t nearly as heavy and is fruitier. If I’m guessing, I’m going to say mango (because Gauguin) and maybe some red berry. I get a little bit of a raspberry note.

It’s rarely the case I have a tea that is as clean a slate as this one. I wish someone else had some and would write about it. Would be fun to compare.

Edited to add: See also note on The O Dor Je t’aime — this has a lot of similarities. Yeah, I think I didn’t zero in on the coconut, but Gauguin has that as well.

When I first opened this, I was terrified! I thought something had gone wildly wrong between the time I bought this and the time I opened it, years later.

What a relief to see the picture on this page and read other notes that talk about the pellets!

I am doing the compulsory short steeps in the gaiwan starting at 15 seconds.

I know of ginseng only as an herbal supplement that is supposed to do various things for you and I certainly couldn’t tell you what it tastes like. But this tea has the following attributes:

Dry smell: wood
Steeped smell: wood and rocks
Flavor: wood and rocks

I taste no licorice, by the way. Though the fresh aftertaste is reminiscent of the effect in the mouth after chewing anise seeds.

The color is a light amber.

I’m glad I tried it. It’s tasty enough — a little toasty in with the wood and rocks. I might even keep some around just for the entertainment value of spooking myself every now and then with the pellets. (Why are they pellets, anyway?)

But the flavor doesn’t bowl me over.

I forgot I even had this. It was in a sealed, never opened packet.

When I first started drinking green tea I didn’t get dragonwell. But now I love it. And despite its age, this one smells wonderful in the packet. A little juicy-vegetal, a little sweet grass/hay, a little nutty. After steeping, its a pale, clear golden yellow and smells like sweet grass.

It’s slightly sweet, slightly nutty, and a little grassy in flavor. I think I’d also taste the asparagus everyone else tastes if not for the fact I just ate some asparagus for lunch.

It’s hitting the spot after today’s special Pokemon event. Alas, I didn’t get a shiny Gengar. :-(

My favorite thing about gyokuro is how it looks. I love the fine leaves that look so soft and richly green. The dry leaves smell nutty, a bit like almonds, and the aroma has a juicy character.

I also like the color of the steeped tea — the green in the liquor, rather than the typical color somewhere on the yellow spectrum. This one is a light greenish yellow, more green than chartreuse.

The steeped tea smells brothy, a bit salty, a bit nutty, a bit vegetal. The flavor is grassier than some, which I like, but also has the seaweed notes that I’ve come to expect, and something a little on the nutty side, like edamame.

I made this at a slightly higher temperature than recommended for a first steep, mostly because the Breville won’t go lower than 160.

The description says this is Den’s best, and it is quite good. I wish I appreciated gyokuro more in general. I enjoy it but I feel as though its greatness is somewhat wasted on me since I’m just as happy to drink a good sencha.

Continuing with the project to get through all the teas in my cupboard and write a note about them, I am almost to the end of 15 out of 21 cupboard pages. w00t! And even more yay because until this morning, I had 22 cupboard pages. But with a spidown I cleared out that pesky page with only one tea on it. So there.

And I’m not fully neglecting my samples either, those little packets that don’t get a place in the cupboard but still take up space in tea world.

Even with all that, I don’t feel like I’m making a terrific dent in my supply here. Sigh. All I know is I haven’t bought any tea since I replenished my (gone) herbal/fruit blend stash months ago. So where they come from I have no idea.

This one is quite smoky in the tin. A woody smoke, like the remains of a wood fire in the fireplace. Charred wood, but not ash, which is fortunate. Not much resin, and no meaty-bacony smell either. Also fortunate.

After steeping, the smoky aroma spreads out and mellows some. It’s still there, but it’s more subtle. Not so much at the center of things as the edges. The color is very pretty, dark reddish-amber.

The tea has sweetness to it, and the flavor isn’t overly smoky though there’s a hint. It’s surprisingly smooth and gentle on the stomach. I would call it a medium-bodied to light bodied-tea. The mouthfeel is smooth and soft.

It’s enjoyable, for when you want a hint of smoke but lapsang is too much. It’s at least as good as I remember the Mariage Freres Lapsang being, though different. Rating accordingly.