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May Sipdown Prompt – drink a floral green tea

Sample Sipdown

I am sorry to say that I have had this sample sitting around for a long time. Best before date was May 16, 2023, so we are nearly a year past that. My sample and swap box used to be absolutely packed, but during these two years of doing the sipdown challenges I can see the bottom quite easily!

I am happy to say that it is still wonderful and does not seem to have suffered from the neglect, although I have never tasted it fresh. The leaves are mostly whole, very long, and thin. I followed their parameters of 185F and five to eight minutes, choosing five for steep one and six for steep two.

As always, the jasmine is brilliant. My jasmine vines that sprawl on two sides of the house are in full bloom and had me wanting jasmine tea. Teavivre’s jasmine flavored teas beat all others I have tried, including Harney’s. (Sorry, Harney and Sons, I love you dearly but it is true.)

This is slightly cheaper than my favorite, which is Premium Jasmine Dragon Pearls. The biggest different I notice is that this one is leaving a minty tingle from the green tea that is very long lasting. With food, this would not be noticeable. It may even be nicely palate clearing. By itself, I still prefer the Premium, which is slightly cheaper than the Downy Pearls (also very good but Premium still holds number one spot for me) but this one is an economical choice for serving with food.

April Sipdown Prompt – your current favorite flavored black tea

Squeaking the final prompt in on the last day. How do you choose a favorite flavored black when flavored black is a major weakness? Who writes these prompts anyway???

I went with this one because I do love it. It was tied with Cerisier, Magic, Carol, Tower of London, and Merci Mille Fois and probably many others because I love so many. But a few of those have already been used for prompts this month.

This morning it was a visual treat as well. Three jasmine blossoms danced and twirled in the steeper, and one of them looked like an elaborate tutu or a long skirt with crinolines, bobbing and turning like a tiny ballerina.

I have never had a problem with the black tea base being finicky and getting bitter or overly brisk. It is a little floral but this has nowhere near the rose punch in the schnozz that some rose teas have. (I’m looking at you Harney Rose Scented, Fortnum Rose Pouchong, and Czar Nikolas St Valentine’s Blend! All teas I love, but sometimes you want to be punched in the schnozz and sometimes you don’t.) This is more fruity than floral, and the fruits are not overdone.

It is wonderful with breakfast or for tea time. It resteeps well so I can make two steeps and combine them for my breakfast tea, filling my little pot with just the right amount. This makes it more economical which is important since Lupicia isn’t cheap and shipping is a factor. I will say, though, that every time I have ordered I have received around a $6 refund on the shipping.

This particular pouch was actually purchased in Tokyo by Superanna! A definite reorder and a definite shelf staple.

April Sipdown Challenge – World Wish Day: a tea you wish you could always have on shelf

A lot of teas could meet that prompt, but I went with this one because when I served it recently two people who were visiting went wild for it, to the point that I have made mental note and will keep it filed away as a future gift idea.

The peach is stronger in this one than some of their other peach blends but tastes fresh and not fake or with those alcohol notes that can obscure or obfuscate fruit flavors. Definitely a great one to have on shelf.

Sipdown

My only other tasting note for this tea said that since there are no actual coconut pieces in this, it should last a long time. It didn’t last a long time simply because it is one of Ashman’s favorites and became a regular breakfast tea for him.

The bao zhong base is smooth resteeps well. The coconut flavor is strong but you do still taste the oolong. Makes a decent iced tea, too. Coconut is naturally sweet to me.

Sipdown

We finished this tonight and not only was it not in my cupboard, it was not in the database. How? I added it to database, added it to cupboard, will leave a note, and then will remove from cupboard even though I don’t get the pleasure of seeing my number go down. (Although it did briefly go up by one.)

This was okay, but there are lots of Lupicia teas I like better. This has a very strong green apple taste like Sour Apple candy and gum from my childhood. Even though it is decaf, this is a flavor profile I would prefer on a sunny afternoon, and have it with some fresh fruit. Or just an ice cold cup ln a summer day.

I doubt I would ever repurchase this. I love their green rooibos fruity blends for decaf time and would just go with one of those.

April Sipdown Prompt – a tea that has a special meaning for you

When I had my neighbors over last Tuesday to find a green tea they would enjoy, I also had them sniff some tins of other teas. Paris drew some oooh’s and aaaah’s, but Tower of London made the man’s eyes roll back in his head. His wife laughed at his reaction and took a picture of the tin so she would know what to order.

He loves cigars and said it would be the perfect tea to accompany a cigar in the evening. (Caffeine doesn’t keep him awake.)

So when they came over a couple of days later to meet another neighbor’s new puppy for whom I am serving as nanny, I made a pot for them to try. They absolutely loved and it definitely met their expectations they had based on the aroma.

This one is special to me because when I first wanted to try it, it was only available in the Historic Royal Palaces tins in sachets, it was sold out on harney.com, and Barnes and Noble did not carry this flavor yet.

Ashman knew I wanted to try it and googled little gift shops all over that sold tea and found someone who had a tin. He ordered it for our anniversary and I got to try it at last.

I love Paris, but I think I love ToL even more. It smells like a tobacconist where they sell cherry tobacco and another sort whose name I can’t recall but my neighbor mentioned it when he was drinking the tea. I will edit and add that info if I get it. Rich, blackcurrant, vanilla, honey…although it may go off shelf briefly, it always comes back before too long. Great as a sweet iced tea in summer, too.

Sipdown

This was such a mild sheng! I did a rinse and it was still so tightly formed that I did a second rinse and let it bask in the steam for a bit. The first steep was very mild, and my neighbor who was trying puerh for the first time said it was a bit weak for him. I let the second steep go longer and he liked that better, and the third steep still longer and stronger, and he really liked that. He said the initial aroma reminded him of suntan lotion that had been applied much earlier but it wasn’t cocoa butter smell. He didn’t think it tasted the same as the aroma he was picking up.

He and his wife felt like they initially got asparagus flavor but they were frustrated to identify the familiar something that they couldn’t pin down, something that happens a lot when we first start drinking good tea and try to describe it. I told them the third steep onward seemed to me to have mineral flavor followed by menthol/minty/camphor and he said YES! That is the sunscreen part! They noticed how the menthol built up in ontensity the more the drank.

I gave them lots of samples to take home and sent the rest of this with them as well, so this is a sharedown!

My neighbor wants to drink green tea for the antioxidants but said he couldn’t find any green tea he liked at all. I assume they were buying grocery store green and when he helped us out with sod laying I gave him a cold shaken matcha for the hot afternoon work. He loved it and drinks it every morning now, shaken in the jar with ice just as I first gave it to him.

I told him and his wife that I would love to have them over to sample lots of teas and I was sure we could find one he would like. Since he loved matcha, I began with this Japanese green that had a lot of similar flavor notes and he loved it. He also loved puerh – the stronger the better whether sheng or shu – and Chinese greens, especially Anji Bai Cha from Teavivre.

They didn’t know the word umami yet, but began describing what they loved about the tea and I told them there was a word for it, so they know all about umami now. Teas that I shied away from until I was a seasoned tea drinker, they loved. We drank tea for four hours. I love tea padawans!

April Sipdown Challenge – raise your cup to the tea farmers for Earth Day – bonus points for an earthy tea!

I didn’t add this to my cupboard because it is a sample that I received as a gift from Whiteantlers. Many thanks, and I miss you!

I decided to go with ripe puerh for this prompt because most of them have some earthy notes. Little did I know I was about to drink the earthiest puerh I have ever had.

Dry aroma was pure dirt, in the best way possible. I love the smell of freshly plowed fields and of petrichor. We live on the border between the Sandhills of NC and the Piedmont. Our soil is sandy and dry, and this puerh smells like when I crawl under a house into the dry, undisturbed crawlspace. (Yes, I have had to do this quite a few times as the elderly ladies on the street used to call on me to hit the reset button on their oil furnaces. Ha ha!)

There is no fishiness and no real aged manure/horse barn scent here, other than the dusty smell of a barn with an earthen floor. There is no mushroom scent. There is a strong minty or camphor tingle that builds as you drink but dissipates fairly quickly. Pleasant.

I have had four steeps thus far and will be having more throughout the day. I am glad I tried this one. It is a very enjoyable ripe pu.

Sipdown

This is a public service announcement. Lupicia has posted their line up of Mother’s Day teas, floral special edition tea tins, and cherry blossom/cherry flavored teas!

I was hoarding the last bit of this and planned to have it with Ashman for afternoon tea today. There was less in my tin than I thought so we had Decaf Muscat instead and I made this to go with ice cream tonight.

The aroma is pure Luden’s cherry cough drops. I love it. But I will admit that it did not go as well with ice cream as I thought it would. I usually have lapsang, hojicha, or a plain black tea with ice cream and this one got a little lost because it comes off sweet and the ice cream was sweet, of course. Not enough contrast.

I will admit here that I have already ordered two new bags of this. I am a little ashamed to admit I also ordered two new-to-me teas to try but one of them is for Ashman really so maybe that makes it a little better.