Cha Gloriette

Gongfu!

Steeping up some oolong this morning! There’s often a sharp, acidic roasted chicory top note to Muzha TGY that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I do get that a touch with this tea, but dripping my water temp just slightly lower than I would normally brew this style of oolong tea with has been very rewarding. The leaves are now producing a warm and toasty liquor with notes of brown rice syrup, roasted quinoa and barley, and baked apples – complete with a playful hint of nuttiness and minerality. It’s such a smooth session, and really expressive of just how deep my love for roasted teas goes!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CpDWN76Oosl/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQJlEvdkOHU

Gongfu!

Enjoyed this morning session paired with some sweet and juicy blue grapes. This tea is soft, smooth, and medium bodied with a gentle nuttiness that reminds me a lot of lightly toasted macadamia notes and coconut oil. After the first few steeps it gets sweeter with more overt, aromatic floral notes of white Spring flowers and a fresh, stonefruit finish. At times, the grapes were a little too sweet and intense for some of the more nuanced elements of the tea, but snacking on them in between steeps and letting the sticky fruit juices linger on the palate heading into each new steep ended up being a great midpoint.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C_yM6rKOkvS/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbPCo7iB_NQ

Gongfu!

This was a lovely medium bodied and Spring-worthy tea session. Though initially quite delicate, this tea did get a little more bold after a few steeps with a beautiful range of tasting notes encompassing fresh white peaches, buttery coconut milk, and soft white florals. Juuussttt a touch roadty too with an almost macadamia-like nuttiness to round out the otherwise my fruity and floral greener leaning profile. I experimented a little bit with pushing my steep times, and though it did bring out a smidge of astringency it also deepened the stonefruit notes. A worthy tradeoff, in my opinion.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4gMJNXOQor/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Ly0RSsbcI

Gongfu!

I think this is exactly what I needed today. The overall profile is sweet, though far from cloying. I would describe it as a perfect harmony of fruity and floral with distinct mid sip notes of ripe persimmon and fresh white flowers – the kind that “clean linen” scented products feel like they’re trying to emulate. The finish has a lightly toasty nuttiness – gentle yet cozy, maybe a bit like unbuttered or salted popcorn.The liquor is smooth and medium bodied with the faintest amount of pleasant astringency. It’s the perfect astringency because it passes almost immediately after each sip, so you get the added texture in the mouthfeel without any harshness afterward. It was almost meditative sitting with this session in the late morning; just a solid moment of peace and enjoyment!!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CuZ4NZ7OmpC/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-Cn4YFG4ZI

Gongfu!

So I was in a meeting with Marika earlier in the week and she was brewing this gongfu throughout the meeting and passing little cups of tea to me off to the side of my laptop. I remember it was so delicious and surprisingly sweet, but I honestly don’t remember anything else about it. I would just quickly slug back my little thimble cup of tea each time one was left for me.

If anything, it was such a gentle and kind reminder of how amazing my coworkers and office are. I mean, where else are you going to work where you can fully brew gongfu during an in office meeting – and to take it a step further, to have someone else brew that tea for you. Even if I remember next to nothing about what I was drinking, it was a special moment.

I did buy this tea for myself too though (at TO Tea Fest), so I’ll get to have it again and pay the tasting notes a little more mind.

Gongfu Sipdown (2365)!

This was actually a sipdown of the smaller sample that was kindly gifted to me by Marika – thank you! The liquor is medium bodied and slick, with very aromatic florals and a strong buttery peach flavour that makes up the bulk of each sip. I also get notes of coconut, fresh washed linens, and white Spring flowers; it’s so soft and relaxing while having an almost shocking amount of longevity to the leaves and great clarity of flavour!!

This was also the perfect excuse to pull out this gorgeous little carbon trap Shino glaze pot and cup set! The pot was my first Inge piece, and honestly still my favourite of the handful of others I’ve added to the collection. The cup is from San Tea and was love at first sight. The fact the carbon trapping so perfectly mirrors this tea pot and that the capacities are practically perfectly matched was so serendipitous – they were just fated to go together!!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CxqtmI4OnVJ/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJiol671vAE

Gongfu!

Sipping on a beautiful high mountain Lishan Oolong. It’s highly aromatic and beautifully sweet and floral; notes of white Spring flowers and lilacs with a silky mouthfeel and such buttery and creamy body notes. Some steeps even had hints of white peach, which came coupled with their own unique set of floral undertones. I’m finding this past week that as it gradually gets more Spring-like I’m definitely starting to really crave this type of greener and more floral oolong a lot lately!
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Cha Gloriette is probably my favourite new (to me) tea company discovery, and so far everything I’ve sampled has been exceptional! I would have loved to buy one of everything they were sampling at the TO Tea Fest, but my wallet definitely disagreed with that idea. Thankfully I have amazing tea friends like Marika to help split the difference; thanks for sharing this sample from your festival haul!!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cocf061uruo/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3j6qZvGbME

Long story short… I just finished five years with Davidstea. During that time, I had two kids and drank so much davidstea, that my cupboard is about 99% them now. COVID meant that my store was one of the ones that got shutdown so now I’m mostly at home, which is ok… but if COVID continues the way that it looks like it’s going to, then I guess it’s a good thing I am. I might have to homeschool my 4 and 5 yr olds.

Fun positive that happened during COVID… I finished writing a novel!!! 73,000 (ish) words. (About 280 pages). I’m so happy!! I’m trying to write a second novel but it’s been tough going. Maybe in the new year.

I definitely wasn’t expecting the tea to taste like that… lol I got this one probably 3 years ago at the Toronto Tea Festival, and I’m FINALLY trying it.

It reminds me of Nepal Black from Davidstea, but is definitely stronger. It has a strong tobacco taste to it and I’m getting some straw like the other reviewer here. I feel like I’m getting a hint of floral too.

This tea is pretty smooth, which I like. Really no bitterness or astringency either, which again I like. I don’t like when teas leave my mouth dry. This one definitely doesn’t do that.

My sample of this one was a teabag, so really only one cup of this to try. I think I would get this one again, but only when my tea collection goes way down.

Finished this Oriental Beauty today, but it is not one that will be stuck in my mind. It is fairly weak in its aroma and simply in its flavours, both qualities I would like to have in a tea like this. The mouthfeel is very soft, but not all that interesting either.

As for particular notes, the smell reminds me of sawdust, flowers, peach, coffee, and autumn leaf pile. The taste is super sweet and nectar-like, with a bittersweet aspect similar to the taste of burnt onion. The sweetness persists into the aftertaste, which is slightly sickly and drying with a citrusy note (tangerine).

Almost a year ago now, I got some teas from Cha Gloriette at the 2019 Toronto Tea Festival. This is one of them. It has a standard Ruby 18 scent with some sawdust, milk chocolate, and peat notes on top. Wet leaf aroma is then more like tomato vine, molasses, eucalyptus, and tobacco. The taste of this tea is not super distinctive, but it is well balanced with a strong sweetness and notes of vanilla, wood, and cashew nuts. The texture is very nice overall, even though the body is actually quite light. It has an oily mouthfeel with a light astringency to it.

Have you ever brewed a tea then fallen asleep before it cooled down?

Unfortunately, all I have to offer about this sachet I received from Togo is aroma notes :/ And thus it remains unrated.

I prepared this according to package directions: Western, 8oz, water off boiling, 4 minutes. The dry leaf smelled like sugar cookie, steamed milk and pine with a hint of anise. The liquor aroma was as expected for a no-provenance-given high mountain oolong: sweet florals like lilac and daffodil, steamed milk, pine forest and spinach.

Then I fell asleep. I awoke to a room temperature tea and in my grogginess, chugged it without paying attention. Oh well. I remember thinking it would be better to steep for a shorter time, maybe lower temperature and even with breaking open the sachet and steeping those nuggets gongfu. Hopefully Togo can offer his opinion of this tea soon.

Edit: I now see in the description that the tea is from Cui Feng mountain.