Educational TTB 2

The leaves of this tea are dark green, long and twisty and they smelled very vegetal. The color of the brew was extremely pale yellow green. Despite the smell, this oolong didn’t taste vegetal to me. It was very creamy with full mouthfeel, finishing with a clean sweetness. Very good!

The leaves of this oolong are rolled and very dark brown. The smell is extremely roasty with an almost coffee-like quality to it. It brews up a sienna brown color. The sip starts our fairly innocuously, but finishes with a burnt taste. Not even a burnt sugar taste, just burnt. It leaves an aftertaste that reminds me of coffee. I’ll be honest, I dumped most of this. Definitely not for me.

This oolong has dark green rolled leaves. The smell is pretty vegetal and brews up a light yellow color. The main note I get from this tea is very full mouthfeel. The background players are delicate grassiness and a light vegetable taste, but they really play second fiddle to the mouthfeel of this tea..

This oolong is a mix of light and dark green leaves that are tightly rolled and they smell vegetal for an oolong. The brew is a light yellow green and the taste is all cream, cream cream to me. The taste is somewhat like a very subtle milk oolong with a hint of vegetal taste and a very thick mouthfeel.

The leaves of this tea are dark brown and green nugget. The smell is a very delicate oolong smell and the liquor is a light delicate yellow. I drank this right after the Li Shan and it was almost indistinguishable from that tea, but maybe a shade less vegetal. Definitely a pleasant tea!

This oolong has nugget-shaped leaves that are dark brown with reddish “highlights”. They brewed up a golden rod yellow with that characteristic oolong scent. This oolong is heavier than any oolong I’ve ever had! It almost doesn’t taste like what I think of as an oolong. It starts with a burnt sugar taste that morphs into a leather-like taste. Is that even possible in an oolong? It leaves a salty aftertaste. I can’t say that I enjoyed this one, but it was interesting, I’ll give it that! Thanks again to Stacy for this box!

Mission #2 for this TTB: try all the types of oolongs! Today, my goal was to try all the Taiwanese oolongs. The leaves are tightly rolled and very dark and have a characteristic oolong smell. Brewed the smell is much the same and the liquor is a pale lemon yellow. The taste is very nutty and buttery with a woodsy quality (NOT like the dreaded rooibos woodsy taste, it’s actually pleasant). It has a very creamy mouthfeel and the sip ends with a light sweetness. Despite having so many teas to try, I had to go back for a second steep with this one!

The leaves were long and plump and I could definitely see why they might be called needles. The color was a light grey-green with some fuzz. They smelled sweetly vegetal and brewed up and an extremely light yellow liquor. The overall characteristics of this tea were a really light, sweet taste that I enjoyed quite a bit. It was also a little vegetal and a little mineral. As it cooled, it developed a buttery quality and a really nice mouthfeel.

Another white from the wonderful Butiki Educational TTB 2! The leaves of this one were darker green, some spindly and some flat, with white fuzz on them. The smell was pretty vegetal, much more than expected, and it brewed up a pale greenish-yellow. The taste was also quite vegetal, much like a very mild green tea. It had a really nice sweet, clear finish that made me like it much more than I would have otherwise.

I’ve been lax on my tasting notes this week. I just haven’t been in the mood for some reason, so I’m catching up now!
I have in my possession the wonderful Butiki educational traveling tea box #2 and I’m super excited to get to try so many varieties of unflavored tea. It really is an excellent opportunity to learn so much! Thanks Stacy!
I decided that mission #1 was to try all the whites because I know very little about white tea and I started with this one. The leaves are greyish-green and have an almost hay-like texture (not a criticism!). They smell strongly of hay when dry, which is a smell that I like a ton and they liquor comes out a pale yellow, the color of real key lime pie (no, it’s not green!). The smell did not lead me astray as the taste is also all sweet hay with a tiny bit of mineral-ness hanging around. It finishes really cleanly with a cooling mouthfeel. The rest of my notes on this tea just say YUM. That about sums it up! This was my favorite white from this TTB. So sorry to the people after me, but there was only enough for one cup when I received the box, so it’s gone now.

I had a quick sample of this this morning while I was packing up the box to go. It really is surprising the color of this tea. I really enjoyed it.

I thought it was sweet and grassy, a really nice green. I would like to have this one again, for sure.

And I can, because Stacy told me that this is the Butiki Steamed Purple Green.

There was only enough left in the box for one serving of this, and I took it. I’m greedy on occasion. Sorry.

This tea is really different than any white I’ve ever had. It’s much more like a darjeeling black to me than a white. It’s the white tea for the black tea drinker.

It’s much closer to malty, less delicate than most whites are. It didn’t have that effervescence that a lot of whites have. It was pretty complex, which is one of the things I like about whites.

Stacy did tell me this was her White Rhino tea. I see that reading the description after the fact (all I looked at was recommended brewing directions) that this is indeed described as the white for black tea lovers. I guess I got something right.

This is the first Dong Ding I’ve had. I like it.

It’s only a little roasted, light flavor, quite tasty.

While I’ve been drinking this one, I’ve also been dealing with the body shop that has my MINI. It’s been 5.5 weeks now. I miss my car terribly. And it’s still not done.

Today has also been one of those days where for whatever reason I feel like I’m going to break down and cry at any moment. Oh wait, I already did that this morning before leaving for work. After fighting with the cat to take her pill and getting several scratches without her taking the pill. This is my normally mild mannered cat who never fights over anything.

I started doing this one pseudo gongfu.

Before I added the water, but there was just a touch of water in my brew basket, I was amazed at the scent from the leaves. Wow. Beautiful.

It made me hungry.

I did a couple of those pseudo gongfu infusions, and I felt like the tea had so much more to offer. It was nice, but not what I wanted.

So I did a western infusion with the leaves at this point. Much better. Rich, almost fruity, sweet. I love the aroma.

Much happier.

I think I like the greener oolongs brewed more gongfu and the roastier ones more western.

I like this one. It seems very similar to, but more intense, than Ali Shan #1.

I love the finish.

I love green oolongs.

This one is really nice. Slightly floral, more so in the aroma, but it’s there in the taste. It’s got a really nice finish. I’m trying to only drink about half of the cup on my pseudo gongfu, and that just isn’t working.

Really nice mouth feel. No astringency at all.

Call me happy

Gung fu, pseudo Cheri style

That’s happiness in a 4oz portion

I planned to drink at least one more oolong today, so I was only going to drink about 2 oz of a few infusions and move on. I’ve been drinking the whole cup.

Green and floral. Sweet. Delicious mouth feel. Soft aroma.

Happy Cheri
nom nom nom

Another pseudo gongfu

This one is kind of caramelized fruity to me. I dunno. I was fighting my computer at work while I was drinking this. I liked it, but I don’t remember enough now to actually write a good review of it.

(I started to write a review and nothing was working, and I had to close chrome, so I completely lost it. This is the makeup review.)

I decided Western isn’t how I drink my oolongs; I prefer my pseudo gonfu cha, so that’s how I’m doing it. I’m just only drinking some of each infusion and dumping the rest. It’s easier that way.

Did a quick rinse, which I then drank some of. Nice. Great mouth feel. Not too strong on the flavor yet.

Second infusion was much stronger on the flavor, just a little green kind of grassy.

Third infusion was my favorite. I drank the whole thing. A little more grassy, but still not strongly so. Love the mouth feel. I will definitely try to find other oolongs of this type in the future.

(I could see steepster trying to eat this note, so I copied it.)

I did this one western style and I’m just not sure. I don’t really have time to even pseudo gongfu cha these, but that’s really what I want to do. I thought it had potential. The aroma was beautiful, and I liked the mouth feel, but I didn’t feel like I was getting the nuances I wanted from it.

Too many teas, too little time, and too much work at work today to really be giving these teas enough attention to write a good review.

Well, I screwed up steeping this one. I thought I started my timer, but when I looked to see how much time was left, it had never been started. Sigh. But since I didn’t think it had steeped as long as I wanted it to, I left it for about 45s longer and pulled it. It is somewhat more or less than the 1:30 I wanted it to go for.

I am enjoying this one so much more than China #1 that I had earlier.

It’s much more green and vegetal, but not overwhelmingly so. It’s got a brighter flavor. Now I’m going to have to go back and trying China #2. It’s spinachy. It’s nice.

There’s unfortunately not much left of this tea so I don’t want to try again and see what it would be like with the 1:30 I had planned. Oh well.

UGH.

I thought I’d give it a try. I’d rather drink bagged green tea steeped in boiling water.

Bitter. Awful. Nasty.

Can’t even finish the cup. Dumping it out.

Interesting. I bet I could like this tea more than I am right now. I think it doesn’t help that I had a cup that I liked quite a bit just before it, that is really different.

It’s quite vegetal. I decided after a few tastes that it’s like overcooked asparagus, and not the really good local Michigan asparagus in the spring, but the stuff you can get in the fall and winter that comes from who knows where that’s okay but not amazing, and it was steamed or boiled. I prefer mine grilled or at least broiled or stir fried. But that’s what it reminds me of.

I could probably like this, but right now it’s not the best. Ah well.