Murchie's Tea & Coffee

It’s my family blend, so I know I should like it, but I’m really not a fan of jasmine. However, it’s a very straightforwards, enjoyable tea, without too much kick to it. It doesn’t really do anything WONDERFULLY, but it does everything pretty well. It’s also very good when very, very week too, because the aroma and jasmine don’t get overpowered.

I drank this tea with milk as an experiment and it didn’t turn out half bad. The milk makes it tastes like a purely black tea and it kills some of the subtleties of the flavour, but the floral, jasmine notes are still very much present.

I’ve discovered that this tea tastes good when paired with food, particularly starchy food liked toast or nuts, etc. It’s a mild, smooth tea that IMO is great to drink in the afternoon with a snack to boost the energy levels.

I steeped this a touch longer this time and it brought out the black tea a bit more, especially when it was quite hot. It’s not a bad black though, the green tea leavens the astringency and bitterness, and what you get is a nice, light, smooth tea with a hint of sweet jasmine to it. And no notes of jasmine soap, thank you very much! This is a tea that would be spoiled by milk in my opinion, it’s perfectly fine without!

Go Canucks! Kick Buffalo’s ass! :P

I’m afraid I’m not having a very ‘hockey-suitable’ tea, though. The smell of this tea is an odd mix between the typical ‘tea’ smell and a soft jasmine fragrance. Interestingly the smell while steeping is pretty reminiscent of my H&S Dragon Pearl Jasmine.

The flavour however isn’t nearly as flowery. It’s light but it has a clean taste with some sweet, vegetale notes hovering in the background.

I tried a more traditional approach to brewing my Gyokuro this time – 60ºC water, warmed mug, double the amount normally used, less steeping time, etc. And the funny thing is that I think I liked it better last time. Of course that might be because I went for 1:30 min instead of the 1:00 I maybe should have.

The flavour is distinctly grassier with less sweetness – more matcha tea than gyokuro I’d say. There’s also the faintest touch of a bitter edge to it. The aftertaste is the same, I think I’ve identified as similar (but not quite) to a light genmaicha.

Tsk, you’re a finicky tea, Miss Jade Dew!

The re-steep is a bit better, less grassy, but I think I might have scalded the leaves a tiny bit so I’ll chuck the leaves out and try this again another day.

*looks up Gyokuro tea on the Wiki *
“…The shading process increases the amount of theanine and caffine in the leaves…”

*looks at clock *
1:50 AM

Uh…ooops?

I also appear to be brewing this tea incorrectly, but whatever. I’ll mess around with that later. Anyways the resteep is a bit weaker but still nice; a bit more vegetale though, perhaps.

To be honest, I wasn’t to sure about this tea when I bought it. I’ve heard from various Steepsterites how finicky Gyokuro can be and what a fine line it can be between a good cuppa and horrible one. But I wanted a plain green tea and the Dragonwell Murchies was selling was more expensive (they were touting it as a ‘rare tea’, which seemed odd to me – but then this is a store that specializes in traditional English teas).

I also liked the clean-smelling, grassy scent this tea has, particularly the dry leaves. The flavour is grassy too, but not as much as I was expecting, actually. It reminds me a bit of the traditional-style matcha that I had in Vancouver, but not as strong and there’s a bit of sweetness on the beginning of the sip. It’s not bitter or rough in the mouth at all, and it doesn’t leave my tongue feeling dry like some greens and oolongs do. I’m also getting an odd sort of roasted/smokey, almost spicy aftertaste to each sip. It’s nothing strong, just…there.

You know, I could really get into this tea. _

This’ the last of this. I think I’ll finish off one more tea, and then finally allow myself to buy new ones.

This one was a nice staple to have in the cupboard. I had two teabags left, so I shared one with my mom, who liked it as well. It steeps a bit cloudy, being a fannings teabag and all, but it was and is still enjoyable. It’s a nice ceylon, with its own distinctive flavours, perfect for the days I don’t feel like having anything “fancy” enough as flavoured blacks.

Maybe I’ll get some loose leaf of this next time I make the commute to Murchie’s. I still have the tin left over, and it’s a very nice tin. It’s even double-lidded for extra fresnhness! And the “Uva Ceylon” nametag was just an easy-to-remove sticker.

I realized that I hadn’t put away the used jasmine green leaves (A&D) from yesterday. They’d dried perfectly (no spinagyness), so I threw the teaball into fresh hot water with a bag of this as well in a double-sized mug. The jasmine was STILL pretty strong smelling for the second steep, so I ended up taking it out at three minutes and leaving the Ceylon in for an additional two.

The result reminds me a bit of Murchie’s Library Blend. I think I’m just a sucker for black-green blends. The initial sip is green and jasmine, the black coming in when you swallow and breath out. The jasmine is lending more of a floral sweetness instead of completely taking over the tea.

Yiiiick, I just made the mistake of throwing two teabags of this into a too-small pot. I thought it was big enough for two, but apparently I was wrong. The tea got bitter FAST (four minutes!?), and it was STRONG. Very bitter and too strong, and yuck—even with milk and honey, there was nothing I could do. Never again shall I use more than one teabag. Not unless the pot exceeds four cups capacity at LEAST.

This morning, this is my Wake Up AJ, Wake Up And Finish Your Geomorphology Report. And sadly, it is not doing its job as well as I had hoped. I need an assam. Something stronger and biting. All I have is Irish Breakfast, however this was three bags in a large pot, and I only HAD… three bags of Irish Breakfast left, and I didn’t want to use them all up just like that.

I can hear the helicopters circling for the torch passing by my house today. I should pop out and see how close they’re heading by my house; I missed them the other day when they ran past my campus.

I hope this doesn’t effect me getting to class on time.

I’ve taken to drinking this every day in the morning, now. It has a bit of bite to it, even with milk and a bit of honey. It’s not a bad thing. It wakes me up in the morning.

Steeping this tea now, with an English muffin—that just popped from the toaster.

Mmm, English muffins…

Anyways, I picked this up at Murchie’s yesterday, which is so small and quaint, and when I entered the store, I immediately wished I had brought a book. I’m sure I will return—they have all sorts of little cakes, and I love the whole tea experience of getting a pot on a silver platter. It was very nice.

I decided to try making tea another way today; you see, the pot I have is very old, the outside paint turned brown from use. I read that filtered water is better to use over tap water (I don’t see why I had to read this—it makes obvious sense, after all), and I thought perhaps to try that. However, I assume the inside of my kettle is probably coated with enough lime scale and the sort that poring filtered water into it would negate the idea of using filtered water complete. So instead I put a mug of it into the microwave. I realized there was really no way to decide if the temperature was anywhere near where I wanted it to be, and so I used the Five Second Finger Test. How long does the water take to scald your finger? I waited until it did it instantly, and then hoped for the best (that puts it somewhere over 60c, at least [140F]). It took slightly longer for the nice rich tea colour to come out, so I can only assume the water wasn’t QUITE hot enough. I would buy my own personal kettle for tea use, but I’m sure everyone in my house would think me crazy.

I opened the tin of bags and the wondrous tea smell was nice, and strong and I took a few sniffs. On that note, the tin is PERFECT for loose leaf, so I have no idea why they decided to package their bagged teas this way. Not only does it have a tight fitting lid, but just under the lid is a SECOND lid that pushes INSIDE the tin, for extra freshness. And since the “Uva Ceylon” is just a sticker, I think I’m going to keep this tin and reuse it for loose leaf afterwards. Definitely.

The tea smells nice, and brings back memories of my great grandma. It’s odd, because it almost seems like I can smell a bit of honey. But I think it’s just the normal smell of the tea reminding me OF honey. The wet bag smells a little earthy as well.

Tea’s still a little too hot to taste much. But first sip I tasted something somewhat green. Or well, leafy. Second sip, and it tastes a little sour.

Aah, perfect, no bitterness. Joy! Although it feels a bit weak. Most likely due to too low of a temperature, I’m sure. I still think I’m getting that metallicy water taste. Maybe I should try bottled water instead of my filtered stuff. I don’t know when the last time was that that filter was changed.

A bit of honey to see what it does to the taste… I can barely taste the honey, but I think it brought out the tea flavour more. Mm. Maybe I’ll try two teabags next time. I think I like it. Heck, maybe I’ll pack a few bags to bring to work and drink on my break.

Bit of milk… Removes the metallic taste, which brings the teaness forward. Tasty.

Urgh, that’s the problem with using a large-holed filter with a finer-leafed tea – the bottom of the cup gets muddy.

I’m tasting a bit of sweetness from the sencha this time, so apparently a shorter steep is better for this tea.

I steeped it less and got a bit more grass and bit less burnt popcorn. I noticed that it also has a bit of a smoother feel in the mouth aswell. Interesting, I think I like it more at this steeping time.

I suppose it isn’t really fair to compare this to last night’s Ryokucha, but I can’t help noticing that this tea lacks depth of flavour. It’s got body and strong savory notes, but it’s very much a one-note tea. There’s a burst of toasted grain flavour and then….nothing. I have to say that even compared to the generic supermarket-bought genmaicha they serve at the sushi bar this looses out. It’s not a bad tea, it’s just that I’ve had better incarnations of it.

The green teas leaves are quite small and fine-looking from what I can see and the smell is sort of a green, grassy scent – like you’d get after mowing the lawn and the clipping had been left in the sun to dry a bit. The smell changed radically when I added water, turning into something that was a cross between puff-wheat cereal and burnt popcorn.

It tasted a bit like the smell – though not so much burnt popcorn, but it’s a savory sort of taste.

This morning I added the water to the teabag and stared at the cup in a zombie-like state without realizing I’d forgotten to set the timer. I guess that’s a sign that I really need the caffeine! *head-desk *

I really enjoy the citrusiness of this tea; I think I can pick up some orange and lemon flavours in addition to the usual bergamot. Yum.

Backlogging from yesterday morning:
I fully admit that my brain was still fogged-over with slumber when I drank this, so I wasn’t exactly giving the tea my sharpest analysis. But I was able to process the fact that a dash of skim milk makes this tea taste very nice indeed. ;)

This tea has more punch to it than Twinning’s Lady Grey, but it’s still light enough to drink without adding milk or anything else.

I drank it with some milk this morning and surprisingly found that I liked it much better. The mango is still pretty subtle but it lends a bit of a fruity sweetness to the tea that’s quite nice. Actually I shouldn’t be that surprised – Murchie’s specializes in English-style teas which are generally best with milk and/or sugar.

Uping the rating a couple points.