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75

Fukuyu is a great garden for a sencha, more flavored than a chinese sencha.

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75

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75

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75
drank Sencha by Unknown
1 tasting notes

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75
drank Chrysanthemum Tea by Unknown
3 tasting notes

Taste Better and Better each time.

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75
drank Chrysanthemum Tea by Unknown
3 tasting notes

Love it with some Rock Sugar

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25
drank Black Currant by Unknown
3 tasting notes

i didn’t dare reach the three minute rules with this black tea. one minute was pushing the bitterness threshold.

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75
drank Chrysanthemum Tea by Unknown
14 tasting notes

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75
drank Sencha by Unknown
14 tasting notes

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86

I need to try making some iced tea from this.

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86

It’s a beautiful Friday afternoon (at least in Michigan). As you can see, we just rolled out some updates to the site :)

One of the new features: sending updates to Twitter! Set it up from your account page: http://www.steepster.com/account

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86

My parents received this as a gift and passed it along to me. It smells amazing, though I’m still experimenting with the steep times.

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75

It’s spring on the calendar, but not outside in Chicago. A chilly, rainy Memorial Day here — so I reached for the canister I’d purchased recently from Dream About Tea (http://www.dreamabouttea.com/) full of fragrant, toasty spring-flush Dragonwell. If I can’t feel spring, I might as well taste it.

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75
drank Turkish Tea by Unknown
25 tasting notes

Had this at my local turkish cafe in Leicester (Zesty Meze) great food and drink! Sorry brand unknown, but made and served in the traditional way.

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65
drank Gunpowder by Unknown
1353 tasting notes

I keep seeing Gunpowder being described as being smoky. I don’t get it. I can’t for the life of me find any smoke in it at all. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nichts.

In the aroma of the dry leaves I kind pick something up that I think must be what some are interpreting as smoke, but to me it isn’t smoke. To me it’s more plant-y hay-y. No sign of smoke in the steeped tea aroma either.

I have brewed this really really carefully, and still all I can find is slightly butter-y vegetableness with a fair amount of astringency. Mind you, my gunpowder is old and of a fairly low quality, but I cannot find smoke anywhere in the flavour. I wouldn’t be able to find smokyness in this if my life depended on it.

I just don’t get it. How do you get it to be smoky???

Ricky

It’s smokeeyyyyyy! :)

It’s probably because it’s really really really light. Seeing as you can deal with something like lapsang you probably don’t think this is smokey in comparison.

Dan

The gunpowder I had from Teas, Etc was not smoky. The one I had from Adagio was. I don’t know if its the quality or what. Someone out there has to know, please comment.

Ricky

Well the whole smokiness could also be due to freshness. I have some really ancient gunpowder (meaning it’s been sitting in my cupboard for a while) and that stuff isn’t smokey anymore.

__Morgana__

I don’t get smoky either in my limited gunpowder experience. I get “dusky” or “musky” depending on the tea. More pungent than other greens but not smoky.

gmathis

Never looked this up to confirm it, but I always thought the “gunpowder” was a reference to the appearance of the tea rather than its flavor.

Auggy

I’m with you – I can’t really see smoky from gunpowder. Toasty, maybe, but that’s typically as far as I can go.

Miss Sweet

I’ve never found gunpowder teas to be smoky either – even though some say that’s how they taste right on the packet! Glad I’m not the only one.

Angrboda

Ricky, I think you might be right there. This is only my second Gunpowder ever and the first one was before I started paying this much attention to flavour. This particular one is both old and cheap and came in questionable packing.

Gmathis, it is the pellet-y shape that gave it its name as far as I know.

I’m so glad I’m not the only one. This is something that comes back to bother me again and again, and you’ll likely see me complain about it in frustration again later on. I’m feeling like I’m missing out on something!

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65
drank Gunpowder by Unknown
1353 tasting notes

ACK! Argh! Ack! Erk! Argh!

Gunpowder + spearmint gum = spitty!

I made use of the random tea picker today and it suggested this generic gunpowder. Okay, that’s a fair suggestion, I thought, given my foray into japanese greens. Let’s see if I can spot a significant difference.

First of all the colour is way more yellow and non-radioactive. A deep, warm colour and not in the least bit toxic looking.

Smell has a prickly note. I’ve seen people who find this type of green a bit on the smoky side and I’ve never been able the get that. Maybe it’s that prickly note they experience as smoky. I find it more sort of… I want to say citrus-y but that’s not quite it. It’s not fruity as such. Maybe there’s a vague hint of smoke, but it’s not smoky.

Tastewise, it’s definitely different even if my tongue is still semi-paralysed by the unfortunate gum incident. It’s not at all the green vegetables in this one. This is more abstract in flavour. It doesn’t really taste that much of anything other than green tea. It’s sweeter than the japanese and it’s not as much an explosion of flavour. It’s rounded and just calmly fills the mouth.

This probably makes no sense to anybody other than me…

Maybe if it hadn’t been for the chewing gum, I could have been more specific. This, however, was not to be.

Auggy

I’m with you on the difficulty in finding the smoky in Gunpowder. It strikes me as a bit more roasty than smoky. But maybe it’s because it is so different than the smoky of Lapsang or even Keemun. Though I did get wet cigarette ash from GM’s Gunpowder so that probably counts.

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65
drank Gunpowder by Unknown
1353 tasting notes

I’m in a green mood, so I grabbed this tin and made me a pot. Now that I’ve taken the first couple of sips, I suddenly remember that I also own a rather nice Chun Mee, and I’d actually rather have had a pot of that.

sigh

It’s probably just as well, because I have discovered that I didn’t rinse the pot out properly before brewing. My gunpowder has gained a weak note of liquorice root from yesterday’s Black Satin.

Interesting, actually. It adds an element of surprise to it. ‘Ahhh green tea… wait, what’s that?’ If I had any liquorice root, it might be fun to experiment with.

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65
drank Gunpowder by Unknown
1353 tasting notes

Hey Steepster Peeps and those who decided to follow Lexitus in particular? Did you know that apparently we are the Steepster Mafia? ;p It made me LOL. Does that make me Godfa- er… Godmother?

4th steep actually, with a crutch (as in a pinch of fresh leaves). I didn’t actually need any tea tonight after the pot of sodding Earl Grey earlier, but then Denisend made a forum thread about honey in tea and… I got inspired.

And for some weird reason this Gunpowder was my first thought. Sweetening a green tea, and a naturally sweet one at that. I’m nuts, obviously. This will either be spectacularly spectacular or spectacularly dreadful.

Yup. It’s actually spectacularly indifferent.

Gunpowder tends to have a sweet note naturally and the honey just added a little bit to it. Granted I didn’t add very much, but it still didn’t really swing it either way.

denisend

Oh, I’d better not tell my husband that I inspired a sweetened green tea. He’d totally cringe (he’s a green tea purist).

Angrboda

I am too, to a point. I don’t mind flavoured, but I don’t think I’ve ever added anything to it before. I kind of cringed myself too.

Carolyn

The angry Danish Steepster Mafia? You could inspire a book on your own.

My beloved doesn’t drink any hot beverages (or cold beverages other than water and orange juice). It seems like it would be nice to share tea drinking. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it would simply increase the chance of getting to one’s favorite tea and finding it gone.

denisend

@Angrboda – I don’t think I’ve ever seen my husband drink a flavored green, either, now that I think of it. I love flavors, but he just gives me weird looks.

@Carolyn – It’s nice to share tea drinking in that we both like to go to tea houses and such, but he does make fun of me for using sweeteners and such. We have totally different tastes (except southern sweet tea, since we’re both originally from the south). There’s a bunch of stuff I should probably remove from my ‘cupboard’. It’s his and I’ll probably never drink it.

Angrboda

You should make him get an account. :D
I tempted Lexitus into is and he owns a grand total of four different teas. :p

Southern Boy Teas

Wasn’t sure where else to post this (Need to go add to suggestions board—Ability to send private messages to other users), but I wanted to let you know that your tea was dropped at the post office tonight.

The paperwork was a major hassle until I found out I was trying to fill out the wrong form (live and learn). It should be pretty simple from here on out.

Be interested to see how long it takes to get to Denmark and if they charge you any sort of tariff. (I was required to provide the receipt in duplicate along with details on what you purchased.)

Anyway, I’m sure you will find our teas well worth it.

Angrboda

52teas, I assure you, you can read about it here when it arrives. I’m very excited. I’ll try not to break Steepster’s CSS again though. ;p I’ll drop you a note via your site too, when it gets here.
Experience tells me that it will probably take about 7-10 days, maybe a little more. I don’t know if the customs people have any specific sort of way to check or if they just check a randomised representation of arriving packages, but I think it might have something to do with size and weight. We’ll see. :D

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65
drank Gunpowder by Unknown
1353 tasting notes

Editing: Done! Just dropping in my notes on the tea made during the day before going to bed. Didn’t make nearly as many infusions as I had thought I would.

2nd infusion much like 1st, in spit of being forgotten, oversteeped and lukewarm. Completely drinkable, shockingly enough. Would probably have been a different story had it been the first steep

3rd same as the others. More or less. One note has come out of it here and it reminds me of popcorn. I think my gunpowder thinks it’s genmaicha… At least now I know what to do in a pinch when I run out of genmaicha.

Carolyn

Congrats on the editing! You’re a much faster editor than I am.

Angrboda

Oh, it wasn’t the NaNo story! This was a different thing of about 7500 words and endless beta-notes. Took me all day. :)

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65
drank Gunpowder by Unknown
1353 tasting notes

This would be the tea for the day, chosen because I want something that I can just recycle. I have Writing Ambitions today, so I’m going to be lazy about tea and try not to spend too much time on Steepster either reading or writing. (snort as IF! And while I’m dreaming I would also like a billion kroner.)

I haven’t steeped it more than two-three minutes here in the first go. It has a rather soapy smell today. Well, not really soap as such, I don’t really know how to describe it but soap is as close as I can get. This isn’t really surprising since I don’t know what the quality of this stuff is, but it came in an ordinary clear plastic bag without even a brand name on it and ‘Gunpowder green tea’ or something like that stamped directly on the plastic bag, so I’m inclined to think it’s probably not top quality.

The taste is strong and spicy and I can see why some would call it bitter. I don’t think it’s bitter, but it has potential to become so if oversteeped. It tastes like it would be good with a bit of mint in it, but I’ve tried that before, and I didn’t really think it worked as well as I had hoped. It might have been better with further experimentation, but the result wasn’t interesting enough that I’ve ever bothered trying again.

So, this is the tea for the day. We’ll see how much I can get out of these leaves.

And now you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got stuff to edit.

gmathis

Much sympathy. Proofreading is my kryptonite.

Carolyn

I love editing. I wish the writing part of the process was over so that I could begin the editing part. Alas, it is true that one must write before one can edit one’s work.

Carolyn

Good luck to Angrboda with her editing. May the typos be caught cowering from her mighty red pen.

Angrboda

On this particular one it’s a tough job. The person who proof read for me was REALLY thorough, and while that’s a good thing because she explained her suggestions and changes and I’m learning stuff from it and what not, she’s forcing me to actually think for myself. The horror! O.o

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65
drank Gunpowder by Unknown
1353 tasting notes

WHOOOOOOAAAAHHH!!!

Last night’s insomnia is finally catching up with me. I had maybe a total of four hours sleep and have still been, to use a danish and directly translated expression, fresh as a fish all day. In spite, I might add, of having acquired the sniffles.

It’s now 9pm and I’m beginning to suspect that tonight I’ll sleep well. Although I’m not really ready for bed yet. I’m not finished being awake for today. And I wanted a good cup of tea first too.

So why this kinda mediocre generic one? I don’t know. I’ve seen a lot of people review green lately (and pu-ehr but sadly I don’t have any of that) and what can I say? You lot are inspiring.

It’s really dark. Okay, so I was busy writing the intro on this post and nearly forgot, so it’s probably just a teensy bit oversteeped but it’s still good. I kinda wish I could remember what I said about it when I reviewed it earlier because I hate ending up contradicting myself. It makes me look like a dork who can’t make up her mind. (And I don’t want anybody to find out the horrible truth)

Today though, I’m finding that I still agree with my previous rating. It’s a nice tea, but not super-duper awesome. The first Gunpowder I ever had was from Chaplon and it was also iirc the first green I ever had (that didn’t come in a cheap bag). I just remember that one as better than this.

OMG! I just realised I also have dinner leftovers heating in the oven! Man, imsonmia really IS catching up with me.

These oven potatoes are a bit bland, possibly they should have been heated just little lon-WAIT! I’m supposed to be talking about the tea!

Anyway, the tea. It’s pleasant. I think it would be a good one for my travel mug in the mornings (gosh, I love that thing! How did I go for so long without?). I’m picking up a kind of… Well, there’s definitely a note there, I just can’t really describe it. It’s not nutty or salty (Salty? Really? I’ve never found a salty note in a tea! Where do you lot get that from?) or grassy or leafy or anything. It’s just sort of… green. Yeah, it has a green flavour.

I’m getting nowhere with this. I’m finishing my tea and my meal and going to bed. Clearly, since I also wrote ‘imsonmia’ up there, it’s the only sensible thing to do.

takgoti

Haaa. Following your thought process on that was fantastic.

If I get a green that has an obvious salty taste to it, it’s usually at the beginning and typically gone by the time I get after the first few sips. I haven’t had a lot of gunpowder tea, so I don’t know if that’s typical in it, but I’d say that genmai chas are the ones I have where it happens most consistently. Though, those are also the type of greens that I myself drink most consistently.

Auggy

My personal (pre-Steepster) notes from when I was attempting Chinese greens with more frequency used the word “briny” a lot.

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65
drank Gunpowder by Unknown
1353 tasting notes

This was given to me as a gift once in a clear plastic bag with no details as to origins of any kind. I wasn’t expecting grandness and it is indeed pretty mainstream. It could have been a whole lot worse. Just had a sort of craving for green tea last night and it’s lasted into this morning.

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