What-Cha

The tea leaves are dark and very strange, they remind me very much of chai blends a few longer strands while majority is finely cut. I brewed at 175 °F for three minutes and this produced a grassy tea with a lingering nutty taste. Not too grassy, but it was not light, almost just right.

I might purchase this again. It is neither bad nor good, it does nothing wrong, yet it does not do anything particularly well. To be honest it is a little middle of the class type of tea. While I could find better easily at the same time I could find a lot worse at the same time. I almost want to say it is mediocre, but this was my favorite tea of the sampler if that makes any sense. It doesn’t challenge me, but I don’t feel held back with this tea.

(“Award Winning” Photography at http://rah-tea.blogspot.com/2014/11/what-chas-discover-russia-green-tea.html)

This tea had the greenest dry leaves of the batch; they reminded me of Long Jing’s tea leaves that have been mangled a bit. In fact they tasted very much like a Long Jing. I brewed at 175 °F for three minutes; this produced a very pale yellow liquor. There were some minor fruity and grassy notes. This was probably the most complex of the sampler.

I don’t know if I would buy this one again, while there was nothing wrong with it, it didn’t stand out beyond the appearance of the dry leaves.

(More at http://rah-tea.blogspot.com/2014/11/what-chas-discover-russia-green-tea.html)

Sometimes I sip a tea and just think, “yep, that tastes like tea”. :) Maybe I’m just not in the mood to analyse flavours? So this is a nice green tea. Aroma is vegetal with a hint of floral. Taste is vegetal with a hint of mineral sharpness. Maybe I need to try some of these nepali greens and whites head to head in order to appreciate the differences?

Dried tea consists of lovely, fuzzy silver buds, with a faintly floral/earthy scent. Brewed, the leaves smell much more vegetal, and I think there’s a specific vegetable there that I just can’t identify. It brews up pale yellow, and smells like fresh hay. Taste is a bit sweet, a bit mineral, with more hay and vegetable flavours. A very nice white tea.

Yummmmmmm. :)

Yep, I still love this tea. Which is good, because I now own a ludicrous amount of it! :D Soon to be slightly less ludicrous, once I give Anlina her half. Yummy, malty, sweet potatoey goodness. Mmmm. :)

Another What-Cha tea! This black tea has twisty leaves that range from brown to gold. Just as the hot water was hitting them I got this aroma of spicy baked… something. Not spicy enough to be gingerbread, but like, maybe a sugar cookie with cinnamon on top? Once brewed, I smelled it again and was like “Oh, so when people talk about a sweet potato flavour in black tea, this must be what they mean!”. The flavour is malty and sweet potatoey with just a hint of cinnamon or nutmeg or something sweet and spicy. Yum.

Apologies to everyone I’ve kind of just disappeared on – I need to get caught up on a bunch of PMs, TTBs and swaps. Life has been a bit overwhelming the last few weeks, but for the best reasons possible. I had my 33rd birthday this week and also, my life has been consumed with an intensive application process and starting a new job! I just started work full time for a global NGO doing policy work. I didn’t fully realize it when I was applying, but this is pretty much my dream job – I get to travel the world, work from home, devote my time and energy to doing advocacy on a topic close to my heart and make a decent living at it. That said, it’s a pretty big adjustment for me, and I’m pretty wiped out at the end of each day.

I’ve been drinking a lot of my old favourites during this time – soothing, malty black teas that I can just enjoy without thinking too much about them, including this one.

I hope to get a bit caught up on PMs and tasting notes this weekend. I miss the lovely community here.

Yum yum yum. Sweet potato forefront, with a hint of cocoa and a bit boozey today. Delicious.

This is such a great, reliable tea – malt, sweet potato, and bread. This is going to go fast.

Tea of the morning. Rich, smooth, malty and with a surprising floral note today that’s never been there before. So delicious. I’m happy to have a giant bag of this.

MAAAAAALT! Mmmm so tasty.

Got my half of the Black Friday sale on this, so I have a tonne of it and I’m going to be drinking it a lot for the next while. Mmmm.

Also upping my rating, because why was it so low?

Mmm glad to be stocking up on this one. I steeped it at a higher temperature this time. Lots of malt and sweet potato. So tasty and perfect for my craving of malty blacks.

I was going to throw out yesterday’s leaves so I could make a different tea, and then I smelled them and decided that these deserved to be resteeped.

I used 96C water and steeped the leaves for at least 7 minutes, maybe longer. At first I didn’t think I was going to get a drinkable cup out of these, but with a good long steep it was nice and flavourful. Not as complex as the first steep but still really nice.

Oh my god, I love digging into my What-cha teas so much. Everything is always interesting and delicious, and this promises to be no exception.

The leaves are long and twisty, and covered with a fine, orange dust. The smell of the dry leaf is sweet potato, bordering on being boozy.

I steeped 2g of tea in 8oz of 85C water for four minutes.

The steeped leaf has a slightly smokey, tobacco smell. The liquor is deep brown and smells of malt and minerals. The flavour is quite light, not a rich as I was hoping, but has delicious malt and sweet potato notes. There’s a hint of minerality mid sip. The finish is fairly light and a bit broth-like. The mouth feel is smooth – this is a very easy cup to sip. The flavours improve as the cup cools.

This is very similar to a Yunnan black.

The dry tea is a mixture of green leaves and fuzzy silver buds. It smells a little bit sweet. It brews up to a light golden liquor, with a scent that’s very fresh and reminds me of a spring breeze. The flavour is sweet and vegetal, like fresh spring peas or new green grass. The mouthfeel is very smooth with just a hint of astringency in my mouth as I approach the bottom of the cup. This is like spring in a cup. :)

It’s been a weekend of purging and trying to get the house one step closer to being organised….So i have been drinking tea but not really recording anything. Finished this one off yesterday afternoon. It’ll be back in my cupboard at some point because i am a fan.

Final Count: 10 teas, 14 puerh.

Oh man this is deliciously sweet today. I must have hit the right balance of temp and timing. Not that it isn’t always a great cup, but i guess it just nailed it today.

Went for a run yesterday and i’m feeling it today. Just couldn’t help myself since the sun was shining and it’s so close to March. Haven’t gotten nearly enough riding in February because the weather’s been crap for fatbiking. Kicked the day off with this one as i wanted a less bold brew today. Highly recommend this one for folks who want something a little more unique that crosses that black/white barrier :)

tea from the morning’s walk int he rain with adventure doggo. Had to wear her out a little before we went over to a friends place to help them move. AKA Ian moved heaving awkward things and i cleaned their new place from top to bottom. Exuasting but always good to help out. Glad i got some tea in my beforehand though :)

juicy, delicious tea. So glad i picked this one up again. Every time i have it, it’s a treat. Always nice to have a few of those types of teas in your cupboard.