987 Tasting Notes
I’m happy to say that of the 5 teas that Chi Whole Leaf offers, Ginger Chai was my favourite.
The strongest thing I tasted of this tea was the rooibos, oddly enough, rather than the ginger, cloves, or cinnamon. But like I said above, it’s fruity and peppery. (Perhaps the pepper note was just the ginger in disguise.) I think that the spices are helping to smooth out the rooibos.
Full review at: http://booksandtea.ca/2015/09/chi-whole-leaf-tea-reviews/
With this tea, the strongest taste was of the eucalyptus; the mint complemented it. I wasn’t getting much of a green tea taste, but I was getting a sense of herbal acridness at the back of my mouth. I’m assuming that this acrid note is a byproduct of all 5 samples being shipped in the same envelope — they all smell faintly the same, despite having diverse ingredients. With the combination of mint and eucalyptus, I bet this tea would be great to drink while having a cold. I could feel the back of my throat and it made my sinuses tingle a bit.
Full review at: http://booksandtea.ca/2015/09/chi-whole-leaf-tea-reviews/
The powder and the tea were a murky khaki colour. I could definitely smell the chamomile when the water hit the powder, but I also got a strong sense of peppermint when I drank it. The overall taste was of chamomile with a light hint of peppermint in my sinuses; the aftertaste was somewhat dry and chalky. I should note that, like other reviewers, I found that the powder for this blend didn’t dissolve well. It collected into a sludge at the bottom of my cup after I first mixed it together.
Full review at: http://booksandtea.ca/2015/09/chi-whole-leaf-tea-reviews/
Backlog from this morning. It did taste thin, but I figured I just underleafed. Now, seeing others’ reviews here, I think it might not be me, but the tea.
I did get some chocolatiness from this, but no smoke. I thought this was pretty much the same as lapsang souchong?
I’m confused by the names too. In my world – ZSXZ is not smoked and Lapsang is pine smoked, but that doesn’t always hold true. Some companies call a smoked tea ZSXZ and a non smoked one a Lapsang. It’s my understanding that this one is not smoked. I’ve asked in the – what do you want to know about Chinese tea thread about this – will see what they have to say.
This came up in class a few weeks ago; ZSXZ is the Chinese name for Lapsang Souchong (it’s similar to how Qimen and Keemun are the same thing but one is an ‘English Translation’). I’m not sure why all the inconsistency, though.
Cool, thanks! I’m glad I’m not the only one confused by this.
Despite the negative reviews of this tea, I rather like it; but I didn’t taste previous harvests.
Another gongfu session of this from last night.
I followed the advice mrmopar gave after my previous session and stuck with shorter steeps at a lower temperature this time around. 6.5g of leaf in a gaiwan with 90C water and steeps ranging from 5-30 seconds.
Mrmopar was right – brewing at a lower temperature with short steeps does get rid of a lot of that bitterness. I think I’ll stick to 90C as my default temperature for young shengs from now on.
How was this tea based on these new steeping parameters? Fruity, vegetal, with a typical “sheng” tart flavour. It kind of reminded me of vanilla yogurt. No smoke. Some astringency on later steeps as it coated my tongue. However, near the end of the session I was developing a headache and I felt bloated from having over a litre of liquid in my belly.
This wasn’t bad, but I don’t think I’ve been quite as seduced by this poundcake as other Steeptsterites. Considering that Paul from White2Tea has announced he only has about 100 cakes of this left in his new warehouse, I’m happy to let others have their chance with it.
In the meantime, I used up about half of the free sample I got from the W2T sale. I’m going to send the rest off to Ubacat, since she expressed some interest in it.
Woo Hoo! Glad it worked. This is a bruiser if steeped too long. Just on a side note if you rinse a tea and let it sit a while for allowing the water to open it up a bit it works pretty well.
I did an experiment using a scale a while back. I put 10 grams of tea in a Gaiwan and set the tare to zero. I then rinsed the tea and reweighed it and guess how much it weighed…..
20g?
Very close. It’s funny how that dry tea can absorb that water that quickly. That’s why I usually rest it after the rinse to wake up a bit.
First tasting note!
I brewed this western-style: about 3.5 teaspoons to 3 cups water at 90°C for 2 minutes. The resulting brew was a deep, clear buttercup yellow.
What’s interesting is that I can taste the difference that the light roast has made between this month’s TGY and the unroasted TGY that came in the July 2015 box. This month’s tea liquid itself is darker, and I’m getting notes of hay and wood in addition to the flowery orchid/gardenia notes from last time. The cream flavour that I sensed in last month’s box has deepened and intensified into something more buttery — if I didn’t know better, I would have thought this was a milk oolong.
Full review at http://booksandtea.ca/2015/09/yunnan-sourcing-august-2015-jade-box-yunnan-green-tea-and-2-oolongs/
I tried making this tea twice before reviewing, using the same temperature and amounts of leaf to water, but using different steep times: 1.5 tsp of leaf and 12 oz of water at 80°C. I steeped it once for 2 minutes and once for 3 minutes. Both times the resulting liquor was a pale greenish orange colour. While the 3 minute steep was stronger, the taste for both steeps was otherwise quite similar: vegetal, somewhat smoky, somewhat mossy.
A perfectly serviceable green tea, but otherwise uninspiring.
Full review at http://booksandtea.ca/2015/09/yunnan-sourcing-august-2015-jade-box-yunnan-green-tea-and-2-oolongs/
First note for this tea!
The dry leaves smelled bready, malty, and molasses-like — this is a flavour profile I’m quickly learning to enjoy. The wet leaf smelled smoky and fruity, like tobacco and fresh plums. All of the steeps brewed up a deep clear yellow, though the initial steeps had a greenish overtone that faded over time to show a more true yellow.
In the beginning this tea was really mild, with a neutral flavour and a slight honeyed sweetness and a mild orchid note. It didn’t smell very strongly, either. It woke up a bit on the second steep, where it smelled both of minerals and licorice and tasted more strongly of orchids, bread, and green wood. The second steep also had a grassy note at the back of my mouth.
[…]
This tea tasted pretty consistent across 6 steeps, though I do wish it had tasted more like bread and molasses. The final steep resulted in dryness at the back of my throat, and I still got mineral/orchid/chemical notes.
Full review at http://booksandtea.ca/2015/09/yunnan-sourcing-august-2015-jade-box-yunnan-green-tea-and-2-oolongs/
It was my favorite of the 5 too!