Christina / BooksandTea Send Message

I thought when I woke up this morning that I would start off my day by diving into the mountains of green tea samples I received in the mail yesterday.

Then the radio said that it would be snowing (IN MID APRIL!!) all day, and that the temperature would stay below freezing. Blech. Black tea it is, then.

I gotta say that brewed up, this is wonderful. A lovely interplay of mint and dark chocolate, with neither flavour being too bold. Considering that David’s says this is “low” caffeine, I might save the rest for dessert in the evenings, but still. A really nice flavourful blend that isn’t too strong, and doesn’t even need much in the way of sweetener.

Sipdown!

Last night I drank some of this hot. After reading the notes others had left, I decided to coldbrew the rest overnight, which is what I’m sipping on now.

This is better – more floral, less murkiness in the flavour – when served cold. However, I think I let it oversteep, as it tasted a bit bitter. Adding agave nectar to cut the bitterness didn’t help much.

Ah well. I have other flavoured whites and fruit teas to try. So long Mango Madness, turns out I wasn’t very mad about you.

I got samples of this in the mail today from two different people (Darby and Angel from Teavivre), but this particular batch is from Darby’s sample.

Dry, this tea smells of both peach and jasmine. The peach is so sweet and gentle, almost like peach nectar, that I couldn’t wait to give this a sip. Even my mother, an avowed coffee drinker, was interested in trying some of this!

I steeped this twice, shared the first steep with my mother (who didn’t taste much, which I’m guessing is just because her tongue is so used to coffee that tea is too subtle for it) and had the second all to myself. The first steep was definitely the peachier of the two. It was soft and lovely, with the two flavours melding well, but with the peach flavour more noticeable on the back of the tongue and in the aftertaste.

The second steep was more astringent, and the jasmine flavour was definitely stronger. I could only taste a hint of the peach this time.

In scent and taste, this tea reminds me a lot of Bhudda’s Blend from David’s Tea. That one, oddly enough, smells more of peach than this one, but tastes more of jasmine than this one. On a per-gram basis, Buddha’s Blend costs almost twice as much as this variety. When I run out of BB, I may just order this instead!

The more I drink this, the more I wonder whether the steeping parameters on the package are correct, or whether my initial taste of it was an outlier. The first sip I had of this a few months ago seems a lot sweeter in restrospect than current sips of this tea.

Perhaps I should also stop making it in pots, and just do single servings.

Anyways, I think this might do a bit better at a higher temperature – 75 or 80 C, perhaps.

This is still good, though. Just pondering.

Another tea from the Sweet Indulgence 12-pack.

About 2 months ago I had a run-in with a truly awful-tasting mango white tea. It tasted like dusty candlewax with a patina of fruit flavouring overtop. Because of that, I was very hesitant when trying this.

Luckily, the two teas don’t compare. This is far less blech-inducing. I can taste the mango and a hint of the other tropical fruits in the background, especially with a little bit of lemon honey to round things out. This tastes somewhat acidic as well, with a long tart aftertaste.

This tea hasn’t quite one me over, though. This is okay but I think I’ll try cold-brewing the rest overnight. I have a feeling that would be more satisfying.

Second time I’ve had this, and I admit I like the green base a little better now. It’s still not there yet though. Steeped it for slightly longer this time. Looking over other people’s tasting notes, I’m going to try Lala’s suggestion next (1.5 tsp, 8 oz, 190°F [87°C] for 1-1.5 minutes with a bit of sweetener).

The aftertaste on this is great – fruity and sweet and tongue-coating, almost like a classier, grown-up version of a fruit roll-up!

Backlog from this afternoon:

The leaves in this are so fluffy that I really need to be more generous with them when I measure them out for my pot. This is a decent green, but nothing special to me – there’s not a lot of flavour in them. The wet leaves smell lovely and sweet, but I wish that aroma translated into the brew.

I might just give what I have remaining of this to a friend. I liked the Autumn Harvest Laoshan from Verdant much better, because at least that had some taste going for it. Bumping the rating a bit lower accordingly.

The first time I brewed this tea, I drank it under sub-par conditions (note to self: do not drink tea after eating nachos). This time I did it under better conditions (after breakfast).

I really wanted to like this since the dry tea is such a gentle, sweet smell, but this doesn’t really work for me. I think the culprit is the mix of vanilla and cloves – I like both flavours separately in tea, but together, they create this weird sort of muskiness that I dislike. I wish that the citrus peel flavour had been a bit stronger to counteract this.

Ah well. I still have about 1-2 cups worth left of this, and will not regret when it’s a sipdown.

I have realized that much to my chagrin I do not have many straight greens in my cupboard. This is one of the few that I do have, and yet I haven’t tried it.

So many people lavish praise on Verdant and on their Laoshan greens in particular that I wasn’t sure what to expect. This is pretty good, though: buttery, vegetal, rich, with a pleasant astringency. I’m not completely bowled over by it – I think my preferences lie more on the sweet end of the green tea spectrum – but this tea is smooth and comforting.

Many thanks to De and aisling of tea for giving me this as part of their (very!) generous swap.

I got this as part of the “Sweet Indulgence” box a few weeks ago. Spurred in part by all the talk of Della Terra’s Lime Chiffon tea, I was really interested in trying it.

Unfortunately, it didn’t really have the sort of sweet sorbet tang that I was expecting. I didn’t even get much creaminess from the lime yogurt bits, though that could be because I was using a tea bag to hold it all in.

Sweet and fruity, tart, not astringent, but ultimately nothing much to write home about. I have about 1 cup left of the leaf sample.