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Sampler Sipdown September! I sipped down another older tea today at work… and my perfectly fine kettle from home had that same weird “burnt rubber/metallic” water taste when I took it to work! I’m beside myself now. I’m convinced the power outlet at work has done something to the heating element in my kettles, and now I’ve just given up on making tea at work at all. I’ll have to brew at home and take it in a thermos (and iced tea in water bottles like I’ve been doing over the summer) because I just can’t take it. I really hope the element isn’t fried. Now I have two kettles packed into storage, and my new Bonavita has just arrived…

I don’t particularly feel bad about the upgrade though. Nice to finally have a kettle at home that I can precision input temperatures into when the need arises. Plus, I can get really low temperatures on it, which is handy for gyokuro.

Anyway, this is a single-serve teabag from a sampler pack I bought from Lupicia during a Mottainai sale. I’m really shocked that green tea that was technically from a Christmas sampler, which I purchased last April, tastes really fresh. The tea has a very savory aroma that reminds me a bit of baked beans and roasted nuts. The base of the tea has a very clean, fresh green taste, and it has a nice, nutty, genmaicha flavor, but there is something unique about this version of genmaicha that is a bit hard for me to describe. Something about the overall flavor reminds me a bit of Chinese green teas, as there is this “savory bean/green bean” sort of flavor that mixes pleasantly with crisp, roasty nuttiness from the rice. Personally, I really am enjoying this variation on genmaicha! Genmaicha is one of my favorite teas, and the black beans seem to create this fusion of Chinese and Japanese flavor profiles for me… and since I love both Japanese and Chinese greens, I’m all for that. This is certainly a tea I wouldn’t mind restocking sometime!

Flavors: Beany, Grass, Green Beans, Roasted Nuts, Umami

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 12 OZ / 350 ML
derk

New kettle, heck yeah. The tea sounds good, too.

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derk

New kettle, heck yeah. The tea sounds good, too.

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Bio

Hi! I’m Sara, a middle-aged librarian living in southern Idaho, USA. I’m a big ol’ sci-fi/fantasy/anime geek that loves fandom conventions, coloring books, simulation computer games, Japanese culture, and cats. Proud genderqueer asexual (she/they) and supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. I’m also a chronic migraineur. As a surprise to no one, I’m a helpless tea addict with a tea collecting and hoarding problem! (It still baffles me how much tea I can cram into my little condo!) I enjoy trying all sorts of teas… for me tea is a neverending journey!

Favorite Flavors:

I love sampling a wide variety of teas! For me the variety is what makes the hobby of tea sampling so fun! While I enjoy trying all different types of teas (pure teas, blends, tisanes), these are some flavors/ingredients I enjoy:
-Dessert/chocolate/vanilla/caramel/cream/toffee/maple
-Sweet/licorice root/stevia
-Vegetal/grassy
-Floral/lavender/rose
-Spices/chais
-Fruity
-Tropical/pineapple/coconut
-Bergamot (in moderation)
-Roasted/nutty
-Tart/tangy/hibiscus/rosehip

Disliked Flavors:

There are not many flavors or ingredients that I don’t like. These include:
-Bananas/banana flavoring
-Hemp/CBD teas
-Smoke-scented teas/heavy smoke flavors (migraine trigger)
-Perfumey teas/extremely heavy floral aromas (migraine trigger)
-Gingko biloba (migraine trigger)
-Chamomile (used in blends as a background note/paired with stronger flavors is okay)
-Extremely spicy/heated teas
-Medicinal flavors/Ginseng
-Metallic flavors
-Overly strong artificial flavorings

With the exception of bananas and migraine triggers, I’ll pretty much try any tea at least once!

Steeping Parameters:

I drink tea in a variety of ways! For hot brews, I mostly drink my teas brewed in the western style without additions, and for iced tea, I drink teas mostly brewed in the cold brew style without additions. Occassionally I’ll change that up. I use the https://octea.ndim.space/#/ app for water-to-tea ratios and use steep times to my preferences.

My Rating Scale:

90-100 – Top tier tea! These teas are among my personal favorites, and typically I like to keep them stocked in my cupboards at all times, if possible!

70-89 – These are teas that I personally found very enjoyable, but I may or may not feel inclined to keep them in stock.

50-69 – Teas that fall in this range I enjoyed, but found either average, lacking in some way, or I’ve had a similar tea that “did it better.”

21-49 – Teas in this range I didn’t enjoy, for one reason or another. I may or may not finish them off, depending on their ranking, and feel no inclination to restock them.

20-1 – Blech! My Tea Hall of Shame. These are the teas that most likely saw the bottom of my garbage can, because I’d feel guilty to pass them onto someone else.

Note that I only journal a tea once, not every time I drink a cup of it. If my opinion of a tea drastically changes since my original review, I will journal the tea again with an updated opinion and change my rating. Occassionally I revisit a tea I’ve reviewed before after a year or more has passed.

Inventory:

My Cupboard on Steepster reflects teas that I have sampled and logged for review, and is not used as an inventory for teas I currently own at the present moment. An accurate and up-to-date listing of my current tea inventory can be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/xjt9ptx3 . I am open to tea trades (within the United States only!) at this time. Note that I will not trade teas that I currently have in a quantity less than 50g (samplers, 1oz packages, etc.) or any teas that are currently still sealed/unopened in my cupboard.

Contact Info:

Feel free to send me a Steepster PM, or alternatively, check the website URL section below; it goes to a contact form that will reach my personal e-mail.

Location

Idaho, United States

Website

https://teatimetuesdayreviews...

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