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I recently have acquired some new teaware, and today I finally had the time to pull out one of my new pieces, an absolutely adorable tiny little 200ml bronze-glaze pumpkin with a matching glazed cup. I’m still working on my old, past-the-best-by pure teas so I decided to brew this oolong sampler I had from Dazzle Deer… a May 2017 harvest that I still had in a sealed pouch. Oof. Used 110ml of 205F water for the 7g, brewed gong fu style.

110ml miniature teapot | 7g | 205F | Rinse/30s/35s/45s/55s/65s/80s/90s

This was a roasty oolong, with notes of wood, char, smoke, roasted nuts, and walnut; not my favorite flavor profile, but it didn’t have a level of roast that breached into that level of sooty uncomfortableness I can easily get from roasted or smoked teas. The flavor didn’t change much throughout the session, though as the leaves opened up more in later steeps, it did gain a very subtle floral quality and the tea smoothed out a bit more, becoming a bit more rounded and sweeter during the early portion of the sip, with the end sip and aftertaste retaining a stronger roasted/char quality. By the fifth steep the flavor was starting to wane, and I decided to stack my sixth and seventh steeps together to use up what was left in the thermos of water I had prepared.

Wasn’t particularly excited by the tea, but I loved the little teapot which was so easy to use for gong fu, did a good job of keeping sediment out of the pour, had a smooth pour and didn’t burn my fingers like I have trouble with using gaiwans, and the cup also felt very silky smooth in my hands and didn’t have uncomfortable heat from the hot tea. It felt really good to use the new teaware and I’m looking forward to using them in many more sessions!

Steeped this up as a replacement cuppa for the sink-drain-bound-rancid-coconut-tea. I thought looking at this dry leaf there was coconut in it, too, and got worried (as I know this is very old, I believe I got this cup sampler from Ost in a 2018 cupboard sale, and have no idea how old it was when she graciously gifted it to me then!), but double-checking the ingredients, it is just finely diced licorice root I’m seeing (unlike y’all, I like licorice, so that’s fine). Dodged a bullet there, phew!

Steeped up, the liquor is a pretty red color, and it does smell quite nice, albeit I can’t help but be reminded of the cherry cough syrups I had to take as a child from the scent. While I am getting a bit of that from the cherry flavor in this tea, it doesn’t wane entirely medicinal since I am tasting the black base… albeit much more faintly than I’d prefer, which I believe is entirely due to either age or amount of sample leaf I had available. If that maltiness were just a bit more present/stronger, I think the black cherry flavor wouldn’t have quite the dominance that I’m getting in this particular cup, and its that flavor that keeps swinging my head toward cough syrup. The flavoring itself is actually quite spot on for what it is trying to capture and the tea is very sweet and smooth. I can see where it is going, but it doesn’t quite get there for me. I’m willing to swing my rating a bit more generous than I’m actually feeling since I do believe age may have affected the base more than I’d prefer.

Thank you, Ost! Very glad to have had the chance to try a tea from DT’s past! They are a rarity in my particular area of the US.

This was a freebie in my freebie bag from the 2018 San Francisco International Tea Festival. And it has coconut in it. My bad.

It’s a bagged tea, in a rather nice sewn cloth sachet, and I couldn’t really make out from the aroma of the dry leaf if the coconut had turned, and being incased in the sachet, I couldn’t sample a bit of coconut, either. So I heated the water and prepared to brew the cup as normal. As soon as the hot water hit the leaf, the very distinct aroma of rancid coconut hit my nostrils. Welp. My GI has been hell lately, so I’m not about to take a chance with that. Down the drain it goes.

No rating on account of turned coconut. Though Todd drank his sample only a few months after the tea festival, and I see from his review he described it as “sour.” That almost makes me wonder if these already had turned coconut in them before they made it into the freebie bags for the festival…

Noticed I had half a cup of coconut milk left and I wanted to use it up, and I had some Golden Milk mix in the past that I quite liked in coconut milk, so I thought I’d try this matcha tonight, since it uses a rooibos base rather than green tea and thus is caffeine free (I switch to herbal-mode after 6 pm). Wisked up half a teaspoon as a warm latte with 50/50 hot water and coconut milk.

While I have enjoyed other flavored matcha by Bird & Blend I’ve tried in the past (granted, they were with actual green tea matcha), I am not a fan of this. The separation is pretty bad, leaving a sort of “cinnamon grain” texture to the sip. And it doesn’t taste like turmeric to me at all? It tastes very strongly of rooibos and cinnamon spice. It’s a strong cinnamon flavor too, with a bit of that honey/woody red rooibos taste beneath. It is quite heated, which is likely the doing of the multi-spice blend used, but other than getting the hot sensation in my mouth, I’m just not getting the flavor. And then the coconut from the milk, which was meant to compliment the turmeric (as I like that flavor pairing), but since I’m not tasting any turm at all, the coconut flavor seems very strange juxtaposed with the rooibos and cinnamon.

I mean, I will be able to finish the cup… but meh. Big pass for me, and I will definitely be finishing off the little sample tin by dumping it into a pumpkin spice smoothie this weekend.

I finally sipped down my last Chinese black that I was using as my morning daily drinker (Adagio’s Yunnan Noir) so it was time to move another bag over to the Sipdown Corner™. Lately I’ve been trying to target my very old pure teas (Dazzle Deer, What-cha, Rishi) so I grabbed this 50g bag from Dazzle Deer to be my next daily drinker. I have had Golden Monkey in the past (from Teavivre, not sure if this one comes from the same source or not) and really enjoyed it, so I’m looking forward to the next month or so it’ll take me to work through this bag.

I’m drinking out of a work thermos and don’t want to open it up to stick my nose into the brew, but the tea is warm and satisfying, with lots of flavor notes even brewed up Western style for thermos treatment before work. I’m getting malt, baked bread, orange, orange zest, a hint of smokiness that on the malty/tangy orange base is making me think of a sweet BBQ sauce, sweet potato, and a subtle hint of floral rose toward the end of the sip. A slight cocoa flavor is left lingering on my tongue between sips. Despite being three years old and the best-by date having already passed, this is still quite flavorful, smooth, and delicious.

One of my oldest 52Teas blends, from 2017 and still sealed. This weekend is a bit cooler before the heat will crank back up again (you really have to strong arm summers to quit here, which is a shame, since autumn weather is my favorite!) and somehow a warm, fruity genmaicha just felt right this afternoon.

I have never had a mulberry (that I can recall) but considering what a fiend I am for berries in general, I’m sure I’d love them, and their aroma in the package was very sweet and pleasant. I dumped all the contents out into my tea weighing dish just to make sure I got a good teaspoon mix of leaf and fruit before steeping. The mulberry aroma isn’t nearly as present in the steeped cup as it was in the dry leaf, but I do smell it, competing against the strong, toasty aroma of the genmai. Mmm. I haven’t had a genmaicha in a long time, and it’s one of my favorite comfort teas…

Oh! The berries have just a bit of tang/sharpness to them, which I really love. There is also a more subtle berry sweetness and a touch of creaminess that I assume is from the marshmallow root. The base is warm and grassy with a lot of genmai toastiness; I’d say that the toasted rice fills out in the mouth and then a sharp berry tang flavor settles over the tongue afterwards and continues to linger after the sip.

It’s really tasty! I’m debating if I finish my sipdown over the weekend on these satisfying warm cups, or use the rest of the leaf to do a cold brew to drink once the temperature turns again, since I really like fruity greens iced as well. Decisions, decisions…

Rating: 88

Oof, getting into the “Random Steepings” entry is a true testament of willpower…

I received this Grecian Mountain Tea as a gift from Meowster, which arrived with the items I’d requested in a cupboard destash a few years ago. As I recall it was a hand-labeled bag with some Greek writing on it, so I have no idea the company/source (other than it probably came directly from Greece). At the time, I had never heard of Grecian Mountain Tea, and I really enjoy learning (and trying!) new things. The herbs in the bag were so huge and soft, and have a delightful scent that is sort of like a cross between citrus and hay.

I never know how much to use because of the size of these things, so I just stuff as many as I can fit into my corn fiber fillable tea bag. The tea brews up a delightful golden color and smells even more wonderful brewed; oddly enough, I get a caramel apple aroma, as well as honey, lemon citrus, and a slight herbaceous aroma. I don’t think I’ve ever smelled a straight herbal infusion quite like this.

I love the flavor of this! I know there are people who say they get an apple note from chamomile (I never have… I just get a blech-yuck note from chamomile!) but I am definitely tasting apple in this. It also has a honey sweetness, and a slight florality, a touch of citrus, and very subtle notes of hot hay and mint. Mostly I’m getting honeyed apple and sweet flowers.

Thank you so much for letting me discover such a wonderful tea, Meowster! I will happily enjoy this in the evenings, and when it’s gone, I’ll have to look into where I can acquire more.

I reviewed Zhang Ping Shui Xian “Orchid” by Dazzle Deer recently, and this looked strikingly similar. I wondered if they were perhaps the same tea, but since I see a Steepster listing for a “China Fujian Zhangping Light Roasted Shui Xian ‘Floral’ Cake Oolong Tea,” my guess is that one would be the same tea to the one I drank from Dazzle Deer.

So, in hindsight, I sort of wish I’d saved this one for when I had the time for gong fu… I unwrapped the packet, it visually looked the same, and I thought, “This time, I’ll cold brew it!” And that was my mistake. Because unfortunately… it didn’t really work out.

Normally, I have no issues cold brewing oolong, and quite enjoy it that way, but this one had a very hard time expanding in the cold water. Halfway through the cold brew I even “broke up” the cake by gently poking it with a chopstick until all the leaf was free-floating in the water, which was then left to infuse in my ice cold mason jar overnight. In the morning, I was just left with really, really weak tasting tea. Practically water, with a slight hint of florality.

Not sure if it was the age of the oolong, the choice of trying to cold brew, or maybe a combination of both factors, but if I could turn back time, I would hot brew that cake and see what flavors it would have produced.

Ah well. Can’t win them all.

Rating withheld because I feel like this was a “me” problem rather than a “tea” problem.

Holy barometric-pressure-just-suddenly-changed Batman! Anyone else a walking barometric themometer because of their health? I was doing fine all day, and then suddenly my head went BAM! I feel the shift as quick as the snap of fingers. (Stupid chronic migraine…)

Took something, now I just want soothing tea, especially as I know the GI stuff will follow later. I forgot about this one, but I’ve been trying to actually go through (albeit a bit out of order) some of the September Sipdown prompts (thanks for sending me the list, VariaTea!) I bought this one when American Tea Room had their “going out of business” sale… like everything I own, it’s old because I’m a bad Tea Mom. But that checks off the “discontinued tea” box, and it actually sounded like something I really wanted with my head going pffffffffffft on me: lemony herbs, lavender, and mint. (No sipdown though, as ATR only sold ridiculously large bags… now, I would never even place an order with tea shops that only sell bags that big. Ah well, every cup helps…)

I love lavender teas but usually steep them shorter than I would other herbals as I find lavender goes bitter quickly, so I only dunked this one for three minutes and then removed my bag. Smells lovely, though. I smell the lemon and lavender quite strongly from the cup, but not any mint. Herbaceous in flavor, with the lemon more of the grassy/hay-like flavor of lemongrass, though there is a bit of a pleasant citrus tartness that fills out a bit more later in the sip that is left on the tongue. The lavender tastes lovely, it is second to the lemon in the flavor but is a gentle floral note. Any mint in this blend must be quite subdued to the other ingredients because I’m not tasting it at all.

Not my favorite lemon/lavender tea, but a perfectly non-offensive and servicable nighttime herbal.

Edit: I finally caught up my Steepster reading! A year’s worth backlog of 50 users, totalling around 200 or so entry pages… I’ve definitely been at it for more than a month, so this is a big accomplishment! (And now I can get back to my manga backlog, ha!)

This was a gift from derk, which she gave me in person at the 2018 San Francisco Tea Festival, after I had inquired curiosity about it (but because I’m a horrible person, I’m only just now getting around to drinking it, two years later…) I have never been a huge jasmine person, not because of the taste (which I actually quite like), but because the scenting is usually so strong and wafts off the cup like I’m being drowned in cheap grandma perfume, which is one of my migraine triggers. I have had “lighter” iterations of jasmine (such as in blends) that I enjoyed, but most jasmine-scented greens and whites have been “too strong” for me. I have never had a jasmine black, which is what I think sparked my curiosity in this.

4g sample in my 100ml shiboridashi, because I’ve had some days off so I actually have the time to gong fu for a change. The wet leaf smells so much like strong, muscatel grapes, which is quite pleasant; definitely different than the “perfumy” jasmine floral aroma I usually smell (I certainly do smell jasmine flowers, as well, just not to the extent of “overly strong grandma perfume”). Maybe a hint of autumn leaf in there as well?

100ml shiboridashi | 4g | 205F | 15s/20s/25s/30s/40s/50s/65s

I’m surprised how much that muscatel aroma is carrying over in the flavor, as well; I certainly taste the jasmine florality, but there is a noticable grapey fruity flavor as well, and a much more subtle hint of malt and honey. On the second steep some of the black tea flavor peeked through a bit more, and I started to taste more of the malt, honey, and now autumn leaf, but the tea was still very fruity with muscatel notes and sweet with floral jasmine. I felt like the black tea notes continued to open up in the mid-session, yet retained a lovely fruity/floral flavor. Later in the session, the jasmine became a little more forceful in flavor, but never obnoxious/perfumy. The tea was such a lovely red color and extremely smooth! I drank it really lazily, and enjoyed each sip.

I loved this! I think I just need my jasmine on a black base from now on! Thank you so much for this lovely gift, derk!