74 Tasting Notes

87

Well that was pretty excellent.

The best pu-erh I’ve had so far. Generally I’ve found it to be overwhelming, fishy smell, etc. this pu-erh has none of those problems. Smooth and complex with some interesting flavours.

The colour of it is particularly striking, it’s very dark, like coffee. That’s pretty surprising given the comparatively lighter taste and lower caffeine levels. An interesting and nice cup. Enjoyed it!

Preparation
Boiling 2 min, 0 sec

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88
drank Golden Honey Dew by Lupicia
74 tasting notes

Well, that was pretty awesome. As usual, Lupicia does a great job again.

One of my first Lupicia teas was their Melon White Tea and this melon-flavoured tea reminded me a bit of it. It is very tasty and has a great, powerful but not overbearing flavour. The green rooibos is excellent as usual, and makes for a very nice cup. Excellent!

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

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96
drank Green Geisha by Tealosophy
74 tasting notes

Daaaaamnnn this is a smooth beast. I love this tea, it friggin rocks the house. HARD.

When I was down in Buenos Aires I had to check out Tealosophy after a recommendation from a buddy, and man is that place ever awesome. I dropped an easy $100 there in no time at all, and left with a stack of epic tea to last me a while. I bought a few others and a bunch for gifts, but this one remains my favourite by far.

I am partial to the ol flavoured green tea situation, but this combo is particularly awesome. The base Sencha is super high quality, smooth, and none of that crappy tanniny action you get in some green teas. Blended with the smooth base is some really nice tropical fruit vibe, it is really well balanced, tastes like LOVE and I could drink this magic every day (and I pretty much do). It rocks.

Tealosophy, if you start shipping to the USA, I will crush your stock of this stuff. ;)

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 2 min, 30 sec
aquatistic

TEALSOPHY!! Mike I have it listed on my ebay account. A very special CHinese friend sent it to me. Enjoy bidding!!

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85

This is the first time I’ve tried Golden Monkey and it was pretty darn good.

It reminds me a bit of the other bold, malty black tea that I love from China: Yunnan Gold. Very interesting and bold flavour, but still mellow and not bitter or in-your-face. A nice combo. Let the experiments in Black Tea continue!!!!!

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 30 sec

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100

This is probably the best friggin tea I’ve ever tasted.

It costs almost literally an arm and a leg ($30 for 3oz), but it tastes like the sweet glorious dream of a simpler time, so I’d say that’s ultimately worth it.

Seriously though, this tastes damn fantastic. I want to high five both Dean AND Deluca (presuming they are people?) for being this awesome and creating this masterpiece.

If you don’t like rose flavors, get out. Also, you’ll hate this possibly. But I am a big rosey dude and this is both a blend of excellent white and green tea with a mild-ish but certainly strongly present smell and taste of rose gardens. This tea could not possibly taste or smell any better than it does.

It cost a pretty penny as all TWG tea tends to cost, but I say it’s well, well, well, welllllll worth it. Pick some up, you won’t be disappointed. And if you are, send it my way and ill kiss your face for making my life better with the best tea of all time. Seriously. I love it. If this tea was a student, honor roll for sure. It would be one of those students that somehow gets MORE than a 4.0 GPA. I didn’t know that was possible, but this tea could do it. It’s put magic.

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 2 min, 15 sec

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85

After trying the rest of the Lapsang options from Upton, I think this one is the best. It has this interesting malty backend which is unexpected in a Lapsang and I think it makes it a lot more interesting than the standard smokey-only flavours you get in other Lapsangs. Very interesting and tasty!

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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75

Similar in taste and style to Upton’s Lapsang Souchong Imperial, though maybe a little less spicy. It’s good, a nice solid Lapsang option.

I bought all of their Lapsang variants as samples so I could compare (fun!!!!!) and I think my favourite is the Lapsang Souchong Black Dragon, not just cause the name is friggin’ awesome but also because it was a more interesting twist on Lapsang. This one is very classic flavouring, feels like just a good quality, nice lapsang. But now that I’ve tried a few of them, I think I prefer a bit of a departure from the “normal” Lapsang taste (which is a crazy flavour anyway!) and a bit more of an innovation on top of it. So I’d vote for the Black Dragon being their most interesting one, though this was certainly great quality.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

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75

It’s good, a solid tea for sure, but I had higher expectations for it.

As usual the base of the tea from Upton is great, but I found myself hoping for more prominent vanilla flavours, especially because there is vanilla bean in it. I am usually one for more powerful flavouring, so take this with a grain of salt. But I found it was more like a strong base with a mild flavouring on top, as opposed to a straight “flavoured tea”.

Still nice quality, but I think I’m gonna move onto some more of the 30 samples I just got from Upton :)

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

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79
drank La Belle Epoque by Lupicia
74 tasting notes

This was very good, and I didn’t actually realize it was a Darjeeling until after reading these reviews! I got it free in a Lupicia mail order and it was a very interesting taste.

I actually usually shy away from Darjeeling, I don’t know why, it usually tastes too light and acidic or something to me, and I often go much heavier and maltier (i.e. Assam or Yunnan Gold) when picking a Black tea. But this was really quite good, I had it without milk and it was quite a powerful taste. At first the colour and texture made me think it was actually a Pu-Erh!! It is a bit woodsy. Maybe there is some mix in here. In any case it’s a great blend of some sort, and I enjoyed it a lot more than a straight Darjeeling.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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89

Hollllllllllly craaaaaaaap this is amazing.

This is a fantastic, extremely rose heavy fragrant green oolong, it is totally awesome. I am generally a big rose fan (I love rose water, for example) so heads up that it’s pretty potent, but I thought it totally rocked. Great punch to it, and excellent flavour, really fantastic.

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 4 min, 0 sec

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Profile

Bio

Hello fellow tea nerds!

I’m Canadian and my parents are South African, plus I lived in England and Australia as a kid… so I’m rockin some pretty mad British Empire vibe and thus I’ve been a tea fan for quite some time. I am now totally hooked on loose-leaf. It’s super fun to try a bazillion new kinds of tea and choose the right one for a given moment in a day.

My favourite teas are well balanced, mild, maybe fruity/citrusy or with interesting flavours (eg: silk oolongs, grapefruit green rooibos, jasmine silver needle white tea, melon white tea). I also like a solid malty British or other bold style black teas with some oomph (eg: Yunnan Golden Tips, PG Tips).

Let’s nerd out together about why tea is so friggin’ epic!

Location

San Francisco, California

Website

http://www.mikejutan.com

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