Featured & New Tasting Notes

I just finished another 50 g pouch of this ethereal Tie Guan Yin. It became a little softer with age, but the gardenia, orchid, and violet florals were still lovely, as were the hints of apricot, pineapple, peach, green apple, and cream corn. The longevity was still good, though the later steeps were grassy as expected.

Kudos to Sipscollection for finding a beautiful Taiwanese green Tie Guan Yin! This tea may be getting too old to buy another bag, but I’m thinking about it.

April Sipdown Challenge – raise your cup to the tea farmers for Earth Day – bonus points for an earthy tea! another sipdown prompt for same tea. It is allowed?

Anyway, I am raising my cup to tea Georgian tea farmers as they are definitely closest region where tea is grown for me; so minimal carbon footprint for this tea as well. And as I have mentioned many, many times, I just have a soft spot for them. But also, raising a cup for all other tea farmers including the small growers.

I am, however, very furious for reasons I don’t want to share in public (work-related), so a pleasant tea to the help.

Malty and sweet. Yum. Rye bread background.

April Sipdown Challenge – raise your cup to the tea farmers for Earth Day – bonus points for an earthy tea!

I didn’t add this to my cupboard because it is a sample that I received as a gift from Whiteantlers. Many thanks, and I miss you!

I decided to go with ripe puerh for this prompt because most of them have some earthy notes. Little did I know I was about to drink the earthiest puerh I have ever had.

Dry aroma was pure dirt, in the best way possible. I love the smell of freshly plowed fields and of petrichor. We live on the border between the Sandhills of NC and the Piedmont. Our soil is sandy and dry, and this puerh smells like when I crawl under a house into the dry, undisturbed crawlspace. (Yes, I have had to do this quite a few times as the elderly ladies on the street used to call on me to hit the reset button on their oil furnaces. Ha ha!)

There is no fishiness and no real aged manure/horse barn scent here, other than the dusty smell of a barn with an earthen floor. There is no mushroom scent. There is a strong minty or camphor tingle that builds as you drink but dissipates fairly quickly. Pleasant.

I have had four steeps thus far and will be having more throughout the day. I am glad I tried this one. It is a very enjoyable ripe pu.

Two bags to a pint mason jar in the fridge and forgotten for a few days. Is it possible to like this better cold-brewed than hot? The taste is sweeter and sappier, more expressive and clear. It’s really like drinking a Christmas tree.

Know those little cheapie wafer cookies with various and sundry artificial flavored cream between the layers? (Lemon and strawberry are my favorites, especially chilled in the summer.) Imagine a smaller, chunkier, version filled with matcha and not-so-sweet cream—that was my afternoon break today and a lovely little birthday treat from my son. The office HVAC is out of whack, which meant it was way too sultry to steep something hot to accompany them, but once the universe is in balance again, they’ll pair nicely with something nice and green or nice and lemony.

This is like a black tea mixed with salad greens. There is a lovely underlying sweetness as well. A very unique cup.

The description notes seaweed notes and maritime briney-ness, but I don’t get that. I recently had Coastal Oolong from MS, so perhaps that has swayed me since that was very ocean-esque. Though to be fair, this is my second cup of this one and the taste profile has been the same both times.

A sipdown! (M: 1 Y: 44), prompt: A tea with a special meaning to you
Just marking a sipdown as I finished it on Saturday. But well, it’s hard to make sipdowns when your stash is roughly 5 hours by car away.And in meantime, I have been busy and somehow not in mood writing a note.

Happy to have this finished and the special meaning? Of course I could pick so many others… but this will be as a tea bought on the 1st tea festival I have been to.

This is quite fake tasting, but not bad cold. I taste a pretty even mix of peach and raspberry flavoring, but I would have preferred more of a fresh flavor combo.

Though I didn’t love this tea at first, I think paying better attention to my steeping parameters has really helped me appreciate it. I do sort of get a Biscoff vibe from this! I guess it’s not named Biscoff anymore, but my bag from May of 2023 still says that. It tastes cookie-ish and nicely desserty with milk and sugar. Not bad at all!

2024 sipdown no. 33

I’ve been meaning to write a note for this tea since my first cup. Since I’ve just steeped my last cup, procrastination is no longer an option!

This is slightly vegetal at the front, though quite a mellow vegetal taste. There is a subtle unripe peach flavour starting in the middle and becoming more prominent towards the end of the sip. I have really enjoyed this tea and would re-order.

1st steep 1 min
2nd steep 2 minutes, 30 seconds

This is quite a decent EG. The strongest flavor I get is a banana, then I taste a bit of the bergamot. It could all be heartier, but I like it! With sugar and milk, I find this to be very fun and tropical – I’ve enjoyed my 1 oz bag!

I found this tea on a trip to Oshino Hakkai. It is an instant Matcha sweetened with Peach. It is very tasty and refreshing on ice or hot and very easy to prepare. Just add water and stir. The matcha taste is not very strong, but in this case, i think that it a plus. The Peach is so natural tasting and I like it pre-sweetened.
I only have a few packets left, so I am rationing it and hoping to be able to order some more now that I am back in the US.

Not a bad milk oolong! The oolong itself is a little floral. There’s some butteriness, though I would have enjoyed even more. It lasted for two quick cold resteeps as well. It was my favorite tea from our afternoon tea.

This is from Cameron B!  Thanks very much!  I wasn’t expecting much with this tea, as I knew this was probably full of rosehips and strawberry teas are usually a let down.  The hardest flavor to get right, I think, is authentic strawberry.  Surprisingly, both steeps at least had a bit of strawberry candy flavor.  Surprising because it looked like half the blend was rose hips!  So really it tasted like strawberry flavored rosehips, as I couldn’t really taste any white tea.  So this was better than I expected?  But the bar was very very low here. 
Steep #1   // 2 teaspoons for a full mug // 20 minutes after boiling  // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 //  20 minutes after boiling // 3 min

It’s heeeeerrreee!

This past year I purchased one of Anne’s “Create a Blend” fundraiser perks and I pretty promptly sent her what felt like a million different flavour ideas. They all had one common thread, though. I really wanted a rhubarb tea. I think rhubarb is such an underrated fruit (technically vegetable), especially when it comes to tea blends. You rarely see it used outside of strawberry rhubarb teas, and even those aren’t exactly all too common…

I gave Anne a ton of ideas ranging everywhere from rhubarb and vanilla ice cream to just a straight up smoked rhubarb. What I didn’t realize at the time was that Anne hadn’t ever worked with rhubarb before – so it ended up being a bit of a longer and more experimental process (not that I minded one bit). She even sourced some candied rhubarb just for the blend, and dang it looks cool! Ultimately I had all the faith in the world and was really just excited to be along for the ride.

I’m really, really happy with the final tea though! It’s got that perfect jammy cooked rhubarb note with a hint of tartness that I was hoping for and the subtle additions of cinnamon and Lapsang Souchong (just a smidge) give it that cozy baked pie sort of vibe that was in a lot of the ideas I’d sent. Like a rhubarb pie if you juuusssttt slightly burnt the crust. I happen to love that smokey edge though. It feels very tailored to my own personal tastes.

I’ve already seen that Anne’s used the rhubarb flavouring it at least one other blend, so I’m happy to have unintentionally snuck this flavouring into the 52Teas repertoire. If I may be so bold as to suggest another rhubarb concept, I’ve always adored the more British influenced “Rhubard & Custard” rooibos blends I’ve tried but I’d really like to see the same concept on a caffeinated tea base.

Anyway – the tldr is that I am a happy customer!

PS. The name for the blend comes from the 1989 Batman movie where it’s said by The Joker. It basically means something along the lines of “Don’t mess with my girl”. I just thought it was a fun, nerdy reference though.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – April 2024 Tea #2 – A tea that comes in a special shape

I think the only “special shape” teas I have at the moment are tuochas.  I’m trying the sunflower tuocha in this old sampler again, because the last time,for some reason, regretfully, I used two tuochas for a mug.  I don’t know why!  Because trying it again, this tuocha is PERFECT.  It must be a “golden leaf” because there is a lot of lightness here to the leaf.  I also love the massive biscuity scent wafting from the drenched leaves.  The flavor even on the first steep is deep and delicious. Wow.  Sweet, biscuit, syrup, rich.  This is the ripe I love.  Again, I bet age is helping this one.  The third steep is a little weaker in flavor, but still decent.  The fourth steep, I wouldn’t bother with again.  I’d rather just go for a long third steep.  But this is entirely forgivable as the initial flavor is so good.  It’s a quick unraveller!   The rating for this sunflower wrapper tuocha would be a 94. If anyone has any old tuochas left from older Mandala sampler sets that they don’t want, let me know, as I would love to gratefully rehome them!
Steep #1  // 1 tuocha for full mug // 22 minutes after boiling // rinse // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 //  10 minutes after boiling // 3 min
Steep #3 // just boiled // 3 min
Steep #4 // just boiled // 10+ min

I’m pretty thrown off here because some ingredient strongly reminds me of a Thai curry. That doesn’t mean it’s bad… it’s just savory and 100% not pumpkin pie. The curry association is so strong. That’s all I taste.

Sipdown. Sample?
I really wish I would have tried this earlier. It’s sold out and I can’t order any.
So good. Honey and smooth, but I wish I could have more of it to drink.

Is this a good tea for eclipse viewing? Dunno, but it’s going down smooth this morning. Still more coffee and shou but the banana sweetness pulls them together.

My first tea review! I’ve been collecting and drinking for years now, but only recently found out about Steepster, so here I am! This was purchased for me as a birthday treat, and what a treat it was! A beautiful scent right out the tin, whilst maybe being a bit too perfumey, but the taste is nowhere near as strong as the smell, but still delicious. I’d recommend it!

My house is irrefutable proof of entropy and chaos theory. Just this morning as I removed a bag containing two petrified bagels from the kitchen table, I wondered, “How long have those been there?” This, of course, does not happen to you.

The scientific principle carries through to this tea as well. Some of you who are schooled tea blenders may have a name or explanation for the breakdown of flavored tea over time. I loved the buttery overtones of this when it was fresh and new, and it is still absolutely acceptable, but the artificial flavoring just seems a little more artificial after a couple years. It’ll be fine as a “drink with” as I get it sipped down, just no longer a stand alone standout.

Sipdown of a convenient tea for ashmanra’s sipdown challenge. Ugh, I took this from the Strange VariaTea TTB months ago and was sure that I’d written a note, but Steepster didn’t even have an entry for the tea! I love this little corner of the internet but sometimes it really does make me feel like I’m losing it (those times primarily being when tasting notes disappear and then I’m not sure whether they ever even existed in the first place). Anyway, I really enjoy this as an iced tea! It’s like very thin peach juice. I like peach juice, so that’s a mark in its favor. This isn’t watery in an unpleasant way, just not thick and sugary the way juice is. And it’s convenient because it comes in those iced tea pitcher sachets.

From Daylon R Thomas a while ago!  Thanks very much!  Impossible to measure these leaves unless using a scale.  Once in a while, I seem to say “these are the longest leaves I have ever seen”, but these must be the longest!  Not so much twisted together, as almost straightened somehow, but still very difficult even to POUR out of the skinny bag. I was pleased to notice the description says: “Our Cang Ya is tightly twisted into a strip shape.”  So there you go.  The dry leaf has a scent of summer squash and dried hay.  The flavor is also summer squash!   But also a sweet fruit candy flavor that I thought might be strawberry, but then settled on candy grape. The second steep is rich but not overdone or bitter.  Biscuity.  I really expected the flavor to be much lighter on this one, so I’m very happy with how this one resulted! (I’m really not describing the richer flavors here, but there are some.)
Steep #1  // 22 minutes after boiling // 1 1/2 – 2 minute steep
Steep #2 //  just boiled // 3 min