16790 Tasting Notes
I love this tea so much. I don’t know if I can pick a single tea as my favourite, but this is definitely in my top fives favourites and is by far my favourite white tea (although, I’ve recently discovered that I love many white teas). This tea alone can halt any cravings I have for junk food or sweets.
According to Tea Desire’s steeping instructions, you should use 2 tsp. of this and typically I have (and it’s be orgasmic). However, since I drink this one so often I don’t want to blow through all the leaf I have super quickly, so I decided to use less leaf this time and see if I could produce a tea that’s still great but, in doing so, average out more cups per 50g.
I steeped 1 1/2 tsp for 4 minutes, and the answer is… Yes! This tea is still JUST as yummy and flavourful, so I think I’ll be using 1/2 tsp. for each cup from now on. Yay for be stingy with my tea leaves!
Also, I think JUST MAYBE I have this whole internet issues thing figured out… I seem to not lose my connection when I stay in the laundry room, which happens to be the same room as the modem. As soon as I leave the laundry room I go back to the same issues I’ve been having where I disconnect every two or three minutes. So I’ve done the logical thing, of course, and set up my laptop on top of the dryer with a chair next to it and turned that into my desk.
If I can’t make the connection come to me, I guess I’ll come to the connection.
Preparation
Resteeped.
Right now, this is perfectly complementing the spicy beef Hamburger Helper I’m eating. The spices go together, but the apricot is something sweet and much more contrasting in flavour. I think the contrasting flavours in the tea alone are such a huge part of why I love this chai.
This second steep has really brought out the taste of cloves.
I love dessert teas so much, and they’re so good for curbing cravings for junk food. For example, I’m craving chocolate pastry right now or strawberry eggos. This just happens to be the perfect tea to combat those cravings.
Out of the tsp. and a half I measure out, there were quite a few massive chunks of strawberry (at least one was dime sized), so I’m anticipating a pretty fruity cup, at least in comparison to how this one normally tastes. The smell of it steeping is definitely dark chocolate and a huge blast of strawberry. Yum!
Yeah, definitely extra strawberry tasting! I added a wee touch of milk, mostly just to help cool it down faster. Still, it definitely adds more of a “milk chocolate” taste as opposed to the dark chocolate notes usually present. Tre was making fun of me for drinking a tea called “Love Tea”, so I just pointed out how pathetic he is for pining over a girl who, firstly, isn’t single and, secondly, he’s only known for like a week and a half. That shut him up pretty quickly.
Yeah, I’m such a nice roommate. He seems extra cranky today, and he keeps poorly imitating Australian people and making fun of my somewhat OCD organizational system for my teas. I don’t know, I’m probably just extra cranky from not eating anything today, and from how shitty the job hunt has been going. I wasn’t even able to apply anywhere new today because there weren’t any new listings on any of the job boards I use.
I’m just gonna try and relax and enjoy this sweet tea. Mmm…
Preparation
Dry leaf stills smells delicious, and still SO much like the sweet and sour sauce from the vegetarian meatballs we made in class (see my previous note on this tea for a better description). Mmm, sweet apricot jelly and a tangy sort of ketchup smell. Dang it’s really making me want actual food.
The smell of this one steeping is extra smokey today with strong contributing notes of apricot, cinnamon, cloves, and ketchup. I swear, I’m the only person who has review this tea to taste ketchup notes in it. I think it’s a huge part of why I love this so much, though.
1 heaping tsp. steeped for about 2 1/2 min. – the liquor is a cloudy orange colour. The taste is a balance of sweet, tangy, and spicy like always. I think I taste the ginger more than usual, and I’m wishing the the apricot and ketchup notes tasted closer to how strong they smell. Still, this is the perfect tea the help ward of hunger, at the moment.
Preparation
Ok, time to try this one again.
I’m still finding this pretty bitter, but I think I’m able to identify the taste a bit better. There are slight floral notes, and I want to say something verging on apricot or peach but just not quite getting there. It reminds me a lot of Ontario Ice Wine, but without the berry notes and with much more astringency.
The aftertaste isn’t sitting well with me at all, and I don’t think I can blame it on user error this time. I guess this is sort of a sip down then: I’ll be giving the last bit of this sample to Robyn.
Preparation
I’m sorry for this tea you tasted bitter. Would you please tell me the details about brewing? Such as the water temperature, how many tea leaves and water? Did you brewed this tea a little long?
I used 2 tsp. of tea for 6 oz. of water steeped in 88 degree celsius water for 1 minute. It did taste better than the first time I tried brewing it, but not by a lot.
Thanks for your information. We have brewed this tea again with 3 tsp (about 2g), 175ML water steeped in 88 degree for 1m30s. But we didn’t taste bitter. So i wonder if this tea you have brewed was Organic White Peony (Bai Mu Dan) Tea? It will be appreciate you can send me the picture about this tea. By the way, have you eaten something before you drink this tea ( sometimes it will affect the taste)? And how to save this tea?
Look forward to your reply.
The tea is being kept in an airtight container, in a drawer so that it doesn’t have any light exposure. I’m unable to upload a picture because of the internet connectivity issues I’ve been having for the last few days, but the leaf I recieved in my sample packet looks practically identical to the leaf depicted on the Steepster page for this tea, so I’m pretty sure I am drinking the Organic white Peony. It’s possible that this tea just simply isn’t to my taste – I did compare it to another white tea (albeit a flavoured one) I own which I am also not too fond of (a tea called Ontario Ice Wine). The tea I compared it to uses Bai Mu Dan as the base tea. But I greatly appreciate the length you seem to have gone to in order to help me enjoy this tea as much as possible. I think, however, that I’m going to give the remainder of my sample to a friend who enjoys straight white teas more than I do; that way it will be better appreciated.
Thanks for your information. I’m sorry our Organic White Peony (Bai Mu Dan) Tea is not your favorite tea. However, i also want to send you our fresh Organic White Peony (Bai MuDan) Tea as well as Organic Nonpareil Silver Needle White Tea (Bai Hao Yin Zhen). So you can try them and compare with the first Organic White Peony (Bai MuDan) Tea. Meanwhile, if you are interested in any kinds of tea sample, please don’t hesitate to tell me. I’m glad to provide for you.
If you want to try any kinds of tea sample, please don’t hesitate to send me your shipping address to: info@teavivre.com
Kind of “meh” second steeping. Mostly just tastes like cinnamon water, with maybe a bit of peppercorn taste.
It’s getting harder to not eat any food for my “tea cleanse weekend”. Tre ordered Chinese food, and bought me some vegetable fried rice (which was very nice of him) that just smells delicious, but I’m trying so hard not to cave and eat it.
I’ve had internet for a whole ten minutes! I think that’s the most I’ve had all day…
It’s really cold in the basement right now, so I decided I needed something to warm me up, and I was sort of feeling like berries would be the way to go.
Picked this tea, but remember to add a teaspoon of sugar. The sugar really brings out the berry notes in the tea, and does a decent job of eliminating the bitterness of it. I’ve experimented with different steep times, and I just can’t find a balance where I don’t get at least a little bitterness. There’s also some astringency and the sugar doesn’t really do anything for getting rid of that.
Had a second steep that was about the same. I could have gotten a third steep out of the leaves, but I wasn’t really feeling a third cup. Overall, tasted better than I remembered but I still hate that this one needs sugar to taste good.
Preparation
Internet still seems to be cutting in and out… I wish I could figure out why, but sadly neither Tre nor I are exactly “tech smart”. It’s so frustrating though because it’s got to be something to do with my laptop since his is working fine (and my laptop cost twice as much!) I get internet connection for two or three minute blips at a time, and then I get a message saying “trouble connecting to broadband network” or something like that – but it can’t be the broadband network or modem because Tre’s connected to it just fine! Blah.
Regardless, I had two really good steepings of this one. Perfectly watermelon and so smooth and delicate. I almost pushed trying a third steeping, but opted against it because the second one was watered down tasting enough. This was awfully close to a sip down – I only have enough leaf left for one more cup. I’m gonna really have to be stingy about it too since I probably wont be ordering anytime soon (drastically losing hope on the job hunting frontier), especially if I end up having to shell out more money to fix whatever problem my computer is having.
Anyone on steepster super tech smart? I could really use some help fixing my connection; my laptop has been working totally fine otherwise.
Wish I could help. :( Any chance it’s a physical defect? My bf’s mac book just started to drop the internet connection. He’d get a few minutes band lose it, then reboot like crazy to get it back. It was definitely a hardware issue, but I was right after the 1 year warranty had expired so we never fixed it.
Sorry for the typos! It’s hard to see on my phone!
It might be. I’ve had my laptop for just over a year now, so it wouldn’t be covered by warranty if it is (and I really can’t afford any repairs). It’s odd – it’s only been doing this for the last two days (a huge part of me is hoping that if I’m patient it’ll just go away) and there was no transition to it. I went to sleep after basically being on the computer for like 6 hours straight and when I woke up I couldn’t hold a connection.
And last night I was able to use the internet just fine from about 4 AM to 8 AM… I went to bed at 8 AM hoping that whatever it was had run its course, woke up at about 3 PM and was dealing with the same bloody issues as yesterday.
:( That sounds incredibly frustrating. I’d try the support forum for whoever made it to see if anyone has any ideas. I wish o knew enough to be able to actually help.
Stupid waking up early! Now I’m super tired and probably pretty close to falling asleep for the night. That’s what I get for getting up around 4 hours earlier than I’m used to… Wow. This might be the first night since moving here that I actually go to bed before midnight.
Anyway, enjoying a cup of this as I get ready to go to bed.
Actually though, come to think of it, it might be the chamomile in this tea that’s making me so sleepy. I picked this out because of the licorice, but yeah that chamomile seems pretty dang strong tonight.
Landlord is out at his cabin this weekend, so when he gets back on Monday we’ll see what the utilities come to this month, and then pay rent for October. This is the first month we’ve had to pay utilities. Well, not all of them – we only pay for half of the grand total of the electrical bill, and then half of the cost of the internet plan. From there, Tre and I will be splitting the amount in half again, so really I’m paying a quarter of the electrical and a quarter of the internet. It shouldn’t be too bad, but you never know… I’m just hoping it’s not a lot because, well, I don’t have any income at the moment.
Also, I think this weekend I’m gonna do a “cleanse” of sorts. Basically, I’m just going to drink different teas over the next two days to basically just detox from some of the crappy, low cost foods we’ve been eating.
After how frustrating today was, I definitely needed this tea.
The apartment is freezing now: probably in part because of the awful weather we’ve had all week. It seems (knock on wood and fingers crossed) that the internet is working now, so I’m casually job hunting while all curled up in bed. I’ve got a nice big bowl of Cream of Celery soup with noodles in it, and that’s keeping me warm and helping me feel cozy.
I really wanted a black tea with lots of rich coconut in it, however I’m also craving chocolate. So, I made myself a week cup of hot chocolate, and then steeped my tea in it. Finally, I topped it off with some milk. As it was steeping, it smelled quite strongly of cocoa and coconut. Holy butts does it ever taste divine!
The drink is so smooth and creamy, and leaves the most heavenl taste in your mouth. All the best parts of Buttered Rum are there: the strong coconut taste, the creaminess, light notes of the black tea base, mild notes of butterscotch, and of course the taste of rum. However, the hot chocolate part of the is equally rich and brings out completely different notes such as English toffee and a much more rich vanilla taste. Actually, that’s it! This tastes just like you’re drinking English Toffee flavoured hot chocolate.
If you have the supplies to make hot chocolate, I HIGHLY suggest that you make yourself a very weak cup of it, steep this tea, and then add a touch of milk or cream. I’m confidant that you wont be dissappointed.
