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Steeping this one gong-fu style today. 4g in the 4oz gaiwan. water around 95C. First three steeps were about 15 seconds.

First steep is very creamy. Like, if I closed my eyes I could almost believe milk had been added. Smooth, malty, with a honey sweetness. Second steep brings a richer, slightly woody malt flavour with an almost citrusy fruitiness. Still very smooth, but no longer milky. Third steep is like the second, very fresh and clean tasting with a tiny bit of astringency. I’m definitely going to keep steeping this, but I’m running out of patience for this note so I’m going to end it here. :)

This isn’t always the kind of black tea I crave, but it’s definitely high quality and an excellent example of the type.

I was inspired by Brenden’s “Art of Darkness” blend to try mixing this with Tisano cacao shells. So, I started with 1.5tsp of this shou in a brewing basket and gave it a quick rinse with boiling water. Then I added 1.5tsp of the cacao shells, put it in my 10oz tea mug, steeped western-style with boiling water. I did… 4 steeps: 3min, 5min, a long time (I walked away and forgot about it), and 10min. It was really delicious – chocolately and creamy and a bit earthy. I’ve steeped cacao shells with chocolatey black teas like Laoshan Black, and it’s pretty good, but I think this is my favourite combination so far. Highly recommended!

I’m finally breaking into the Wymm Tea samples I got a while back. :) I have to agree with everyone who has complimented the packaging – it’s just lovely. 6g in the gaiwan, one rinse with boiling water, and I think the first steep was boiling too, then 90 degrees after that. A whole bunch of roughly 10 second steeps, and now I’m up to about 20-25 seconds.

This is a lovely clean and fresh-tasting sheng. It causes a bit of tingling on my tongue, maybe a slight bitterness that’s more of a refreshing feeling than anything unpleasant, and then gradually a sweet aftertaste has been building up in the back of my throat. I’m having trouble identifying any specific flavour notes besides “delicious sheng” but I’d say there are definitely some grassy and maybe some fruity notes in there. I’m pretty sure I’m at least 8 steeps in and this is still definitely going strong. Yummmm.

I have nothing new or insightful to say about this, just that I’ve been drinking it all day, and it’s lovely. :)

This is a very nice chai blend. I tried it straight at first, at it was quite good – robust, malty assam CTC base, good blend of spices (lots of cinnamon, cardamom, a bit of heat from the ginger and pepper). Then I added some sweetener and milk, which made it even better. Tasty tasty. :)

Off topic: You guys, I am SO obsessed with the Hamilton Original Broadway Cast Recording right now. Ugh, go listen to it so I’ll have someone to geek out with. :)

Instead of buying more Whispering Pines tea I thought I’d drink some of the stuff I already own. This is an interesting and delicious blend – I love the roasted cedar and vanilla.

Another sample from Nicole! I had this earlier today, and it was a good mid-day pick-me-up. It’s a very rich, dark, flavourful tea (I also steeped the whole 3.3g sample at once in my 10oz mug, so that might have contributed to the intensity). To me it tasted malty, earthy, spicy, a little fruity… quite complex and interesting. This one might be an eventual order. :)

YUMMMM. Oh, I really like this one. :) The dry leaf smells intensely of vanilla, sugar, marshmallow. Once the hot water hits, that continues but the roasty toasty notes of the genmaicha are added in. The aroma translates well into the flavour, and the tea is quite sweet (I actually pulled up the website to see if there was some kind of sweetener in this) and creamy and delicious. The green tea base is subtle and in the background – no bitterness or astringency.

This is a pretty good cold steep, tastes (unsurprisingly) like ginger and pear, with some apple and cinnamon in the background. It tastes like a fruit tisane though – there’s enough going on flavour-wise that I think the white tea is just drowned out. So, I’m not sure I’d buy it again, since there seems little point in paying extra for white tea in a blend if you can’t even taste it.

I cold steeped this one and it was pretty good. I think the name of this tea is totally wrong though, it should be called Apple Crisp, because that’s what it tastes like – apples, cinnamon, brown sugar. It’s not really very mapley at all.