4169 Tasting Notes
I snagged this from the Here’s Hoping tea box when it was around. Steep #1 was the last run of my Bodum kettle. Steep #2 was microwaved. This one doesn’t seem to get much love from Steepster, but I like the idea of a caramel Formosa oolong. This was actually what I expected it to be. I liked it! There is a darkness to the oolong that pairs well with the sweet and creamy caramel flavor. The name is entirely accurate. The Formosa here seems like a lighter black tea. The second cup was even tastier. Plenty of caramel to go around. I guess I’m such a tea addict I like teas that most others do not.
Steep #1 // 8 min after boiling // 4 min
Steep #2 // just boiled // 6 min
Thank you TeaTiff for sending some of this one! This tea basically inspired a swap. :D Well, the first cup of this was the last tea brewed by my old kettle, the second steep I had to heat the water with the microwave. Ick. Though I don’t have much money right now, I can’t go without my tea and I already knew which kettle I was buying possibly even years before this one broke. I’m getting a Bodum Bistro 34 ounce electric kettle. Hopefully this one works as long as the other one did!
On to the tea… I’m not sure if maybe the kettle died halfway through boiling because the first steep was pretty light. I used a teaspoon and a half and I DID wait eight minutes for the water to cool… maybe it was my fault. Though the flavor that was there is everything that I think a keemun is. Still so so light! With the second steep, I made sure to use boiled (microwave) water and I also added the teaspoon or so left of my sample to the leaves. It seemed like a ton of leaves but after a six minute steep, the flavor is great. It reminds me of an older harvest of Teavivre’s Premium Hao Ya which I thought of as my favorite keemun…. I just worry about the amount of leaves that must be used to get to that flavor. But I was actually surprised that there wasn’t an oversteeped flavor with six minutes. I think it is what the first steep should have been. Again, could have been the last death throes of my kettle. I certainly won’t be drinking my favorite or highest quality teas when I don’t know what I’m doing with this microwaved water! Sipdowns of some not-favorites will be happening! Hurry up and get here tea kettle!
Steep #1 // 8 min after boiling // 4 min steep (1 1/2 tsp of leaves)
Steep #2 // just boiled // 6 min (1 more tsp added)
Hmm.. I had to reread the tasting note for the Sunrise. Six months ago already! I guess I rated lower on how many teaspoons I needed to use to get the flavor of the second cup (among other factors) but again, my kettle could have very well died before getting to full boiling for the first steep or I waited too long for the water to cool (eight minutes). I don’t have any more leaves to retry!
Woahh, it doesn’t say? o.O oh no! Will go check that out right now. I usually go 205ºF on this one and 1/2tbsp gives me a nice balance cup. A lot of people have been using a tablespoon though.
Another tea from before the tea kettle breakage:
Thank you Green Terrace for the generous samples! All three of the teas sound divine and I’m so sorry it has taken this long to review them. I’ve been ‘tea busy’ and I wanted to do a decent job reviewing them. These leaves the wiriest and longest tea leaves I’ve ever seen! The leaves make me expect a dark brew, but I think the name of the tea does a good job of changing my expectations. At first I thought the leaves had the fragrance of sweet plums, then raisins then I thought PRUNES. I used two teaspoons of leaves (really 2 1/2 to make up for how wirey they are).
Steep #1 // 10 min after boiling // 2 min
The cup has the fragrance of buttery sweet butternut squash. The light amber colored cup has the flavor of subtle squash but it also is very much like sweet potatoes. It’s almost like a golden Yunnan without the chocolate notes, but that is such an odd comparison since the leaves here are black and the leaves of a golden Yunnan are gold. I would think the black leaves would have the chocolate notes. But the honey description is accurate. As the cup cools, there is even more honey.
Steep #2 // 8 min after boiling // 3 min
Another cup that almost tastes exactly the same as the first. I’m a little surprised. More squash and sweet potato, which I don’t think many other people are mentioning so far. The flavor is light yet very delicious, something I could definitely crave for a change of pace every once in a while.
GreenTerraceTeas.com
This tasting note is for a tea I tried last night… but guys… MY ELECTRIC TEA KETTLE FINALLY BROKE!! I was expecting it. I’m very proud it has lasted this long. I’m not sure how many times it was used, as I’m not the first owner, but I’ve been using it about 2 or 3 times a day for nine years so that is 9×3×365 = 9,855 times I have hit the boil switch at least. Poor little tea kettle. I have adored this kettle… it’s a sad day. I am definitely getting another Bodum kettle and I really don’t expect the next one to last this long, even if it is a Bodum! I think I will have to sell some tea to pay for it though!
Even though I’m not a huge Teavana fan, I’ve heard this one mentioned a few times. I love the idea of fig teas, so I had to try it. A one cup sample works for me! Of course the flavor here is neither fig nor rose. Sheesh. It isn’t terrible… the flavor is more like a buttered kettle corn… with something fruity. I expected worse actually. Though there is hibiscus in the ingredients, at least in my sample it just adds enough tanginess to the cup rather than turning it into a deep red cup of undrinkableness. Maybe the fruity flavor could be interpreted as fig? But it seems like it would be the apple that is mentioned in the ingredients. Not bad, but it’s odd to get popcorn flavor in a fruit/rose tea.
Another from the grab bags! I wasn’t too happy about the watermelon, but I wanted some of this one to try anyway… turns out I could probably drink this on any hot day! Luckily for me, this one doesn’t taste like watermelon, but plenty of cantaloupe! It tastes like the Butiki cantaloupe tea… but there is so much cantaloupe that I can’t even taste the white tea. I was craving white tea today. I’m happy with this one: oodles of cantaloupe, no watermelon. Drinking the second cup, I was LOVING the flavor in this one on a hot day and more of the white tea made itself known: fruity, juicy, a burst of flavor. This is GOOD. I’ve only seen cantaloupe with white tea and that is the way it should be.
Steep #1 // 32 min after boiling // 45 seconds
Steep #2 // 32 min after boiling // 2 min
Got this one as an extra from the 52Teas sale that Marzipan organized. SHHH I don’t actually brew these cold, as I wish I had some mason jars I could actually clean or a pitcher to put a whole ton of iced tea in. I couldn’t really drink that much iced tea that is in one teabag at once anyway. SO I open up the tea bag that has about five teaspoons and take out one teaspoon to brew up like your typical hot tea in my infuser. Even without the CTC black tea base, I usually steep the first cup of any 52Teas for 45 seconds to let the flavors shine without letting the black tea take over the cup. At 45 seconds, the CTC wasn’t astringent like a typical CTC. I think it sure is premium for a CTC! But these are iced teas that supposed to be in large amounts of water anyway, so I can see wanted as much black tea flavor as possible. The lime is delightful, especially in a summer tea. The lime is very flavorful, but I wouldn’t say I noticed cheesecake (the rating will be missing a few points for that.) The second steep still has some lime!
I also recently sipped down 52Teas – Almond Happiness and another one from 52Teas. It’s one of my most precious last teaspoons of tea, so once that one became a sipdown I think there will be an avalanche of sipdowns. Maybe I finished that one for that reason!
Steep #1 // 1 tsp // 5 min after boiling // 45 seconds
Steep #2 // just boiled // 1 min steep
This is the last of the oolongs I needed to try from Teavivre’s oolong pouch. They have all been amazing. I used an entire pouch of these leaves: two flat teaspoons and not even half of another teaspoon. Another gorgeous green leaf color and the fragrance is mostly creamy vegetables with a hint of flowers.
Steep #1 // just boiled // rinse // 1 min
As usual, the flavor is amazing. This one is mostly butter. Not cream or milk… just BUTTER. Hints of floral in the flavor as well. A little savory like the oolong I tried the other day, but not as much. Very delicious.
Steep #2 // just boiled // 1 3/4 min
I was going for one minute on this steep too, but it ended up steeping more than I would have liked. It didn’t ruin the cup though! Another flavorful cup with just a touch of astringency to it. Otherwise, the flavors are identical to the first cup, just stronger. I think I’ll try all of these oolongs again with just one teaspoon, to see if they don’t get just that hint of astringency. They are very flavorful with two teaspoons though. So much oolong flavor!
Steep #3 // just boiled // 1 3/4 min
Another delicious buttery cup… still extreme amounts of flavor! I could probably steep this one 30 more times.
All five of the oolongs in this sampler have been the highest quality, most flavorful oolongs I’ve ever had the honor of steeping up. They are all slightly different and I loved brewing them all with the same parameters to make sure I could tell the differences. I have loved all of the oolongs that I’ve tried in general from Teavivre… except for the Anxi Monkey King for some reason (That one isn’t to my tastes unless I steeped it incorrectly the one time I had it.) My absolute favorite is the Iron Goddess TiGuanYin. Just mentioning it makes me want to steep up a cup right now! I’m so glad I started drinking tea. It’s something small that adds happiness to each and every day. There is always tea!
Flavors: Butter
I think ginseng gives me an extra brain boost, so I wanted to try Teavivre’s offering. This oolong looks like little jade pebbles: a ginseng and licorice coating that slowly dissolves with each steep. I know I shouldn’t have put a teaspoon of this in my cramped one teaspoon infuser, but I did anyway. I didn’t think I should use more than a teaspoon because of the ginseng. I wouldn’t want too much.
Steep #1 // just boiled // 3 min
Even though the water is at boiling, opening the infuser, it seems like the ginseng as hardly dissolved, yet there is plenty of flavor from the ginseng even if the oolong hasn’t been able to soak up the water yet. Again, I should have used my basket infuser, but I didn’t want all of the ginseng to dissolve into the first cup anyway. This flavor is very intriguing and different to me, so I could sip down the entire mug really fast if I’m not careful. I’m usually not a fan of licorice but this is delicious. Maybe the flavor alone is refreshing enough to wake up my brain.
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 min
Another cup where the ginseng has barely dissolved, but the color of the cup is a dark gold, so I know something is happening! The flavor is obvious anyway: it tastes grassy, with hints of minerals, the sweet licorice is a nice addition… I think it would be worse without it anyway.
Steep #3 // just boiled // 3 min
I think this could be the tea of a hundred steeps! The ginseng is still mostly there, so I’ll have to try it again in the basket infuser another time. I’m getting hints of the oolong anyway. I’d buy some of this tough ginseng oolong so each steep slowly releases more ginseng for boosts of brain power throughout the day!
Steep #4 // half mug // just boiled // quite a few minutes
This didn’t get too strong at all, even with quite a few minutes. As usual, I think I should have went with Teavivre’s parameters of a few minutes to steep in the first place… they always know how to steep their teas!
Edited to add: Apparently there is no licorice in this one. I wish they would say what it is. Is that just the flavor of ginseng then?
You know I swear there is licorice in he his but when I have asked, they say there isn’t! I love it, though. It was the first tea I had hubby bring me at the hospital after my surgery a couple of weeks ago, and it was brilliant.
Additional notes: sipdown! I just think of this as the strawberries covered in caramel tea. Yes, that good. Caramel strawberries don’t even exist because they would be too sweet. It seems this tastes the same delicious way every time… I’m not sure if I’ve tried a couple different harvests. A very odd assam in the best way possible, and it has to be my favorite Taiwanese tea.
Thank you so much TeaTiff! This is the first of many to try from our swap! I decided to go with this one, since some of it dumped all over so I ended up with only about a teaspoon to try anyway. :/ So it’s a little over a teaspoon that went into the infuser.
Steep #1 // 20 min after boiling // 1 min
I love my short steeps with 52Teas. This seems like I steeped it perfectly. I like it! Strong toasty roasty goodness with hints of strawberry… it’s like that nesquik stuff? Strawberry milk. I’m not sure how else you could get strawberry marshmallow treats. There is SOME marshmallow flavor here but in any blend, I always wish for more mallow root.
Steep #2 // 20 min after boiling // 2 min
This steep just seemed like a plain genmaicha (I certainly won’t complain about a nice genmaicha like this one anyway). It seemed that all the strawberry went into the first steep. So the low steep time is almost always the way to go with these 52Teas. How could so many Steepsterers not like this sweet little tea?