Jane's Garden

Yay finally one of the rose teas that I truly enjoyed! Thank you Sephanie for the variety of rose teas:) I truly loved the selection I will have to add this one to my shopping cart. The rose pairs perfectly with the green tea. Its not too complex, just simple. Love it. And I love the story behind the tea. How and why it was created. It makes me want to buy it right now just so I can help the cause. But I cannot afford to:/ It will have to wait in my shopping list until I can. I have two more left Stephanie !! I can’t wait for you to get mine:)

Got a sample of this tea from my mom. I’m still hesitant about green teas, because of their grassiness, but I do like toasty ones. I guess this is bancha, which I’ve not tried yet. The tea reminded more of squash than grass. Like zucchini. It also had a slight floral flavor, and was slightly sweet. I’m not sure why, but I got a little spiciness from it…maybe as a side effect of the floral note? Not sure I’d buy this one, but it helped to educate me a little more on the green tea realm. :)

Another tea of the afternoon….

I think I should have picked another one after my not liking the Chinese Sencha from thepuriTea very well. I fixed this up and then did my research on what was in it. It turns out that Bancha is a lower grade of Sencha. Man, do I have a long way to go on my education of green teas. Anyway, the roses help this, and I did sweeten it just a little. I think I don’t mind this as a tea with other things….. this one is less vegetal and more woody, maybe?

Thank you Tealizzy for the sample of this! Bancha is probably my least favorite green tea. There is something almost fishy about it. I definitely prefer a sweeter sencha! Also not really detecting any rose here…I’ve had some pretty decent ones from Harney but this one seems to be a bust.

Delicate, with a hint of grass and roses. It does make me picture sitting in a garden in spring and smelling the plants around me. Overall the flavor is too light for me though.

This may be the tea that reconciles me to bancha. The color is green-gold, and the aroma is grassy with just a hint of rose. The taste is fresh and light, with just a hint of sweetness. I steeped for just about 2 minutes, and there is only a tiny hint of bitterness. Most banchas taste horribly bitter to me, and this tastes more like a lower grade sencha. Which is a good thing.

This is a refreshing summer cup for a hot and muggy Florida morning.

TTB tea! This is quite mild. I taste a bit of green tea and a bit of a floral flavor. It’s comforting and pretty smooth cold. There’s just a hint of astringency. It’s not my sort of tea, but it’s not bad for what it’s going for.

This tea has much more life than the Love Life blend by Harneys. Still a mild tea but I had no problem detecting floral flavor in this tea. I tried hot and cold, cold bringing out the most flavor.

Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox Round #3 – Tea #1
The teabox is back again! The hope works because it made it through three successful rounds. Amazing! I’ll try to write some tasting notes for the teas in the box, even though Steepster is wacky… but it looks like I’ve been getting close amounts of ‘likes’ that I normally get, so I guess the tasting notes aren’t disappearing entirely. I don’t mind if Steepster isn’t doing so well right now, just as long as Steepster doesn’t disappear completely! I think Steepster is a vital site to many people now.. more vital than most.

First up, this one. Bancha with rose petals. I would have guessed sencha though I honestly don’t know the difference. The green tea is buttery, fresh, sweet, delicious, a little marine-like. I don’t taste anything other than the green tea though: no additional flavors from the rose petals. The green tea is great though!

Still trying to decide the best way to steep this one. This time it turned out bitter and not very good. I couldn’t get over it. I’ll just keep trying different temps and times until I find something that works.