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“I have decided that today is the day for Mystery Tea. That means simply tea we haven’t had before. So I’ve been looking at the very tail-end of my Steepster cupboard and discovered a couple of...” Read full tasting note
“Yummy – and not much work. I know I spend a lot of time with some teas, making sure they are ready just as we drink them, and appreciating the brewing method, the subtle nuances in each carefully...” Read full tasting note
“A super cute tea shop opened downtown so for my birthday I went with a friend. I figured out right away that they source their teas from Mountain Rose Herbs aside from a few hand-blended apothecary...” Read full tasting note
“Light bodied. Nutty, warm ,smooth taste.” Read full tasting note
This is probably one of the most opulent blends from the green tea family. It has a unique brand of full body sweetness that is more often agreeable with seniors and children. Kukicha is harvested from the carefully-aged twigs and stems of the tea plant. After the correct aging, the twigs are toasted, providing a lightly flavored tea with a taste reminiscent of nectar sweetness. Mild, and soothing, Kukicha twig tea is quite low in caffeine and can be enjoyed at any hour. Contains caffeine.
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I have decided that today is the day for Mystery Tea. That means simply tea we haven’t had before. So I’ve been looking at the very tail-end of my Steepster cupboard and discovered a couple of things I didn’t know I had.
This one for example. Would you believe I’ve been going around for ages being intrigued by this type and wondering if it was one I should try to invest in when next I can allow myself an order, and I had it the whole time?!
That’s fairly typical of me, actually.14444444444444444 Oh look a cat has been by in my absence… (Heavily abridged by cat’s owner so as to avoid horizontal scrollbars)
Anyway, this is one of the samples that I don’t know where came from. It’s from before I started my numbering system so it’s getting on in age a bit.
Let’s start with a little introductory ramble on two things here.
First of all, green tea. For me to be intrigued by a green tea at all is kind of remarkable. I enjoy it when it is served to me, but I rarely make it for myself. It has to come with a certain sort of mood, because for most of the time I’d rather have a black tea, flavoured or au naturel.
Which leads to the second things, which is roasting. Roasting tea is one of those things about the processing that I just can’t get my head around. It’s so amazing that it can be done, really, because inside my head it just ought not logically work. My brain will simply not allow for the possibility for some reason, even though I’ve got the very proof of it right here in front of me. (Well. Slightly to the left, but still)
Therefore roasted tea is extremely fascinating to me, although I haven’t yet had enough experience with it yet to be actively seeking it out.
LiberTEAS posted about an unsmoked LS yesterday, I think it was, and that tea was as I understand made like a regular LS only it had been roasted instead of smoked. She found that more pleasant than the regular smoked variety and therein stems some of my fascination.
Now, I like smoky teas. I have a specific balance of smokiness that I prefer, but once in a while it just can’t get smoky enough. Those are the times when, it has occurred to me, it’s not smoky tea I want. It’s roasted tea. From what I have seen here and there on Steepster when people have been posting about smoked teas and/or roasted teas, that smoked tea is generally considered a harsher sort of flavour than roasted tea. For me it’s the other way around.
Smoke comes in a bit prickly and sort of surrounds the flavour in a haze of smoky aroma, whereas roasting tends to be a full-on attack of the tastebuds with pricklyness and charcoal and burnt toast. Roasted tea, for me, is much more violent than smoky tea.
So this is really what I’m expecting. An onslaught of charcoal and some sweetly green vegetation underneath. Like something that has been burnt down and grass and things are just starting to grow back.
This tea brews as dark as any black tea and the aroma is definitely one of burnt stuff. Charcoal and something sweet. Like sugar spilled on a hot plate. So far we’re keeping pretty close to that expectation, there, aren’t we? I quite like this aroma. The more I smell it, the more pleasant I think it is, and the more I smell it the more I also think there’s a note of honey in that sweetness. It’s all dark smelling and brown, but it definitely reminds me a little of liquid honey. Or perhaps more of something which has been honey-glazed.
GOSH! I was not expecting this flavour! It so sweet and sugary and more honey! That’s the first thing I get. The next thing is a sort of cereal-ness. It makes me think of Cheerios. It’s the combination of the grainy notes and honey notes that does it. I can actually even imagine that I can taste milk as well, probably since, if you think about it, milk has a pretty sweet flavour as well. Finally there is something vegetal in it that reveals the green origins. I can’t quite put my finger on that note, but I get a random association to spinach. There that’s because I actually taste spinach in it or whether it’s because spinach is one of the things I just generally connect with green tea flavours, I couldn’t tell.
All in all, this roasting was not at all as harsh as I had expected. I found it quite enjoyable, and I think it’s definitely a type of tea that I need to look into more. I think I rather need this in my life. (Should have a closer look at hojicha as well, actually.)
Yummy – and not much work.
I know I spend a lot of time with some teas, making sure they are ready just as we drink them, and appreciating the brewing method, the subtle nuances in each carefully timed brew, the water, the …..you get it. This can be prepared this way, however, I prefer to use it as an anti-sipping tea.
This is a background to your day. A delightful backdrop for low-caffiene chai, enjoyed iced with fruit juice, etc. It’s great with many kinds of foods, and lends itself well to a low temp simmer on the stove, through coversations with friends.
A super cute tea shop opened downtown so for my birthday I went with a friend. I figured out right away that they source their teas from Mountain Rose Herbs aside from a few hand-blended apothecary blends. This is the tea I went with and I almost want to say the water to tea ratio was wrong. As it was a bit watery but they steeped it at the proper temperature. I also think that I just prefer the Kukicha from Jasmine Pearl. They offered different cup sizes and I opted for the 16oz perhaps the trick is to go for the 8 or 12oz next time to get a stronger brew. It’s crazy to think our suburb town went from 0 tea shops to 2 during Covid. I still need to try the one that opened in the local mall.
Aw, I miss Jasmine Pearl, Tea Cha Te, and I’m forgetting where else I went to fall of 2018 (or 2019?) when I went to Portland on vacation.
My friend and I practically live in Tea Chai Te when we go on a Portland vacation.
I still haven’t been to Tea Chai are but I definitely want to. I’m still bummed that Townshend’s Tea Closed. Maybe that was another you visited? Or The Tao Of Tea?
YEAH for two tea shops opening during covid!
After drinking a lovely energizing Yunnan black tea to get me going in the morning, I decided for something a little lighter in caffeine and flavor, yet something comforting, warming, and tasty for a cool fall day. This kukicha was just the thing! Sweet, smooth, roasty, and delicious. It has been a while since I’ve had it, but I welcome its return to my cupboard. I have a feeling I will be drinking a lot of it this winter!
Whilst in my week-long maelstrom of creative endeavering (and procrastinating), I put a whole saucepan of water on the stove and left it to simmer with these sweet stems. I added a dollop of Wild Branch Botanicals’ Chaga in Maple Syrup, so healing and energizing that it feels like a big hug from a beautiful old tree, and tastes like hugs too! The combination sweetened my temper, turned the storm into a free dance of raindrops. Yes for comfort teas. And it’s macrobiotic, too.
I really like that your cat wants to be a part of the Steepster experience. Mine tries to stop me posting by sitting in front of the computer screen.
I am now intrigued by this tea too. I am undecided about roasted teas because I have found them intriguing but I need to be in the right mood to properly enjoy them. I shall have to check this one out when next I have the money to order tea. After all, I like spinach! :-)
Ahahaha, I so love your posts. You and Bonnie consistently get me smiling :) I also love that your cat feels the need to contribute.
You speak of a numbering system – do you give your teas a number as they enter your cupboard, to keep track of age or something? That sounds like a really clever idea.
Roughage, yes I tend to let it stand when they do. :) I don’t know, I think it’s fun. :)
If you try it, it will be itneresting to see if you get the same spinach association as me. :)
Krystaleyn, as you can see some of the samples I have, I can’t remember where they came from. At one point I had a whole lot of them and didn’t know who sent me any of them. I just couldn’t keep track. I then thought up the numbering system. Everytime I receive samples from someone in a swap I give them a number and write down where they came from. This way I can see that all the samples numbered with 7, for example came from Infusin_Susan and all the ones with 8 on them came from Ninavampi. And so on and so forth.
Really great idea!
I’ll have to invest in little stickers when I get sett;ed and start swapping again :)
DaisyChubb, yes, it works really well. I’ve got a little notebook that I keep at Tea Corner. Right now I’ve only noted down name and number, but I’ve considered if it might not be a good idea in the future to also write a list of what each person sent me and when I received it.
Interesting – I buy my peppercorns, cinnamon and a few other select items from Mountain Rose! I have never tried their teas.
I think I’ve tried a few others of theirs. I seem to recall there having been more than one. I just can’t think which ones, or what I thought of them. This one is quite good, though.
Next time I order my regular stuff I am going to grab this and a couple others – yes they actually had a lot of tea on the site today when I looked :) I don’t know how I ever missed it lol.
I can sort of understand how. I haven’t been to the site, mind, so I don’t know how it looks, but if you’re used to shopping for one thing there and another thing another place, sometimes it just not occur to you that one or both places might stock both things. :) I had a look at what else they have in the Steepster database. I haven’t looked at everything, but it would appear that I enjoyed their Ancient Forest a great deal as well.
Your labelling idea is great! At this point, I only have samples from a few different people, and they’re labelled distinctly so I can tell who sent what (they’re also in separate piles in my room), but I probably should start some system like that soon! I have also thought of noting the date I purchased teas, so that I could keep track of their ages and whatnot.
If you buy unroasted kukicha or karigane, you can heat it in either a small dry skillet one very low heat on a burner or over a tea light candle in a metal dish (you can buy these for heating scented oil in bed & Bath stores) and it makes for a wonderful deodorizer for a room and you get a relaxing tea to drink once the twigs and few leaf fragments have browned. I generally do this while making dinner or conducting a tasting since you just need to tie the leaves every once and a while with a spoon or chopstick. I then prepare the resulting kukicha/houjicha at the end of the meal or as a finishing tea after guests have tasted a bunch and pair it with sesame or rice crackers. This tea works well:
http://www.hibiki-an.com/product_info.php/cPath/21/products_id/32
Dunno how I get away typing “karigane”, “kukicha”, and “houjicha” just fine while autocorrect changes “stir the leaves” into “tie the leaves”
LOL yeah spell check often faiils me as well.
Krystaleyn, it was like that in the beginning for me as well. I had only a few that people had sent me and I could remember which one’s I had bought. I could tell from the handwriting on the labels where each sample came from. Then Pamela Dax Dean be-gifted me with a HUGE box of samples. Seriously, it was MASSIVE! And all of them had different handwriting on them and different wrapping style, and then I got in other swaps as well, and it was simply impossible to remember anymore. I just gave up trying.
For my purchases, I can usually remember sort of in general how old-ish it is. Typically if something gets really really old here, it’s something I don’t really have much interest in drinking anyway.
Thomas, hee, maybe I have to try it in order to understand it.