Alishan Mi Xian Black Tea, Lot 229

Had a couple delicious cups of this with dinner – staring at the fire, watching the sunset over the lake. Glorious!

Goal #1 (start pot of stew) is complete! I’ll add things to it as the day passes, so that by evening it will culminate in a very large pot of stew that can be eaten for dinner & savored over the weekend as well. My next goal? Get outside & plant those 4 elderberry bushes! I’m still a little sketchy as to where I’m planting 2 of them, and I need to remember that from now on I should choose a place to plant something first, then decide what to plant there & get the plants. My previous method has been to buy a bunch of plants, usually on a whim, & then frantically scramble to figure out where they should go & get them in the ground. Experience is teaching me that is not the best way to do things, but I am admittedly a slow learner…sigh…

About a year ago Sil & I placed our first Taiwan Tea Crafts order together. We had a great time on FB together, drooling over the TTC website, discussing the teas we wanted, & I pretty much gave her free rein on whatever sounded good to her. When she got the order, she split everything up & sent me my half. It was glorious. The teas are delicious, and even though we got them in small quantities, I’m still polishing mine off.

This one is a rich infusion of honey, sweet woods, stone fruit jam, & coriander, with a lingering incense quality. I’m sorry to see it go. Sipdown – 395
Now out to the garden!

Sipdown, 149. Thanks to Sil for a sample of this tea!

I was interested to try this one because I’ve only had one other Mi Xian, from Butiki. I like that one, although it’s not quite my style of black tea as it is very inherantly fruity.

This one is fruity to the MAX. It’s amazing that a tea can be so fruity naturally. Definitely getting similar notes from this as from the Butiki version, which I described there as “cooked, honey-covered peaches”. I think that description applies to this one as well. There is a bit of a zing to this one; not bitterness/astringency, but a slight tartness or tanginess, like the slightly sour skin of a plum against the sweet flesh. Really, objectively I can see that this is a really fine tea. I just don’t crave this kind of fruity black tea. I am, however, enjoying this cup and I’m glad I tried this one!

This is another sample from Sil. Thank you so much, you sending me these teas has saved me money. I would have ordered these, and from what I’ve learned today, that would have been a mistake. While I adore Taiwan oolongs, I don’t think I’m a fan of Taiwan blacks. I did order 3 last night using the Easy Tea 20.00 off deal. If they are anything like these, I will try them and then pass them along to others.
This is a miss for me too. I don’t get it. Bland boring, I’m not getting the fruity notes others are talking about. I think I’m a bold Chinese black kind of girl and these Taiwan ones are more subtle, too subtle for my tastes. I liked this better than the two Butaki ones I tried, but this too will not be my tea of choice.
Thanks Sil for the learning experience.

Sipdown (133)!

So I had this one on Sept. 1st which marked exactly a year since I moved to Saskatoon. Man, it does NOT feel like a year has gone by. Not even close. I’m starting to understand the saying “time goes by faster when you’re older” or however it goes.

Thank you VariaTEA for the sample; I made this one in my timolino with a little bit of milk to take with to my friend Robyn’s. She got back into the city on the 1st and I helped her set up/move in to her new dorm room. It’s actually really nice; much nicer than the one she had last year which was basically just a teeny little room with two beds and dressers in it for her and Casey, her roommate. This one is an apartment style dorms and is really roomy! There are four bedrooms for the four of them, two baths, and a kitchen/dining area and small living room. Plus everything looks really new, like the building was made pretty recently. Very shiny.

One of the coolest/most awkward things in the place was this pillow in their living room that one of the roommates brought. It took forever for me to notice the details on it, but once I did I could NOT unsee it.

Here’s a link: http://www.lookhuman.com/design/52320-floral-penis-pattern-rainbow

And because Robyn and I are so mature, we named the five different penis designs. The names we so carefully selected were: Salvador, Ron, Howard Wolowitz, Peaches, and Mr. Turtleneck. It was a fun time.

Robyn’s roommates all seem really cool too; I’ve obviosly met Casey before but not the other two she’s living with now (Tannis and Taylor). They seem like my sort of people; they are in many of my fandoms, are Tumblr kind of people, have a tea cupboard (admittedly it only has DT blends in it though) and spent the whole evening watching The Hobbit and making over the top jokes about the homoerotic subtext between Bilbo/Thorin (among others). Good times.

But the tea; I actually shared this one with Robyn; she said it was really good but didn’t elaborate on what she liked or disliked about it other than that she probably wouldn’t have added milk, personally. I thought it was really good; very silky and smooth. The black tea reminded me of satin. It also had really rich milk and honey notes. Mmm!

Is Mi Xian a type of tea? Or a place where tea is grown? I only ask because I can only recall having one other Mi Xian tea (Butiki’s) and I am really not a lover of either. Not that I think they are bad teas but I don’t enjoy the flavor profile as much as I have some other black teas. I find myself wanting some more malt and dessert-type notes but instead it is more flat and with a touch of fruit at the end of each sip. Nonetheless, thank you Cavocorax for sharing.

This is the first of 9 samples I ended up with from TTC! I’m so excited. I wasn’t even sure where to start, but I’m very pleased with this one.

It smells like honey, and tastes almost like baked bread with honey and just the barest hint of cinnamon. It has a thicker mouthfeel than your average tea, and is rich with flavour.

It’s too bad I finished off my Butiki Mi Xian because I’m curious how they compare? I enjoy both blends (and am looking forward to resteeping this all evening) but can’t say what makes them different.