Lotus

From the Marco Polo TTB

Ahhh I drank this DAYS ago, but never had the time to log it! Dude. This tea is SO good. Just the perfect hint of floral to a tea. I think… I think I actually have to purchase this tea because I didn’t really savour my time with it. Gotta get more!

I didn’t realize I haven’t reviewed this yet. I ordered samples of this a while back and I enjoyed it quite a bit. If you’ve never experienced the flavor of lotus it is a strange one. It reminds me of anise or licorice combined with cream and a hint of floral. It can taste and smell very strong compared to other scented teas like jasmine or chrysanthemum, so I find this one can sometimes benefit from a bit lighter brewing than other scented teas.

That’s about it in a nutshell. It’s a rather relaxing flavor if you like it. It’s definitely better off light to me, but you could easily brew this strong for a more invigorating brew.

Finally, I have finished the pile of Toshie’s Jewels for my planned garland. Though finishing my garland I think it is too big for my Tea Lair and I will put it in the bedroom instead. If I am lucky Espeon will not take up acrobatics to attack it, if not, well it will be entertaining to watch. The paper I used is probably some of the prettiest origami paper I have used, the detail on the patterns is just spectacular, I want more but it is obnoxiously hard to find and really expensive. It was luck and ebay that got me the paper in the first place.

Today’s tea is Lotus from The Persimmon Tree Tea Company, a Vietnamese green tea scented in the traditional way with lotus blossoms giving this tea an ancient feel. The process of scenting a tea is really quite neat, for Lotus scent, the green tea is stuffed into a lotus blossom overnight or the stamens are taken from the lotus flowers and placed in a jar overnight with the tea, there they absorb its aroma and lends a floral taste to the tea. The website advises multiple steeps, so you know what that means, gaiwan time! The aroma of the dry leaves is pretty intense, very strong anise aroma with touches of honey, yeasty bread, green stems, and just the faintest hint of pepper. It is strange to call such a spicy aroma heady, but it is like sniffing a spicy flower.

After a nice visit with some warm water in the gaiwan, the now wet leaves’s aroma fills my tea lair with anise and pepper. The aroma is a paradox, it manages to be both heavy and light, it is one of the few times I have a hard time explaining the effect. The intensity gives it weight, but the notes in the aroma make it seem light, it is a pretty cool sniffing experience. The liquid has notes of cream, anise, honey, pepper, and a touch of refreshing green at the finish.

The first steep starts off quite sweet and rich, like honey drizzled yeasty bread that was baked with loads of anise. This initial spicy sweetness fades to a mildly peppery and cooked spinach finish. The mouthfeel starts out smooth then fades to just a tiny bit dry at the end.

Second steeping time! The aroma is not as strong, the anise and pepper notes are very delicate and there is an aroma of fresh vegetation, very reminiscent of walking through a garden after a rain storm. The taste is also more green than the previous, it starts with fresh vegetation and spinach. This fades to anise and pepper and then finished with a fairly potent honey aftertaste.

And now it is time for the final dance with this scented tea, the aroma of the third steep has gone around to being anise heavy, with accompaniment of raw honey and fresh vegetation. The mouthfeel starts a bit dry, almost sharp, but that changes to smooth fairly quickly. All that is left of this tea is anise and a touch of pepper, the blend of just anise and pepper this time around reminds me more of spicebush than actual anise. There is a hint of raw honey at the aftertaste that lingers for a bit. This is truly a unique tea, if you have never experienced Lotus scented tea I would definitely recommend it.

For photos (including origami! woo!) and blog: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-persimmon-tree-tea-company-lotus.html

Well this is a really interesting tea. The dry leaf smells exactly as described, star anise with vanilla. It brews up to a pretty light yellow and smells mainly of vanilla with a bit of pepper. So far so good. As for the taste… huh. It’s a bit difficult to describe. The anise flavors are very muted with a mixed grassy & floral flavor up front, then strong vanilla right after.
I just kind of can’t make up my mind about it. I like the hints of vanilla, but there’s something a little off about it. I think it’s the vegetal-ness combined with how strong the vanilla comes through. I’ll finish off the rest of the sample and see how I feel about it. Maybe it’s a bit of an acquired taste?

This is my last sample from Persimmon Tree Tea Company, and the one I’ve been avoiding. I didn’t know that star anise is similar to licorice when I requested this sample. I did realize it when I smelled the tea once it arrived. I really really don’t like licorice. Still, I tried to give this a fair chance, I really really did. But the licorice taste was to strong for me.

On the plus side, I’ve you’re a fan of licorice, this is a tea for you.

I had a half teaspoon of this I took from the Here’s Hoping teabox. So I brewed a half a mug. It’s an interesting half mug! It’s a very bright green with a surprising amount of flavor for half a teaspoon and the lotus adds an interesting flavor… tough to describe… kind of sweet. Should it remind me of jasmine, just less distinct? The second cup is even better but very different. More marine like. More floral. I wouldn’t mind some more of this in the ol’ cupboard. Maybe I’d be able to describe it better. haha.

One thing I found surprising was how much the flavor of this tea varies depending on the preperation method. The first two cups I prepared according the the suggested brewing instructions using water that was 180°F and steeping the leaves for 1 minute. If you take a sip just as the tea has finished steeping it tastes very strongly of steamed vegetables, but as the tea cools towards room temperature a variety of other flavors start to make themselves known. There is still a hint of vegetal flavor, but a sweet vanilla bean flavor starts to take over. Every once-in-awhile I get a hint of something else. I’m not sure that I would call it star anise as they do in the description. That has more of a licorice-like flavor, this is more of a spicy bite that is more akin to black pepper. It makes for a very interesting contrast with the sweet vanilla flavor.

You can read the full review on my blog:
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2014/5/13/tuesday-tea-lotus-the-persimmon-tree-tea-company.html

I would like to thank Nghia from The Persimmon Tree Tea Company for sending me this tea for review.

This was not at all what I was expecting. It tastes HARDCORE like cooked green vegetables, with a floral taste that is secondary. It is very strong on first steep, even only having steeped for a minute. Next time I would start with a shorter one to see if I could tone down the steamed veggie taste. It borders on bitter but isn’t actually bitter, it is just the strength of the tea taste coming through. Recommended for those who like a nontraditional green, who love strong flavors, or really love veggie flavor.

It’s been probably two weeks since I tried this (I am way behind on my tea-logging), so I should probably log this when I next try it. The aroma of the dry leaves is… weird and not appealing, so I was nervous about how this would taste. Fortunately, the taste was much better than the smell! It was subtle and relaxing. It has a flowery flavor, but not the lack of a sweet flower aroma made it taste quite different from other flower teas (basically, the polar opposite of jasmine, which is strong, sweet, and demands attention). The subtle flavor made it a nice “wind down” evening tea, but I wasn’t particularly excited about this. I have so many other teas I like more than this right now so I may have some trouble finishing my sample of this… It’s not bad, but it’s not distinctive.