3294 Tasting Notes
This tea was my gardening companion of the day, as I watered the Southern Hemisphere, ate a few blackberries, pulled a few weeds, picks some tomatoes, cukes, & red russian kale, & really just enjoyed the early morning. I’ve been waking up earlier lately, no matter how late I stay up, but it feels good to get out there in the morning.
When I opened the tin of this tea, I had a vision of cinnamon toast, which I sorely miss. That image stayed with me while I sipped both steepings of these leaves, and it was good.
I’m trying MzPriss’ combo of this tea, steeped with Black Beauty, following her suggestions of (1T Special Dark + 8oz water X 3min) + a big pinch of Black Beauty X 3 more minutes.
It’s potent!
It is – did you like it?
OMG Terri – I do that in SIXTEEN oz of water I am so sorry – I make it in my big mug – did I put 8 on my post? * spanks self * Very sorry :(
Lol!
Did it curl your eyelashes up tight?
(Do I have Black Beauty in the house? – I HAVE to try this….)
Hahaha…I probably just assumed it was 8oz…actually my cup is more like 10, but still…
The resteep was still pretty potent, but you know what? They were both drinkable, & all in all, it was definitely a wake up call for the afternoon!
LOL
Oh my…this sounds delicious. (And I would totally use 8oz.)
So, shall this special blend be called “Darker Than Black?”
Special Beauty, perhaps?
Laughing as I read this thinking about two things: 1) MzPriss spanking herself and 2) how much faster my 5k race times would be if I drank 8 ounces of this about 20 minutes prior!
And being that life is one big experiment, I’m just gonna have to try. Not try spanking myself, but rather drinking said concoction before race time.
You all crack me up!
Garret – I call it Dark Beauty. And it’s so fine! Two of my very favorite things in one cup of delicious comfort. Let me know what you think.
Waiting for the tea to finish brewing here in the shop. Doing your experiment with a brand new customer. Can’t wait to sip it. Will let you know!
We love it!!!!!!!!
MzPriss, this might call for an official tea database entry for Dark Beauty!
Along with instructions on how to brew it.
I can totally DO that – I have this most morning of my life because it makes my world a better place :)
Yay! Link?
I haven’t done it yet – because I’m in the middle of a project – but I promise I will
Thank you to Green Terrace Teas for sharing samples of your teas, including this one.
Sometimes I like to sit with my cup of tea while it’s still too hot to drink, & just hold it under my nose & breath it in. When I did that with this cup, it was like I was breathing in the essence of a bowl of cream of wheat, drizzled with honey, & topped with a big spoonful of peach preserves. The preserves are melting, from the heat of the cereal, & it’s like anticipating that first bite of a favorite childhood comfort food.
Yup, the pretty much nails it.
Trying out a sample of this, & I want to have more to say about it, but my sipping reverie was interrupted by a client dropping off a harp for restringing, & I lost my train of thought.
I adore both Fujian & Yunnan Blacks, so there isn’t even a chance of this tea NOT being a winner, since it combines the best of both worlds. Toasted honey wheat bread, molasses, chocolate, a lovely thick mouth… sigh…
I do hope all of my teas make you sigh of contentment :)
I’m saving the manistee moonrise for the full moon :)
That’s a good idea :) It’s a great evening tea, too!
& the full moon is this weekend
I got my first order of Manistee Moonrise and I think saving it to try for the full moon is a great idea
I think we should make it a steepster thing. Everybody who has this tea should drink it as the moon is rising tomorrow (friday) night.
Actually, I can’t do that, I’ll be playing a gig…
Well, I think the moon is officially full on saturday at 7:20 am, so how about Sautrday night as the moon is rising?
That is a BEAUTIFUL idea! I’m in
Then it’s on!
Well I would happily join you lovely ladies, if my order wasn’t being held at Customs…so can I take a rain check and join you for the next full moon?
Maybe we’ll make it a monthly Full Moon Festivity?
That would be awesome, Love the full moon!!
Awesome idea! Fairy maybe there will be a full moon miracle and it will come today or tomorrow
I was wondering how you would rate this one. Sounds like it is right up there with the kind of teas we both love. :)
This tea was my companion in the garden this morning. The task at hand was to water the Northwest Quadrant & dig up the rest of the garlic. While doing so, I came across a burrow of baby bunnies, in a little hollowed out place under the straw. I admire their cuteness, but didn’t touch them, & gently layer the straw back over them & went on with my work.
https://www.facebook.com/terri.langerak
I grew 6 kinds of garlic this year! My whole house reeks of freshly dug garlic, & that is awesome! There’s lots of hanging & braiding to do, & hopefully I’ll never have to buy garlic again!
Lovely tea, by the way. I’ve reviewed it plenty of times, so that’s all I’m saying.
So cute! What’s your secret of keeping garlic ! Mine stunk the house and hubby said its either him or garlic. I bought a lot on farmers market
Those bunnies are so adorable :-)
Just read your Golden Monkey/breakfast post, now this one – I’m jealous of both.
Oh, those bunnies are so cute.
Boychik, I’m hanging it from the pipes in the basement, at least for now. There are photos somewhere in my FB page of the first garlics & shallots I harvested this year & braided. So the soft neck garlics are being braided, & the hard neck ones are just being hung up from string until they dry out, & then I’ll cut the stems off & put them in a basket, I guess.
Ok I have to put them in a basement otherwise … I don’t mind the smell actually but I have allergies. I should look up pics on FB
While you’re there, friend me!
BABY BUNNIES!
We have so many rabbits in my neighborhood already, it’s ridiculous. They aren’t even hardly afraid of people, they are out all day, but at night it’s like they are taking over the place, they are everywhere.
Makes me think of my time at UVic. It got to the point where the university set up a spay/neuter plan for the rabbits. Catch, fix, release. They were burrowing under a couple of the old buildings, but people got so upset with the idea of a cull.
We also have foxes, hawks, owls, raccoons, & coyotes in the area, & although a lot of people are freaked out about that, I personally love having so much wildlife around, & of course rabbits are food for all those other creatures.
We ended up with one or two cougars living on campus, which was a little worrisome because they can be large and dangerous cats. Puma. Those things. :)
We get reports of mountain lions in St Louis county every so often. :)
I don’t have time for a long review here, where I wax poetic about the glories of this tea.
Let’s just jump to the chase & say that everything you’ve heard about this tea is spot on. The initial aroma reminds me of a really high quality vanilla pipe tobacco (although I don’t know for sure if I’ve ever actually smelled one), & then you start drinking it, & it’s awesomely wonderful, vanilla ice cream with dark chocolate sauce drizzled over the top, the kind that hardens into a shell. What I love about it most is that the black tea underneath isn’t some woosie generic, it’s bold & thick chinese blacks. And yeah, it resteeps like a dream, & I’m taking all those resteeps for once. And the sweet aftertaste lingers…sigh…
I’ve said enough!
Yay!! That’s EXACTLY what it is!!!
Welcome to the GO Cult :-)
There’s a tea cult? I’ve already exchanged some of my possessions for tea.
Mmmmmmm.
This one is so yum!!!!
I’m so sad that my Whispering Pines order didn’t come today. D:
I want to try mine but I can’t drink a black tea this late in the day.. tomorrow for sure!
You can make the chocolate sauce you describe by melting and combining coconut oil and chocolate chips (I do that from time to time)
Well…I kind of just decided that there was a GO Cult….cause ya know, it’s getting more and more followers. The Guru is Tea Whiz Of The Woods (Brenden). It’s VERY hard to resist all his charismatic teas…
Golden Orchid is the Kool-Aid of the Whispering Pines cult…
Tea Cults Are Us…just sayin’
Haha! Is wit a requirement to be a Steepster member? Cause I don’t know where else you can get as much for free!!!
And in this case cameron… DO DRINK THE KOOL-AID!!
Drink all the kool-aid! :D
The Illustrious Cult of the Golden Orchid
Guru: Tea Whiz of the Woods
Official Organizer & Cheerleader: TheTeaFairy
Meetings: Monthly, in the Steepster basement
Please bring a snack to share.
I’ll bring CHERRIES!!
I’ll bring mushrooms! ;)
I’ll bring tea flavoured bread.
Haha! And we can ask mj to bring her communal fridge!
Lol, Sarsonator, “The Illustrious Cult of the Golden Orchid” makes an awesome cult name!!!
I’ll make petit fours! With little pine trees on them!
I’ll bring almond flour scones! :)
I’ll sit in the back and drink all your tea! :p
And thanks, TTF! Glad you like the name!
LOL
I want to join the cult! But no more tea for me till black friday. I tried telling myself that buying samples didn’t count and I may cave there because the WP cult is ever so persuasive.
GO just sounds so decadent.
You’re not buying any tea until NOVEMBER?!?!?! Wow. I really envy your willpower.
There will be no black friday sale at WP. I am strongly against black friday. There will be a cyber monday sale though :)
I want to be the Court Jester for the cult. I’m trying to decide if I need to give in to my sudden GO craving or actualy sleep again tonight
I also dislike Black Friday. I refuse to leave my house. This year, though, maybe I will host an online Steepster Sipdown Fest!
HoneyBelle a.k.a MzPriss: You are now the official Cult Jester :p
Woo! I’m so like that HoneyBelle name as well I reeeeeeeeeely want some GO now
Hmmm…Sudden GO cravings are hard to resist….Court Jester, that’s exactly what we were missing :-)
(Oh, may I reserve my Fest tickets now Sarsonator?)
liking not like
You know – Steepster needs a chat
I am going to have to veto the idea of a Steepster Chat. If there was a Steepster Chat, I would never get anything done!!!! :p
I haven’t ever done one, but a friend of mine does some gaming chat and she loves it. But yeah, time sucker I bet
Well the tea buying may start on black friday but that doesn’t mean it’ll stop then…
It’s chat already ;)
Lol, boychik,I was just going to say that ;-)
I was also gonna say what boychik said. It’s kind of like a slow moving chat.
So we’re doing it? Cool.
I think people who go out shopping on Black Friday should get their heads examined. Pro Cyber Monday though.
I don’t go anywhere near any stores on Black Friday, but I definitely participate in the cyber monday tea sales!
This is going to sound super ignorant, but… What is Black Friday??
@Nattie – Black Friday is an unfortunate USA custom where all the retailers have these giant sales (allegedly) the day after Thanksgiving. It has gotten earlier and earlier to where now it starts on Thanksgiving. People trample each other and have fights over cheap TVs. It is an ugly custom in the stores. Cyber Monday, while sort-of the same thing – is online and much more civilized and NOT on a holiday you should be spending with your people instead of being in line for 12 hours to fight over stuff you can usually get just as good a deal on later.
Ahh okay, thanks! We have a similar thing over here with the Boxing Day sales, but at least it doesn’t start until after Christmas! Cyber Monday sounds much better (:
MzPriss, you slay me: “Black Friday is an unfortunate USA custom”
Could not agree more!
When I place an order from YS, I’ve sort of fallen into the habit of picking out a few puerh to sample. There is a sidebar on the right hand side of their page that lists their new featured products, and this was on that list awhile back, so I got a sample.
I started drinking it yesterday, ran through several steepings & then today after breakfast I gave it a rinse to refresh it & have been drinking it ever since. The dry aroma has that well aged hayloft aroma, but also the promise of a meadow of sweet clover. It really smells good! It’s a very ‘clean’ tasting tea, with a decent energy to it, & although I enjoyed it, it sort of seems a little generic to me.
(Don’t shoot me, I know nothing, Jon Snow!)
Maybe it’s just that the greenness is aged out of it, so although it has a hint of citrus & doesn’t taste bad in any way (obviously, since I have been drinking it on an off for about 24 hours now), there is also nothing that stands out about it, for me. I didn’t find any changes in the flavor profile, for instance.
Of course, what do I know? :)
Terri when I get ready to add another addiction, would you be my YS guru-ess? As far as I can tell, I pretty much like what you like and YS is overwhelming
I’ll send you samples of everything I have, LOL
Oh that might be scary! You have everything. I ws just wondering where to start looking. Because I went there it’s tea overload.
It IS tea overload! They have SO MANY teas, so I’m seriously going to send you a bunch of samples, LOL.
(And when she says “a bunch” she means it, trust me… :-))
Terri’s box is unbelievable . She was my Guru into YS. I still have to work on TTC samples
:D
I love YS, LOL. I loitered on that site for months before I finally placed an order, & I’ve placed several since. In fact, I have a small order in transit right now! I just can’t stay away!
Just received mine Monday, can’t wait for the weekend to get tea drunk. Of course I spent too much and have enough tea to take me through retirement. YS has that effect on me.
LOL, if I never bought tea again & sent sampler boxes to all my friends, I’m still probably covered for the rest of my life :)
…and yet I keep buying more…
Don’t we all……
First cups of the day was 8 pearls steeped 3min, with a 5 min resteep.
We wandered the garden together, watering & weeding during the first cup, digging up garlics during the 2nd. A nice way to start the day, with an old favorite from my Teavana days, tasty with malt & chocolate tones.
Again I’d like to thank Green Terrace for sharing samples of their teas.
I drank this earlier in the day, using the western steep parameters, & it is a classic Oriental Beauty, with notes of Honey, courtesy of the Leaf Hoppers. It’s a pleasing gentle cup, also with elements of floral, fruit, & wood, along with a lingering sweetness.
I have enough left to go with a gongfu session next time :)
I hope this is in my sampler as well. I love OBs.
i didn’t get this one i don’t think terri lol
OB is one of those oolongs I like to have once in awhile. I don’t love it as much as I love my deeply roastly oolongs, but it’s nice for variety & not overly floral.
Sil: which ones did you get? Want me to send you half?
i’ll try and check tonight…meant to last night but it’s been a busy couple of days. poke me ON FB if you don’t hear from me. Since i suspect we have a few non shared samples we received so happy to pslit though :) give green terrace more exposure
