296 Tasting Notes
I had this tea the Briar Rose Bed and Breakfast this morning. I picked it from their ‘wall of tea’ because of the way it smelled; blueberry yogurt, but in a good way. Little did I know it had hibiscus in it. I knew I should have gone with the genmaicha!
Ah well, I had an amazing stay at this BnB and enjoyed the rest of my breakfast. Maybe I will ask for their kukicha later :)
Flavors: Berries, Hibiscus, Tart
Took this on the semi-short drive to Boulder today. I saved up my pennies and splurged on a lovely B&B for Valentine’s Day with my man. In fact, I am typing this up while sitting on the lovely balcony and sipping on a mug of this!
I chose this particular BnB specifically for it’s emphasis on it’s tea. A tea BnB you say? I am in tea nerd heaven :D they have a 24hr tea service and lovely tea trays to borrow during use. I am already missing my stash at home, but seeing as they a) make their own herbal blends and b) have Rishi tea and athentic branded Japanese greens, I was instantly sold! I will have to post a pic of their tea wall in a sec.
On to this tea! It’s so sweet and maple-y. I do get the slightest bit of dryness in this from the type of black, but it’s minor. I get an almond-malty taste in addition to the candy sweet maple flavor. Sometimes I like to use the slightest hint of maple syrup in certain Assam teas and this blend pretty much does it for me! I know this would be great with some almond milk splashed in. I almost wish I had gotten more than a sample!
Flavors: Almond, Malt, Maple
Preparation
Smooth and slightly sweet. This is a very earthy cup, with a little toasty quality to it. It’s like drinking dirt-y honey nut Cheerios. I drank this down too quick to make any careful notes :P I really loved spending time with this one! I still have some steeps to go too.
http://instagram.com/p/zAVgbnKHwH/
95C/~5g/gongfu style:
Rinse x2/Rest/5/10/15/15/20/25/30/35/40/45/50/1min/1:30/2:00…… still going!
Flavors: Decayed Wood, Earth, Honey, Toasty
Preparation
I should probably try this tea again before I review it, but ah well.
I was not to impressed with the flavor combinations or the base tea chosen for this blend. I feel like if just one thing was swapped out, it would make for a better cup. I had not tried the Kenyan Purple Green tea before this, and uh… I may be more careful about it next time.
Here’s why:
I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t eaten since that afternoon before, or if I was just feeling under the weather, or what. But about an hour after I had drank the tea an began to start my day, I began to trip balls.
Now I have heard of being ‘high off tea’ before, and had felt the most minor of effects on certain puerhs and oolongs before. But nothing really as strong as that. i have had all of those flavorings in some way or another before, so I ruled that out. But the closest thing I could describe it to is a marijuana high, minus the munchies. It’s started by me getting a little dizzy. I realized I hadn’t eaten, so I grabbed a quick bite for breakfast. Nope. Still tripping. Hmm. No one else has experienced this while drinking this tea. What the hell?
So, long story short, I would put this up for auction on the swap thread, but I don’t know if I want members of the steepster community ousting me because I made them trip genitals off of this tea. heh.
Out of the package, this tea smells like straight up dark brown sugar. I do get a whiff of woodsy smells on the dry leaf, slight earth, cedar, and dampness.
The resulting brew is incredibly sweet. It tastes like maple candy. There is some lingering flavors of some cocoa and wet wood. The lingering scent of the candy cap mushrooms is definitely floating on top. The mushies mix well with the base black teas. They look beautiful in my white porcelain gaiwan. Today, this tea did not quit, I think I got a record number of steeps from a WP black today! I might have gone on longer, but I had to go to work :P
I am so glad that I got all of WP’s mushroom teas! Who would’ve thunk that Brendan would make already good tea great?
Flavors: Brown Sugar, Maple Syrup, Wet Wood
Preparation
Very roasty and toasty. I read in the description on the package that this tea is synonymous for ‘cinnamon oolong.’ Thinking back to my favorite Asian Beauty from Beautiful Taiwan Tea Co, which tasted so much like cinnamon toast crunch, I was instantly sold.
Perhaps my hopes were too high, maybe I chose the wrong vessel to brew it in, maybe I oversteeped it, or the water temp was too high. I so wanted to love this tea, but I can’t. I get scorched rice, burnt popcorn and sour plums. It was pretty astringent and a I have been slowly warming up to roasted oolong, seeing as they are one of my least favorites. This tea all but dashed my hopes of liking a roasted oolong in a hot minute. Le sigh. I want to try it again with shorter steeps and a cooler water temp. I am not about super finicky teas, but I have a good 25g still to get through. I will give this another shot, and if it does not work, to someone else it goes!
Preparation
How are you steeping it?
I brewed 3g in 100C water in one of these:
http://steepster.com/teas/teaware/29219-the-tea-shaker
The capacity is about 200ml. I did 4 steeps: 2min/2:30/3/3.
The fourth one turned out the best. All the astringent bitter toast flavor wash almost gone. What am I doing wrong?
You probably steeped too long. I tend to brew mine for about 30 seconds or less ( usually less) if using small water to leaf ratio. Some teas do need a longer first steep to open up so I might use 20-30s for the first steep and adjust down my second steep 10-20s depending on the intensity of the flavour and then start adding time. If brewing western style use about the same amount of leaf and at least double the water. Having said the rou GUI is sometimes more cinnamon in fragrance than flavour I have three open at the moment one tastes like black forest cake with kirsh, one leans more to the floral spectrum of yancha’s and the other is quite cinnamon and fruity ( unfortunately its from the one Ali dealer I will not do business with again). One young some yancha’s can taste very heavily roasted some do best after sitting for a while. One of my yixing pits does a good job of taming this as well. You may find the first steep a bit too roasty even when you tweak your parameters. Rinsing might help. Too much leaf can cause bitterness as well but I think you should be OK with what you have in a semi gongfu style of brewing. For western brewing one of my sources recommends 2g.
I got the tea shaker for semi-gongfu on the go. I read on Tao’s website that a long steep at first (30-50s) can usually take care of any bitterness. I did not rinse that time, maybe I should do that next time. I want to do maybe 2.5/3g in my 100ml gaiwan and perhaps lowering the temp a bit.
Growing up, a favorite Sunday morning treat was a fresh and tart ruby red grapefruit. I would always be the one who was in charge of slicing the sections for everyone. i would always save any extra juice and squeeze it into a small glass to sip on. This tea is 100% grapefruit deliciousness.
I feel like I am sitting on the beach while eating a grapefruit, minus the sand :P The dragonwell is so lovely and light like a sea breeze. It’s quite lovely to look at, with it’s flat wide leaves. The grapefruit is so spot on it’s almost scary. I even get the tongue-numbing tingle and the sweet/tart bite throughout. Damn, this is one refreshing tea.
Flavors: Grapefruit
Super Sample Sipdown Weekend! February 2015
This was one of the samples I ordered in my big Tea Guys orders. I was not impressed with this tea at all. Hot, it was grassy and mildly fruity-sweet. Cold brewed left the grossness behind and brought a sweeter floral and candied pineapple flavor. It was so very meh. The flavors did not stand out and nothing about this tea made any sort of impression on me. Eh, at least I was able to try it.
Flavors: Floral, Grass, Pineapple
Preparation
Super Sample Sipdown Weekend! February 2015
This was quite a satisfying tea! I don’t normally go for oolong that aren’t tightly rolled up in to little buttery, floral balls of yum. I was taken aback by this one! No astringency, only a little dryness. I really loved the plummy fresh baked bread aroma and taste. It’s not anything that I am used to, which is nice. I wouldn’t normally go for a tea like this, but thank you so much Alistair for throwing this sample in to my latest What-cha order, it was a great and pleasant surprise!
Flavors: Bread, Malt, Plum
Decided to try this one western-style today with cream and sugar. It was… interesting. There was definitely coffee flavor, and the smoke became more prominent. The earthy and woody notes of the puerh were to a lesser extent, but still very there. I kinda… liked it!
