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I smelled this one on about 3 or 4 different trips to David’s Tea. I kind of liked the smell, but wasn’t too sure about it. Tonight when I went in search of more green teas (since my last excursion for greens ended up with 4 more blacks in my cupboard), I smelled it again, and it was a definite yes.

I’m sorry I waited so long on this one. The smell of the dry leaves is nice and vanilla-y, with a bit of earthiness lurking behind. When I first started to brew it, my heart fell, as the vanilla scent evaporated, and left just an earthy scent that wasn’t terribly appealing to me. Well, I’ll try any tea once, and I’m glad I did. This is a very mild, easy to drink flavour. There’s a nice hint of vanilla without smothering the flavour of the roasted bancha. There’s a touch of dryness to the tea, but nothing unusual, and there’s no bitterness. It’s very comforting.

My fiance tried a sip, and said it reminded him of genmaicha, which is somewhat true for me as well. It has the same soothing, comforting essense as a nice genmaicha, while not being quite so warming.

As I reach the bottom of the cup, I do notice a few small beads of oil on top of the drops left. I noticed the oil at the beginning of the cup, but the tea does not have an oily mouth-feel. I expect it’s from the vanilla essence.

Also, I can’t say it’s a beautiful cup of tea. When I took the infuser out, the first thing that came to mind was swamp water, especially with that oil sheen on the top. Definitely not the most attractive thing I’ve had in my cup, but so so tasty. Definitely worth a try, and sooner rather than later.

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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