423 Tasting Notes
Backlogging two steeps (first one for 5 rounds, second one for 2 rounds – got tired). I’m not rating this tea at the moment, since I’m slightly ill and my taste buds and sense of smell aren’t at the top of their game at the moment.
This tea starts out gently floral and sweet, and then mellows down to a less floral/spicy more sweet flavour. A good tea that I will want to try again once I’m over this flu bout.
I let the tea steep for a bit to long in my second round of my second taste of it, and it took on a bitter note – but the tea’s flavour was much more pronounced. This made me think that its worth experimenting with various steep times with this tea.
Backlogging from yesterday. I stumbled upon this relatively new player in the (tiny) Israeli tea market a few weeks ago, and this is the first tea that I’ve tasted from them.
The tea comes in an attractive thick cardboard box, and an attractive price, but very little information about its origin or age. iTea is merely an importer of the tea, which they say come from “Wuzhou Tea Factory, China” (never heard of them, and they don’t appear to exist online, but if I knew Chinese I could decipher what’s written on the packages perhaps and find out more about them), so I wasn’t expecting much at all – especially at this price.
Boy was I surprised!
First of all, the tea is very well packed – each tiny toucha is sealed in a nice foil-like bag, and then in a cotton paper wrapper. The leaves on each toucha are large, and whole, and telling by colour – rather on the young side of Sheng Puerh. They open up to large, beautiful whole leaves, and produce a very sweet, very refreshing tea, with slight hints of roasted green beans. A wonderful experience for the price – most definitely will buy more.
A tea to relax with at the end of a busy tea, whilst basking in the setting sun’s rays.
Preparation
Yay! First reviewer of this lovely tea. It is currently on sale at Norbu Tea (my favourite online tea supplier, so far), and is worth buying. Very. Go buy some now and then come back and read this review.
The tea, lovely little green and yellow balls of it, has a sweet, green smell when raw – like flower stems. I brewed exactly as Norbu recommended, and the resulting tea is a very very pale amber with a gentle sweet greenish smell.
I have to admit that I don’t like green teas very much, so I was a little worried that I wouldn’t like this tea, but I had nothing to worry about. This tea starts out bittersweet, with some spinachy greeness to it, but sweetness immediately takes over, and reveals fantastic and long lingering tastes of cinnamon, grain and brown sugar. It is a very refreshing and interesting tea, a perfect tea to close a busy day with.
Preparation
I received this as a free sample from T-oolongtea in my first order from them. It’s a very unique and complex black tea – one that makes you sit up and pay attention. It’s very light and fragrant, and reminds me more of oolongs than of black teas, but it lacks the vegetal or mineral taste of oolongs. There are pronounced honey notes and a lingering very felt dryness in the tea that is not unpleasant. A tea for thinking with, and a conversation starter that is good for multiple infusions.
