55 Tasting Notes
Jin Jun Mei. Dry leaves smelled like toffee, wet leaves smell like burnt yam, I flash steeped this and the burnt scent still can be picked up from the tea. This might be the maltiest tea I ever had, light in sweetness and fruitiness. However it completely lacks the floral quality a jin jun mei should have, I feel like I’m drinking Horlick without sugar. Doesn’t taste bad, but this does not taste like a high quality jin jun mei.
sold for $8.25/ 50g
Oolong tea bags. Sugary smell upon hydration, taste like a toasty dong ding with nori and light fruitiness. Extremely light astringency, no bitterness. The tea bag performed pretty well.
Is this tea unique? It get rarity points for being from Korea, flavor wise it’s not. Is the tea good? Yes it is. If the price was cheaper this could be a potential repeat buy. I bought mine for $10.49.
Sold for $14.99/ 20 bags
Green tea bags. This tea tasted like nothing. No aroma, no flavor, no bitterness, all it provided was a slight bit of astringency after sitting in the cup for a while. It didn’t make me angry, it confused me. I pulled out my mug of maofeng to confirm I didn’t lose my sense of taste or smell.
I probably should rate this lower for the covid scare but normal people don’t get mad at water, therefore this tea is getting Dasani grade.
sold for $4.49/48 Bag
https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/organic-darjeeling-green-tea-074753
Mate & green tea blend, I have the tea bag version of this. I don’t believe in detoxing, I purely buy tea for the taste, and what am I tasting…? The tea smells like caesar salad dressing and taste vaguely lemony with a bit smoke on the tongue, not repulsive, but not exactly flavorful. Yet this is still not the worst Kusmi tea I’ve had, that title goes to their rose green tea. I really want to like this brand but they are making it hard.
sold for $11.99/ 20 bags
https://www.kusmitea.com/us/detox-organic-DETOBIOMASTER.html?v=21640A1120
Floral oolong tea cake. I received a 5g sample pack from my package. The cake is roughly 1.5 × 1.5 in, hydrated leaves are 2-2.5 in long. The tea reminds me of Taiwanese high mountain oolong the most, particularly the strong orchid aroma and the sweetness, but the zhangping shui xian taste less oxidized and does not have the grassy flavor often found in Taiwanese oolongs. This tea also has another flowery note I don’t quite know how to describe, it’s rice wine like?
This is my first time having zhangping shui xian. As an immigrant from Taiwan I think the most fascinating part is seeing the similarities between this tea and Taiwanese oolongs. Made me go “Ah, so that’s where it came from.” Taiwan has been making its tea since the 18th century, this proves that the ancestors did get the method right and it has lived on. Really love the stories and histories recorded by tea.
This is part of iteaworld’s New Oolong Tea Sampler. Currently not sold separately.
sold for $39.99
Earl grey tea bags. Not the Regenerative Organic Earl Grey by Tazo. I wrote a review for that before.
https://steepster.com/cathychiaolin/posts/447308
This one just made me go ??? The dry tea bag smelled exactly like the Regenerative Organic Earl Grey but the taste is completely off. First sip tasted like tap water and the tea only got more chlorine later. After it cooled down the chlorine transformed into astringentcy. Like excuse me? How do two products that look so similar taste so different? I actually made a cup of Regenerative Organic at the same time to compare them and the organic one didn’t have that weird taste.
I don’t think major supermarkets are still selling this and thank goodness. First time I give out an F score on Steepster. Maybe there were some storing issue?
sold for $4.29/20 bags
Taiping Houkui green tea from Zheng Shan Tang aka Lapsang Store. Received this 5g sample pack from my order. The furry dry leaves smell like Japanese matcha, the tea is very orchid and very sweet with slight vegetal mung bean flavor. The sweetness really lingers. The color of the dry leaves is avocado, length of leaves is 3 – 4 in before & after hydration.
This is possibly the clearest tea I ever had, I walked away from my glass cup chatting and came back with a clear topaz cup of tea on the table. Incredible. The taste was definitely was there and stronger than what it should’ve been.
They are now only selling this in sample bags. At the moment of writing it’s $33 for 10 bags.
sold for $60/5g x 10
https://lapsangstore.com/collections/green-tea/products/gt03
A toasty dancong. Leaves gave off a roasted, sugary smell, the first cup sort of reminds me of a Taiwanese dongding but sweeter and with some more orchid, second cup after has more mineral. The dancong aroma, that winey quality isn’t particularly strong with this one. Hydrated leaves are roughly 1 – 1.5 in long.
The tea is good and they lowered the price of this dancong. I bought 2 oz for $23.04.
sold for $16.36/2 oz
https://www.teasource.com/products/honey-flower-dan-cong-oolong-tea-1?variant=46949204984120
Turns out I already wrote a review for this. I’ll write a new one just for fun.
A very aromatic, perfume like oolong. The dry leaves smell like sugar cookies and the tea has a muscat wine quality to it, sweet, very flowery, a bit fruity, a little bit of sandalwood, very light astringency. The hydrated leaves are from 1 in to 3 in long. This tea can handle grandpa style like a champ.
side note: This is also one of my mom’s favorite among all the teas I have.
sold for $34.99/100g
Black tea from Yuan Zheng, a brand owned by Zheng Shan Tang aka Lapsang Store. Smell of sweet chocolate upon hydration, the tea taste of honey, chocolate, and malt candy, the flavor gets more malt forward with longer steeping time. Hydrated leaves are about 1-1.25 in long. The honey flavor of this tea reminds me of Harney & Son’s Songluo Full and I’m still waiting for H&S to have a discount for that. Overall this tea is good, just don’t go grandpa style, it murks up the flavor.
sold for $20.86/50g
