Callisto Tea House

Cool. Meadowy Baimudan Hawaiian style. All kinds of stuff going on here and I can’t read my handwritten note from last week. Pristine leaf, very clean feeling. Leaf aromas are in your face and funky. Taste is much more subtle and fresh like accented springwater, complex. Sweetness is a thin, sparkling and cool sensation. Would try again! Thanks again, beerandbeancurd :)

Warmed leaf notes of linalool oxide, baby powder, mango. A little wet dog/fur.

I just barely got 5g in my 5oz pot before reading the 3g recommendation. But I feel okay about it; 7g is my default, and there is a LOT of room between these leaves. Some of them are absolutely monstrous. And beautiful! So many colors in the dry leaves — greens, browns, yellows, blacks, and reds.

I let the first steep go to 30 seconds, as the whites I’ve been enjoying lately seem to do really well with a heavy-handed opener. It’s also where Nathan started the white we drank in-house.

Smell coming off the first steep, best I can describe, is like a very light Moo Goo Gai Pan sauce. Light soy, white mushrooms, stock, sesame. Herbs, linalool oxide, a whiff of jasmine. Rice.

Cooling in the mouth. More linalool (this flavor is slowly growing on me). Smooth and slick mouthfeel. Second steep brought some hay and barnyard on the nose, umami. A bit of astringency in the back of the throat, with further notes of pine, mint, light potato.

The leaves in the pot now smell quite herbaceous, with olive oil and white florals (reminds me of women’s perfumes)… like mom is making chimichurri down in there.

Scents off the pour are dissipating with the third steep, with fleeting tobacco; the cooling linalool is still there, astringency is moving forward in the mouth, a little potato and maybe some olive. It kept pouring with strong color and good mouthfeel, but no more flavor revelations. I didn’t really get citrus or tropical, which is what I was expecting. No bother.

I will likely stick to 5g brews, so I have 2 more. I’m probably not a repeat buyer at this price point — but this tea is lovely and from an unexpected place (I believe the Callisto folks told me Eva has a black coming soon, as well). I’m grateful I got to have some.

This was our first visit to Callisto Tea House, after an amazing vegan diner breakfast at Millie’s. I was really reveling in the big trees, tall mountains, and lush green of Pasadena after all of the recent rain. We flirted, as we often do, with the idea of moving to the area. To be sure, it would be lovely to be closer to this little place.

I hemmed and hawed for a bit over the six teas Nathan offered as gong fu candidates. I had been half-expecting to have a yellow tea available as an option, but they have moved on from that one since I saw it on their website. This aged white managed to be two things at once: a style I am less familiar with, as well as approachable for my not-yet-tea-obsessed partner.

The dry leaves had a light scent that I didn’t pick much out of. After warming up, some toast and roast became evident, along with an almost piney or herbal note. The base of the tea shifted between hay, wet leaves, wet wood, and twigs as the steeps played out. We got about ten total before some wateriness crept in. In the first few steps, I also found really lovely and delicate flavors of licorice, mint/menthol, and honeysuckle around the edges. The cooling sensation persisted, even when the minty/menthol taste had pretty well gone. This was a really nice session, in a simple little shop that afforded focus, calm, and quiet (but also 90s-00s female singer/songwriters coming through the speakers, just loud enough to tune in if you wanted… count me in). Chatting with the proprietors was an absolute delight, too, as they were just as excited about the intricacies of their teas as they were ready to commiserate over the eternal struggle of an out-of-hand-and-still-growing tea stash at home.

Of course, I also took home some tea. I didn’t feel like I needed to own this one, but they had a white tea from Hawaii which I am absolutely stoked about. The scent of the dry leaves, which I expected to be mineral-leaning from the lava rock, was actually full of tropical fruits. I can’t wait.