The Finest Brew

Sipdown! I think this came to me via Indigobloom – thanks!!

I sadly was confused by the “TGFOP” and assumed this was a black when brewing – oops. Presumably it is actually an oolong. Thankfully, it was really tasty (creamy, oolongy) – not to mention quite pretty as it was brewing (and in the infuser after!)

GCTTB (round 6) tea!

I gravitated to this tea because it smells like caramel and candied flower petals.There is a hint of floral, a nice sweetness, a very distinct and natural fig flavour, like that in fig newtans. The fruity with the floral is really nice.

The base is mellow and not vegetal/grassy, but goes really nicely with the rose. There is a caramel note that stands out as being creamy and sweet, but naturally occurring. This tea isn’t like a David’s tea sweetened tea. The sweetness doesn’t taste like an additive.

I’m not a huge Dancong fan. When it comes to oolongs, I tend to prefer the more caramelly roasty Wuyi oolong-types. Also, with most dancongs, I tend to prefer the aroma of the tea more than the actual tea.

I know, that’s terrible, right? This one is the same. It’s probably my fault, because although I try to keep the steepings short, sometimes I forget to count, or whatever, and then I end up with bitter swill, and it only takes a few seconds for that to happen.

So, the aroma of this one is sweet & peachy, actually quite lovely. The first cup was also very nice, with a light fruit liquor. The 2nd cup still smelled wonderful, but I accidentally gave it 15 seconds, instead of 10, and there was a sharp bitterness at the end of each sip. For the 3rd steep I tried to back the time up to 10 seconds again, but unfortunately the damage was done and the bitterness remained.

Oh well…

Sipdown (205)!

From the GCTTBR6…

I pulled the last tsp or so out of the box because I remembered I strongly liked this one the first time around and I wanted to revisit and see if I still felt the same way. Turns out I do, this was still a really strong, amazing and tasty cup! Don’t really have any new observations to add because skimming my previous tasting note it appears I picked up on the same things this tasting as the last one.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8N8ESXNyZc&index=27&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ

GCTTB V1

So, this is the company that everyone had a lot of issues with around Black Friday right? Orders placed, none delivered – a trail of emails between consumers and the owners about them “already shipping things” and supposed “refunds” with only some people actually getting refunds. I have to say, I was curious to see what their tea was actually like given the fuss.

Of course, their website isn’t up anymore and their FB hasn’t been updated since November, so when I made the Steepster entry for this tea there was literally no information for me to add. So, the ingredients/added flavours and any actual information for this tea is sort of anyone’s guess…

Dry this smelled floral and sweet with maybe a little bit of fruity notes; but mostly quite candy like. Now that my cup has steeped, the aroma is fragrant and perfumey with sweet floral notes but also a little bit of a warming spice kind of note? It also smells really familiar but I’m struggling to place why or where from. Taste time…

Definitely sweet; has a very “candied rose” sort of vibe to it with creamy, fruity undertones. I want to say something like cherry or figs with some vanilla notes. It’s hard to say, honestly. The finish is kind of spicy in a very “sweet Chai” way. Notes of cinnamon, nutmeg and maybe even clove? It’s playfully astringent. I’m actually really perplexed by what the flavours are supposed to be because the ones I’m experiencing are such a weird assortment of flavours.

It’s frustrating though because I’m actually really enjoying the cup! Which is very bittersweet knowing what I know about this company. It’s like a strange version of Tea Drinking blue balls. Argh. Oh well; at least I got to sample it.

Drinking this today, and have a GORGEOUS picture to share, just need to upload it from my phone. It’s a bit flat – was expecting a bit more complexity in the first steep (after a quick rinse). Green, light, earthy, a bit crunchy (?) and sweet, grass-like but lighter. Have kept it to re-steep a few more times and see how I feel as it goes.

I bought about an ounce of this on sale several months ago and just opened the bag. At the moment, I wish I had more — and can’t help but notice that it no longer appears on The Finest Brew’s website.

This isn’t really my favorite type of oolong, but as oolongs go, it’s damn near perfect. The dry leaves smell like honey and mint, and this comes through in the steepings as well. There’s not even a hint of the bitterness that sometimes comes through in greener teas, and it isn’t making me nauseous. The tea soup is bright yellow and light. It’s slightly vegetal, but not in the overbearing way of something like, say, sencha or matcha. A bit floral and perfumey too, but not in a bad way. A great Spring tea, so I’m holding out hope that it comes back to company’s rotation.

I used a fair amount of leaf, but I’m not sure where my kitchen scale is. It’s about 2 tsp. (but doesn’t seem like much more than about 7/8 g.) for 200 ml. of water. After a 15 second rinse in the gaiwan, it got through 4 excellent steepings plus a couple of pretty good ones. This is fairly standard with most of the oolongs I like. Used 195 degree Fahreneheit water — any hotter may have brought out some bitterness.

The roast is very light .

Just like everything else I’ve tried from The Finest Brew, this one doesn’t disappoint. It really wasn’t what I expected from a tie guan yin, but nevertheless excellent.

Sipdown!

Thanks to Ubacat for giving me just enough of this tea for one session. I used this tea to baptize my new celadon gaiwan and mesh strainer from Yunnan Sourcing, and it was great! The dry leaf smelled a little musty, but when I drank the tea over several steeps, I tasted fresh grapes, lychee, and a hint of rose. Quite nice! Floral, fruity, somewhat dusty and soft.

I finally tried this tea with water from my bamboo charcoal.

First infusion was 15 sec with boiling water as per the website that had all the instructions on how to brew dan cong. This was the best this tea has ever tasted. It was honey sweet and peachy. All other infusions after that were a bit disappointing but not bad.

Here’s a picture of my brewing session.

http://instagram.com/p/-CkORONDNq/

I have LOADS of this tea in my cupboard and still trying to find the perfect brewing for it (I’m getting closer).

I know bamboo charcoal will change the PH of the water and bring out the honey notes in this tea. I bought some bamboo charcoal from Yunnan Sourcing just for that but haven’t tried it yet. I’ve been currently using a Brita filter because Hubby changed the filters for our kitchen tap and the water tasted worse than before! After much tracking down of what was affecting all my teas it turns out he had used a filter that ADDED a taste to water. I asked him why on earth would you want to add a taste to water??? It’s supposed to be tasteless. Well, he promised to change it and I know what that meant: could be weeks or months. So I got out a Brita filter and started filtering my water.

I was thinking today of this tea today and thought I would give it a try with the water from the Brita filter. It’s charcoal so wouldn’t the Dan Cong taste better? Well, it actually did! I brewed it gongfu and the first infusion was a bit honey and floral. After that it just settled for a plain roasted taste that never changed for each infusion. This website says to filter with a Brita filter AND boil the water with bamboo charcoal. I think I will give that try. AT least this tea is not spoiling by sitting in my cabinet so long. It’s just supposed to get better with age.

This is the kind of tea that I want to write a fake review about… but I cannot.

This leaf is quite beautiful and once you give it a nice few hot bats you can see the leaf pull away as it is rolled together. I really like the look and color, but the flavor isn’t anything unique. This was to be expected though, however I was hoping it would have something unique to offer such as dianhong balls do versus loose dianhong (this can vary though).

I am thankful to of tried this for sure, but I can’t say it is better than other greens that I have had… for grading it is hard because there is work done in regards to the preparation of making this tea, but shouldn’t a teas score come from the flavor and not the appearance of work put into it?

I went an entire workday without tea since it was my first day today… I do not advise that for anyone who is use to 15-28 cups a day. I feel like Tony Stark when he gets hit by an airplane; sure, I’m alive and all, but this sucks.

I grabbed this tea because I was not going to wait for the water to boil.
Somewhat dry with the mouth feel, but the taste is really smooth and the flavor is quite present in each sip which I really like to happen with my teas. However, for a green tea this is just good for me and not in my category of greatness.

This thing is huge…
I ended up only steeping this six times because I didn’t want to keep drinking it. It’s good, a nice sheng with less bitterness than many that I have drank.

I had a sample of this The Finest Brew sent me some time ago. I couldn’t find brewing instructions on their website and I couldn’t remember exactly how I brewed the last moonlight tea I have. So I started at 190F and brewed a few seconds.

It was good. Smooth and sweet. No bitterness. Had a bit of that hay taste that I get off of white but was strong and full bodied with a bit of malty flavour. There’s a bit of fruitiness in there too.

This one kind of reminded me of the one I got from the Ebay seller Goshopstreet. Both are great moonlight teas.

I had this tea yesterday and did quite a few infusions on it. It had some of that honey sweetness & apricot flavour I love in my shengs but there was this underlying bitterness that just wouldn’t go away. It was in every infusion. I was using high temperatures-near boiling. Some shengs are okay with that and others not so next time I will try the lower temperature. I won’t be rating this tea until I give it a try at the lower temperature.

I’ve never left a review on this tea. Maybe because I thought I brewed it wrong or it needed another chance before I did a review. I brewed a cup this morning – 1 tsp, 185F, 1.5 min, 8oz. The tea seemed flat and lacking in flavour. I could pick up the fruity notes in the aroma but it didn’t seem to come through in the flavour. I wonder if I’m just stuffed up this morning?

So I threw that out and brewed a new cup- 8oz, 175F, 1tsp, 1min. It might have been a little better than the other cup but the first few tastes were not that good. Now that I am more than halfway finished I am picking up more fruity notes and some of the nutty/buttery taste . This tea sure is fininky but as I get near the end of the cup it keeps tasting better. It’s like a Jeckyl and Hyde tea. The aroma gives the impression it will taste so good and the taste tends to fade in and out a bit becoming better as it cools.

I pulled this one out today because it will bring me down to 100 teas lol thus meeting my goal for the month. I’ve got no clue how i’ll manage April’s goal but we can pretend that it’ll happen. HA! This is a very “green” tea with oolongy notes. there’s sweetness to it though, that i DO like even if the tea as a whole isn’t my favourite. It’s not a bad little tea, i just wouldn’t want it all the time given MY preferences :) For those who enjoy a good dancong, i’d give this one a try :)

Anlina sent this one my way as well and i am impressed! This is a great offering from the Finest brew and one i’d like to pick up more of. Sweet potatoes, a little mal, very smooth brew. MMMM this was really nice! thanks Anlina!

As some of you might know, jin jun mei’s fall in to 2 categories for me – yes and no. lol They’re very hit and miss for me, but i continue to try various ones to see if there is a perfect one for me. This one, from Anlina falls on the “yes” side. this was a nice cup of tea yesterday – smooth and slightly smoky with a little sweetness on the side, sort of like sweet potatoes. All in all, a nice cup! thanks so much Anlina!

Whoa… This — this is definitely one of the best black teas I have ever had — and is by far the best Ceylon. It tastes like honey and cocoa. Reminds me slightly of an ice cream shop I went to as a child that sweetened its dark chocolate flavor with nothing but fresh honey. I used full on boiling water, and there is not even a sight hint of bitterness. Easiest black tea to drink without any milk that I’ve ever had — I tried it with and without, and milk doesn’t really add anything here.

I had left a sticky note on the tin of this tea to remind myself to slow down and enjoy this tea. :-) So that is what I am doing.

I can see why I slurped it so fast last time. It’s so darn good. It’s vegetal with a creamy feel to it. Nutty and sweet. I can even smell the slight nutty aroma. The creamy feel of it would make it an excellent afternoon tea but it’s still great for the morning.

Changed my rating. This is such a good tea.

I can’t believe I never left a review on this tea. It seems like there’s always something new in my cupboard to try. This is a good Long Jing- nutty , slightly sweet, vegetal. Honestly, I finished it too fast to really get a good review. I plan on sticking a sticky note on the tin for next time (to remind myself) so I can slow it down and do a better review. I really enjoyed it!