Freebie with my latest order — thank you!
I don’t remember much about this either. I followed Song Tea’s brewing parameters for this tea and it flattened all the high notes. It was smooth, sweet and a little dry-roasty. Overbrewed yet pleasant. I would need more and prepared with my own parameters to see how I feel.
Flavors: Dry, Fruity, Malt, Red Fruits, Roasty, Smooth, Sweet, Thin, Wood
Preparation
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I’d be interested to hear what you got from Song. Did you buy more of that Ruby Eighteen? I was also very intrigued by their White Dragonwell, which is a blend of Longjing and Anji Bai Cha.
FWIW, Song’s Eighteen is my absolute favorite unflavored black – there is nothing you can’t do with that tea: hot, iced, milk, straight, gongfu, western, it always comes through. I just went out to San Fran last month and visited the storefront. They didn’t have Eighteen, but I picked up “A Different Eighteen” and “Ruby” which they had brewed up in the shop and was delicious. Neither of these are Eighteen, and the names can be confusing, but I would vouch for getting your hands on some Eighteen once it comes out.
Oops, I was actually talking about A Different Eighteen. I didn’t know they had multiple versions of Ruby Eighteen.
Yep! They have Eighteen, Ruby, and A Different Eighteen. The Eighteen hasn’t been available in awhile, but I always try to keep an eye out for it. A little expensive as teas go, but so good it’s well worth the money. I haven’t opened A Different Eighteen yet, but once I do, I’ll review it on Steepster to give my thoughts on it.
Wow, a Ruby trifecta! :) I’d love to get my hands on some of these teas!
It’s interesting that you compared the White Dragonwell to chicken soup. I was hoping for the floral/citrus notes of an Anji Bai Cha combined with the nuttiness of a Longjing.
I couldn’t close my tea cupboard door the other day, so I understand about sipdown goals. In hindsight, buying over 300 g of green tea for my big comparison project has created some inventory issues. :P
@Sakura Sushi, you wrote “Yep! They have Eighteen, Ruby, and A Different Eighteen”. From what I’ve read on Song’s website, the tea they’re (unfortunately) calling “Ruby” isn’t the “TTES #18 Hong Yu (Ruby), cross between Taiwanese wild tea tree (B-607) and a Burmese assamica (B-729)”.
Instead, Song writes “Ruby’s base cultivar is unique to this tea maker. It is a variant of the qing xin cultivar, grown from seed rather than cloned.”. Teapedia.org notes that Qing Xin is AKA “green heart”. To further confuse matters, Song has other offerings based on the Qing Xin cultivar, such as the oolongs “Green Heart” and “April 30 Gold”. It is unclear to me whether or not the variant used for “Ruby” is TTES #6, “a wilde hybride of Qing Xin.”
In any event, @Leafhopper, your trifecta seems to be a duo, plus something else.
You’re right, my ruby trifecta was wishful thinking. Ruby seems to be an Alishan Hong Shui with some oxidation and roasting. The name was kind of confusing.
I would like to think that nobody intends to confuse. It is possibly an issue of translation or vocabulary. But in any language there are homonyms and synonyms and multiple meanings of a word that are only clear in particular usage contexts. Even in my native Americanized English there are concepts that we simply have no word for, and we’re stuck using a borrowed word: “The Germans have a word for this….” And then there are always simple mistakes and forgetfulness, not to mention typos that go uncorrected!
I’d be interested to hear what you got from Song. Did you buy more of that Ruby Eighteen? I was also very intrigued by their White Dragonwell, which is a blend of Longjing and Anji Bai Cha.
FWIW, Song’s Eighteen is my absolute favorite unflavored black – there is nothing you can’t do with that tea: hot, iced, milk, straight, gongfu, western, it always comes through. I just went out to San Fran last month and visited the storefront. They didn’t have Eighteen, but I picked up “A Different Eighteen” and “Ruby” which they had brewed up in the shop and was delicious. Neither of these are Eighteen, and the names can be confusing, but I would vouch for getting your hands on some Eighteen once it comes out.
Oops, I was actually talking about A Different Eighteen. I didn’t know they had multiple versions of Ruby Eighteen.
Yep! They have Eighteen, Ruby, and A Different Eighteen. The Eighteen hasn’t been available in awhile, but I always try to keep an eye out for it. A little expensive as teas go, but so good it’s well worth the money. I haven’t opened A Different Eighteen yet, but once I do, I’ll review it on Steepster to give my thoughts on it.
Wow, a Ruby trifecta! :) I’d love to get my hands on some of these teas!
It’s interesting that you compared the White Dragonwell to chicken soup. I was hoping for the floral/citrus notes of an Anji Bai Cha combined with the nuttiness of a Longjing.
I couldn’t close my tea cupboard door the other day, so I understand about sipdown goals. In hindsight, buying over 300 g of green tea for my big comparison project has created some inventory issues. :P
@Sakura Sushi, you wrote “Yep! They have Eighteen, Ruby, and A Different Eighteen”. From what I’ve read on Song’s website, the tea they’re (unfortunately) calling “Ruby” isn’t the “TTES #18 Hong Yu (Ruby), cross between Taiwanese wild tea tree (B-607) and a Burmese assamica (B-729)”.
Instead, Song writes “Ruby’s base cultivar is unique to this tea maker. It is a variant of the qing xin cultivar, grown from seed rather than cloned.”. Teapedia.org notes that Qing Xin is AKA “green heart”. To further confuse matters, Song has other offerings based on the Qing Xin cultivar, such as the oolongs “Green Heart” and “April 30 Gold”. It is unclear to me whether or not the variant used for “Ruby” is TTES #6, “a wilde hybride of Qing Xin.”
In any event, @Leafhopper, your trifecta seems to be a duo, plus something else.
You’re right, my ruby trifecta was wishful thinking. Ruby seems to be an Alishan Hong Shui with some oxidation and roasting. The name was kind of confusing.
I would like to think that nobody intends to confuse. It is possibly an issue of translation or vocabulary. But in any language there are homonyms and synonyms and multiple meanings of a word that are only clear in particular usage contexts. Even in my native Americanized English there are concepts that we simply have no word for, and we’re stuck using a borrowed word: “The Germans have a word for this….” And then there are always simple mistakes and forgetfulness, not to mention typos that go uncorrected!