New Tasting Notes

I forgot how good this flavor is! This is the HT sachet version, which might be the same as other versions listed on Harney’s site, or the several duplicated and mis-spelled entries here on Steepster. At first, years ago, I thought it tasted artificial; really that is just how black currants taste! Even more delicious when taken with nibbles of chocolate-coated Butter Keks. Even though my tin passed the FB date years ago, it retains the wonderful aroma and taste! Oh yea, I can taste the base black tea too, but it’s not the point of this tea. I’ll rate it as 81, and recommend.

Another tea from the Chicago Tea Festival. These guys are fun to talk to. Unfortunately, whoever was walking around taking pictures caught my face in an extremely weird angle and pose while talking to them.
Anyway… a bird got stuck in my bunny netting, and it smelled awful. I’m taking a timeout to drink some tea.

Dry aroma: There is a hint of something, but it is far too faint to really give it a name.
Rinse: Old wood house (1800s) and charcoal
Flavor: 1800s wooden house. Cream of wheat. Charcoal. When steeped longer, the charcoal notes really punch you in the face. There are also notes of wet wood after a fire.
Mouthfeel: Very smooth with less time. On longer steepings, there is some astringency that hits with an almost acidic type of feel. (Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it seems, but that is my best way to describe it.)
Aroma cup: What is going on in here? It’s like dark red berries are having a bonfire. Not quite cherry but more like a currant perhaps? I want to travel more just so I can smell all the things.
Wet Leaf: Musty 1800s house. A bit of water damage. Slight fruity with charcoal.

Steeped my second and final bag of this for 3 minutes. Prior notes still hold true, but I find the tea really flat this time. Lacking sparkle. To some extent it’s expected in a straight, unflavored tea, but I simply want better, even from a paper tea bag. Reducing my rating a point, to 59.

Readily available, reliable, inexpensive and adequate. Foil wrapper keeps the freshness and sanitation during travel. Odd that Bigelow tells us more about the bergamot than the base tea! The only clue their website gives is lip service to 1 bud / 2 leaves, and being from “high in the mountains.” It does have a smooth finish and my 2-min infusion was not astringent, yet was full-flavored. I got no assamic maltiness, nor spice and zing of Keemun, nor cedar or mint of a Ceylon. But for some reason I’m leaning toward it being a Ceylon, possibly blended with a less famous region such as Tanzania or Myanmar. But the bergamot stars here, and it’s nicely balanced. I must admit that I buy it frequently because it’s easy to grab at the grocery store and keep in the desk drawer at work. And I like it. I can’t rate it less than 80, and feel compelled to recommend — lest I become a bigger hypocrite than I already am!

TTB 2025
I brewed this hot and stuck it in the fridge. It’s fruity and buttery with a hint of mint. Is it the morninga I’m thinking is buttery? It’s refreshing and not a whole lot of rose. Thanks for adding it to the box.

Wuyi Ensemble. Adagio.
Lot no: 85424. FB: n/a.

Variously called Da Hong Pao, or Big Red Robe, or Rock Oolong, this is a type of tea I’ve battled before from several other vendors. I prepared Western style, as directed, using the entire 3.5 grams of dry leaf (smelled of seaweed) in 8 oz 190°F spring water for 3 min, resteeping once for 5 min. Yes, I could taste toastiness like toasted rice, minerality, floral and vegetal notes, aroma and flavors of kelp, and a sweet lengthy aftertaste of fruity flowers. It was like a floral sushi roll: a bundle of wilted orchids rolled up in toasted sesame rice in a nori (seaweed) wrapper, dipped in soy sauce. But only a quarter of the strength you are imagining. The flavors were too subtle for my liking, even though it was many times stronger than the BRR from Tealyra that I disliked and reported on two weeks ago. The resteep was similar but weaker. I would not waste time or spring water running a gongfu session on it, and I can feel my resentment toward this type of tea building, so I better stop here. Rating as 25 and not recommending, out of spite (toward the tea type, not Adagio which is likely blameless!)

July Sipdown Prompt – your oldest green tea

I love this tea, so why did I let it get past the best by date? I have such a tendency to reach for black tea or flavored greens that I don’t get around to my unflavored greens.

Nowhere near a sipdown, but I will continue to drink this as a big glass of cold tea this summer so I will have an excuse to buy fresh…and drink it on time.

I’ve gone through my bags from Whittard quickly. I combined 3 teabags, and used a nurri vanilla protein shake as a cream. Weirdly, it worked. This is the first time a protein shake combo with tea didn’t taste terrible.

I got this two months ago, and I can’t decide on how I feel about it. I nearly picked a Taiwan Baozhong done in a Dancong style. I had too many Dancongs samples I’ve barely touched, so I opted for something I thought was going to be sweeter.

I’ve only done this western once and gong fu once, though I didn’t get to many differences. Gong Fu was a little bit more floral, western was more filled out and preferable. In terms of taste, it’s a bougie tasting Dianhong that’s not super expensive. Extremely woody and heavy on the sandalwood department in a bright red malty body. I can kinda see the coconut. Not so much with the lavender, but it’s got a floral quality that’s bordering herbaceous like some lavender.

Main criticism was that it was drying. Granted, I already know I prefer Taiwanese and Fujian Blacks anyway. Weirdly, I thought it was better cold. I should cold brew it some time. I recommend it for yunnan lovers for sure, though I’m not decided on my rating or enjoyment yet. I was expecting something a little bit more comforting.

Sipdown of the Fushoushan, and this one I’m plugging away at. I’ve gotten too many black teas yet again and not enough oolongs. Then again, I have expensive taste in oolongs. This year is a lot more floral for 2025. Plumeria leaning. The Fushou was fruiter, and so was the 2024 harvest. I thought 2025 was supposed to be better? My Wang ones were. This is still in the 97-100 range, moreso 97.

This was a free sample with my order, thank you!

It’s a nice enough blend. I taste mostly the jasmine and peach flavor, with only a hint of bergamot. I definitely don’t notice the lavender. There is a touch of a powdery something, not sure if that’s just the rose petals or something in the flavoring.

Pleasant, and definitely makes sense for a whimsical tea party, but it’s just nothing special in my opinion. I would rather have plain jasmine pearls, or the peach ones from Teavivre.

Another single serving.

This one smelled good in the package, but it’s just not working for me. For some reason it came out quite bland, even though I only made an 8-ounce cup and there were about two teaspoons of leaf. I can smell the apple, but it’s not showing up well in the flavor, and the black base is coming off as unpleasantly musty. Then the hibiscus comes in at the end and leaves an unpleasant dryness on my tongue (in combination with the black tea tannins, I assume). There’s also a weird powdery finish, and a hint of soap?

Just no on all accounts ha ha, oh well!

The first steep was so sweet I felt like I was drinking fruit juice, later on more of the tannins come out. Nice and complex, with a variety of different fruit and floral flavors and a long aftertaste. Medium body, not very sticky. The wet leaves smell smoky and earthy, but I’m not really picking that up in the liquor. I prefer second flush Darjeelings overall to first flush, I find them more flavorful.

Sipdown

July Sipdown Challenge Prompt – an herbal tisane

This has added such lovely lemony flavor to plain decaf iced tea this summer. It was nice to have it jazzed up for a while! So nice that I have purchased some lemongrass to add to ginger and replicate it!

I have had this hot and plain, iced with sugar, and mixed with sweet black tea. It was tasty every way I had it.

Thanks again to Martin for sending it!

Wow, I was definitely shocked by this one. For context, I have not tried a lot from Kusmi, mainly just samples and from tea swaps. It’s not usually a company I would seek out when going to make a new order but I think it will be now.

I ended up picking up a tin of this from IGA when I was in Montreal as well as a teabag sampler of Anastasia. I wasn’t expecting much because one of my friends that tried it said and I quote: “It’s just a bougie Earl Grey”…. UM NO! I don’t think it is. Yes, there is bergamot. Yes, it maybe could be considered an Earl Grey. However, the berry and caramel notes make it almost taste like the old travel sweets my Nonna used to carry around in a tin. It feels very nostalgic and comforting to me. I did get a 100g tin of this… but I might have to get more soon.

The black tea is a bit too mild. It’s not bad, I would just like it to be heartier. I made another cup of this and added sugar free peach syrup, and I enjoyed that!

Trying to finish off this stale order of Keemun Mao Feng Premium Chinese black tea, now six months past its “Best By” date. The leaf is shiny and jet-black in appearance, large cut rolled needles about 1 cm long, without dust or crumbs. Still delicious with notes of chocolate, strong typical keemun flavor, sweet, smooth and only slightly astringent in todays 5-minute Western-style steep of 2.3 g leaf in 8 oz boiling spring water. Head-over-heels better than Harney’s standard (non-Mao Feng keemun) English Breakfast teabag, which I just finished and reviewed. Today’s longer steep was in order to compare with Harney’s prep guidelines, but I know this is even better with a shorter 1–2 min steep and single resteep, both at a lower temp (thanking Ashmanra for the steeping temp. suggestion, elsewhere). This is fine tea!

It usually takes me a while to figure out what’s going on with a tea- tasting notes don’t come to me naturally. But when I opened my bag of this tea today, I was hit immediately with a recognizable scent: INTENSE dried cranberries! It remained after steeping too, which also brought out hints of oats and chocolate. It does not blow me away, but it’s a unique, bold, and engaging black tea.

Yet another foil-wrapped paper teabag of uncertain age, from the loose-ends bin of a local tea shoppe. Note that this is the classic 100% Chinese keemun version of EB, and not the “HT” or “royal” blends, which contain different base teas. This version is presently also available as silken sachets, loose in tins, or in bulk bags. Also note that Harney sells higher grades of Keemun (see “Mao Feng” and “Hao Ya” offerings).

I steeped as directed: 1 teabag (about 2.2 g leaf) in 8 oz. boiling spring water for 5 min. The dry leaf had a soft aroma of keemun black tea, which became more pronounced when steeped. In the dark amber-colored liquor, I found the particular malty keemun flavor to be gently present, albeit not as fruity or spicy as other premium keemuns I enjoy. This was a strong, thick black tea with a nice long finish, a caffeine punch, and a refreshing astringency. While I might choose this in a pinch, from of an offering of straight black teabags for teatime, I would not again choose a teahouse where this was the best black tea offered. It was free of major defects and certainly an improvement over plain hot water, but only in the same class as Lipton’s “orange pekoe and pekoe cut” black teabags. Not worthy of a silken sachet. I would rate this as 60 and neither recommend nor condemn, but not buy again.

Woo-hoo! This is my 200th tea note!

Lemon Spice Cookie Blend!

I wanted a fennel based blend, and had the thought of the pizzelle cookies my husband’s family makes at christmas time. They are usually flavored with lemon and/or aniseseed, but fennel is similar enough in flavor that I thought it would work. I also added some ginger because I love ginger. So the base is fennel, marshmallow root, and ginger and the flavor concentrates are mostly lemonade and cookie. The flavor balance between the lemon, cookie, and spices turned out really nice! The cookie is maybe a little more buttery than your typical pizzelle, but it is delicious and close enough to the inspiration that I am really happy with it. In fact, I would love to see this particular flavor combination of lemon, anise/fennel, and ginger in an actual cookie!

I iced this, but I’m sure it would be great hot as well!

This is another tea shared with my by thereadersteacup! And she shared such an incredibly generous amount of it, too! Honestly, I can’t even tell you how big my smile was seeing this one, and it got even bigger smelling the dry leaf. Oh, I was drooling! I absolutely love root beer flavoured things, and this smells exactly like popping the cap off a bottle of Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer. If you’ve never tried that brand, it’s one of the best. Such a treat from my childhood!

Steeped up, the smell wafting off the cup was just as mouthwatering though the taste was more black tea forward with a strongly tannic bite to the sip followed by more of a malty, bready sort of note. I wish the sarsaparilla and the overall creamy “float-like” qualities were a little stronger, but it wasn’t as if they were missing. Just more of a backseat to the black tea. Frankly, that’s arguably how it should be. It’s just rough being such a root beer fan and getting drawn in by that heavenly dry leaf aroma. A little sweetener and maybe a short steep time would likely pull all of that root beer goodness more to the forefront.

This is a sachet that thereadersteacup was kind enough to share with me!

This summer I’ve been really, really spoiled by having a lot of very fresh, very high quality Japanese green tea available to me thanks to my coworkers who visited Japan earlier this year. I’m not even historically a big drinker of green tea, but I’ve been more open to it in the last month than maybe ever before.

Unfortunately, this tea kind of felt like a step backwards from all that progress I feel I’ve been making with this style of tea. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was just very coarse with more of a blunt feeling hay note than the rich umami flavours that have become a guilty pleasure of mine. That said, I still drank the full mug which is more than I think I would have a year ago. And if I didn’t have such recent memories of a much higher grade of sencha so fresh in my head, then maybe I could have been even more on board with this tea…