New Tasting Notes

This is an interesting combination, I’m not sure if if I’ve ever come across it before. The tea contains pieces of dried yuzu and the citrus note is quite strong. However, when brewed, the chocolate is more much prominent than the yuzu. It is present but certainly takes a back seat to the gourmand note. I also get a slight note of brown sugar. Overall, a nice take on a standard dessert tea. It’d go nicely with cake or fruit tarts.

The base is the typical Lupicia black tea, well-balanced and bright but can turn very astringent quickly if overbrewed.

I give it points for the uniqueness and overall drinkability but wish the yuzu were more prominent.

For a spring project, I decided to compare three Mingqian teas from three companies: Bi Luo Chun, Longjing, and Anji Bai Cha. The vendors were Teavivre, Treasure Green, and Seven Cups. I received my last shipment of tea on Thursday and did the Bi Luo Chun comparison session over the weekend.

Over the past few years, several people have recommended the green tea from Seven Cups. However, the cost to ship to Canada is high and the teas usually sell out within days, making it necessary to place multiple orders to get everything I wanted. I contacted the vendor and asked if they would hold some tea for me, and they generously agreed. I was able to get six spring teas over about a month, and while the shipping was high, I think it was worth it! This is the first pluck of their regular Bi Luo Chun.

Tea bush: Seed-grown Heirloom Quntizhong
Location: Jingtingzhen (Xishan Island), Suzhou
Picking date: First pluck, March 28-29, 2024
Price/g: US$2.00

For the session, I steeped 2.4 g of all three teas in 120 ml of 185F water, starting at 4 minutes. This produced very potent steeps! I later did a more typical session, steeping 3 g of leaf in 250 ml of 185F water starting at 4 minutes, refilling the cup as needed.

The dry aroma is of heady lilac, gardenia, magnolia, cantaloupe, pear, butter, and green beans. The first round gives me lilac and other spring flowers, heady gardenia and magnolia, buttered green beans, something nutty and cakey, cantaloupe, pear, and asparagus. I can also taste the fuzzy trichomes coming off these tiny silver snails. The middle steeps retain the lovely fruity/floral aroma, with herbs, asparagus, and lettuce. The tea is a bit drying at this point and has a lovely pear/fruity aftertaste. The final steeps have hints of orange, kale, those lovely florals, beans, minerals, and grass.

This is the only Bi Luo Chun that seemed more attenuated using my normal parameters than in the comparison session. The florals were softer, though still very noticeable, and the tea had the same mild bitterness in both scenarios.

This Bi Luo Chun immediately set itself apart by its heady floral aroma, and I’d say it was my favourite of the bunch. It had the most potent BLC fruitiness and florality, with florals similar to a gaoshan, along with some vegetal bitterness. The tea stood up the best to my heavy-handed steeping and actually seemed to benefit from it. At $2.00 per gram, I’m not surprised this made an impression on me, and it’s probably the one I’ll finish the fastest.

For a spring project, I decided to compare three Mingqian teas from three companies: Bi Luo Chun, Longjing, and Anji Bai Cha. The vendors were Teavivre, Treasure Green, and Seven Cups. I received my last shipment of tea on Thursday and did the Bi Luo Chun comparison session over the weekend.

I chose Treasure Green as one of my vendors because it had pre-orders for spring tea up in the first week of March and sold all three teas I was interested in. As a Vancouver-based vendor, it also had fast shipping, which turned out not to matter because the other vendors sent their tea much later.

Tea bush: Not specified
Location: Wuzhong, Jiangsu
Picking date: First week of March 2024
Price/g: US$1.23

For the session, I steeped 2.4 g of all three teas in 120 ml of 185F water, starting at 4 minutes. This produced very potent steeps! I later did a more typical session, steeping 3 g of leaf in 250 ml of 185F water starting at 4 minutes, refilling the cup as needed.

The dry aroma is of green beans, butter, orchids, and faint pear. The first round has notes of green beans, new peas, butter, cucumber, soft florals, asparagus, nuts, and other spring vegetables. The tea is quite soft and it’s hard to pick apart the flavours. I also get a fruity aftertaste similar to pear. Subsequent steeps are more cruciferous, with broccoli, asparagus, kale, minerals, sugar, pear, and pops of lemon. I get a bit of earthiness in the final steeps, along with soft florals, minerality, grass, and spring veggies.

Of the three teas I tried, this one stood out for its minerality, soft orchid florals, and cruciferous vegetables along with the predictable green beans. The tea was very soft, which made it pleasant to drink but hard to describe. I could definitely taste the fruity undertones, but those cruciferous veggies tended to drown them out. It was still a high-quality BLC.

For a spring project, I decided to compare three Mingqian teas from three companies: Bi Luo Chun, Longjing, and Anji Bai Cha. The vendors were Teavivre, Treasure Green, and Seven Cups. I received my last shipment of tea on Thursday and did the Bi Luo Chun comparison session over the weekend.

After my great experience with Teavivre’s Ming Qian Bi Luo Chun last year, it was inevitable that it would end up in this comparison. It’s a relatively pricy tea, but the least expensive of the three BLC in this set and also quite affordable for a Mingqian harvest.

Tea bush: Small-leaf tea bush species
Location: West Dongting Mountain, Wuzhong District, Suzhou City, Jiangsu
Picking date: March 15, 2024
Price/g: US$0.78

For the session, I steeped 2.4 g of all three teas in 120 ml of 185F water, starting at 4 minutes. This produced very potent steeps! I later did a more typical session, steeping 3 g of leaf in 250 ml of 185F water starting at 4 minutes, refilling the cup as needed.

The dry aroma is of green beans, green pepper, florals, butter, and nuts. The first steep is fuzzy and viscous, with notes of baby green beans, green pepper, cucumber, kale, florals, butter, chestnuts, and faint pear. Subsequent steeps reveal more fresh spring veggies, including beans, green pepper, and asparagus, plus nuts, orchid florals, pear, butter, and a bit of citrus. The tea is surprisingly sweet in spite of all the veggies. The final steeps are nutty, grassy, mineral, vegetal, and still fairly sweet, with hints of florals and fruit here and there.

Of the three Bi Luo Chun, this one is the most vegetal, with the fewest floral or fruity hints. Either they were less prominent than in the spring 2023 version, or the other teas made me notice them less. Either way, I enjoyed the springlike, beany, nutty character of this tea and I think it fared pretty well against its more expensive competitors.

Sipdown! (14 | 27)

This one mostly tasted like cherry candy flavor, so it wasn’t a favorite for me. Still drinkable since overall it’s quite light. I’m also confused as to why Adagio would pick cherry for a Snow White tea, wouldn’t apple be more appropriate?

Last month, toward the end of my first social work internship, one of my fellow interns gifted me a few teas she’d picked up at Leaf and Petal, a tea shop in rural Virginia. She and I connected over our shared love of tea early on, so when she stumbled on the shop, she said she thought of me because I was the only other person she knew who’d nerd out over the find! :)

Leaf and Petal lists the vendor for this blend as Gnat and Bee, so I’m confident I’m reviewing the correct blend. It’s a really beautiful tisane, with pops of color from lavender, rose, and chamomile. I expected the flavor to be muddled — there’s a lot going on! — but it actually works nicely. It’s a very smooth, full-bodied blend, with a hint of sweetness even though it’s not sweetened. Spearmint dominates, followed by chamomile and a bit of lavender and rose. I’m not picking up on the cinnamon chips but perhaps they’ll come through as it cools.

I like but don’t love chamomile, so the fact that it’s playing second fiddle here is very appealing to my palate.

My stomach’s been a bit upset tonight, and this is helping! A really lovely pre-bed cuppa.

Amoda again!

This is actually quite nice. I love apricot and I feel like the white base here suits it better than the usual black. The ginger is also fairly well-balanced, it’s noticeable and gives a nice earthy note, but doesn’t overpower the apricot.

Light and tasty. I don’t think I’ll go out of my way to order it, but it’s the type of tea that I would pick up if I happened to be ordering already.

My infatuation with GLL has worn off a little since the blend was new, but I’m the fickle one, not the tea. Still right on target with the pastry flavor, but I’ve been pastry-ing for a month (birthday, end-of-year celebrations at work, Mothers’ Day goodies). Something a little less desserty and more citrusy may be what my oversaturated tastebuds need…any suggestions?

Sipdown!

I have had this hot and cold, and I think I prefer it as an iced tea. It has a bit of tartness but not enough to scare me off. It is a fairly interesting herbal blend.

So I have to admit, I can’t help but compare this to Premium Taiwanese Assam from Whispering Pines. They have too much similarity. However, this just doesn’t really measure up. Don’t get me wrong, its not bad at all, but it is lacking is comparison.

Dry leaf smell really reminds me of buttered bread. The scent of the wet leaf almost gives me the impression of burnt sugar. That’s not a great description, but its the best I can come up with right now. Its like its something I know, but I just can’t make the correct connection.

As for flavor its not bad. There’s a little dryness or astringency, but is slight and really only noticeable as it cools. There’s a little sweetness, mostly in the back of the sip and aftertaste.

I’m really struggling to describe the flavor. Its like I can feel there is something it reminds me of but I am struggling to make that connection.

Will have to try again soon and see if it comes to me another day. Maybe I am just trying too hard today.

Resteeps pretty well. By the fifth steep however, the dryness stands out a lot more than it did the first three.

I love the minty aftertaste on this! it’s great not to have an annoying inner voice saying that anything mint tastes like toothpaste

friend (well, sister-in-law) gifted me this tea bag, as she knows I adore berry teas
once upon a time, this was my favorite tea, but now it brings me back to a bad relationship
it’s hard to drink, however, I can’t let him take this away from me
so, here’s to linking this tea to new memories!

This was a Mother’s Day gift from Superanna. Many thanks for a new “must have” tea!

On Sunday, I noticed the cherry first and there was an undercurrent of berry with a candy-like note to the berry flavor that I couldn’t pin down. I think it was the raspberry! It was so good I ordered more last night because it is a seasonal tea and I don’t to spend almost a year without it!

I made it again today to see if it was really as magical as we thought or was it the moment?
Today the salted cherry leaf was more noticeable than before, maybe because this time I know it is there and looked for it. But really, it was more prominent and it gives the tea real presence so you can drink it at breakfast even though both Nilgiri and Darjeeling are lighter black teas. This might even be Sakura Premium with flavors added.

Very good, and will probably be gone long before it comes available again.

This one is so interesting! It definitely tastes like graveyard mist, but fruitier, almost tropical. I might enjoy it even more?? It’s nice and bright and unique.

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – May 2024 Tea #2 – Your tea closest to sipdown

This one was closest to a sipdown… because I just sipped it down. :D What looks like a small amount of leaves sure unravels A LOT.  This was an okay tea, but I expected more aromatic, if it’s in the name.  And the flavor really wasn’t very strong for the infuser basket being half full of leaves.  I have liked other snails more than this one.  But this certainly has the characteristics and flavor of keemun…. but very very light keemun. 
2024 sipdowns: 38

A very typical genmai cha, with a grassy (if rather weak) standard quality green and puffed brown rice imparting a popcorn-like note. This tastes like a generic grocery store genmaicha and I just had to laugh when I saw it was $16 for 20 bags. That is ludicrous and you would have to be utterly barmy to pay that. Go to an Asian supermaket and get the Yamamoto Yama Genmaicha for a better tea at less than a quarter of the price. You’d even do better with the mass-market Itoen 500g bag for less than this.

It’s good but it’s certainly nothing that I haven’t tasted before.
It’s giving me Forever Nuts by DAVIDsTea vibes.
The flavours taste exactly as the listed ingredients, apple, cinnamon and hibiscus.
I don’t understand why they called it Almond Cookie though. There are no nuts in the mix at all (although I can imagine it) but the cookie part is non-existent and totally reaching.
I’ll have no trouble getting through my box but I wouldn’t purchase again.

From my very first Amoda box. I wasn’t really looking for a new tea subscription, but a couple of TeaTubers I follow had codes for 40% off your first box, so I figured I would give it a try!

This one sounded good, with the coffee combined with cocoa and almond, but really all I’m tasting is the black tea and the coffee/chicory. Maybe a little bit of extra earthiness from the puerh. I feel like it really needs those sweeter flavors to make it interesting and balance out the toasty and acidic notes. As-is, it’s sort of just watered down coffee ha ha.

For this large mug of tea I used one of these bigger sized pearls and a few pieces of the cinnamon bark. It took a little while for the pearl to open up so I worried that maybe I’d over brewed the cup, but it was pretty perfect! Very full bodied and brisk black tea base but also really rich and malty with some nice chocolate-y undertones. The yunnan pearls Anne uses are quite decadent on their own, but layered with this rich cinnamon note and the syrupy maple flavours the blend is spot on for its namesake. Just highly, highly enjoyable.

Made this at work today since I was largely just in the mood for simple, “pure play” type flavoured blends. This one is smooth and just a little cozy with a pretty non-complex baked apple flavour. It’s the kind of tea where my impression could pretty drastically very from day to day depending on what kind of mood I’m in – but today I really leaned into the softer flavours and directness of the tea.

Made this one over the weekend in the morning because I was craving that “Just Peachy” style of bright, juicy and slightly tangy Fuzzy Peach-like fruit note, but I also definitely needed a little caffeine and that bit of added focus from the green mate base. The subtle twist of ripe strawberry was also nice, though this is absolutely a peach forward blend.

Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.

Iced Latte!

We were making matcha infused whipped cream at work today over lunch, and one of the flavours we made was banana. So, of course, I couldn’t turn down the oppertunity to have an iced banana matcha (happy Matcha Monday!) topped with banana matcha whipped cream. It was so good! Very, very rich but also quite fresh since the whipped cream was practically unsweetened save for the small amount of cane sugar in this semi sweetened matcha formulation – so that added an interesting twist. Kind of banana cream pie vibes overall.

Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.