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DRAGONHELL. (Time to play some obligatory Dragonforce to get you in the mood for the epicness of the following review, and just cause it sounds cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc9_U-RBSuk)

I have heard terrifying things about Dragonwell. Salty water. Bitter. Astringent. BLECH.

I was joking around the other day about this particular tea, and apparently the universe was listening to me, because it dumped it in my lap! One of my sister’s friends gave this to her for Christmas, and my sister shoved it onto me. A 4.3 oz tin of Dragonwell of unknown origins. Probably from Chinatown, since the entire package is almost all in Chinese. No steeping parameters, no… nothing. Just pure terror.

So I bit the bullet and tried this, expecting a really bad tea experience. Before I dive into all the awesome tea in my house, I might as well have something mediocre, right? This tin was actually a lot less ghetto than I thought it would be. It’s double-lidded! Yay!

I asked some informed people, and did 2 tsps per cup (I made some for my boyfriend as well). I used the awesome digital thermometer that takgoti sent me (!!!) and waited for the water to drop down to 160. The dry leaf on this smells, as the boyfriend said, “Like all green tea – like a fish tank.” This amused me, but only made me more worried for what I was about to try. He only made it worse when he said, “It’s drink or die time!”

The resulting brew is a pale infusion, a gentle yellow. I took the first sip… and you know what? It really wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Not salty at all. More like the second steep of a gunpowder. I guess this is Chinese green tea! It’s not really sweet at all… a bit briny, but nothing awful and tongue-curling. I found it pretty easy to sip on as I set up the Roku I bought for my parents.

Really not terrifying as it could have been! I’m pleasantly surprised, actually. I mean, this is definitely not something that I’d want to drink all the time. At all. It’s very…. blah, in a lot of ways. But it’s way better than bagged green tea, and it was drinkable. I finished my cup.

I LOVE TAKGOTI AND AUGGY. LOVE THEM LOVE THEM. This must be known, to everyone. Sorry if this is coming off as a bit incoherent but takgoti just sent me the hugest box of tea known to man. And I’m all weepy and excited and happy and wonderific.

So, how do you rate a tea when you don’t like the main flavoring agent?

I hate melons. Like, really really hate them. The taste of them makes me want to gag, actually. I don’t like their texture. Honeydew? Nope. Cantaloupe? EW. Watermelon? Gross! (Yeah I know, I dislike watermelon, I’m weird, blahblahblah).

So when I opened the GM sample of this, I immediately smelled melon. Ripe, fresh melon. Mixed in with a sweetness that must’ve been the white tea base. Very pretty, but very…melon. I wasn’t that happy, but I dumped the entire sample into my pot and got it cooking. Or steeping, rather.

The resulting tea was a beautiful color. A darker white tea than most, like a very light copper. And the fragrance must be mouth-watering for a melon-lover, but for me… I just wrinkled my nose.

The first sip was a bit… interesting, to say the least. It’s pretty much straight melon, with a nice white tea base. It tastes like a hybrid version of a cantaloupe and honeydew, but actually comes closer to Midori in taste than either. I can actually stomach Midori in small doses, but yeah. I finished the cup, but I can’t say I really enjoyed it. I wouldn’t order it again, but it was extremely high-quality! And tasted just like melon! So if you love melon, I’m sure you’ll love this.

My mom kept sipping it, smiling, and going, “Mmmmmm” over and over again.

This one was so difficult to rate. But there it is!

And OMG TAKGOTI AND AUGGY LOVE FOR REAL.

So. Pretty!

I’m finding that I really love the way teas with golden tips look. The black and gold just look so amazing and beautiful together… it really makes the experience all the more worthwhile.

Anyway, when I opened this little packet by GM this morning, I was hit with a lot of different and complex yummy notes. Earthy, fruity, dark, complex. Even some sweetness thrown in there for good measure.

The wiry leaves are very pretty; the whole thing just looks high-quality. So I steeped up a teaspoon of this in the IngenuiTEA. The leaves didn’t expand all that much, but they did unfurl a bit, and the resulting cup was a deep copper. Not as dark as some Irish Breakfasts I’ve seen, but still fairly dark.

On first sip I was in happyland. There’s actually a lot of complexity in this cup. It’s fairly smooth at the forefront of the sip, with lots of notes of fruit, and a slight subtle sweetness. As you swallow, a subtle maltiness presents itself, with just a bit of astringency. There’s a lot of the earthy flavors that are present in most blacks. I have no idea what prunes taste like, so I couldn’t find that in my tea. But I could see the cherry, and even perhaps some honey as an aftertaste. There is a mild sweet component to this tea, which I liked. It’s a fairly complex and subtle black by itself, so I don’t think this is one IB that you’d want to put milk into immediately.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t more of a malty “kick” that I associate strongly with a good Irish Breakfast, but the interesting flavors that kept peeking out of this cup more than made up for that lack. It tastes like it’s high quality, and I think it could function on two levels: as a daily drinker, and as a fun, tasting journey as you try to nail all of those components that are highlighted in each sip.

I got home from Christmas at my aunt’s house not too long ago, and I really wanted to tear into some of the tea I got for Christmas. But it was soooo late, that I definitely couldn’t have anything with caffeine. So I opened up this sample that TeaGschwendner gave me, complimentary with my order from them (and they included a personalized note and it was signed, by a real person). I figured, what the heck, it’s Christmas, and this is an Eggnog tea, and eggnog is pretty much THE Christmas beverage.

When I opened up the little resealable package, I was immediately hit with the scent of eggnog. Like, real, honest-to-goodness eggnog. If you had blindfolded me and put this under my nose, I would have thought there was a glass of eggnog near my face. It’s rich and creamy smelling.

This is the first time that I saw rooibos up close and personal, loose-leaf style. The only other rooibos I’ve ever had was that ROT Dream by the Fire blend, which I really didn’t enjoy. I could smell something similar in this bag to the ROT bag, so I figure that’s what rooibos smells like! Woodsy sweet.

Anyway, I steeped this up, and the resulting infusion was a beautiful sunset burnt orange. The smell coming off the liquod had a rooibos slant, but the eggnog was the dominant aroma. I’m not the hugest fan of eggnog, but I really do like Silk’s rendition of it.

On my first sip, I was quite surprised. It’s mild and smooth, and almost creamy-like. The eggnog doesn’t hit you until the tail end of the sip, and it tastes very convincing and natural. Like someone poured some eggnog into my rooibos. The effect was a bit uncanny and disconcerting. It’s a fairly sweet flavored tea, so I wouldn’t add any additional sugar (not that I ever add any to begin with). The eggnog flavoring definitely doesn’t overpower the taste of the rooibos, which I think I’m starting to get a feeling for on its own. I think I’m actually enjoying the taste. It’s fairly mild and sweet, even though it sort of looks like pencil sharpener shavings.

I sipped this with the boyfriend as we chatted about Christmas, and it just felt very snuggly and homey. I don’t think that I’d be able to drink this on a daily basis, for sure. It’s extremely seasonal. But it’s a really fun substitute for eggnog. One of those teas you curl up next to a fire on a cold winter’s night. And a perfect cap to this dreary Christmas evening!

Christmas day, w00t! Merry Christmas, Steepster (even though it’s nearly 1 am here and that’d make it December 26th, but who’s counting?!)!

LOTS of tea given to me as presents today! My TeaGschwendner order and Harney & Sons order were sitting under my tree, wrapped by my mom. And the boyfriend suprised me with a bunch of stuff, including the Art of Tea Dessert sampler I was eyeing in the Steepster Select a few days ago! YAY! Can I say yay again? YAY! Super-over-abundance of tea.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to drink a lot today at all, since I was out for most of the day. But I did manage to have some of this peppermint during dessert time at my aunt’s house. Honestly, this tasted pretty much like nothing. No flavor whatsoever. I could have cared less, though, because I was eating my mom’s famous apricot tarts and my aunt’s walnut tarts, so it really didn’t make a difference WHAT I was drinking.

But much Christmas happiness overall!

Christmas Eve dessert time at my grandmother’s house, and this was the only tea she had in the cupboard. Since everyone else was drinking coffee (and I hate coffee), I steeped this up to join in on the hot beverage fun.

And let me tell you, this really didn’t taste like anything. At all. I kept steeping it and steeping it, worried that it was going to get bitter (as bagged tea really does if you keep it in the water too long), but that NEVER happened. I kept tasting it and tasting it, and the flavor was not there. By the 6 minute mark, I just pulled the bag and drank it. It’s hard to even have an opinion on this, since it’s pretty flavorless and inoffensive. It’s so flavorless and inoffensive that I kind of dislike it, a lot.

But the tea was NOT important at all. Being with my family on Christmas Eve was the important thing. The bad tea was inconsequential!

DUN DUN DUN….

Pu-erh. The dreaded tea with the reputation that would make you want to run for the hills. Fishy tastes and smells. Bird feathers/droppings, nail clippings. Earth and dirt.

Needless to say, I was terrified to try this one. But I mustered up the courage and cut open that packet from GM. Then I hesitantly, very carefully, took a little sniff. You know what? This doesn’t smell bad at all! I thought to myself. It’s very earthy and rich and deep, with an almost bake-y smell. It’s very difficult to describe. The overall smell is similar to a black tea, but it smelled… aged. In a good way. Like an old, leather-bound book. Friendly, almost.

So I began to feel a bit more confident about the cup that awaited me. The leaves don’t do all that much in the pot, and they’re pretty plain looking, but a bit thicker-looking than most blacks (and they are jet black with some brown intertwined). The cup that this steeps up to be is DARK. A deep, deep amber, that you can only see as transparent if you stick it in direct sunlight. Otherwise, it looks like your spoon as disappeared into the black lagoon.

With lots of trepidation, I look the sip, and I was shocked at how inoffensive this was! Then I took another sip, and I thought, mmmmm. Boy is this tea complex. Infinitely smooth, with no astringency, and ridiculously sippable. Now onto the taste, which is so layered, I’m loving it. There’s a taste of earthiness. But we’re talking about more of a savory earthiness, like you’d get from mushrooms. Not dirt outside your house. There’s a level of smokiness. In fact, it’s the smokiness that I thought lapsang souchong was going to taste like. And then, the aftertaste… it’s earthy and deliciously sweet. I mean, as sweet as a green tea tastes on the aftertaste. I was thoroughly shocked at that flavor coming through. It almost has a thick mouthfeel, but is still so smooth and wonderful. I’m still boggled at that sweet component, because it is downright addictive. It’s savory and amazing. Ricky, the resident pu-erh king, really liked this cup as well.

If you’re really afraid of pu-erh, I suggest trying this one. It has its own unique flavor, but really isn’t that frightening. No fish components, and it’s loose, so you don’t have to worry about picking foreign objects out of the cake! Yay! I’m still marveling at the depth of flavors and wonderful savory elements. And that sweetness! MMMMM.

Second Steep
It’s a bit sweeter this time around, with less nuances and complexity. It’s probably the best second steep I’ve had of any tea, ever, but it still pales in comparison to the glorious first time around. I also find myself tiring of a tea and its flavors after one cup. Maybe multiple steeping and I aren’t made to be friends.

“COOKIES!”

So I had a really awful day yesterday. Really, really awful. I attended a wake/funeral in the morning for a man who passed away at 48 after suffering 3 long years from terminal cancer. He left behind two little girls. So I was pretty much an emotional wreck.

Then I went for last-minute Christmas shopping, and I wanted to kick myself in the pants for doing so. I went to the huge Macy’s in Herald Square (the largest department store in the world), and could barely move. I’m short, so I couldn’t see anything. I nearly started crying from the frustration (tears in the eyes and everything). I managed to stop at Whole Foods and buy a tin of tea to make myself feel better (Rishi Ancient Emerald Lily, yay!), and at night, my boyfriend stopped by to make me feel better.

Anyway, I went without tea until 10:00 pm last night, when I decided to brew up a cup of this special tea that Auggy sent me. I shared the cup with the boyfriend, which was a wonderful experience. I felt connected to Auggy and to him in that moment, with a lot of the love just going around and flowing.

Of course, the cup smelled AMAZING again. Buttery and wonderful and bake-y. I found this time that I was equally impressed with how much this tastes like tea, but also manages to taste like cinnamon and almond and cookies! After each sip, the boyfriend and I were exclaiming in baby-like voices, “Cookies!” He couldn’t believe how realistically cookie the aftertaste is. “I feel like I just ate a cookie, except I didn’t eat a cookie, I drank some tea, and it tasted like tea, which is weird, but COOKIES!” That’s an exact quote from him.

So this cup warmed me up after an absolutely miserable day with its gentle flavors and deliciousness. The boyfriend said he’d rate it a 95, and suggested that they bake cookies under the tea and then the essence of cookie seeps into the tea leaves. I suggested it’s probably some sort of flavoring. You can pick which you like better.

But I have to thank Auggy a thousand times over for sending me this little package of love. Seriously, it made my night after a long and miserable day of crying and frustration and sadness. LOVE.

Well, this one is actually really interesting, and I’m sitting here puzzled, scratching my head.

When I opened up the Golden Moon packet, it instantly smelled of gunpowder. That earthy, smokey, Rome-burning smell that I absolutely adore. I believe that Temple of Heaven is a higher grade of gunpowder, and let me tell you, the dry leaf was absolutely beautiful. Tiny little blue-green pearls. Way tinier than Adagio’s, and smooth and silky to the touch. So pretty!

So I dumped a level teaspoon into my IngenuiTEA and watched as the fireworks happen. This one’s pretty bombastic in the pot. It start with little bubbles, and then, within a matter of seconds after the hot water hitting the leaves, they start unfurling and writhing and wriggling like they’re dirty dancing.

In the cup, this one’s a honey hue, with a smell that can only be described as smokey gunpowder. So I lift my mouth to the cup and.. hrm. The smoke on this one is definitely lighter than Adagio’s blend. It actually is more seamlessly “one” with the tea flavors than a simple overlay of flavor. And while I enjoy that aspect of it, I wanted the smoke to come out a bit more assertive.

Then the oddity began. I’m picking up that mineral-like flavor and mouthfeel that I got from Rishi’s Jade Fire! The astringency is leaving my mouth dry, and there’s almost a briny component that I didn’t expect. As the cup cooled down, this element faded into the background (although there was still a high component of astringency), and the delicate smoke flavors became the prime focus. There’s a sweet green aftertaste that is really pleasant, but it’s almost a bit too mild.

In fact, I think overall the cup is too delicate for my tastes, and it falls into this bizarre crack. Gunpowder really isn’t a delicate flavor, so it’s strange to have it come across as a wisp of smoke instead of a cloud. Add to that the mineral/brine/weird taste that came with Rishi’s Jade Fire (which is another rolled tea, by the way, but it doesn’t have the smoke of a gunpowder) and you have me perplexed. It’s like if Adagio’s Gunpowder and Rishi’s Jade Fire decided to have a baby and the genetics got mixed up along the way.

Okay, you know what? No. Just… no.

I was in the middle of watching The Sing-Off, and wanted a quick cup of decaf to go with my TV watching. So I dunked this one in and… BLECH.

There’s no way in hell this remotely tastes like green tea. In fact, it pretty much tastes like nothing. There’s almost a stale flavor to it, a “bagged” flavor, if you will. This one just reminds me of what I disliked about tea when I hated it just a few months ago. Dirty dishwater.

At points I do taste somewhat of a sweetness, but really, this just tastes like a weak black. I’m not really getting “green” in the flavor at all. So yeah, I won’t be having more of this in the near future. Sorry Bigelow, but I’ve moved on to way bigger and better things than this one-note debacle.