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No. Just… no.

Thanks Auggy for giving me different steeping instructions for this guy. It actually tasted a bit better this time around – the bergamot flavor was almost manageable, but it’s still So. Bitter. I did get to taste the Ceylon this time around, which is just smooth default Adagio Ceylon. But the bergamot here just kills me. It’s noxious and overwhelming and just not fun.

If I can’t finish a cup, I really can’t rate this very highly. Is it the worst tea ever? No, and I’m sure that someone that LOVES bergamot would like this. But to me it’s just an unbalanced mess. Too bad it smells so gorgeous. It tempts me into making it only to disappoint me into oblivion.

I can’t even begin to describe how delicious this tea smells.

This is my first experience with jasmine tea, and I was definitely not disappointed in any way. I opened Golden Moon’s little sample packet, and out wafted that most mesmerizing smell. A perfume that was wonderfully fruity and floral. I’d never smelled anything like it.

I’m not the resident expert on aromatherapy and lotions and the like. As a result, I really wasn’t sure what to expect from jasmine. Before today, if you asked me to identify jasmine, I wouldn’t have been able to. Now, it’s a scent that is so sharply ingrained in my thoughts and nose that I can recall it instantly from memory. I thought to myself, if this tastes as good as it smells, we have a winner.

The leaves unfurled delicately, and the resulting liquid was yellow, but rich-colored. The scent coming from the hot cup was amazing – a bit more floral than the dry leaves, but rich and fruity.

On first taste it was a bit difficult to grasp any of the distinct flavors, but as the cup cooled slightly I was in heaven. Seriously. The jasmine flavor is strong and wonderful and complements the taste of the green tea perfectly. It’s juicy and buttery and floral, fruity like ripe pears or something along those lines. The flavors all mingle together nicely on the green tea sweetness. It’s difficult to pick the jasmine apart from the green, since they’re blended so well together. Each complements the other so well!

If you hate jasmine, I wouldn’t recommend this. It’s really very jasmine-y. But if you love it, this tea is probably perfect for you. Golden Moon says that it would taste good iced, and while I won’t try it like that (I’m not a fan of iced tea), I can see why they’d suggest it. I’m so happy that my sampler was overstuffed with jasmine tea, and that I definitely have enough for another cup of this beauty.

I’m going to attempt to resteep this, but I’ll probably just include the notes here. The leaves still have retained their jasmine scent, and they haven’t completely unfurled, so we’ll see what happens.

EDIT: So I resteeped this baby for four minutes, and it brewed up to identically the same color. The smell this time had lost some of its fruitiness and become more of a straight floral scent. The taste… was okay. It’s probably one of the better resteeps I’ve tried in a while, but the evil-green-vegetal-second-steep taste started to drown out the delicate jasmine flavor and sweetness. I also found that I really didn’t want another cup of jasmine. I can see this not as an everyday sort of flavor, but as a special occasion or less-often tea experience.

Remind me never to steep this three times ever again.

Surprisingly enough, this third steep had a darker liquid than the past two, but the veggie-like smell was in full effect. And it wasn’t in a good way. This was like spinach crossed with wet leaves. The smell emanating from the cup was much of the same. I was also getting a lot of sediment at the bottom of my cup after the pour, which was pretty bizarre.

Anyway, the flavor was completely divorced from anything before it. The sweetness was still there, but very mild… and the flavor was like wet leaf water. I’m pretty sure I could get a similar flavor by going outside and collecting the rain-sodden leaves from the dirt. Earthy in a very unpleasant way (and I love earthy things!).

This white was pretty much done after the first steep, flavor-wise. All of the beauty of its delicacy and fragility was lost the more times I dumped hot water on the leaves. Not a pleasant experience. But since my first cup was absolutely gorgeous, my rating’s going to stay as is!

Steep #2 coming your way!

I figured out how I’m going to organize my logs. The first time that I try a tea and resteep it, each steep will have multiple logs so I can correctly work out how I felt about each steep. Every time after that, though, the resteeps will appear in the same log as the initial steep.

My ratings will always be based on first steep alone. Resteeps that are good are merely extras, add-ons, little gifts my tea is giving to me if they’re good.

Now that that’s out of the way, I found that I was a little disappointed with this second steep. I guess I need to get used to the fact that the tea’s flavors will change and mutate through the multiple steepings. I definitely think that the first cup was a real treat, and while this cup isn’t amazing, it definitely isn’t bad either.

The liquid was around the same color as the first time around, and the smell this time was a bit more… earthy? And floral. The butter component was nowhere to be found, and the wet leaves smelled more vegetal this time.

The initial taste surprised me once again, and the word that popped into my head to describe this one was “reedy.” This steep definitely has an earthier component, something that I wouldn’t call leafy but rather “woodsy.” Some of the flavor notes are even a bit tart and citrus-y, which I found to be pretty bizarre. The sweetness here was only a lingering afternote, not really pronounced and fading much more quickly than the first cup.

Since that delicious nectar-like flavor was pretty much an afterthought in the taste of this cup, and since that’s what I enjoyed the first time around, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the first. I’m going to go for a third steep anyway, and see if the flavor profile is more to my liking the next time around.

I think I’m in love.

I had never tasted white tea before in my life. The closest I’d come to it before this was that Lipton bottled stuff flavored with raspberry. And while I enjoyed it as a throwaway soft drink, it would never, ever compare to something like this.

I was really anticipating this particular steeping. I’ve been hearing a lot about whites and their wonderfulness, and I figured it was time to give one a try. So I sifted through my Golden Moon sampler and picked out the most basic white in there: White Tea. I’m not quite sure what kind of white tea this is, but my sampler had a chrysanthemum blossom in there too.

The leaves were so many different colors when dry! A beautiful deep green that reminded me of evergreens and Christmas. Some brown-speckled leaves. And these beautiful little needle-looking things with downy fuzz! I was so intrigued by this that I picked one up to feel it. So velvety and soft! I’d love to make a coat out of that fuzzy wonderfulness. These were the most leaf-like out of any of the leaves that I’d seen loose before.

I was really nervous about this tea, because I don’t have a thermometer and my kettle is not clear. So I waited for it to boil and let it cool for around 5 minutes. Then I made sure to steep the leaves for the 2 minutes that Golden Moon recommended. There wasn’t much dancing and grooving in my IngeniuTEA. I think it’s because the leaves were already pretty much open.

When I poured the lovely tea juice into my cup, it was a pretty light yellow color. The wet leaves didn’t smell like much, but the liquid smelled a touch floral, and for some reason, buttery. I braced myself, and took the first sip.

And my head jerked back in surprise! Because whatever preconceived notions I had about whites was wrong, or at least off. The taste is, in a word, incredible. It’s extremely delicate but succulent. When the tea was piping hot, it was a bit difficult to pick out any flavors, but as it cooled, it came together. Each sip had a light floral component to it, that gave way to one of the most delicious sweetnesses I’ve ever tasted. Like nectar from the gods. Honeyed and delicious and lingering. I was in heaven. I know I really like a tea when I pace around my house, sipping it and thinking and smiling. This was one of those moments.

The sweetness only got stronger as the cup cooled. There was a slight astringency, but nothing that detracted from the taste. In fact, I think the dry feeling enhanced the sweetness. And that ambrosia-like sweet lasted in my mouth for several minutes after I’d finished the cup. This tea’s quiet beauty really reminded me of a dance routine I saw on So You Think You Can dance last night that gave me a serious case of the goosebumps (Jakob and Mollee’s Viennese Waltz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz3quyRMiGI and watch!). It just had this soft touch, this beautiful taste that really lightened up this awful, awful rainy day.

My mom also really loved this one. She took a sip of it, gave a thumbs-up, and said it tasted delicious, delicate, and sweet.

I’m almost afraid to steep this again, because I don’t know if the magic will happen twice. But I’m going to try it anyway, and see what happens. Stay tuned!

Remind me never to resteep a black tea again!

The Yunnan wasn’t quite jiggin’ today. I had this earlier in the day, after I came home pretty exhausted and freezing from the cold weather outside. My feet were hurting from being in heels all day, and I just wanted something hot and uncomplicated.

I don’t know what happened today, but this wasn’t as flavorful as I remembered. I steeped it the same time, same water temperature, etc., but it just wasn’t hitting the spot for me. It was a teensy bit astringent, and I think there was some sort of fiery quality to it that I felt in my throat today. I don’t know if that counts as “peppery,” but I’ll take it.

Feeling a bit brave, I decided to do a second steep of this, and BLECH. Ugh. It looked around the same as the first cup, but it smelled entirely differently. I steeped it for 6 minutes, with the same amount of boiling water. It tasted like a green tea done like a black. Grassy but black, and altogether unpleasant. The flavor was watery and shot. The tea lost all of its subtleties and became a mess in my mouth. I really couldn’t finish the second steep, and I tossed it down the drain.

I was out this morning, at Cucina and Co., a place where there’s lots of gourmet food, but it’s usually high-priced. I really wanted tea to go along with my breakfast, and the options were very, very slim. There was only Bigelow-everything, Twinings English Breakfast, and this. Since the tea was going to cost me $1.67, I figured that I’d pick out something that I hadn’t tried yet. And since I’ve heard great things about Harney & Sons (and have really enjoyed their Decaf Ceylon when I had the chance), I gave this one a shot.

I wasn’t disappointed. This one was the best peppermint I’ve ever had in a bag. It comes fairly close to loose leaf, I’d even say. The taste was incredibly fresh and light, with a great, great minty kick. That menthol feeling coating your mouth was sublime. It didn’t have any of the bitterness that I sometimes taste in peppermint. I really enjoyed the entirety of my cup. Was it what I planned on drinking originally this morning? Nope. But for on-the-go, it definitely worked in my favor.

So I was bored, and I just dug through the annals of my family kitchen cabinet and pulled this out of nowhere. I was morbidly curious since I haven’t actually tried any of this before. I didn’t even realize it was an herbal until I put it in my cup.

What color did you think this one would brew up? It was a nice dark orange color, and it actually has an orange-y scent. To tell the truth, I was fairly surprised.

And the taste? I can’t say it’s really all that horrible. Actually, it kind of tastes like hot Tang. Tang is one of those beverages that is kind of gross but endlessly drinkable, at least to me. It’s kind of sweet, with a twang at the end, and it’s definitely much more drinkable than a lot of Bigelow’s offerings.

I really need to buy more high-quality decaf blends for my nighttime steeping, because I can’t live in decaf bagged teas and my one tin of Decaf Ceylon from Adagio.

OH MY GOD THE INTERNET WAS DOWN.

I am addicted to the internet. I am not ashamed to admit it. I freak out when it’s not working. This tealog was originally supposed to be posted around noon today (I actually wrote it out in Word so my impressions would be lost – NERD), but because the internet went bye-bye, it’s going up now.

Anyway…

This is an extremely intriguing tea. Once again, with Golden Moon, I’ve been trying to get through some of the more basic teas before I vault into the complex and interesting ones.

There was enough for two servings in my sampler packet. The smell that came from the little GM Packet of Joy was interesting and nuanced. I knew I was smelling good tea, but I really couldn’t distinguish any components. The leaves are obviously of a variety of varietels – some are long, some are short, and there’s a fair amount of broken bits.

This one steeped to a dark copper color, and the tea liquid was had a scent similar to the dry leaves.

On first sip, I let out a little sigh. This one is good. Very good. There are four different teas at play in Golden Moon’s blend: Assam, Ceylon, Keemum, and Darjeeling, and each plays a distinct and interesting role in the tea. Part of the fun of drinking this was trying to distinguish all the flavor components. Golden Moon really has done a stellar job of blending these beauties together so they create one complex taste with individual components. If I concentrate really hard, I can almost taste each individual tea. The boldness from the Assam, the smoothness of the Ceylon, that somewhat tart component of the Keemum, and something extra, that I could only guess is Darjeeling.

I wish I could have actually sat down and enjoyed this a bit more, but this morning was pretty hectic. Our internet is down, and everyone in the house is pretty much in a frenzy. I’m glad my sample has a bit more, that way I can have some of this tea again.

Although I don’t think that this is a beginner’s tea, I think a budding tea enthusiast and a tea expert would both enjoy this. I gave a few sips to my mom, who commented, “Wow, this is really interesting tasting. And complex.” This ain’t Liptons, baby. This is TEA.

So, I went to a birthday party for one of my friends and ended up walking outside a lot in the freezing cold. If you are not aware, it’s been snowing and sleeting and raining in New York City, and everything is pretty frigid.

So I got in the door, shivering and shaking, and immediately wanted a cup of tea. So I pretty much grabbed the first bag I laid my hands on that was decaf, that just so happened to be Bigelow’s English Teatime.

Honestly, this is one of those cases where you can barely pick out anything about the flavor or texture or experience of the tea. I really just wanted a hot, fast beverage, one that would warm me up on this very cold night, and English Teatime Decaf delivered in that way. It’s not the best blend by far, but it has a tea taste (and a fairly decent one at that, for a bag, and when I mean decent, I mean better than Liptons [which I guess is low-balling it a bit]), and that’s all that I wanted from this tea. So for the moment, it succeeded.

Memorable? No. Functional? Yes.