Organic Green Tea with Citrus and Ginkgo

I had a couple of samples of this tea left over from a couple of Harney & Sons orders. I’m still under the impression that whoever packs their freebies somehow knows what I don’t like and sends me such things as a joke. The only Harney & Sons freebie I have ever received that I recall liking was their Earl Grey Imperial. Still, I was willing to give this a chance. Though I don’t care for gingko, I do enjoy citrus and green tea, and considering the green tea base is Indian, I was immediately intrigued.

I prepared this tea using a two step Western infusion process. I started by steeping one silken sachet in 8 ounces of 175 F water for 2 minutes. I followed this infusion with a 3 minute infusion at the same temperature.

Prior to infusion, the dry blend presented a powerful mix of lemon, lemongrass, hay, and straw. There was a little bit of nuttiness from the gingko too. After infusion, the bouquet became more integrated and intense. In the mouth, I discovered a powerful, yet muddled mix of dried grass, lemon zest, hay, straw, lemongrass, nuts, and wood. The nuttiness and woodiness of the gingko became more intense on the finish, drying my mouth out and leaving me parched. The second infusion was more mellow, offering more prominent aromas and flavors of lemon and lemongrass before the gingko once again asserted itself and left my mouth and throat feeling dry.

I have to give this blend credit for one thing-it reminded me of why I do not particularly care for gingko. I could not stand how it kept popping up at the end and drying out my mouth. The citrus and lemongrass did not really help matters either. Part of the problem here was that the base tea did not seem all that interesting. It was as if Harney & Sons tried to cover its blandness up with additives that did not work all that well together. To me, this blend just came off as a mess. There was no balance. Everything was out of focus. I highly doubt I will ever have this one again.

Sipdown (178)

So this tea tasted like weed to me. Don’t ask how I know what weed tastes like but I was instantly confused when I took a sip of this. In fact, I was so convinced that I must be wrong, I made my sister try it and she definitely felt the same. It reminded me of the time my sister brought a travel toothpaste on a trip with us and I told her it tasted like pickles and she looked at me like I was crazy only for me to later hear a giant OMG from the bathroom when she realized I was right.

Drinking this in the afternoon for a little pick me up. The nose has key lime citrus, and a bit of spearmint at the end. It makes this really nice to enjoy after lunch.

Grabbed this out of my tea drawer, as I was just looking for something quick while I made dinner…. It’s not really my thing, but it’s ok for right now.
It feels more like the type of tea I’d drink when I felt sick…so maybe I should add this to a ‘buy this tea next time you’re all ill and gross’ list…
There’s nothing wrong with it, it just doesn’t float my boat like a gently flavoured or straight green does…
Off to prep my asparagus and listen to more of this week’s Bombcast podcast. :)

Sample cube 18/18!

This one had a very intense citrus aroma as soon as I opened the package. The sachet contains not only green tea bits but also very finely chopped pieces of something lighter, which I think is lemongrass in spite of it not being labelled on the package. (Later I checked the website and lemongrass was indeed one of the ingredients). The brewed tea still has that very strong citrus scent, almost like lemon drop candies. The flavor is quite mellow, not really sharp or vegetal for a green, with that familiar lemongrass zest. It’s not bad, though not something I’d seek out often.

And that’s it for the sampler! Now back to being busy…

I have returned from the wilds of Cumbria, where a ‘large road’ is any road that is wider than single track. And the wilds were indeed wild. Especially that time we got a little bit lost. Or the time the satnav were supposed to take us to the Lakeland Motor Museum and deposited us in front of Holker Hall. (Which coinkidinkally we had visited earlier in the week) And mountainous. Very mountainous. I climbed two little ones. Husband claims they were hills and that he could have done it in flip-flops. HA! I know a mountain when I struggle up one and these were mountains. And he never proved the flip-flops statement either.

Have earned my mountain goat badge and my map reading badge, I think.

Oh, and I posted this without actually pasting in the actual post. Here you go.

Queued post, written May 21st 2014

Let the green tea day commence! Well. That is to say. How many green teas can I drink before I have to choose between making a black or going crazy?

I’ve started with an effort to do something about the tin of random bags. I’ve got a handful of bags and I’ve put them in a tin in order to stem chaos. Trouble is, I forget to look in the tin when searching the box of untried things for something new, which is why the ones I’ve taken out and hope to be using to day are a bit ancient. This one, for example, was shared with me by Fleurdelily in 2012! O.o So were a couple of the others.

Hopefully they will still produce some flavour then.

Now, this one. I usually have a black tea in the morning and usually an unflavoured one. Since it’s Green Tea Day, I couldn’t have that today. Then I saw this one said gingko on it, and if memory serves me correctly that’s one of those things that are supposed to be refreshing and providing a bit of a mental boost and energy and whatnot. Seemed a good choice for the morning, then. Or am I confusing it with ginseng? Either way, I have no idea what it’s supposed to taste like.

This is a fairly mild tea (or it has become a fairly mild one) and the lemon flavouring is quite strong, but not sour. It doesn’t taste like biting a lemon, but it has a very pleasing lemony aftertaste.

I can’t say anything about the base though. It might have faded into almost nothing which makes lemon all I can taste because it’s all there is to taste, but even so this is actually a very pleasant blend. Husband, being a lemon fiend, would probably have enjoyed this greatly, but I only had the one bag.

I shan’t rate it, though, because of the sheer age of it and then flavour being such as I can’t tell if it has changed over time. Sometimes you can sort of taste the ghost of what it could have been with a faded tea (or an accidentally mis-brewed one for that matter), have you noticed that?

Sipdown! (117)

Today was definitely so much better than yesterday, but my headeache is killing me and so I figured this tea would help.
I know peppermint works for headaches and things, but I really am not feeling peppermint right now so I went for a citrus-y tea.

This definitely smells super nice from the package! It has nice and sweet citrus-y notes which seems perfect.
Steeping, the sweet kinda diminishes and now it’s turning into an overly citrus tea.
Drinking it, the citrus lingers and leaves a weird aftertaste for a while. I do’t like it all that much, but I feel like this would help my headache tonight so… yeah. Going to probably finish this cup, but I probably won’t buy it again.

Had a pot of this (from bag) at Little Giant in the LES. It tasted of citrus, even though the tag said straight-up Organic Green.

I grabbed the sample that Harney sent me as I ran out the door this morning. Naturally, I got pulled into a meeting while I was brewing this up and over-steeped it. But, it held up amazingly well — it didn’t develop much bitterness. The citrus was very apparent and I picked up some of the ginko. I’d like to try it again with a shorter steep time because I think this tea could really shine.

Loose leaf. I buy it by the pound and drink it almost every day.