New Tasting Notes

February Sipdown Prompt – your most post-date tea

Sipdown!

Thanks to a really good year of sipdowns two years ago, I don’t have much that is past date. This one managed to go a little past and is possibly my only past date tea, and it only lasted this long because I was given so much tea last year as gifts that I couldn’t keep up with drinking everything even though I gave away lots of tea! Good problem to have.

This is one of Ashman’s favorites so I might get it again one day, but right now I am concentrating on cupboard control. It was somewhat overleafed because there was an awkward amount left, but we got four marvelous and flavorful Western steeps out of it for its last hurrah.

A sipdown! (M: 3 Y: 19)

This was my office tea and I have to say it was pretty decent, considering price / quality = wake me up effect ratio.

It’s quite common here to add a lemon juice to the cup of plain black tea; so this combines both and quite well. The result is not sour at all, the base tea is strong and very robust, and, if steeped properly, not bitter.

Of course, I did several 15+ minutes long steeps — and that I can’t recommend, but 3 minutes seems just fine. Sadly, they just say the tea is from various origins, but they don’t tell them. But in my opinion, it is not just a Ceylon tea.

Cinnamon Oolong is no longer offered and I used my last bit for a final pot today.

Happy because I get to drink it today.
Sad because today is the end.
sniff

This tastes like every other boring, lazy fruit tisane. When I ordered a bunch from Teavivre, they all tasted like this. It’s just nondescript, bordering on stale fruit sort of muddled together. It’s mostly tart red fruit. It’s not that it tastes bad, it’s just boring.

life has been hectic, however, I can confidently say that, if you have someone in your life who does not like tea but enjoys overall warm beverages, they might like this one — to me, this is to black tea what a pumpkin spice latte is to coffee

Ashman came home sick. It seems to be a cold so far, so I gave him our old standby Alka Seltzer Plus Cold Medicine and then made a cup of this tea. I decided I would drink some in hopes it will strengthen my immune against whatever he has.

It is surprisingly tasty for a medicinal blend! It smells minty but as I sip I get a lot of ginger. I have never had mullein that I can recall so I don’t know what that is contributing. I was almost sure there had to be licorice root or something because it tastes a bit sweet, but nope, nothing like that in here.

I have chronically swollen sinuses because of multiple allergies and I think I am breathing better than I have in weeks. Hopefully it will do us both some good, especially since I need to be in tip top shape for surgery in 20 days.

Though this is marketed as an immunity blend, I’ve actually been holding up well this winter and managed to dodge the sick bullet that went through another department here at the library. But I am in pretty bad pain today (the menstrual double-whammy of migraine + cramps… my fellow migraineurs out there know exactly what I’m talking about!) so I made a big thermos of this at lunch to hopefully help boost the anti-inflammatory drugs. While I’m pretty skeptical about purported herbal health benefits, it at least can’t hurt anything…

Honestly, this tastes very on par with one of my earliest teas, Celestial Seasoning’s “Tension Tamer.” Which makes sense, both being very echinacea/mint heavy. The flavor is a sort of grainy dry hay mixed with mint, with a touch of herbaceous citrus from the lemongrass. Most cups of this I’ve made had a slightly weird tangy note at the end of the sip which I assume is the elderberries and rose hips, but I’m not getting that with this cup, so maybe it’s a “luck of the scoop” issue or something that only comes out with a really long steep (I’m known to just “leave the bag in” on herbals when I’m sipping at home in the evening, but today I did a 10 minute steep and then removed the leaves).

It’s not particularly exciting, but are sick teas ever, really? It’s a bit herbaceous in the taste which isn’t my favorite, but I’ve definitely tasted healthy herbal blends that were way worse. The mint does a good job of hiding a lot of the weirder notes.

Sipdown! (5 | 39)

From the February subscription. I’m not technically sipping this down, but setting the rest aside to send to a friend who is a Ceylon enjoyer (unlike me, lol).

To me, this just tastes like a generic Ceylon. Sharp, tannic, with a high acidity and subtle grass-straw flavor. Not really sure what else to say about it, maybe there’s a hint of dried fruit if I squint? Not the tea for me. XP

I do believe this, now 19 yr old, sheng has substantially improved over the last 4 years that I’ve had it in my cupboard (at 65% RH), and now I find the aroma pleasing, the brewed liquor to be smooth, sweet, & round in the mouth, and the flavor to be discernibly tea-like with a note of celery, and something I would drink with regularity. No astringency, bitterness, fishiness, or sourness. Which is all good, since I somehow ended up with two full 357g cakes of it! My records show I paid $45 for the first (drinking now), $70 for the second (a month later), and now (Feb 2025) still for sale by YS at $85, assuming one can get it into the USA at all. This time I used 5g dry leaf and 8oz boiling alpine spring water for 15s, 15s, 30s, and 90s (after a 10s rinse). All using a steel infusion basket in a porcelain teacup. The resulting amber liquor was crystal clear and as fragrant as the dry leaf. I’m sure another infusion or three would tasty, too. Rating this as 80.

This base is a combination of green tea and green rooibos, which go together really smoothly. The flavor isn’t as special as I had hoped. It’s just a sort of fake red fruit sort of vibe. It’s not tart, but kind of candylike. It’s refreshing cold, but pretty one-note.

This was a gift from our delightful derk, along with a jar of home made plum and cinnamon jam which I have already devoured! Thank you, derk!

I saved this to serve when my bestie next came to visit, and it has been almost two months since we have seen each other. First there was the busy pace of Christmas and then her family kept getting hit with viruses passing around from person to person so it has been a while. Today was our day!

Bestie only drinks green, white, oolong, and puerh tea. My cupboard is overwhelmingly black tea, so I make an effort to have something new for us to try when we get together instead of the same five greens or whites over and over.

My friend loves “food as medicine” and is a fan of manuka honey, so I was very happy to see that this has manuka leaf! I did not read the company description first, so I missed out on the tea turning blue first while steeping and then yellow. Darn.

She really liked the tea! The rose is light and sweet and if you didn’t tell someone it had rose in it, they might not guess. The rose petals were gorgeous and in the steeping basket the petals rose to top and were so pretty amongst the brilliant greens.

The tea is described as vibrant, and I would applies to the appearance and the flavor both. This is a zingy green with lots of high notes. It has a lot of energy. Bestie gives it a thimbs up, and said to make sure derk gets a thank you from her, too!

I had same flavoured tea from Richard company and I have to say I like this one more.

Here are currants (black to be precise) definitely more distinctive, with their slightly tart flavour and mint is just a refreshing element. The base tea is fine enough, but not worth any further research.

February Sipdown Prompt – a breakfast tea

This is a breakfast tea that is not at all like you expect a breakfast tea to be. The temperature is low, the steep is short, the color of the steeped tea is light. It does not need milk and sugar and it would almost be a crime to anything to this, but that’s just me.

These delicate buds from China yield a rich and creamy tea that resembles a Darjeeling or Ruby 18 with all briskness completely eliminated. Delicious. Three steeps easily.

No combat boots, here, gmathis. But you might get an afternoon neck rub out of it.

idk if the years were not kind to this oolong, but I did not catch any of the tasting notes, just sort of a one-note “green tea” kind of flavor. Not a big fan. Steep 1 (3 min) was understeeped, so I figured I’d get a bloom of flavor in steep 2 (4:30, just slightly oversteeped). Still nothing, just louder. I will say I usually assume a minute longer steeping every resteep, and I added 30 seconds to calibrate for understeeping, and that was just on the side of too much, so this may benefit from a lighter hand on resteeping times than usual.