Lindsay Send Message

Dry aroma: Slightly malty and fruity.
Wet aroma: Malty with some earthy cocoa notes
Flavour: Smooth, very low astringency. Some earthy mineral notes that remind me of a Yunnan black.

Another sample from Sloane. Again, it’s very much what it claims to be: a floral, slightly vegetal green oolong with a slightly buttery cream flavouring. It’s well-balanced and kind of comforting. I appreciate that they are fully up-front about the fact that this is a flavoured oolong, unlike all the “milk oolongs” out there that claim to be unflavoured and yet obviously aren’t. Like, I enjoy a good unflavoured jin xuan too, but that’s obviously a very different experience. Anyway, this is very nice.

From the Element Tasting Set. I steeped this yesterday Western-style in a mug. It was good, I guess? Very clean earthy shu flavour, very inoffensive and easy to drink, but a bit… uninteresting? I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve had a chance to gongfu it.

I impulsively ordered a sample of this from Sloane because I had such fond memories of it from an Amoda box like, a decade ago. There are surprisingly few rose + cardamom tea blends out there, given the extreme ubiquity of the more traditional (often cinnamon and clove forward) masala chai blends.

Anyway, it’s very nice! Robust but smooth assam base, strong green cardamom note (must have actual flavouring in addition to the cardamom pods), lighter rose note floating over top. I may have to buy a larger quantity of this one of these days.

Steeped this up in a 100ml gaiwan, 5g of leaf was basically overflowing the gaiwan before I added water and then filled it nearly to the lid once the leaves wilted down. It’s a very fluffy and minimally processed tea, looks like dried (small, intact or only slightly broken) leaves, minimal buds. Dry leaf smells like fresh hay. Wet leaves have some interesting spicy notes, which made a bit more sense once I saw that the Qi Yun cultivar was developed from Keemun strains. I used 195F water and did about six 30-45 sec (ish) steeps.

Early steeps had some floral and vegetal notes, kind of reminded me of walking through an orchard in the spring, the combination of flowers and trees. Right in the middle (3rd steep?) I got some notes baking spices that reminded me this cultivar is normally used for black teas, and that’s also when a honey sweetness also emerged and lasted for a few steeps. Later ones reminded me more of alfalfa hay, that grassy floral combination.

Interesting tea, I enjoyed it! I need more experience with white teas I think.

Finally sat down with the gaiwan and broke into the Element Tasting Set, starting with the raw puer. Popped the whole ~7g square into my 100ml gaiwan, heated the kettle to 205F, did a quick rinse and a brief rest, then a series of steeps gradually increasing from 20 seconds. This is a very nice, approachable sheng. Some light floral and vegetal notes and a honey sweetness especially in the early steeps, balanced by a pleasant bitterness. I lost track of how many steeps I did while working on a lego set, but I feel like I’m at at least 8 and it’s still going strong.

Drinking fresh shincha at 8pm, I’m sure I won’t come to regret this choice lol. It’s quite light, with a nice blend of floral, vegetal, and umami notes. I was skeptical when I read the description, but I think I can actually detect a faint grapefruit note in the aftertaste.

I ordered a kyusu and a bunch of sencha samples from T-Guru, randomly picked this one to try first. So far I’m very happy with the kyusu – it pours very nicely, and the built-in filter does a good job.

This is a nice green tea, fresh and a nice mix of floral cherry blossom and vegetal/grassy notes. There is a mild astringency and bitterness developing as I get to the end of the cup.