It is late at night and I am already sleepy. I want something light and sweet as a bedtime treat, so I chose Cherry Blossom. Although it is primarily labeled as a white tea, this is a actually a blend of white and green tea with cherries, coconut chips, rosebuds, and natural and artificial cherry flavoring.
Cherry flavor can so easily go wrong. So many cherry teas (and other cherry flavored things) taste like cherry cough syrup, which is NOT what I am looking for. Remember Luden’s Cherry Cough Drops? Now THAT I could handle, or real sweet cherries, but not something that tastes like actual cough syrup. (Not a rooibos fan as a general rule because it tastes like cough syrup to me. It takes throwing in a ton of flavoring to make it palatable for me.)
Happily, this didn’t go wrong. The coconut is giving it body and creaminess, the rose adds a little sweetness but honestly not a ton of floral flavor, and the main event is definitely sweet cherry without the cough syrup BLARG.
This one has really been a hit with family and friends, and I think the next step is to try it iced and see what happens!
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: White/Green Blend
Where to Buy: DAVIDs Tea
Description
This tea is no longer available but click below for teas that are.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Planet Kunlu Sheng Puerh/Crimson Lotus Tea
I have a lot more experience with shu puerh than with sheng, but I want to rectify that. What better place to start than with this gorgeous dragon pearl from Crimson Lotus Tea?
This is a really large pearl, but I was not prepared for just how much leaf there is here! Crimson Lotus had a great video telling how to best steep these. Thirty second rinse with boiling water to open it up, pour off the rinse and let it rest for about five minutes. This is great thing to do with any puerh, by the way, not just a tight pearl like this.
Now you can do another thirty second steep and drink it or pour it away, your choice. If the aroma doesn’t appeal to you at this point, don’t worry about pouring it away because believe me, you are going to be here steeping and drinking for a long, long time.
Now that you are on the third steep, shorten your steep to about ten seconds because the leaves are now saturated and the pearl has opened. My gaiwan is full! The leaves are whole, soft, and a beautiful green.
The tea is rich and thick, and has lots of energy going down. The color is surprisingly dark for a youngish sheng, a really deep golden/amber color. The flavor is as rich as the color and stays that way for more than ten steeps, maybe fifteen or twenty. I lost count and have no idea how many steeps I ended up making. For this reason, I am buying a pace counter (ranger beads or range counter) to keep track of future steeping sessions with sheng puerh teas.
This felt like a favorite hoppy beer on the way down, really refreshing and kept me reaching for more. The best part for me was the amazing rising sweetness that persisted.
Honestly I think the tea could have kept going for ages more, and I am thankful that halfway through I was joined by another tea drinker because it just kept giving and I couldn’t hold anymore. The color never lessened, the flavor never got weak. I am really kicking myself for not saving those leaves but it was an outdoor, early spring gong fu session and I couldn’t manage it.
More Crimson Lotus sheng is definitely going on my shopping list.
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Puerh
Where to Buy: Crimson Lotus Tea
Description
“A world of flavor in the palm of your hand!” This is a new planet in our Yunniverse.
Don’t let their small size fool you. These tiny spheres of puerh are made from Kunlu Shan small arbor tree tree material. They were picked and processed in Spring of 2017 and were pressed in the Summer of 2017.
Each of these hand made ‘planets’ weighs around 8 grams. These are called ‘long zhu’ (龙珠) in Chinese; this means ‘dragon balls’. They are hand wrapped and ready to brew. These work great with any style of brewing. You can toss one in a gaiwan or clay teapot. They work great grandpa style, or in an on the go thermos. They are tightly compressed so we give them a nice long initial wash to help them open up. The first steep is longer than normal until the leaves open up.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
photo credit: crimson lotus tea
Ashmanra tries a GABA Oolong. . . Sparrow/Whispering Pines Tea
I have been wanting to try a GABA oolong for a long time and finally had the chance! GABA tea is supposed to be very supportive when dealing with stress. Who doesn’t have a bit of that?
I love that many of the teas from Whispering Pines are named for the memory or feeling they evoke, or for nostalgic places they bring to mind.
This is a listed as a heavily oxidized oolong. Don’t you love how much variation there is in oolong tea? They can be green or dark, smokey or floral, sweet or savory. But this doesn’t come out dark or smokey. It is golden grain-like.
I did not give this a rinse as I wanted to enjoy every drop. I made this in a gaiwan and timed it as the company recommends. The leaves expanded into beautiful, large leaves.
I used a scent cup because I want to fully experience this tea. The aroma in the scent cup is creamy grain, lightly savory, vegetal, and then…CHOCOLATE! More like melted milk chocolate bar than cacao, I suppose because of the creaminess.
The tea has a round mouthfeel with medium body. The flavor is cream and grain, and strongly reminds me of an olive leaf tisane I drank a few years ago. This is a most unusual oolong, unlike any I have tried!
Although the package gives instructions for three steeps, I kept it going for six. I extended the steeping time each steep until it reached five minutes and held it there. It never grew bitter or sour, but kept the same characteristics as the first steeps with a little lighter flavor.
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Whispering Pines Tea
Description
This heavily oxidized GABA oolong is bursting with rich aromatics and a super complex body! First impressions are of chex mix and chocolate, and it actually strongly reminds me of a baked chocolate chex mix that my mom makes sometimes. Other notes are a tartness almost akin to cherry and some slight spice in the finish. Really active mouthfeel and a creamy sweet finish! One of my go-to’s recently, Sparrow is also one of the best cost/value ratio teas I’ve come across.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
The Tea That Smells Like Lemon Drops. . . Green Lemon/Newby Tea
“If a cup of tea won’t fix it, you really do have a problem.”
I don’t remember where I read that recently, but it seems pretty true at times. I was in a bit of a grump and decided to have a cuppa. This one is new to me, not just the flavor but the brand itself. Mine is an individually wrapped tea bag but the company also sells sachets and loose leaf.
Green lemon had the potential to go bad, very bad. Green tea can be pretty astringent and raw, and lemon can be puckeringly sour, so a combination of the wrong types of those two could be a mistake of epic proportions. Okay, it could turn out to be a bad cup of tea, but when you are in a grump, that is a pretty big mistake.
Instead, I started singing as soon as I picked up my cup. “Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that’s where you’ll find me!”
This tea smells just like lemon drops! Which I love! Bright and sunny, sweet and happy! Yes, it is a little brisk as most green teas are, but it tastes great and I feel the sun peeking out from behind the clouds. No puckering here, just a smile.
Since I needed tea fast, I appreciate the instructions that said to only steep for one to two minutes, and I kept it short. I could handle cup after cup of this. It is so lemony good you might almost hope for a sore throat just for an excuse to sip it all day long.
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Newby Tea
Description
This tea is no longer available but click below for blends that are.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Pearls of Jade/Silk Road Teas
This tea is gorgeous. I actually tipped a spoonful into my hand and examined it in the light, over the top of my glasses so I could really enjoy the detail. These are little curls of army green with swirls of white – real, true, pearly white. In appearance it seems more like an oolong than a green tea.
The odd thing is that this does not taste even remotely like the Bi Luo Chun I have had before, which we refer to in my house as “Cheerios Tea.” That’s how much it tastes like oats and specifically just like the cereal! But does anyone expect tea from Silk Road to taste like something you have had before? I look upon Silk Road as an exotic treat.
So if it doesn’t taste like I expected, what DOES it taste like? And furthermore, why does it taste so different?
The answer to the different taste may lie in the fact that this is a pre-Ching Ming tea. This means that the leaves are some of the very first ones picked of the new spring season, usually at the end of March and beginning of April.
After steeping, I run my fingers through the leaves, now unfurled and beautifully green, in the steeping basket. They are unbelievably soft! They are silky and smooth, and so irresistible that I can’t help but eat a couple of them.
The liquor is pale, a soft yellow, and the second steep is paler still.
My perception of the flavors does not match the description of the website. While it is smooth, it also is making a tingle on my tongue with a gentle and light briskness. There is definitely a floral overtone but it is ghostlike, appearing and disappearing. There is also a vegetal flavor that reminds me of rutabaga, but softer. The body is thin. And I detect a bare hint of roasty flavor, or at least a deep tone under the briskness.
What this tea doesn’t taste like is oats, or buttery, or creamy. And for my Bi Luo Chun, I think I may prefer the oat-y ones.
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Silk Road Teas
Description
This tea appears to no longer be on the site but click below for their offerings.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!