As with last month’s review of the Yunomi Tea Discoveries Club (You can check out part 1 of that review here), I’ll be doing the review of this month’s package in two parts. This first article will feature the review of two teas and the second article, published tomorrow at the same time, will feature three teas.
This month, we received five teas featuring Hojicha Roasted Green teas as well as Japanese-made Oolong teas. Exciting! I haven’t tried a lot of Japanese Oolong teas – most of my Oolong experiences have been with Taiwanese Oolongs and to a slightly lesser extent, Chinese Oolongs. Japanese Oolong teas aren’t as common a tea to find – another reason that this Tea Discoveries Club from Yunomi is a GREAT deal!
The teas featured in this month’s package are: three Hojicha teas (Hojicha Roasted Green Tea, Autumn Hojicha Roasted Green Tea and Superior Hojicha Roasted Green Tea) and two Japanese Oolong teas (Oolong Tea and Black Oolong Tea). I’m so excited to try these! I love Hojicha and I love Oolong and am especially excited to try something rare like Japanese Oolong!
Also included in this month’s package is a pamphlet that offers steeping and tasting notes as well as some other interesting information including tea-related Japanese phrases and terms and the cutest little origami Crane!
So let’s jump right in and get started with the Hojicha Roasted Green Tea from NaturaliTea.
This Hojicha delivers all the flavors that you’d expect from a Hojicha. It’s got that wonderfully cozy, roasty-toasty flavor. It’s lightly sweet and nutty. It’s a very autumnal type of flavor – it evokes thoughts of autumn for me. I think of the cooler weather, the crispness in the air and the smell of smoke from the neighborhood chimneys. It’s the kind of flavor that you want to curl up to.
I like that this particular Hojicha is light. It doesn’t have a heavy flavor to it. It’s the kind of drink that you want after you’ve had a heavy meal. It’s soothing and gentle.
The second tea that I’ll be examining in this article is Organic Oolong Tea from Takeo Tea Farm. This is a tea that I explored previously in another review (read that review here).
Dry, this tea looks a lot like a black tea. It reminds me of a black tea with its dark, slender leaves. If I were given the dry leaves ‘blindly’ (without knowing that it was an Oolong) I would not have guessed it was an Oolong by the appearance of the dry leaf.
The tea brews up dark too. The only real “Oolong-like” indication I started to recognize is after the rinse and first infusion, I noticed how much the leaves had expanded and it was very “Oolong-esque.” (Oolong teas tend to expand quite a bit during the brewing process!)
Now the flavor … this does taste like an Oolong. It reminds me a lot of a darker Oolong, like perhaps a Formosa Oolong or a Oriental Beauty Oolong. It has that deep, fruity flavor and the really lovely, full texture of an Oolong. It’s sweet and really quite pleasant.
It has an almost ‘wine-like’ quality to it too, much more so than teas that I often call ‘wine-like.’ I can really taste a fermented grape flavor here. The tea has a very rich, full and satisfying flavor. This is truly a unique Oolong tea – one that should be experienced to be understood fully. (In other words – try this tea as soon as you can!)
My first cup (infusions 1 and 2) was probably the most intensely flavored cup of the three that I enjoyed. I found that with my second cup, the flavors were beginning to mellow slightly. The tea was still very strongly flavored and I still got a very distinct fermented grape-like flavor to the cup. But the flavors in the cups that would follow were a little less focused. (Still quite enjoyable though – it’s well worth the effort to keep on steeping!)
With the third cup, I started to notice that the fruit notes were becoming sweeter. It wasn’t as ‘fermented’ a taste as I noticed in the first two cups. Floral notes began to emerge as did a sweet note that evoked thoughts of honey. A really lovely cup!
I can’t wait to explore the other three teas! Read about them in tomorrow’s article!
Chocolate Mini Shu Pu-er (2000) from White Two Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Pu-erh
Where to Buy: White Two Tea
Tea Description:
The 2000 Chocolate Mini Shu Puer bricks are so named for their small shape, rather than their flavor, which is more of a fruity sweetness. Each tin contains 100 grams of tea, which brews up dark and smooth. We recommend breaking the bricks apart and giving them a rinse, as some still have very tight compression and take awhile to open up.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
These little Mini tea cakes do look a little bit like a square of chocolate! They don’t really smell like it though. Dry, the aroma is earthy. The brewed liquid has a softer scent, still earthy but the aroma is not quite as strong.
To brew this, I grabbed my gaiwan! I broke the brick off into layers with a knife – this is a very tightly compressed brick! Using 195°F water, I did a 15 second rinse and discarded the liquid, and then I filled the gaiwan with more hot water and let it steep for 30 seconds. Ordinarily, I would steep it for 45 seconds but after 30 seconds, the liquid was quite dark so I decided to go ahead and strain off the tea at 30 seconds.
And I’m glad I did! This first infusion was perfect!
The flavor is sweet! Just as the description above suggests, the flavor has a fruity sweetness. I taste notes of sweet plum and even a hint of peach. The sweetness is profound, with notes of molasses along with the sweet fruit tones.
The flavor isn’t really chocolate-y. There are notes of earth – but they are far more subtle than the aroma of the dry leaf and even than the brewed tea might lead you to think. It’s a gentle earthiness that evokes thoughts of mushroom. It’s a very smooth tasting tea with no astringency or bitterness. It has a pleasant mouthfeel.
It’s a really enjoyable pu-erh.
And of course, with a pu-erh, I’m treated to many wonderful infusions! The second infusion I steeped for just 30 seconds as well, and it was a very deep, full taste. Very mellow! In later infusions, the earthy flavors developed and I started to pick up on some woodsy flavors that evoked thoughts of the damp wooded areas up here in the Pacific Northwest.
The plum and peach notes seemed to subside a little bit, or maybe I should say that the fruit flavors developed into more of a date and fig flavor with notes of dark raisin. I liked the way these sweeter fruit flavors tasted with the notes of molasses. It was quite an enjoyable experience.
A really nice tea with which to spend an afternoon!
Cherry Blossom Green Tea from Lemon Lily
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Lemon Lily
Tea Description:
One scent of this tea will encourage your senses to indulge in this Japanese delight. One sip and you’ll be whisked away to Kyoto for the Cherry Blossom festival. *plane ticket sold separately.
Ingredients: Organic Green Tea, Organic Rose Petals, Natural Cherry Flavour
Learn more about subscribing to Postal Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
My tenth edition of the Postal Teas subscription arrived a few days ago, and I was happy to see that more of Lemon Lily’s teas were being featured, especially after having been subjected to three (yes three) herbal teas last edition. I’m glad to find that Postal Teas remembered about Camellia Sinensis.
When I opened the pouch, I was greeted with a very strong cherry scent. It smells a little like … well, it smells like cherry cough syrup. That’s immediately what came to mind when I took a whiff of the dry leaf.
To brew this tea, I used my Breville One-Touch tea maker. I poured 500ml of water into the jug and measured 2 bamboo scoops of the tea into the basket. I set the timer for 1 1/2 minutes and the temperature for 175°F. Then I let the tea maker take it from there.
The brewed tea doesn’t taste quite as much like cough syrup as the aroma lead me to believe it would. It does have that strong, sweet cherry flavor that you’d taste in a cough syrup, but it also has some other flavors that soften the strong cherry notes.
The green tea is light and fresh tasting. It’s not overly grassy but there are some subtle vegetal notes in the taste, as well as soft, creamy notes that are almost buttery.
I think that the rose is the real star here though. I taste really lovely notes of rose! I like the way the rose plays with the cherry notes, adding some dimension into what might otherwise be a very sweet, almost too sweet cherry flavor.
Overall, this tea is just alright to me. I’m not loving it as much as I usually enjoy cherry green teas. I do appreciate the rose notes, but I think that the cherry veers a little too close to the sweet, cough syrupy flavor.
Not bad, but not great either.
Blackberry Sangria Iced Black Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Our amazing organic Iyerpadi iced tea base blended with the organic flavors of blackberry, red wine, and citrus fruits. This will delight your palate and the palates of your guests. A great iced tea to share with your holiday guests.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
It’s a tasty iced tea, but as someone who typically doesn’t get all that into alcoholic beverages, I’m not finding the flavor combination of fruit and red wine all that alluring. It’s just not my ideal flavor combination.
But it is tasty. The blackberry notes are very forward which I am enjoying, and I taste notes of red wine. I like that the red wine isn’t a particularly strong flavor, it reminds me a bit of the wine flavor you’d taste if you were drinking a wine cooler. Yeah, I used to drink those. They were pretty popular when I was younger. Boy, I just aged myself, didn’t I?
There’s also a background note of citrus. These flavors add more ‘tang’ than a real focused citrus-y flavor. A little bit of contrast to the sweet notes of blackberry.
The black tea is tasted among these other flavors, and I appreciate that as well. I can’t say that this is my favorite iced tea flavor, but I’m enjoying it. It’s refreshing and fruity and my palate finds it pleasing. But if I were to sit down and place another order, I don’t think that this would be one that I’d put into my shopping cart.
But Southern Boy Teas does have a lot of other teas that I’d put into my shopping cart (more than I’ll allow myself to buy! ha!) Have you checked out their Indiegogo campaign yet? They’re looking to take their brand to new heights with this campaign, so please consider contributing and helping them reach their goal!
Sugar Cookie Iced Honeybush Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Organic caffeine-free honeybush with organic sweet, cakey, sugar cookie flavors. This is one of those teas that your family might end up squabbling over, so be sure to stock up on a few of these. Blends like these are a great alternative to sugary caffeinated sodas–we don’t let me daughter have much caffeine, but she LOVES these honeybush iced teas.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
After having tried Christmas Cookie Shou Mei from 52Teas, I thought that this iced tea might be a lot like that blend, but it really isn’t.
This doesn’t have the same warm spice profile that the Christmas Cookie tea has. This is more of a sugar cookie. (Just like the name implies!) I like that it’s not overly sweet. I don’t get a heavy “sugar” cookie sugary taste, but I get that freshly baked shortbread-type of flavor. It’s sweet but not too sweet. This isn’t like a heavily iced sugar cookie that you’ll find in your grocery store bakery.
You know the cookies I’m talking about, right? They’re really colorful and they have trigger kind of names like “cotton candy” or “caramel apple” that lure you in and you have to try it, but then when you bite into it, it doesn’t taste like cotton candy or caramel apple, it tastes like sugar and shortening. It’s so cloying that a bite is all you can handle.
This is more like the homemade cookies that are rolled in sugar, so you get a even, consistent, sugary-sweet flavor, but as long as the cookies are made right, it isn’t too cloying. The dough is not overly sweet, more like a shortbread so balance is achieved.
I enjoyed this. I liked that despite the name “sugar cookie” this isn’t a too-sweet kind of drink. It’s really tasty!
Please take a moment to check out Southern Boy Teas’ Indiegogo Campaign – they’re looking to take their teas to new heights and could really use your support!