I don’t know why but I’m currently facing a lot of inertia for blogging! The nice thing is that I managed to write quite a few posts in advance, which are what you are reading this week but I’m hoping I embrace the blogging and the blog-hopping again soon.

Anyway, I realised it’s been a while since I talked about my Chinese tea samples (I haven’t even gotten to the white tea and puer that I bought at the same time – those may never appear on the blog because I think I’ll just drink them) so here are five quick reviews:

薄荷白茶 (bohe baicha): This tea translates to mint white tea so I was very, very intrigued. The first two cups produced a very pale yellow tea liquor that was sweet and floral and strangely, made me think of the concept “round”. I wonder what it means if a tea makes you think of shapes? But anyway, from the third cup onwards, it just tasted like a mint tisane which made me wonder if there was any white tea in this.

甜蜜蜜（玫瑰红茶）: The tea is called “sweet” (very loosely translating tian mi mi) but it’s really a rose black tea. It smells rich like a black tea and tasted sweet. The rose note was pretty distinct too. This fulfilled expectations and I would get it again if I wanted rose black tea.

平安喜乐 (peace and happiness): I thought this tea looked like a ball of chrysanthemum and I was right. It opens up to a looooot of chrysanthemum flowers and tastes like it too! It’s very floral and sweet.

冰岛 (bingdao): Bingdao is apparently a place that produces puer so I’m guessing this is a form of puer. The dry leaves smell very rich but the first steep smells light and clean and is a very pale yellow. The tea tastes very sweet and is pleasant to drink. The leaves start to look greener in the second steep but the taste is very much like the first cup. I was reminded a bit of the mint tea I had earlier, but also a bit of a raw puer. So perhaps this minty taste is the reason why it gets its name? Incidentally, the tea cake is packed pretty tightly, it only starts to break apart around the 4th steep.

茉莉白茶 (Jasmine White Tea): The teacake looks very white from the jasmine buds but I don’t smell any jasmine, which is a surprise. The first cup tastes like white tea and I don’t get any floral notes. And honestly, the jasmine does not get stronger – even by the fourth cup, I still mostly tasted white tea. A long infusion only enhanced the white tea notes and not the jasmine. The funniest thing is that I can see the jasmine buds in this tea! It’s a real mystery why it doesn’t taste more floral.

That’s about it for today! As we approach December, I’m going to need to ramp up on my tea drinking because I WILL be drinking from an advent calendar during December and everything else will grind to a halt.