Featured & Popular Tasting Notes
The raspberry and lemon notes become subtle and balance well with the mate after brewing. I was a little concerned that they would be overpowering; the loose tea smelled like raspberry-lemonade flavored candy. Previously I have found some of Teavana’s flavored teas to be overpowering, but this one is a keeper.
I like this version of Pi Lo Chun. It’s not the fancy highest AAA grade but costs not even the half of it and tastes very good.
The fragrance of the dry leaves is very intensive flovery and fruity. The leaves look very good for a medium quality tea. Very even, quite small (if the leaves of the pi lo chun are big it means the quality is not very good) a nice green in color with lots of white “hair” (old guy :)).
I always love the first infusion – it has the best mixture of fuit, flover and lightly pan fried green tea. The liquor is full and quite creamy. If you keep the steep time under one minute it shouldn’t be bitter ( i move between 45-50 seconds).
Now we have good quality for a good price…what else? It can take quite many infusions..like 5-6. Also you can get more flavour by prepearing this tea using the gong fu cha method. I like the classic preparation too – it’s easy and good for all-day-long-drinking. Just pre-heat the tea pot, put like 5mm layer of tea leaves on the bottom and steep with something like 80-85C water. This works out for most the pi lo chun’s i’ve had.
I’ll continue to buy type regullary. Unfortunately teatrade.sk only ships to Slovakia and i dunno what’s the source or the name of the chinese producer :<
Preparation
Not sure how well the apple comes out between the cream and the caramel, but I like it all the same. After steeping I take the apple pieces out and put them in the tea, very nice to nibble on and pretty to look at. I prefer it sweetened but it isn’t repulsive unsweetened (I had some friends try it out with me, I don’t know if they’re fond of tea, but they finished what was in their cups, and I’d hope they wouldn’t do so if they didn’t like it).
Very nice to smell as well. A good snack or dessert tea, especially sweetened. The cream and the caramel do play nicely together.
Preparation
I drink tea twice a day, and then got pregnant and worried about some of the unusual herbs in what I normally drink and wanted to go totally caffeine free. That’s how I discovered Rooibos Red Spice. It’s a versatile tea that I enjoy both for breakfast and at bedtime. I love that the spices are mild and there’s no licorice, which ruins most spice teas for me. It’s a nice deep color that makes me not miss my English Breakfast tea.
Preparation
Since I don’t really have a teapot, I just pulled the pot of water off of the burner before it really boiled.
I love the smell of this tea. Fruity, with a hint of the green tea flavor :). Nice reddish hint in it too.
Still too hot to taste at this point, but I can wait :)
Just got my first taste, mmmmm, that is good. Fruity taste, hint of pear. I’ve been leaving the bag in based on recommendations from other people on this site, and last time I enjoyed it.
I really need to figure out a better balance between the amount of water and the amout of tea. I probably need between 1 and 1.5 bags if I am using bags, but I haven’t figured it out yet. This is a little watered down, still yummy though.
Preparation
A bit down on myself today. I’ve been listening to Cat Power’s Werewolf on repeat for an hour, and later I’ll go see a friend’s modern dance piece later. Sencha is something that feels so common that it seems to meet my mood.
When looking for something grassy, this is my current favorite.
Considering that I had the teabag version, the tea was very fine. It helps me survive while I’m waiting for the good stuff to be delivered, because to my horror I could not get any loose tea in Madison, WI… Actually I don’t think I’ve seen much of it anywhere since my arrival in the US over 2 months ago…
It looks a lot and tastes a little like (a sour) Hawaiian Punch. My feeling about this tea is much like my feeling about Raspberry Darjeeling Black by Numi was. Too strong on the hibiscus, and perhaps the pomegranate as well, which makes the tea too tart and masks the other flavors. The taste isn’t altogether unpleasant, but it isn’t what I expected from the name of the tea. I’m not getting the raspberry I did from the Numi, even in the finish, and I’m not sure where the pomegranate is, other than in the tartness (but I should say that though I’ve eaten pomegranate seeds I haven’t had pomegranate juice so if that flavor is in here I wouldn’t be able to identify it as such). Instead it’s a generic tart fruitiness (as opposed to fruit tartiness, heh) that I’m tasting, which does seem as though it could be good iced.
If I concentrate really really really hard, I can pick up a green note in the aroma. But I can’t taste it.
As an aside, my boyfriend told me his company has this in their kitchen, and as he’d been eyeing mine he had some the other day at work. His reaction to it was much more positive than mine, but though he’s been a tea drinker for much longer than I have and pretty much always chooses iced tea to go with his meal when we eat out, he hasn’t been participating in my tasting endeavors and experiencing the really excellent teas I’ve had lately. Also, as it turns out he tells me they have an extra zorijushi which they’re talking about giving away. To which I responded first “how Silicon Valley start up of you” and second “gee, I wish you’d told me that before I sunk the bucks into buying one…”
