Jillian Send Message

The first steep is very light with flowery notes like what I’d expect from the first steeping of a green oolong like this. The pear flavour is quite subtle but it doesn’t taste particularly fake or out of place with the other flavours in my cup.

The second steeping (@ 4:30) has more flavour and I can taste more pear in the tea. The whole thing has more body but it’s still a relatively light tea. It might be something that would be nice and refreshing to have iced in the summertime. *wishes it was summertime *

Hmm it tastes less smokey and more vegetale when I reduce the steeping time, thought there’s that roasted grains flavour on the end that I find tastes almost malted.

The combination of flavours in this tea really intrigued me since grapefruit and vanilla aren’t normally ingredients that I’d automatically put together – actually grapefruit is a flavouring I haven’t seen in many teas at all.

The dry tea had a creamy vanilla scent, though it took on a citrusy scent too as the leaves steeped. The grapefruit flavour is rather subdued, just present as a hint of citrus in each sip. The creamy-vanilla flavour is more dominant and is particularly noticable after the tea has a had a chance to cool a bit. It all mixes surprisingly well with the slightly nutty, vegetale flavour of the white tea.

I’ve not tried very many black-green blends that I liked, but this manages to find a happy medium. The tea tastes like a medley of fruit that I can’t really pick apart to identify – there are berries in there and definitely some citrus courtesy of the big pieces of orange peel they stuck in there – and almond flavouring. It’s an interesting mix along with the vegetale flavour of the green and the more robust, tannic flavour of the black tea. There’s a lot going on with this tea, and yet it still manages to work for me more or less.

It yields a good resteep too, although the ‘fruit medley’ had faded into something that was much more distinctly orange and citrusy.

I remember as a kid how my friends and I would go to the corner-store and mix together five or six different slushy flavours to get what we’d call swampwater. So I when I spotted this on the Davids Tea website I knew I had to get some – for old time’s sake if nothing else. ;)

The colour is a dark, murky, greenish-black colour that wouldn’t be amiss in a real swamp (this is due to the black and orange sprinkle-thingies, I think) but despite that it tastes quite nice. It’s a tangy, fruity treat that has a bit of candy-sweetness to it that none the less isn’t obnoxiously strong.

Sara’s tealog entry about this tea tipped me off to the fact that this isn’t a tea at all. It seems to be the leaves of a plant called kuding with is a species of Ilex (holly). And yet on the website it’s listed as a green tea and there’s no indication in the description of the tea of it being anything other than one. ⌐_⌐

I followed Sara’s advice and only used two ‘sticks’ and while it still tastes bitter (kuding is supposed to taste bitter) it isn’t as wretchedly horrible as my first ‘experiment’ and I’m actually noticing that it has a nice, sweet aftertaste. Taking the nature of this tea into account (and the fact I’m not massively overdosing) I’ve decided to up the rating a bit. I’m still pissed at the company for being so obscure though. *grumble *

The tea is somewhat improved with a bit of agave nectar added to sweetned it but it’s still not as fruity-tasting and flavouraful and I’d like. So this is another ‘meh’ tea.

You know, this isn’t nearly as much of a ‘girly’ tea as the name might suggest. It has a distinct savouryness with some buttery notes and it’s not what I’d call a delicate tea. The floral/cherry bit is quite subtle too.

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get around to trying my A&D teas. Bad Jillian!

When I think of a default ‘tea’ flavour I usually think of Ceylon and I can tell without a doubt that this tea is a Ceylon. But it’s like those generic black teas like a diamond is to graphite; I can tell right from the first sip that this is a quality tea. It tastes bright and smooth with a faint touch of bitter tannin at the end.

It’s not ‘the bestest tea evar’ or anything, but it’s excellent for what it’s supposed to be. I’ll likely be holding this up as a yardstick for any other Ceylons that I may try in the future.