American Tea Room

Resteep of my breakfast leaves from 3 days ago. That’s right – 3 days. Still good! The resteep is somewhat milder, with the cinnamon flavor really coming to the fore. There’s even some cinnamon tingliness. Yum.

Lovely as always. I had this for breakfast in my travel mug. It was actually too pastry-esque for my mood. Just heavier than what I wanted, though I didn’t know that before I started drinking it. Still, it was delicious! I’m looking forward to trying the Brioche Free now that there’s a non-black tea version of this.

Wow, there are so many tasting notes already! And so many of them come from swaps that I’m starting to wonder whether only three people actually bought the tea and then it got passed around to everyone else. I too got this in a swap. Thanks moraiwe!

The dry leaves smell lovely, but the scent is so strong that they have to be sequestered in their own jar away from the other teas. The brewed tea is so dark that it looks like raw apple cider. It just straight up smells like bread. I can’t think of a more accurate description. Thick, warm, yeasty… I have no idea how they did it, but ATC made a tea that truly lives up to its name. It does get a little bitter as it cools, which I’m not too happy about, but I think the lesson here is to drink it right away!

I can’t usually drink black tea, so this won’t make it onto my shopping list. But I do highly recommend it for anyone looking for a good breakfast tea that makes it easier to skip your morning pastry. Or, if you’re the type of person who can still sleep after drinking black tea, this would make a great nightcap.

this tea is clever. it has a fairly strong pear and mango scent, but the taste is another story. the pear contribution could have been acid but instead it’s a very good base! i don’t think i’ll order it again, but i am very glad i bought the sample. by far the most unusual white i’ve tried. quite lovely! pears just aren’t my thing. =0) (so i won’t assign a number)

I’ve had this tea before, & this time it is in my package from Stephanie.
In some ways it reminds me of Verdant’s Vanilla Citrus Spice, without the citrus kick.
Anyway, it is a tasty tea, & especially nice with a spoon of maple syrup added. It would probably be awesome with a little orange marmalade stirred in, or maybe a slice of orange steeped in the cup with it. Maybe next time…
Thanks Stephanie!

Sipdown from this sample from TastyBrew.
I have to admit, this really is a good representation of a rich brioche, with almonds & just the right amount of cinnamon. You can even taste the crust. I dunno how they did it, but I like it. :)

I used to bake a lot when my kids were young. My love of baking probably came from my Mom, who started making homemade WW bread as I reached my teens (early 70’s). There is nothing like the aroma & flavor of homebaked bread, fresh from the oven! I baked with my college roommates, & when my kids were young we baked together for years: Breads, muffins, scones, pita, pretzels (the big chewy kind), bagels, brioche, croissants, pizza crusts. We did it all, & I also had a sourdough starter (named Fred) that was especially awesome for making english muffins. I’ve been a slow foodie long before the movement started.

Sadly, I began developing (or realizing I had) food sensitivities that made my life & health unmanageable: sugar, dairy, yeast, gluten. It took a while to figure it all out, but I’m glad I did, because I feel fantastic now & think pretty clearly (except when it comes to ordering tea, LOL). But sometimes I really miss bread! Brioche is awesome, especially with orange marmalade or Apricot preserves…sigh… I make some pretty good things with almond flour, but it is not the same.

So this tea…a nice trip down memory lane. Brioche is a very rich bread, loaded with butter & eggs, kind of like Challah (yeah, I used to bake that too). Very airy, with a really nice crust. Sometimes we included raisins, cinnamon, & nuts, & amazingly American Tea Room has captured this nicely. The flavor is rich with a buttery yeasty flavor, with just the right amount of almond, a light dusting of cinnamon, & (I’m probably imagining) a hint of orange peel. I can even taste the crust. Thanks to TastyBrew for this trip down Memory Lane.

Another Sipdown!
Thanks to TastyBrew for this sipping experience. This is a decent tea, but a little too ‘bright’ for my tastes, the high end is very shiny on my tongue, like a shrill flute or high pitched brass instrument.
I didn’t really get the ‘malt dripping down the sides of your tongue’ bit, but there was a nice under-taste of cinnamon to it.

Yay, my swap from TastyBrew arrived yesterday, & she is awesome! Most of the samples are in foil pouches with her own cool logo on them: it’s a tea mug with a beer bottle in it, & the label on the bottle has her name on it! How cool is that?

Here I am, still rolling tea up in baggies, like the old dope dealer I used to be.

Ruby black is my first sample from the wonderful array of teas she sent. From the description, it sound like a super sweet & malty cup, and although it isn’t bad, it doesn’t really follow its bio.
The leaves are a nice dark reddish black, crazy & twisty like an oolong. TB suggested a steep time of 5 minutes. 4 min is usually my preferred time for black teas. I started steeping, dipping a spoon in for a slurp every so often, as I do for new teas sometimes, just to make sure I don’t go over. I let it go to 4min. The resulting brew is dark in color, sweet, with an orange veggie taste like roasted squash or carrots, & lightly malty. Definitely not the bold Assam like character I was expecting! There is a little tongue tingling sensation, & I think next time I’ll give it 5 min to see if it changes anything.
Thanks TastyBrew! I’m bringing Methode Noir to breakfast with me!

Oh my… This is sooooo good. The smell and taste are delicious. I like the sweet almond taste a lot, this goes on my shopping list for sure. It’s good plain and I’m sure would taste good with some sugar and milk too. I’m having it with my croissant breakfast sandwich and it goes well with it… and cookies :) A definite treat, thanks moraiwe!

This tea embodies brioche perfectly. Liquidized brioche.

Also it’s 6am and it was one of those morning where I had to get up the second the alarm went off. Does anyone else get an upset stomach when they have to get up and start moving so quickly? Hopefully that will pass quickly.

I am so close to a sipdown here, but I must find a way to get more. I love this tea, however infrequently I drink it. It’s just comforting in a delicious, bready way.

I ordered 3 oz. last time, but I think 2 oz. may be a safer bet this time around. It does lose flavour over time.

I knew there was a reason I wanted to try this tea. It is so delicious. All the black teas I’ve had today have been near perfection. What an excellent tea day!

This has a lovely black base with a mixture of flavours that complement each other nicely. Like a cinnamon bun without the overwhelming sweetness – pretty much exactly like brioche. Yum!

I may have to look into ordering from American Tea Room.

Thanks jessiwrites :)

Smoky, dark, regal. The dry leaf is all about the orange. But brewed it’s all ancient fireplace. If you love serious, intense smoky teas, this one probably isn’t enough. But for someone who only dabbles occasionally in smoky teas, this is just right.

What a weird tea! I got this from TastyBrew…I’m on a roll today with the teas we swapped. Thanks TastyBrew! So, this tea looked like an oolong, both in dry leaf form and when steeped. A dark oolong. It smelled vegetal once steeped, like an artichoke. Let me tell you, this tasted like drinking liquid artichokes, in a good way, if that’s possible. I actually really liked it, and I’ve not been fond of vegetal teas. So weird! It also seemed to taste like a squash or potato with a hint of cinnamon, but only in the aftertaste. Weird, but good!

I did a cold brew of the rest of this one. It was INTENSE and I thought maybe too intense, but surprisingly I drank the entire thing. Very fruity, but somehow not overwhelming. It could probably be diluted even more and still be super flavorful. Definitely tasty.

I ordered a sample of this tea with my recent ATR order because it always seemed like a tea that would be up my alley (berries, figs, rose petals). I once got a sample of this but either due to bad water or a contaminated sample it came out pretty foul.

I had my new sample once before and forgot to write a note on it, but thankfully this is way better now. The sencha base is grassy (but in a good way) and a bit buttery, and the fruit is intense but not cloying or anything. Just very fruity. Huge hunks of fruit in the blend. I think the main flavor here is the berry blend (raspberry and strawberry primarily), with a deeper figgy note. The kiwi brightens the whole thing up a bit. It’s not floral, despite the rose petals (more for looks than for flavor, I would guess). A nice fruity blend, although it doesn’t really grab me that much. That may be more to do with my recent meh-ness about flavored greens. Still, I’m really glad I got a sample of this because now I know it isn’t actually gross.

Sipdown, 196. I’ve wanted to try this one for a while, and now I have finally gotten a chance thanks to Ellen. I love fig everything, so a fig blend tea was for sure interesting to me.

It smells nice and fruity, although somewhat like a generic fruit flavored sencha. The flavor shocked me though! WHAT is that horrible savory flavor?? It tastes like if you made a miso soup with waaaay too much miso. It fades pretty quickly and I am left with the flavor of berries and figs (it reminds me a lot of Thé du Hammam by Le Palais des Thés), but woah. The initial part of the sip so SO salty tasting. WEIRD. This does not seem to be normal so I am assuming some other wonkiness here that is causing it.

Got this in a swap with TastyBrew. Thanks, TastyBrew!! I was so excited to try this. I mean, pastry? Sign me up!! It smells amazing, like almonds and sugar…like…..Forever Nuts from DavidsTea! Oh no, not Forever Nuts! I’m not a big fan of that tea. At least here there is a proper black tea base. ;) I can also get almond croissant and butter flavors from this, which is nice, but I had a really hard time not associating this tea with Forever Nuts. I wonder if I had never tried Forever Nuts what I would have thought of this tea.

I was very skeptical about this one, just because of the licorice root. Fortunately, the ginger and pineapple make it perfectly spicy and sweet. I really didn’t think I was going to like Kaanapali, but wow!

Thank you, Queen of Tarts!

So earlier I thought I’d check out a beer growler store actually in my city because they allow sampling. It wasn’t anything exciting except that I bought a fill of a beer called Golden Monkey. So of course as I’m telling the guy it’s a funny name, he interjects here, and I’m like well because it’s a type of black tea!

I was sad to find out that it has nothing to do with the tea. More that it is golden in color and that apparently after 2 bottles you understand the rest, that is what the company says on their website. It is SO strong so I haven’t had much of it.

So for some reason I found myself wanting something a little spicy but not up to the level of a chai. This was the first thing I found close by that fit the bill. It’s mostly fruity, thanks to the apricot, with spicy notes from the saffron. Given that saffron’s a pretty pricey spice (hahaha) it’s not too strong.

I’m also surprised that this black tea, being a Ceylon (or I would assume a ceylon, given it says Sri Lankan), held up so well to being steeped for four minutes.

I let it cool off and the apricot is more pronounced now. It’s one of the best fruity flavored black teas I’ve probably ever had. It’s also really pretty, speckled with red petals.

ATR’s flavored teas are so good, if I wasn’t trying to now save money because I need to do a summer semester again (so I can graduate next fall FINALLY) I would be so into this one, but it’ll have to wait until 2014. Cries.

I am finally sling-free so typing isn’t so difficult for me. Rejoice! Things are still a it uncomfortable so I will (attempt to) be brief.

This is a rather interesting take on caramel tea. It’s not really very sweet though it is obviously caramel. There are only two chunks of actual caramel in my entire bag of tea, neither which I have put in while steeping, so that could influence the “not sweet” bit, but I tend to think that the intention is to keep this tea interesting with caramel and tannic tea notes as the balance of the two is mentioned several time in the description. Also, they suggest the tea be steeped for five minutes, which really does lead to a lot of tannic sharpness.

I prefer this at four minutes where the sweet and tannic seem more evenly balanced. Of all the caramel teas I’ve tried, it’s not really my favorite. (Kusmi’s Caramel or Le Palais de Thes’ Toffee are currently battling for that honor.) Yet, while I don’t love this tea, I respect it. It always manages to keep my attention as I sip on it. I find it similar to Lupica’s English Caramel, which is on the bittersweet side of things, but I found English Caramel a bit too bitter/tannic to be enjoyable. This, however, seems to strike a perfect balance (at four minutes, that it).

But I’m not so much into caramel for the balance or for the bitter. I’m in it for the sweet. So I tend to prefer this when it has cooled greatly, bringing out more caramel and relegating the tannic playfulness to the aftertaste. Still, a well done tea, especially for those that prefer their richer dessert teas to be balanced by some punch.