American Tea Room

I think this must have come to me from QuiltGuppy. Not that I can remember for certain, but it was in one of those little pouches that I asked her to get a package of for me.

I’ve had one milk oolong before, from Nothing But Tea, and I was a bit torn about it. I liked the flavour but I thought it smelled like heated dairy. This one has a bit of that as well, but not the cloyingly sweet hot yoghurt that I remember from the other one. There’s more tea coming through here. Sweet and green. This pleases me.

The flavour is… thick. So so thick and almost creamy. It tastes exactly like it smells. A bit like warm dairy but also very clearly of a green oolong. It’s slightly nutty at the beginning of the sip and then the milky bits just take over, almost to the point of covering all other flavours. And the weird thing about that is that it’s more a feeling, not really a taste of anything. It’s like trying to taste something through a soft duvet. At the end of the sip I get an apple-y aftertaste, but it’s not super strong and doesn’t seem to want to show up on all sips. Just here and there.

It’s very nice. I think I prefer it non-milked, though.

Faint floral with a toasty aroma and taste. Hints of green and gardenias. Steamed roasted grains juxtaposed with an essence of tropical humidity. Then there’s something that reminds me of macadamia nuts.

Smooth, no bitterness, just a whisper of astringency. Refreshingly warm and soothing.

A lovely oolong overall. A very pleasant cup.

Thank you QuiltGuppy for this trial! It is lighly cinnamon and almond with a rich tea base. It reminds me of Almond Cookie from Butiki and My Boss Sucks from Praise Tea. I am not sure I would be able to tell the difference even in a side by side.

24 oz teapot, 4 actual tsp tea, freshly boiled water, 4 minutes. Lightly sweetened.

I am so sad that I allowed my co-workers to sample this one… sigh so delicious! I will have to get me more!

quiltguppy you create desperate addicts! ;o)

Oh… Wow! OH WOW!! Thank-you QuiltGuppy for sending a small sample of this one my way! I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

When the package is opened all you can smell is cinnamon and freshly baked brioche, it makes me instantly think of my weekly indulgence. Brioche and a London Fog at Serious Coffee on Saturday mornings while I read a book and waste away a few hours (I am starting to get good at that)

But instantly I knew this would be a tea that I would not be sharing with my co-workers; I love to share tea, and they are forever telling me: “I think this is the point where we realise that tea is crack to you and this is an intervention” Nooooooo!

I have forgotten myself, the American Tea Room has nailed every nuance of flavour or brioche in this tea. From sticky brown sugar, to melted butter, to carb-sugar-gooey-goodness of soft dough – all of those flavours you can smell and taste. It was tough to share this with my co-workers and even tougher to leave behind at work as a Friday treat for the Manager who is covering me tomorrow for my extra long weekend off! (Friday to Monday!!)

This tea is a delight, and I will admit I am “biting the bullet” and applying for a credit card if only to get this one and Dan Cong sent to me on a regular basis… QuiltGuppy you are an influencer! (But don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying this!)

This is one of the most complex white teas I have ever had. It was creamy, spicy and fruity with just a hint of grassiness. I was expecting a completely different experience, it tasted nothing like darjeeling and nothing like white tea.

Check out the rest of my review here: http://www.teaformeplease.com/2011/07/american-tea-room-arya-pearl-first.html

This has a strong, sweet fragrance from a few feet away. It does indeed have a strong dairy scent, but I can’t place just of what sort.

The taste is sweet like cream and the mouthfeel is silky and filling. A bit like yogurt, without the tartness of the cultures in it.

This is such an unusual tea to me; I’ve not had a milk oolong before. Very weird and good.

After steeping in a teapot with infuser, cup is slightly murky, red-brown, with some rooibos floaties. The aroma over the cup mostly a powdery cocoa.

The taste is dominated by cocoa in the back, with some earthy rooibos flavor, too. I get a hint of vanilla at the end of some sips. The body is light to medium, provided by the rooibos, with some powdery feel from the cacao. Breathing out through my nose after a sip gives a cinnamon flavor.

I’ve had some rooibos blends that had too many things going on. This one is simple, but does simple well and in balance.

Not the biggest fan of bancha or aracha mostly on principle. It’s lower-grade Japanese green tea, almost by definition. However, vanilla seems to bring out something extra beyond the naturally-even grassiness of it. I’ll admit it, there’s a good balance going on here.

I think I was almost afraid to revisit this one. I really liked it the first time I had it, but then I never really got into other puers. I worried that I didn’t like this one as much as I thought I did, and instead of using up my sample it just sat there in my sample drawer.

Well it turns out that I don’t love this one as much as I did the first time I had it, although I do still enjoy it. This is an oaky, woody puer. Not fishy or dirty or whatever like some, but definitely woody, and I’m not sure that it’s a flavor profile that I’m that into. The rest of the flavors, like sweet bourbon, is quite yummy, but not enough for me to restock. Glad to have put this one to bed, finally, though.

I’ll admit it: I’m afraid of pu-erh tea. Even tasting notes by people who like them don’t sound good to me. Dirt, fish, horse farms? No thanks (and I grew up on a horse farm so that last one sounds really unappetizing). But when QuiltGuppy offered to send me a sample of this one, which she enjoyed and did sound good from her tasting note, I decided to take her up on it and give it a try. Thanks QuiltGuppy, for giving me my first pu-erh!

The aroma of the dry leaf surprised me on this one. I feel like I can sometimes pick out the coconut, and the fig, and the fennel individually, but when I stick my nose in the pouch they combine and I get overwhelmed by one scent: fine bourbon. Perhaps with a hint of bourbon balls (bourbon cream candy with pecans covered in chocolate) but wow if it doesn’t smell like the inside of the Beer, Bourbon and BBQ festival I go to every year (note: I’m a Kentucky girl, and I love bourbon). I could smell the dry leaves all day! Sweet, a bit molasses-y, oak barrel aged, a hint of rye, a bit of fruit, herbs… it’s like describing a bourbon tasting note.

Anyway! Onto the actual brewed stuff. THIS smells like the inside of an oak barrel previously used to age bourbon: much much woodier, a touch resiny, with a tantalyzing hint of the bourbon notes in the dry tea. I feel like this aroma carries over into the dry tea well, with a hint of added smokiness. It’s almost like the (brewed) tea was aged in a bourbon barrel, like some bourbon barrel ales I’ve had. It’s sweeter than I expected, smooth and full-bodied. As it cools it gets a touch less woody (though still present), and there’s a spiciness at the end of the sip. Still very bourbony, but without the alcohol hit. Wow, I really like this one! Thanks so much for sharing it with me, QG, because I probably would have never ventured there on my own. Between this one and the Milk Oolong, I sense an order to ATR in my future when my samples run out!

ETA: Second steep, 5 minutes (the time recommended on ATR’s site). Wow, this tea is really dark. I looks a bit like a black cup of coffee. It’s less sweet this time, but a hint of sweetness is still there. Not as fruity from the fig or creamy from the coconut, but more charred oak barrel (but in a tasty way!).

Fun facts: dandelion root (an ingredient in this tea) is rich in vitamins and minerals, and is apparently a herbal medicine, which has been used to treat just about everything but specifically things to do with the gut, liver, and kidney. It contains inulin, which might be contributing to the sweetness here. It’s sometimes described as being somewhat bitter, which I’m glad doesn’t come through in this tea. It’s also a mild diuretic and digestive aid. (I got my info from the University of Maryland Medical Center website: http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/dandelion-000236.htm)

Like most teas blends that are sweetened with candies, chocolate, etc, the aroma was a plenty satisfying dessert substitute—the caramel scent was divine. Yet if ever I sweeten tea, it’s with honey (I like the acidity), never sucrose; the latter is too sweet for me. The caramel chunks left a coating of sugar in my mouth, which would probably please most dessert tea drinkers. So if you like sweet dessert teas (I’m finding I do not), this is a good quality caramel black.

American Tea Room’s description of this tea is that it is strong-bodied and well-balanced. Well-balanced is true, but to call it strong-bodied is almost selling its herbal appeal short. This chai is wonderful for an herbal, and every ingredient of clear, excellent quality. It’s warm, spicy. However, unlike chai with black tea bases, it doesn’t require milk or sweetener to be delicious. It’s spicy, a bit zesty, but not bold, tannic or overbearing. It is round, balanced and cozily decaffinated. Very nice for afternoon chai.

I’d been drinking a lot of rooibos when I first tried this tea, so my steeping habits were lax, to say the least—it’s hard to oversteep rooibos. Unfortunately, too long a steeping time with too hot of water severely affected this Milk Oolong, and I was very disappointed… with myself. When I initially opened the package, the scent was so buttery, it reminded me of caramel—delectible. I couldn’t wait. Boiled some water, dropped in the ball infuser, and promptly forgot about it. This is too good and pricey of a tea to be taken so lightly. I threw out that cup (it tasted like spinach), and decided to wait until I had time to “contemplate” this tea as it deserved.

Now I sit in a comfortable chair, having just enoyed a perfectly brewed cup of the stuff, a very subtle, pale gold liquid that is more like drinking a fragrance than a beverage. This cup has to be savored for its subtlty because there is little tangible about it. I’d even go so far as to say that it’s ephemeral, like a childhood memory of an event you know you enjoyed but can’t quite recall. As you drink sip after sip, you just begin to understand the tea’s details when it slips away once again. I loved it—almost milky, creamy, sweet, caramelly, buttery with a hint of green woodiness. I’d have to drink it a hundred more times to unravel its mysteries, and yet I suspect they would evade me still.

Strictly respect the steeping time and temperature. And I’d advise a large infuser that allows the leaves space to unfurl, which they do very quickly.

Om nom, om nom nom. This tea (#41) is so different from the Jin Xuan Milk Oolong that I had this morning, but both are delicious in their own ways. This one is super sweet and creamy, and also has fruity notes, unlike the florals from the Jin Xuan. Peaches and cream, for sure. I still really love this one. Every time I brew it I wonder if I could use more oolong-like steeping parameters, but this tea is so expensive I don’t really want to waste a cup mucking around with something that already works. Maybe someday I will be brave enough to try.

I have been so bad about tasting notes the last two days! Just super busy I guess, and a feeling of not knowing what to write.

Continuing with the cupboard chronology, I finally picked up a few ounces of this tea last fall. I’ve only ever had it in my cupboard as random samples before, but I finally got to add a substantial amount. This tea is kind of amazingly expensive, but it’s also kind of amazingly good. Getting it at one of ATR’s many 20% off sales was key.

This is sweet and creamy, and it has a distinctly fruity character as well. It’s a tieguanyin, not a jin xuan or one of those quangzhou milk oolongs, so it’s really quite unlike other milk oolongs. I’ve never come across another oolong like it, which is kind of amazing. Happy I have some more, and I will probably hoard it a fair bit due to the price.

Sipdown, 198. This was briefly in my cupboard again thanks to Ellen. I haven’t had this tea in a looong time. I finished the last of my first sample about a year ago and haven’t restocked, partly due to it’s price but mostly due to my desire to drink down my cupboard some more before restocking.

So I am wondering if I will still be in love with this one after all this time, and hoping it still lives up to my memory of it. Glad I looked at my previous notes before steeping this because it has somewhat different parameters than I usually steep oolongs at. It certainly smells delicious. Creamy and milky and a little bit fruity. Yeah, this tea is as good as I remember. It’s just soooo buttery and peachy-floral. My boyfriend just came over and smelled it (he often does, he is not a tea drinker and his typical response is “smells like tea” no matter what kind of tea it is) and he couldn’t quite make heads or tails of it so he just said it smells like dragons. :D

This was my first milk oolong, and it skewed my idea of what milk oolongs should be… since it’s not even a real milk oolong! It is a tieguanyin, not a jin xuan. It’s just so milky that it deserves the name milk oolong. I haven’t come across a jin xuan that was as creamy as this one so I am always disappointed. But it’s those TGY buttery notes that make this one so good, and no Taiwanese oolong I’ve had has ever had that much butter to it. Nice to confirm that I do love this one that much, and that I will be eventually getting more of it (some day).

I kind of hate that this tea is so good. I’m having the last of my sample today, which means an investment if I want more (which I will). For some reason I craved it today; well, it was this one or Golden Moon’s Coconut Pouchong, which I don’t have any of. Guess I’ll be resteeping the heck out of this one…

This is one of those teas that’s so tasty that I want to drink it all the time, but so expensive (and of which I have only a sample) that I put off drinking it because I don’t want to use it up too fast. I only actually every tried it once before, and it was one of the teas that sparked my new interest in oolongs. I haven’t tried another milk oolong yet, but now that I have another sample to try from another company, I wanted to revisit this one and see if it still makes me swoon.

I opened the pouch and was greeted by such a buttery, creamy scent. In the steeped tea it’s still the main aroma, but it’s joined by a floral greenness. First sip, and yup, still amazing. It’s amazing how fruity and floral and creamy and buttery and bready this tea is. Oh so smooth and creamy mouthfeel, a slightly sweet aftertaste that grows as it cools. How do teas like this even exist??

Last Friday I tried this tea for the first time, and I steeped it a bunch of times (unusual for me, and it takes an impressive tea to make me want to steep it more than once), though I can’t remember quite how many, 3 or 4 at least. I then took those leaves, covered them with water and stuck my cup in the fridge at work “overnight” for lunch the next day… but of course I forgot it was a weekend, and a three-day weekend at that, so they sat there, cold steeping, for 3 days and 4 nights until I got back to work today. The already fully-expanded leaves had somehow further expanded to fill the entire 16 oz cup, floating all up and down the column of liquid like they were suspended in some kind of jelly. I didn’t know what to expect, but the tea was nice and light, probably because the leaves had been well steeped before I put them in the fridge. At this point, the flavor had lost all of the peachy-floral notes and almost all of the creaminess, and it was primarily the vegetal, slightly nutty flavor of a simple green oolong. Still very tasty, and I’m kind of amazed at the result.

Let me just first say that this is a tea unlike any other I’ve ever tried, and I have QuiltGuppy to thank! I’ve always been a bit curious about milk oolongs, but I’ve never tried one before. The smell of the dried leaves when I opened the package was amazing… definitely milky (sweet, like a condensed milk), but also with a floral fruitiness.

After a light brew, the liquor is only a pale yellow, but the aroma is full bodied and strong. Here the notes are primarily floral, vegetal, a bit ‘bready’. The milk aroma is still there but a bit muted. I never expected to be this blown away by this tea, but it’s true! It’s so delicious. Sweet, creamy, buttery peaches, like the most delicous fresh peach cobbler with cream. That’s what this tea is recalling. I don’t even love peach cobbler all that much, but I would love one that tasted like this. All the elements are there: fresh, floral peach, right off the tree, both very sweet and slightly tart; buttery crust, and breadiness from the oolong; bubbling caramelized sugar; smooth, rich, sweet cream. Definitely a major yum.

Thank you so much QuiltGuppy for sending me this sample! I have a whole new kind of tea to explore and love!

I woke up early and spent some time looking through the tea bins. I didn’t set up the tea maker for this morning, so I was trying to find something that caught my fancy. When I came across this sample packet from American Tea Room, I thought, “Hm. It’s poufy, so the tea must be fluffy… and I just happen to be in a fluffy tea mood today.” (Sleep deprivation will do that to you.)

So, I took my fluffy tea and popped it into the Breville. I brought the temp down slightly from my normal oolong steeping temp. 190F(87C)/2.5 min.

The aroma that emanates from this tea is amazing! I can smell it as I lift it up. The taste is equally amazing. It’s as if I’ve added cane sugar to it, that kind of deep, syrupy sweetness that just fills your mouth. The oolong has a slightly woodsy taste to it. It’s nice, tasting a touch of cinnamon, but with fruitiness, too. I can’t quite pinpoint the fruit flavor, kind of like a very ripe lychee with maple syrup. All in all a complex and delicious fluffy tea.

I can’t believe I’m almost done with my 3.5 oz of this!! I just got it a couple days ago! It’s almost addicting. :)

It’s true, though. This tea is very good. And I feel really good while drinking it.

It’s very milky tasting, soothing and smooth. And there’s this intriguingly rich, round, buttery-green leaf flavor in the background.

I’m getting more milk than cream or candy. Steamed whole milk that’s almost silky tasting. Underlaid with something very “green” and crisp. Like butter-laced chlorophyll.

This is yummy and refreshing—not “heavy” feeling at all. Perfect for this sweltering, summer day. Perfect for any day actually.

I would have loved to have detected more “sugary”, condensed milk-like flavors (like White Rabbit candy in other reviews) but as it is, it’s delicious. I like it a lot.

This tea will be a staple in my cupboard.