Art of Tea

Tea #8 from Another Traveling Tea Box

After the failure I had with the last tea, I figure a tea with cinnamon in it will at least reassure me that my taste buds aren’t dying on me. Lol.
I get cinnamon and something fruity/figgy. The sip is very full and I get a nice figgy-ness from it. The cinnamon thankfully isn’t as in-your-face as I was fearing with as many cinnamon chips as was in the scoop. It’s a decent enough tea and I’m glad I was able to sample it, especially considering it’s not really one I would’ve ordered myself. But I still wouldn’t consider ordering it now.

I’m excited to try this one, even though it’s a minty tea. I typically don’t like mint in tea at all, but there are those rare moments when I do like a cup. The Christmas tree and candy cane sprinkles are so cute and the blend smells very creamy and minty! Once water has been added, I still get some sweet mint, but it’s sort of masked by what I can only describe as a grassy pen in the zoo. It’s definitely the puerh. Ugh, I wish that puerh and I got along better, but sometimes… it’s just impossible.

Sipping… primary note is the mint which lingers on the tongue and then changes into the black tea base. I enjoy Art of Tea’s black teas – malty, a little bit creamy and dark. The finish of this tea is of the puerh and it’s earthy, stinky & fishy. I think that I would like this cup so much more if the puerh were put on a spaceship and sent to the moon. The mint is rather tame, soft & works so well with the black tea. A real shame that I don’t enjoy this cup a bit more.

Thanks so much to TastyBrew for a sample! I’m glad that I tried it before dashing off to buy a bunch.

I think I got this swap sample from BrewTEAlly Sweet

Anyway, it has light cinnamon flavor, but I can’t really pick out any fig flavor. The black base is well…pretty basic. Eh, not so bad that I’ll dump it out but definitely no fireworks here!

Tea #41 from Another Traveling Tea Box

This one smells really spicy and not too terribly good in the bag, but once steeped it smells sweeter, but still has a rather zippy feel.

It is definitely reminiscent of pumpkin pie, despite the lack of pumpkin flavor. The spices are surprisingly mellow, and strongly clove and ginger, with a more subtle nutmeg and cinnamon flavor. I’m also really happy with how not-rooibosy this is. This would pair so well with Thanksgiving dinner!

I can’t even say I dislike this tea, because that would be like saying you dislike hot water, which is exactly what this tastes like. I’d always known that white teas were typically weaker and more subtle than blacks, and that they often struggle to make your water taste like anything at all, but even a bit of overleafing didn’t help. I steeped for three minutes, took a few sips, and then tossed the rest down the drain. This is going into my swap pile, although I honestly don’t know if anyone else will like it LOL.
Way, way too subtle. Pretty much non-existent.

In other news, thanks to the steroid cream and the anesthetic rinse, my canker is well on its way to healing. The difference overnight was drastic, and I just need to make sure I have this stuff around when my next canker invariably comes to life.

My first ‘cuppa’ of the morning. I left this out to try last night but didn’t get the chance.

It smells sweet and heavily Rooibos based. A little fruity but not necessarily blueberry, as for the cheesecake it doesn’t come through in the scent at all.

Flavour matches the scent but there is no real blueberry or cheesecake like tones. It does taste berry but too hard to define and the Rooibos base is very thick and sweet. I was expecting butter from the cheesecake but there isn’t any.

This tea has pulled a name out of the air to draw customers in and disappoint them when they find out it tastes nothing like it should. There was no real definable blueberry flavour nor anything remotely cheesecake about this tea. What it actually tastes like is a Rooibos berry blend, nothing more and nothing less.

This is a backlog from this morning. It’s actually been fairly hectic at work today, and more than anything, I’m sort of looking forward to doing nothing.
Anyway, I brewed this up this morning in an attempt to get through as many samples as possible. actually, I’m not “getting through” them so much as I’m just tasting them and moving on, but it is what it is.

This is a black-green blend, and so I was a wee bit nervous as I’m not typically drawn to anything green. Nevertheless, I brewed it as per keychangeness.
The dry leaf smells of a generic tropical fruit concoction. Having said that, it doesn’t smell at all artificially flavoured or scented. I let it steep for five minutes, and the result was sort of like a hot tropical punch (although it was a bit creamy thanks to, you know, the cream that I added). It sort of reminded me of a hot version of a bubble tea; I could definitely picture it having tapioca balls floating around in it. I can’t really taste the black or green base, nor can I really detect any jasmine. having said all of this, it’s a perfectly acceptable tea, and is actually quite pleasant. I imagine it would actually be quite delightful iced, but I don’t ever ice my teas, so I’m either going to happily finish up the sample (but not repurchase as I’m not a huge fruit tea fan), or put it in a swap pile to send it off to someone who will enjoy cold-brewing it.

It’s been a while since I first discovered this tea, it was sent to me by a friend during one of our massive tea swaps—the person I was swapping with was trying to introduce me to Guayusa, one of the base teas used for this blend. The flavor is a mixture of sweet and tart, tasting mostly of berry with hints of hibiscus and apple. The base teas—guyusa, green rooibos, and jasmine green tea—only offer the barest hint of flavor to the overall blend which could be a plus if you aren’t normally a fan of tea. Whether you drink it hot or cold, this is one delicious tea that is sure to bring a smile to your face.

You can read the full review on my blog:
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2015/12/22/tuesday-tea-happy-tea-art-of-tea

Tea #21 from Another Traveling Tea Box

My first introduction to guyusa was made pretty recently when JustJames sent me Butiki’s Apricot Guyusa in our epic swap. I really enjoyed it so I wanted to see how this compared.

The dry leaf of this tea smells amazing as does the brewed tea. It has such a strong fruit scent to it and a really nice strawberry flavor. While the strawberries don’t taste fresh, they do taste much more realistic than many I’ve had. I can’t really taste the hibiscus, which is a relief, it just adds a hint of tartness to the mix, balancing the sweetness from the strawberry.

This is my second tea from Art of Tea and I think I’ll have to place an order with them soon. I really enjoyed this tea and it will not be continuing on.

Tea #18 from Another Traveling Tea Box

I’m not really sure that I’ve had a pumpkin pie tea before, but this one was a little bland. I liked the combination of rooibos and honeybush, gave the tea a flavor somewhat reminiscent of pumpkin pie. The flavors weren’t quite spot on, I didn’t taste pumpkin at all, but it had a nice combination of spices.

if i have to rate this on taste alone, it is a 0…but taste isn’t what blooming teas are about. even with the natural peach flavoring added to this, it just is not enjoyable to drink. as far as the bloom, the show takes a long time…upwards of 7 minutes to unfurl. but yeah, it’s a nice bloom, tall and colorful and pretty. so there you go.

smells incredible, but the taste is lackluster. even with sugar, it is bland and doesn’t live up to the aroma and description. sorry, but there you go.

i love oolongs, sumatra tea, and purple. but this tea did not live up to expectations. also, why are you supposed to steep this at 206, won’t that scald it? i just don’t see this being the next big thing. wanted to love this, but now that i’ve tried it, i don’t even care to have a second steeping, so there you go.

i think i would have liked this without the lemongrass in it. for me, lemongrass is a sour flavor that detracts from the enjoyment. this reminded me of thai soup, and i wanted a sweet soothing tea, not thai soup. i realize many many people love lemongrass, and if you are one of those people, you will like this tea. so there you go.

sounds so good, but its really rather boring. i do not taste blueberry cheesecake. i smell it, maybe, but this would be a pretty disappointing dessert if this mug of tea was all i got. i can’t say as i am impressed.

I actually ordered my art of tea sampler before I joined steepster, and was surprised that it wasn’t all the rage once I perused the boards. No one has anything overwhelmingly negative to say about it in particular, but it’s just not the company that many people obsess about. I actually learned of it because I follow a really popular fragrance blog, and one of the writers there suggested it as a house for loose tea beginners. I’m still glad I did.

I’ll be honest and admit that I don’t really know what a Keemun really is. I mean, I know it’s a black tea, and that it’s somehow different from other types of black tea, but I wouldn’t have known how. But it came with the black sampler pack, and I figured today was as good a day as any to try it. It’s rather dreary out, and there’s a coldness that’s settled into my bones that I’m trying to rid myself of.

First sniff: black tea, but different, somehow. More character than, say, your average English breakfast.
Second, deeper sniff: definite hints of…barnyard?
Third sniff: yup, definitely barnyard. Complete with hay, animals, and maybe even some leather saddles over in some far-off corner. Maybe. But definitely a distinct barnyard.
Well, I thought, a little barnyard never hurt anybody, right? and so I brewed this per the instructions. As it brewed, the barn yard smell persisted, and so I made sure to cap the brewing at four minutes (instead of five) just in case the taste profile was too strong. I added in my required cream and sugar, and took my first sip.
I could definitely detect the black tea-ness about it, and it certainly isn’t all bad. And if someone took the essence of barnyard and infused it into a tea and it tasted this decent, then I’m convinced you can make a tea taste like any smell in the world and absolutely make it work. It didn’t taste bad at all. The barn yard taste did linger, and certainly was not overshadowed by anything, but it sort of tasted more like barn yard black tea and not just straight up barn yard, you know? and I think adding milk and sugar helped, because it sort of smoothed out any rough edges. I felt as though I was perhaps sipping black tea while having been in a barn yard all day, but not necessarily as though I was thrust unceremoniously into a barn yard and then firmly instructed that I must now roll and tussle with the livestock. You know what I mean?

Sooo. This is definitely going into my swap basket, because the great thing about the tea world is that you can love a tea that someone else abhors and vice versa. I would still drink this again if it were offered, as it’s a solid tea that tastes good enough, but I don’t feel compelled to finish this sample or restock. I’m all about the biodynamic Darjeeling when it comes to art of tea.

Thanks to kimquat for a sample of this tea! It’s been on my shopping list for ages and I’m lucky to have a chance to try it. This tea smells quite strongly of sweet rooibos and apples.

Sipping… ahh.. there is the pear! It’s sweet and juicy — very much like pear jellybeans. It’s bordering on the artificial side, but still enjoyable. The rooibos base is unfortunately the worst part of this blend. It abruptly ends the pear flavor and leaves you with a dry, woody aftertaste. I am a huge rooibos fan, but can’t really deal with the artificial pear & harsh rooibos pairing. The more I sip, the more cloying the flavors become… just can’t finish the cup. I usually like Art of Tea blends, but this one isn’t for me.

i do not like ginger but this was not to strong.