Art of Tea

I got this in the sample swap from Meowkattack! Mmm it smells sooo good and it’s even better when it’s steeped! I can pick out the fresh pear and caramel notes. I’m actually impressed with this tea! It’s so sweet and juicy! The flavors are done so well! I’m so happy I got to try this. Thank you again!

Sipdown 2020! 14/365

Great pear flavour but a bit of a sourness that wore on me the more I drank it. Dropping the rating from 85 to 75. Wish this flavouring was on an oolong base!

Another pretty-old rooibos. I had a recollection of liking it, and my rating reflects that memory, which is good – however, when I opened the packet today, it smelled awfully pungent. Not necessarily in a bad way, but very strong, and not really of pear. I’m trying to figure out how to describe it but am not coming up with anything useful. Oh well.

The brewed aroma is also fairly pungent, though I can smell a bit more pear, but to my surprise – the flavour is pure pear. AKA delicious. So that was a happy discovery. So I’m not sure where this pungency is coming from, but since the tea tastes delicious, it’s bothering me less now. Perhaps it’s just concentrated flavouring. There isn’t really any caramel in the flavour that I can detect; I’d twice mentioned that I should mix this with some creme caramel rooibos to amp up the caramel, but have yet to do so. I’m not entirely sure I even have any of that tea, but if I do, it’s probably the DavidsTea version.

This is definitely up there in terms of tasty pear teas, but I really wish the flavouring was paired with a nice green base like Butiki’s Huangshan Mao Feng, instead of a rooibos. Or at least honeybush. I just don’t like that I can taste the rooibos here, so it decreases my enjoyment of the tea. Although this definitely tastes like bosc pears (not d’anjou, which are my favourites), I also wish that there was a bit more caramel going on here. I should give it a shot with a ½ tsp of a crème caramel rooibos or something.

Thanks again to Azzrian for this one!

This tea came to me by way of Azzrian, who received it via Steepster Select and found it to be nothing special… but I am so glad it found its way to me!!! Let me explain:

First off, the smell! Delicious, delicious pear Jelly Bellies! That’s exactly how it smells, to me! I’m not really sure that it’s a particularly realistic pear aroma, but I happen to like pear Jelly Bellies, and fake pear flavouring, so I’m pretty excited! I could smell a touch of rooibos behind the pear, but it wasn’t really bothering me. I had my roommate smell this one as well, and she found something in it to be offputting, which I found surprising (but that’s ok, more for me!)

Anyways, onto the flavour! I lost track of how long I infused this one for (a while), but it’s ok as it’s a rooibos… and also not an issue because the flavour is absolutely delicious! A strong pear flavour as per the aroma, again with the rooibos present but unassuming (thankfully) in the background. I’m not sure that I’m really getting “caramelized” pear from the tea, and would really like to mix a little creme caramel rooibos or something similar in here to see what happens…. but this tea is sweet and delicious as is! Much less finicky than DavidsTea’s Sencha Pear, but with the same great pear flavour.

This one’s a winner for me! And bonus – caffeine-free, so I can enjoy it before bed! Perfect! Thank you so much Azz, this tea definitely found a better home here!

ETA: Re-steep pretty good! A bit more rooibos, but still a strong pear flavour. Tasty!

Delicious! smooth creamy, and that smell when opening the bag so good!! def recommend!

it is good. the first cup it tasted more like an earl grey (not a fan) but after that it got better. Not my favorite but worst a try.

Thanks you Terri Harp Lady for this sample tea!

Rain, Rain finally Rain! I’m happy it’s here!

I just noticed that the condo entrance median outside has two apple trees filled with small apples that I hope have a chance of becoming something wonderful to eat before the snows this year!
I noticed the bushes have suddenly turned red and overnight,the big tree across the street turned bright yellow-gold.
Because I’m halfway up to the clouds here at 5000 feet, they seem grander and closer to the ground. Huge, billowy, purple blue monster clouds came rolling over the higher Rocky’s with Spielberg-like special effect movement, around 5PM. This has always been exciting to me. I knew what to expect when I saw the clouds forming in the distance earlier, so I rushed to the grocery store so that I wouldn’t have to leave home for a few days. (Milk for Chai was on the top of my list.)
For tonight, I made Peach Oolong for sipping before watching TV. (Revolution, (giving this series a look).

The scent and flavor of this tea were both mild even with a 3 minute steep. I thought sweetening might wake up the peach flavor, but even sweetening didn’t bring it out.
I tasted mild roasted leaf that wasn’t bitter, but it had an odd plywood taste.

Hum. What was the creator of the flavored tea trying to achieve? Possibly not the flavor of the peach but the peach skin. That would explain the mild, dry and woody taste. Could be. To me, there was hardly an oolong taste or peach flavor. Peach skin was the closest.

So, the rain is here. I’m ready with soup and tea in my cupboard! Cool weather is perfect for Chai and looking out the window at big clouds and watching a movie!

Sipdown no. 19 of 2017 (no. 300 total).

This was an excellent Earl Grey Creme. Very creamy vanilla lilt and gentle on the stomach. My kids liked it, too. Bumping the rating

I’ve written several notes on this one before, and I won’t repeat myself here. I’m sorry to see it go, but I have to be brutal about getting through some of these teas or when I die of old age my heirs will have to decide what to do with them.

For a while, I had developed a habit of starting the day with an Earl Grey, but I haven’t had one since I cycled back to tea this last time around. This was the first one I put my hands on this morning. It was a good choice. The vanilla gentles the bergamot and the tea overall, and it perked up the rainy, dreary morning I woke up to.

Another Earl from the stash. I reread my earlier note on this—there I said that the crème was the dominant flavor I tasted and that is still true. The bergamot is not strong at all, but it is clearly there because this doesn’t taste like a single flavor vanilla tea. I like Earl Grey crèmes in general because of the mildness the vanilla flavor adds, and this is a very enjoyable wake-up tea. Sort of like a gentle shake rather than a klaxon blaring in my ear.

I haven’t had an earl grey of any stripe in months. I remember being on a comparative earl grey tasting tear at one point, but sadly after all that work I can’t remember much about what I tasted or what I liked without referring back to my own notes. Yay for Steepster, for remembering when I can’t. I wish I could download my tasting logs. If anyone knows a way, please tell me as I can’t find one.

Looking back on my logs, it seems I haven’t logged many earl grey cremes. The front runner among those I’d tried was Upton’s, though I also liked TeaFrog’s blend.

This one has a delicious perfume coming from the dry leaves. Lots of vanilla and not too strong on the bergamot. The leaves are dark brownish with cornflower blossoms adding color to the mix. I’m such a sucker for those little cornflowers! Is it wrong to wish they were in every tea just for the cuteness factor?

The tea is a crystal clear cinnamon brown color with a hint of orange and it smells divine. There’s a very light malty substrate to the aroma. Sweet creamy notes predominate, but a light citrus takes the edge off and add some depth.

The tea has an interesting thickness, or perhaps I should say creaminess, to the mouthfeel which really suits the vanilla cream flavor. The vanilla cream is the dominant flavor I’m tasting, but its also a delicate flavor, not at all overpowering. I’m partial to beany vanilla more than to creamy, but this is quite nice as creamy goes.

I don’t like strong bergamot in my earl grey. I prefer just a hint, enough to wave and say hi and then fade into the background. After reading some of the notes I thought I might not like this one much, but I don’t get strong bergamot. The citrus is there, but it’s sweetened and somewhat diluted by the cream, like lemon icing or the orange in creamsicle.

It could also be that the bergamot mellowed while this tea sat on my shelf for a while. It was sealed before I opened it today, and the aroma didn’t seem stale, but maybe bergamot is volatile and fades over time? Perhaps that accounts for the difference. If so, then it worked to my benefit, because I find this quite nice. The longer I drink it, the more I can discern the bergamot, a tiny “gotcha” at the back of the throat but not in a bad way at all. It also shows up some in the aftertaste, a little cut to keep the cream from becoming too much.

Some earl greys can do a number on my stomach. The bitterness or harshness of the bergamot, which seems sometimes to have a synergistic effect on whatever bitter or harsh notes are in the tea itself making them more pronounced, can leave me feeling like I need something to coat my stomach lining. This isn’t doing that. The tea base plays a supporting role here, and I mostly taste it at the edges of my tongue during the sip and in the aftertaste.

Having been away for so long I no longer have an intuitive feel for what I meant when I established my ratings, so I’m rating this on an absolute rather than a relative scale. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t have to be perfect to be good and something I’ll look forward to drinking.

Another swap with Will work for tea I have to say that this is a really nice blueberry tea. It’s a bit light, so I might have to try steeping it for a bit longer but overall it was just what I needed tonight. I really like that as the tea cools, the blueberry becomes a little more present in the tea. I’m also enjoying that this is a rooibos that i do like :) Would love to try this iced.

3rd in taste test/Jasmine Pearl Marathon
Right away you notice the jasmine scent is stronger when you open the tin on this one, but what I do like is this is the first tea in my taste test today that I smell the Green Tea as well.
Taste is a bright jasmine tea, the jasmine is certainly present but not perfume-y or overpowering.
And the green tea is nicely waiting in the background.
Very nice Jasmine tea for sure
(I received a phone call from the hospital before this cup was finished and it cooled off some before I could get back to it and the jasmine changed from being as bright to almost creamy and rich, very nice!)

This is my first time tasting any type of Kukicha at all. I’m struck by the distinct sweetness and almost complete lack of astringency, and the nature and degree of sweetness reminds me of white grapes. This tea has a cloudy light green-yellow color and a mild grassy aroma.

Fantastic! This may be one of the absolute best o’olongs I’ve ever tasted! Just the perfect amount of jasmine and VERY smooth!

Only downside of course is price :(

Meh. I agree with the other tasting note. This tastes like, at most, your average Chun Mee. In fact, I think I’d rather just drink water over this…which is sad because I actually enjoy 99% of green teas I taste.

Sub-par for sure. Glad I only got a sample of it.

Ooh, I love this. The scent of the tisane in the bag is beautiful – like a ripe brown Bartlett pear. I really don’t eat many pears because I can’t stand being messy, and they drip a lot. But we grow them at the apple orchard where I used to work, and they always were fabulous there, right off the tree.

Okay. Boiling water, poured into my TARDIS tea mug (For you DW fans: I realized a bit late that I was drinking pear-flavored tea in the TARDIS. SORRY TEN!) (For you non-DW fans… don’t judge me!) and steeped for approximately, 5-7 minutes? I forgot about it, and stopped steeping when I could smell it from across the room. On the plus side, the little infuser included in the Steepster Select box fits PERFECTLY across the square shape of the mug, which is good, because most mugs aren’t square!

Drinking this, it tastes exactly as it smells. I really love it. There’s just the right hint of caramel to pear to rooibos. The pear comes first, and the rooibos and caramel flavors are intermingled. When it was boiling hot, all I could taste was faint hints of rooibos, but as it cools the sweetness really comes out. This is fantastic. So glad for it to have been included

This arrived today in the last Steepster Select box for a while (boo!)

Man, I can’t believe all the positive reviews of this tisane. I just thought this was kind of nasty. It smells odd and it tastes even odder. I can’t quite place it, it’s mediciney and yes there is pear in here, but it tastes kind of rotten and fermented with a mixture of stinky feet. Blech! I do like some rooibos blends but this is NOT one of them.

If anyone wants to swap for this please let me know.

So, I was planning to try a new mate, but I slept in this morning and just felt too tired. I was sniffing my “to review new teas” pile and found this tea, a sample by Will Work For Tea (yay thanks again!). By smell, this had to be the tea this morning.

DRY: Coffee, kinda pungent. Whoa, lumps of whole coffee beans in this tea! Oh hells yes thats what I need this morning. Tiny pieces of white chocolate? I was guessing that black tea is in this. I looked up the tea online and it’s oolong and green! Crazy!

STEEPED: I was smelling a bitter black tea until I knew what teas are in “Brewed Awakening”. Now I can totally ID the green tea smell. Also smells like coffee. Brews up to a dark, slightly cloudy tea.. looks like black tea.

TASTE: Hit of slight bitterness and a punch of coffee. Tiny bit of creamyness and nuttyness at the end. Totally tastes like black tea and easy to end the judging there! But now that I know it’s green tea – I taste it, with it’s roasted and almost over-cooked green teaness. I can detect the oolong at the end of the sip, which adds body and nuttyness. Or it’s all in my head and I’m trying to detect green and oolong. ARG.

WHO’D LIKE THIS TEA: Coffee Drinkers (you are running out of excuses to not switch to tea), black tea drinkers who don’t want to drink black tea. Tea drinkers who want to be schooled on creative use of green tea.

COMMENTS: This tea is crazy – it was fun that I didn’t know the ingredients until I was half-way into the cup. I totally thought it was blacktea/coffee beans/white chocolate/something roasted tasting like mate or barley or nuts.
I’m impressed green and oolong was used here to create a coffee effect. Very smart Art of Tea, very smart.

Compared to all the recent coffee-tea blends I’ve drank recently, “Brewed Awakening” is the more simple blend and one that would appeal most to tea drinkers who like a creative blend. This would be the tea to serve if you have tea drinkers and coffee drinkers at the same table. You’d might satisfy both parties.
This tea is more milder than my recent coffee-teas. TeaVanas Javavana mate is stronger and more chocolately. Fusion’s “Good Morning Mate” is more roasty, spice and robust.

Overall, pretty funky tea. I was schooled! Now I need to check out Art of Teas line up to see if they can school me again. I don’t think I’d order this one, but happy to of tried this tea.

Backlogging and based solely on memory

Experience buying from Art of Tea http://steepster.com/places/3023-art-of-tea-online-santa-cruz-california

Date of Purchase/Amount of Leaf/Date of Steeping: Bought in late 2011, sample of roughly a little over an ounce, steeped up sometime in March 2012.

I liked this tea the most out of the four teas in Art of Tea’s White Tea sampler. It reminded me (and my wife) somewhat of a quality green tea, in that it was somewhat vegetal in its flavor profile with the standard white tea ‘sweet hay’ notes mixed in. I would happily drink this tea often, but it’s somewhat pricy by my standards ($20 /4 OZ), especially given their shipping is $7 USD (I believe), but this is the tea I like the most from them after having tried four whites and two greens.

Backlogging, and based partly on memory.

Experience buying from Art of Tea http://steepster.com/places/3023-art-of-tea-online-santa-cruz-california

Date of Purchase/Amount of Leaf/Date of Steeping: Bought eight ounces of this tea in late 2011 during their Black Friday sale in 2011. I steeped this tea a few times since I bought it (once today: 6/11/2012).

Appearance and Aroma of dry leaf: Looks and smells like Chun Mee green tea.

Brewing guidelines: I think I initially experimented some with the time and temperature on this one, but in general I used my standard green tea brewing guidelines.

Color of tea liquor: cloudy orange.

Flavor of tea liquor: Somewhat vegetal, strongly smoky, and astringent tasting after the second steeping (and some on the first if not brewed properly); it’s like any Chun Mee I’ve had, and I have found that I don’t particularly like the smoky flavor of them; in my experience, along with gunpowder, Chun Mee tends to be the lowest grade of a green tea that one can get.

Appearance and Aroma of wet leaf: Like any Chun Mee I’ve seen.

Value: I got this during one of their sales for 30% with free shipping: for eight OZ it was a little over $8. Still, it was not worth it to me at this price, which averages @ $1 / OZ.

Overall: I am disappointed with this tea. I took a chance on it and it didn’t pan out (in the larger scheme of things, that’s OK, because overall I still consider myself fortunate considering the risks I have taken when it comes to buying various green teas before drinking them first). Art of Tea doesn’t call it Chun Mee, but it looks, smells and tastes like any Chun Mee I’ve ever had (I’ve tried at least two, if not three, before this one). I don’t think I would have bought this had I known it was a Chun Mee style/type green tea.

After brewing it up a few times initially it has been sitting in my cupboard all winter and spring, and I’ve been wondering how I could possibly put some use to it (I don’t like the taste of it on it’s own). Recently, I decided to get some use out of it by adding it to the second and third steepings of Teavana’s Yunnan Emerald Buds (which my wife and I both generally like), and twice I noticed a strong astringent taste which I did not get when brewing up the Yunnan Emerald Buds on their own. So, this morning I made a spontaneous decision: I composted the rest of this Yun Wu (probably about 5-6 OZ of it). This is THE FIRST TIME I have ever simply put unused tea into my compost bin (at least then the plants can get some use out of them). I’ve been using up lots of old, not-so-great tea off-and-on all year, and, quite honestly, I’m tired of ‘worrying’ about ‘wasting’ tea (I call it my ‘efficiency shadow’, as in, if I throw something out without using it, I judge it is wasteful, and for some reason I feel shame about it. ENOUGH!). I’m glad I am rid of it. Life is too short to drink sub-par tea, n’est pas (feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken about this, but I think that’s basically how you say, “is it not so?” in French)?

This tea could not have come at a better time.
We are having unseasonable cold temps here, today is in the forties and rainy and windy.
I opened the tin and took a big whiff then I felt like Emeril Lagasse, because I said “BAM” right out loud.
With the dry leaves I immediately smelled sugar, caramel and cream.
Once I poured the water over the leaves, I smelled warm milk, then a smokiness…then finally then the earthy Oolong came through gently.
The color is light, more like the color of green tea.
The first sip again brings to mind of warm milk, maybe with a touch of sugar.
Rather comforting.
It finishes with a nice smooth, light Oolong taste.
The second infusion it lost a bit of its sugary milk smell and taste and more of an actual tea flavor comes through.
Now, I do normally like more of a classic Oolong tea.
Most experience I have had with Oolong were in pots of hot strong Oolong delivered to our tables at the local Chinese restaurant.
My father also drank Sunluck or Bigelow Oolong.
But, I do like this tea.
Maybe it is the rain and wind beating against the window right now or the fact this tea is like something a Mother might make for a child who was having trouble sleeping.
I am certainly enjoying this unusual flavored Oolong (this is my first flavored Oolong, by the way)
On a much warmer day than today, I am looking forward to try this tea cold brewed.

Well, I must admit, I am surprised to see the rating on this tea.
Or maybe I am just inexperienced at tea drinking.
But, my first thought when I opened the tin was “WHOA” and it was not a good “whoa”.
It smelled strong and slightly perfume-y to me.
To be honest, not very much like coconut at all.
Much more flowery and I repeat, perfume-y.
Once it is brewed and poured it calmed down some, smell wise.
Taste is more flower-ish than coconut as well.
Once, I told myself to stop thinking it as coconut tea and more like flower scented tea, I was able to enjoy it better.
I liked the second infusion better, smell and taste were milder.
It is brews up beautiful in a Libre or Glass teapot because of the lovely blue petals.
As I type this, I am curious to how it would taste iced.
I might have to try that next.
I will drink up this tea, but most likely will not be purchasing again.

This tea is actually very tasty as a Cold Brewed Tea!
The perfume-y taste/smell that I complained about above is not really there at all and (GASP!) I actually taste the coconut!
I used about 8 tablespoons in my Takeya and left in the fridge cold brewing for about 20 hours.
I am pleased with a smooth, light tea that is perfect for a summer day!