Art of Tea

Not a mind boggling cup, but a nice warm vanilla tea. Very good flavor balance.

I ended up with this by accident. I placed an order with Amazon for Art of Tea’s Silver Needles and their Coconut Cream, and was sent this Mandarin Silk instead of the Silver Needles. Just a human error, I think – the packing label said Silver Needles. So I contacted Amazon and they said “We’re very sorry. We’ll refund your account; place another order for the Silver Needles and dispose of the Mandarin Silk in whatever way you feel fit.”
So I drank it.
And it’s good.

The leaves in the tin are very fragrant – sort of like oranges and cream. They’re rolled into very long, thin leaves. It brews a beautiful bronze color, and the light shining through it is lovely! It’s definitely a dessert tea, and it’s complimented well with a little bit of sugar – I use about a teaspoon of German rock sugar. Delicious.

Love the light floral note. I don’t get any bitterness from this cup at all.

Yum- a good coconut flavor along with a toasted (caramel?) after note.

Bleh. The oolong tasted old and stale, and I got absolutely no peach flavour from it. Sad and disappointed.

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 March 2012.

Appearance and Aroma of dry leaf: Standard characteristic silver-needle-looking downy-haired, light green buds; smells almost moldy, but really more like hay (I do not think they are moldy, btw).

Brewing guidelines: Glass Bodum pot, leaf free to roam; stevia added; 3 tsp tea = three 8-OZ cups water:
……….1st: Boiling, 2’; good color, aroma, flavor; it had a very slight bite—or edge to it—which seemed astringent, but I wasn’t for certain; I wasn’t expecting that, but I was OK with it.
……….2nd: 170F, 3’; tasted sweeter and didn’t have that bite I experienced in the First.
……….3rd: 175F, 4’; decent amount of flavor which was similar to the second; good up-front flavor that faded away quickly.

Color and Aroma of tea liquor: a clear light yellow; very mild aroma.

Flavor of tea liquor: I really struggled with how to describe the flavor. It wasn’t vegetal, or floral, or fruity; I was thinking of something like, straw, or barley, maybe even grain-y or malt-y. But none of those descriptors seemed to fit. And then I read Jillian’s review of Adagio’s Silver Needle, “… delicate sweet hay …”. That seemed to be the closest.

Appearance and Aroma of wet leaf: Lots of good-looking green, plump buds; I think they smelled slightly malt-y.

Value: I got this as one of four teas in their white tea sampler, which is still on sale for $19 (I haven’t used the bamboo strainer that came with the sampler, but it’s very cool looking and is proudly displayed in my cupboard); their version of silver needles, on it’s own, is currently $31 / 4 OZ, which is a very reasonable price as these silver needles are organic and Fair Trade Certified.

Overall: After reading on Gignko’s Life in Teacup website that you can steep silver needles at boiling I thought I would give it a whorl. Overall, starting at boiling seemed to yield success, and I don’t think it ‘scorched’ the leaves (quite honestly, I don’t know exactly what ‘scorched’ means, anyway). I stepped the temperature down for the Second and Third per a suggestion I thought I read somewhere (now I am thinking I am mistaken, though). After the Third it was too ‘late’ to do any more steepings. I enjoyed watching most of the buds stand straight up-and-down during the second and third steepings. Silver Needles is not a Tea I would chose to drink very often, but—as I have read in many books on Tea—it certainly is one to be experienced at least once.

Finally had a chance to cold brew this tea. And boy, is it delicious. The fruit flavor is toned down when it’s cold brewed, though. I’m not sure if I like that or not, but it makes the tea lighter. It was really nice with some sugar.

I opened that package and a wonderful, wonderful fruity smell came out. This is the best fruity or flavored tea I’ve had in a while. I’ve never had a guayusa tea before, so I was excited to try this one. Ah! It’s so good. The smell after steeping is exactly the same as the dry leaf. And the taste? The taste is incredible. It’s all apples and strawberries until the cup ends. If you like fruit, you have to try this.

Backlog:

Not bad. Not my favorite rooibos blend, and not my favorite blend from Art of Tea, but it isn’t terrible.

Backlog:

It took me a long time to actually try this, I think that I was jaded by the negative tasting notes here … but I actually enjoyed it. I didn’t taste much chocolate (as in no chocolate) and that is very disappointing, but, I got a crisp minty taste and a smooth vanilla flavor and I liked that combination. The rooibos flavor was not overwhelming, just a hint of nutty background.

It was pleasant. I’m not going to say it was my favorite rooibos blend because it wasn’t, but I liked it a whole lot more than I thought I would.

I was expecting this tea to taste peachier than it actually does. There’s a hint of fruit flavour but I think that comes mostly from the oolong leaves themselves. Mostly it tastes like a fairly typical dark oolong – a mix of bakey and moss/wet bark-like flavours (in case you were wondering, I’ve never actually eaten moss or wet bark, but this tea is what I’d imagine they’d taste like).

This is basically a dessert as a tea, it’s that good. It’s black tea + mint + chocolate. So delicious!

Loved this tea. Delicious. Never thought that a black tea would be so good without lemon, milk or sugar.

Kukicha is a great tasting tea that uses the parts of the tea that are sometimes considered “leftovers” the stems and twigs, but the flavor of this tea is really good, I love the sweetness of this tea blended with the flavors you would expect from a higher quality green tea.

This has such a dark liquor and well rounded flavor that I only brew it for about a minute at a time, its very good for multiple steeps, and it doesn’t have the mushrooms or musty flavor that can come along with lower quality Pu-erh.

Ok so I haven’t tasted it yet, really it’s just to pretty to break up and put in a cup, I have it on display in my office, it makes for a really cool conversation starter. People look at that and say “that’s really tea?” yep, it’s fun to have around. I plan to buy another and drink it soon, I will review that when I do.

This is a wonderful balance of flavor. It’s not overpowering and still holds to what a good black tea is known for. The stars are a nice visual addition that makes brewing this tea fun as well as flavorful. Ti

Lapsang is not for the faint of heart, it’s one of the boldest teas for aroma, and yet the flavor of the brew is very well balanced, with earthy smokyness, that is reminiscent of a good steak. This is one of my favorite teas for a cold day, in front of the fireplace. It also pairs well with chocolate bars, marshmallow, and graham crackers (s’mores)

Thank you Ellyn for the sample!

This blend is spicy but kind of bland. I don’t taste any pumpkin, mostly cinnamon and other spices with honeybush. It’s not bad, but I had to steep it for a really long time to get the strength I was looking for. Glad to have tried it though! It makes me wish Pumpkin Chai from DavidsTea was spicy like this.

Happy Holidays everyone! I love this pretty holiday tea. The candy pieces are so cute and the flavors are great.

Read the whole review here: http://www.teareviewblog.com/?p=19539

oh my golly gosh!! IT TASTES LIKE BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE!! how can a tea taste so lovely?? haha… Im deffinately going to seeking this tea out again,, I love it with just a dash of milk, no sweeteners needed… ohh I’m still dreaming about this tea,, love it. just love it.