Bird Pick Tea & Herb

I received this in a swap long ago but had forgotten about it! It had a nice smooth jasmine flavor without the tea base overpowering it. I prefer my jasmine a bit stronger so I won’t purchase it personally but would definitely give as a gift if trying to introduce someone to jasmine.

For some reason, I can’t get it out of my head that this tastes like sweet strawberry-milk. It’s so great! Although I would advise against drinking this everyday as it gets old quick. However, for a nice treat every once in a while, this tea is perfect! I’m definitely keeping this one in my tea stash.

Wow, did someone put out a campfire in my mouth?! Sat down with my tea at breakfast this morning and my husband said he smelled a fire. I casually told him it was my tea and he had to sniff it to believe me. Then I had to hear how it’s probably filled with carcinogens which is bad for you. I’ll just pretend he didn’t say that part. It’s so smokey! I like it!

Wow! Looking back over my tasting notes makes me realize this sample is over two years old! It has been that long since I visited Santa Monica.

Since I last had this tea I have developed an appreciation for breakfast teas. This reminds me of the hearty base found in breakfast teas, without the complexity and depth. I’m guessing that comes with the blending of other teas to make a fuller flavor. I get a hint of smoke in the flavor and a slight leathery taste. I like it much better than the first time I tried it, but I think I’d prefer a breakfast blend over this.

Got a sample of this tea to try to figure out which bases I like my flavored black to be. I let this tea get cold before drinking it and that was a bad move! I’m hit with a bitter taste. Kinda subtle smokey. I may have brewed it to strong. Watering it down and heating it up makes it much better! It is now smoother, but a little bland and leaves my mouth feeling dry after each sip. Sweetening it really doesn’t do much to change it for me, good or bad. I give this one a meh for being pretty unremarkable.

This is the second tea in my plain black taste test! This one is definitely more mellow than the Ceylon. No bitter twang and fairly smooth. A tiny bit of caramel on the sip and maybe a touch of smoke at the end. Sugar adds to the caramel flavor.

This is nice. I kinda like it.

In an effort to better understand the flavored teas I like and don’t like, I picked up a few small samples of popular basic blacks to try on a trip to Bird Pick. First up is the Ceylon.

I recognize this flavor. It is the flavor I remember tea tasting like at Chinese restaurants. It has never been one of my favorites, but drinkable in a pinch. It is very grassy. Like a watered down warmed up wheat grass shot. It is a little unpleasant on the tip of my tongue when I sip and a little bitter in the back when I swallow. When I sweeten it, it reminds me of the Lipton sweet tea that my in laws would make and drink down by the gallon each summer. Bittersweet memories with a bittersweet tea, how fitting! I’m also thinking this may be the same base as some of the desert David’s Teas that I have tried like Red Velvet Cake. I wish more companies who do flavored teas would list the type of blacks they are using so I could form a better opinion of what I like and dislike.

This tea is alright once I sweeten it, but I’m not a fan of it plain. It gets an eh.

On my quest to finding a great tasting Milk Oolong that is unflavored and at a reasonable price, I ran to Bird Pick. I had currently tried Lupicia’s Milky Gold Oolong and completely fell in love! But after being sold out I had to find an alternative.

I walked into bird pick and asked to try a sample. I was very disappointed that they served me a sample of burned, bitter, and unsatisfying Oolong. I usually steep my Taiwanese Oolongs 1-1.5 min they brewed it for 4 min! I was applaud…later I asked to have it steeped for a minute and it tasted so creamy and buttery. It was a nice tea, made my day (: I bought myself some and ran home to use on my gaiwan.

I rated mid satisfaction because although the tea smells amazing I can taste the low quality in the leaf. I usually steep my oolongs up to 10 times but this one gave up the creaminess on the 3rd steep. Nice tea, just not my absolute favorite.

Steepster tantrum backlog

Heather kindly passed down her last bag of this. Thanks a bunch! I love hojicha so I’m always up for trying more.

This is one of the toastiest teas I’ve ever smelled. So roasted that it’s like how coffee beans go a little bitter when they’re super roasted. Or even some roasted matés.

But that said, caramel is the perfect flavour to pair up with hojicha. It beats downing a sugar-laden caramel latte at a coffee shop.

The caramel comes a little more out of hiding as this cools.

Another sample sip down! (Which is good because I couldn’t sleep last night and when that happens I lose all restraint and get online and order tea. Yes, I did.)

I served this first at tea party today and I liked this best, but I really love oolong tea now. The other tea was quite good – it was Darjeeling 6000 from Grace Rare Tea – but I am not the biggest fan of Darjeeling in the world, though I have tasted a few that really were quite nice.

This has a high fruity note that almost borders on sour, but not sour tea, rather a sweet and sour fruit. There is a hint of that elusive and hard to describe flavor that I get from Tie Guan Yins, the one Bonnie described as oil paint and I realized it reminded me of the smell of my acrylic paints when I was a kid taking art lessons. (I was terrible at it but my mother thought I should take lessons because I am a lefty, I am a mirror writer, and I clutch pencils with a death grip. Art didn’t help that.)

This isn’t astringent but is very fresh and even though I started with it hot and now have let it cool to room temperature it almost tastes as though I refrigerated it. It is very light and refreshing.

I like this! Next time I order my beloved Premium Silky Green, I may add this to the order.

This is truly an enjoyable summer tea! It smells sweet when dry, with that crisp sencha scent.

Once brewed, it doesn’t taste as sweet, but maintains the delicious aroma, which is great because it’s simply outstanding. I’m not overly fond of sweet tasting teas, so it works for that. My one issue with this tea, however, is the name. Honeydew. I detest honeydew. If I hadn’t tried this one without knowing the name first, I may never have given it a chance. It does not taste like honeydew to me, but rather watermelon. Honeydew has a thicker sweetness to it, and this is more the bright, clean taste of watermelon… in a tea.

Very light. Floral and tasty aftertaste.

Mucho thanks to whomever sent my the sample bag of this tea!! it was really interesting.
A dark, roasty oolong with a smokey shadow hanging over it, and a refreshing finish.
I haven’t decided how I feel about smoke in my oolongs yet though. Would have to try more to figure it out :)