Blue Teapot

i felt like brewing some of this tonight because i wanted something different. this is the only darjeeling ive tried and tbh i was a little unsure weather i could brew this right. but the tea gods shined down on me and i think i brewed it perfect, with my old stovetop kettle and western pot.
part way through i started chewing on a licorice root and that was a mistake i could have prevented- o well. this tea comes out mostly clear (light gold) and it doesnt look like a black, but i gues this is a characteristic of darjeeling.
it has a sweet floral aroma and the taste is delicate, sweet, with quite a bit of umami going on. im on my last cup and its not as hot as i want it but still nice. this tea also rides a thin line between floral and verdant, and i will definitely bring this one out more often.
the first time i tried this the water temp must have been too high because i remember this being bitter. if anyone is visiting vancouver, consider stoping by blue teapot at the quay in north van, they have a wide selection plus some teaware. adios.

-nycoma

This tasting note is from a long time ago. I got really lazy with inputting my written notes into Steepster, so these next couple are going to be me clearing those up!

This tea has beautiful chrysanthemum flowers that bloom when boiling water is added. They float to the top of the water while the tea is brewing, and I love watching them!

The tea itself has a delightful aroma and flavour. It really does smell like maple, although the flavour is more delicate than the aroma. It’s softly sweet and the tea is not bitter or astringent but still full-bodied. The black tea base and sweet notes are very balanced. The ingredients list raspberries, although I don’t really get any fruity notes out of this tea. Quite tasty overall.

First of all… I just noticed yet another tasting note I had previously written that Steepster ate for whatever reason. It was on Ruby Oolong, which now has “No notes yet… add one?” and I know for a fact that that was the one that I had written “another Rishi sipdown” because it was when I finished off that tea! This is really frustrating! Now I lost all of my final thoughts on that tea, which are important to me in evaluating my evolving taste for different types of tea and whether to repurchase or not. I really wish the admins were still active on their own website. I have not seem any improvements to Steepster (the actual website) ever since I joined last November, and it really is quite sad. (/rant)

Ok, on to the tea. This one has been sitting in my work’s cupboard ever since I started working here. I have had it only once or twice since then, with underwhelming results that I don’t quite remember. So I decided to do a proper tasting of this tea and log it (hopefully this one will be spared by Steepster, the Devourer of Tasting Notes). I think this tea must be a year, maybe two, old, and it’s only been stored in the original bag it was purchased in, so it has probably lost a lot of its original aroma and flavour. I don’t think it’s really worth drinking anymore, but I wanted to take a break from all of the teas I have in my personal cupboard at work, and so I just went for this poor sucker.

The dry tea smells vaguely of slightly floral black tea, which is pretty much the same for the brewed cup, except the black tea base aroma comes out a bit more then. This tea is supposed to have bergamont in it, but I don’t really smell it. The tea leaves are very finely broken, almost powder-like, which is strange to me since it was purchased loose leaf. As a result, the tea brewed quickly, and I only left it in for 2 minutes (I used a timer this time! Hurray!). I think I remember I made the mistake of over-leafing and over-brewing it the first time I tried it, since I didn’t realize how quickly it brews as a result of its rather fine grade.

Flavour is still very underwhelming. It’s not bitter, which is a plus, and the black tea base is rather smooth and overall enjoyable. The only flavour note I can pick out is the slightly floral one that kind of weaves in and out between sips like an elusive ribbon. You can’t always notice it, but it’s there. Hiding in the background is the tiniest citrus note, as well. I don’t think I will put rating for this one, as the age of the tea likely detracted for its quality by a lot. It’s not bad though, I will still enjoy the cup for today.

GCTTB 5 v.1

Smooth and mellow white tea blend. The base is lovely. I found a red peppercorn in my tea scoop, but none of the flavour of it comes through in the steeped tea. Apple and cream flavours are quite delicate. I wonder how much of that is due to flavouring and how much is due to age.

Decided to be a little bold and adventurous today (not really), so I tried blending my White Pearl of Fujian with my plain white Clipper tea. Alone, I found the Clipper tea to be quite tasteless except for a distinct sour note. However, it seems to work quite well in this blend. The apricot notes from White Pearl really stand out against the plain background that Clipper provides, and the sourness is almost completely masked. White Pearl also used to be a bit bitter for me, but that problem was mostly resolved in this blend. Two poor quality teas don’t make a great tea together, but these two at least complement each other enough to help the flavour a lot. I think I will be encouraged to finish off these two white teas if I blend them together. :)

Iced tea!

Wow, this one turned out really yummy the way I made it! For whatever reason, this tea brews bitter no matter what I do to try to counteract it (lower temp water, less steeping time), so I did have to add just over a tablespoon of simple syrup (which is still not that much considering it’s already a 1:1 water and sugar ratio). However, with the addition of the sweetener, and after I added a handful of frozen mangoes and let it sit in the fridge over night, the iced tea tasted really nice! The whole flavour profile was very tropical, and the mango infusion definitely came out in the tea, which I wasn’t really expecting to be honest. I think mangoes were the perfect choice for this tea because it already leans towards a fruity/tropical feel with the inclusion of apricot in the blend itself, so the mangoes really complemented the style and brought out a lot of the fruity flavours that I was missing in hot brews. Perfect timing for this, as it turned out to be a hot day, too!

I went to visit the Blue Teapot for the first time today, and was delightfully surprised at their quaint store and decent prices. The sales associate was nice, although I got the feeling that she didn’t know as much about the teas as I’d like; she couldn’t tell me a lot about their selection of traditional Chinese or Japanese teas (which I wanted to try).
I ended up buying this white/green tea blend. I figured that since I don’t currently have a white tea in my cupboard, might be good to start with something that already has flavours I’m familiar with. The tea smells very nice dry, you can definitely smell the apricot and jasmine in it. Brewed, the aroma reminds me a bit of a flowery mango.
I can’t taste any fruitiness when I sip it, though, which is a bit confusing to my tongue (who heard from my nose that this tea smells like delicious fruit). I can definitely taste some jasmine and the green tea – not sure where the white tea is hiding, I don’t quite know how to identify it by taste yet. I know that white tea has a very subtle flavour though, so it is probably being overwhelmed by the other dominant ingredients in the blend.
Overall, I find this tea to be like a fruity/flowery smelling version of regular jasmine green tea, which is interesting, but like I mentioned before, I don’t like it when the aroma and flavour of teas don’t match – it confuses my expectation for the tasting part, as my taste buds are expecting something much different, even if it is good tea. It’s decent and I will drink it happily, but will be trying something new next time.

Thank you Sil for including this one in the awesome box you sent.
I like it – not sure that I love it. I wish it were pear with ginger rather than ginger with pear. While the ginger is not totally over powering, there is still just a touch more than I would prefer. The pear is a little appleish, but for sure juicy fruit with ginger.
Interesting fun little tea…

Underwhelming. Ironically unsurprising
Weak . Such a disappointing tea from a lovely tea house.

GCTTB
I’m agreeing with Kirlika – there is something wrong between the description/picture of this tea and what’s in the package. This is a white tea, no coconut, no orange peel – I too have peppercorns in my sample.
LOL so I don’t know what I’m drinking.
I’m saying – lemon grass, vegital, spicy (pepper for sure -maybe also a hint of ginger?), hint of nutty, apple? I just took a sample and left the rest in the box – maybe someone else can give it a guess….

FromTGCTTB (round 3)
Given the amount of snow falling outside at the moment I thought this would be an appropriate tea to try out. It’s interesting, looking at it I’d almost say that the ingredient list is incorrect or not complete, I don’t see the coconut, they neglect to mention the pink peppercorn, and I could swear that the leaves weren’t a Celyon black; but I’m going to give it a shot anyway.

That said the sweet citrusy, spicy scent of the tea is really nice and what called to me when I first opened the bag. The brewing definitely tells a tale though, this is not a black! At a guess Id say white, but I’ve not had that many white teas so I can’t say for certain. Too bad I didn’t go with my first instincts on this since I defiantly brewed it at too high a temp, ah well

Pale yellow and with a subtle,slightly vegetal fruity scent this tea is different from my usual style. Nutty undertones complement the few citrus notes and there’s just enough of a kick from the peppercorn to give it a little heat. In the end not one that I’ll pull out of the box but I’m glad it was there to try.

PS I gave up trying to set the water temp scale since I’m on an iPad and could only get iced or boiling :p. Brewed at 95C

ok, it’s decided. I’m over this tea. The first cup i had was really great and then subsequent cups have been truly “meh” I’m not sure if it’s because the flavouring changed really quickly or what. At least i tried it though. Passing this on to a random steesterite for them to try and then pass along if they don’t like it haha. SOMEONE probably needs to pick up all the teas at my place…. just saying haha

I’ll have to try this one in a mug..because the first time i had it, i loved it. This last time i had it, it was meh..and the only difference that i can tell is really the mug versus travel mug. SOOOO jury is still out on this one haha

oh man! i had this one before i left for ottawa and it was super delicious vanilla-y. it was a great cup of tea. Super Vanilla and really nice. I’ll write more next time that i have it haha

pulling this one out of my cupboard again as well since i can’t seem to make it work. There is too much of a floral note in this one for me to really be able to enjoy it. oh well, some of the others from this company were nice…and i’m always up for xploring new teas and companies!

I tried this one last night because i got it in my head that i wanted an orange tea, and i hadn’t cracked this one open yet. This tea makes me sad. It’s not orange, like orange creamsicle…it’s more like blergamot orange…. and weakly so. It doesn’t really taste like rooibos…just sort of blergamot water. i’ll have to give it another shot soon, but if this is how it’s going to be, it can go away! :)

30/28 sipdowns heh the last of this is being split out to a few tea friends that i know might have fun at least trying this one since it’s not a common tea shop, nor local. Had a lovely last cup of this while taking a bath and trying to get my mind to stop thinking about work so that i’ll be able to sleep tonight. maybe.

another tea this evening – verdict is that i like this more hot than cold. There’s still not enough ginger in this for my liking, but the pear flavour isn’t half bad. Maybe they should just call this pear tea :) Another green rooibos blend which i can get behind, though i don’t mind red rooibos :)

cold brewed this one overnight to see if it would work over the summer. While it’s a tasty enough cup, i think i prefer hot brew, so next up will be hot brew then cooled to see if that works. I’m always looking for things that are close to water that we can take biking with us as needed. :)

so cold brewed? awesome! I added just a splash of sugar to this one and it’s like drinking a delicious pear drink. The only down side? the ginger has smoothed out more and it’s mostly not there. Still though…this will be super tasty in summer on bike rides. glad i took a chance on it when in Vancouver.

Final Count: 217 teas (still a few inbound as well…holy….)i foresee many, many, new tea tasting notes in my future lol maybe i WILL make it to 2000 types of teas by July lol

This is another backlog from yesterday – i probably shouldn’t have had this one along side the ginger lime, because pear is a little more uted than lime in the grand scheme of things. I still quite enjoyed this one – the ginger isn’t as strong as i want it to be, though that may just be because i didn’t steep it for long enough. We’ll see how next time goes :)

Final Count: 116 (plus teas from yyz i hadn’t had a chance to add to my cupboard)

This was a free sample with the teas that i picked up from the Blue teapot while in Vancouver. it wasn’t one that i’d been thinking about picking up, but it’s not half bad. Kittyloves tea had it right when she said that this is a “mixture of sweet and sour tones and crispness.” overall a nice enough tea but nothing to get all excited and crazy over!

Decided to try out one of the teas my parents apparently purchased the other day at the Blue Teapot.

This is my first tea from there, but as this is a rooibos — a tisane I’m pretty sure I don’t like — I won’t make any snappy judgements on the company itself.

Anyway… I don’t really like it. The blueberry flavor itself is very nice, the sweet sort rather than the tart as some blueberry flavors can be. At the swallow it does taste like I actually swallowed a blueberry. The problem … is the rooibos base. It’s heavy and medicinal. It takes over the scent of the tea, and has a very medicinal like presence all throughout the taste. Honestly, it’s making me feel rather nauseated. I suspect this is the reason why I hated Birthday Cake rooibos so much from David’s. The problem’s the rooibos, not the sweet flavor.

It’s a shame, because the blueberry itself tastes quite good, but I just can’t get over the taste of the rooibos itself. I don’t think a shorter steep time will fix this, as it seems if I steep any shorter I won’t get much of any flavor at all.

Bottom line, if you don’t mind the medicinal-like taste of rooibos and you like blueberries, pick this one up! :)