Camellia Sinensis

mmmm tasty tea from Dexter Since this year will be the year of Canadian companies…who let you buy in CANADIAN DOLLARS thank you very much, we’re trying to get through as many samples of teas as possible from various companies. this one is a deliciously tasty black tea. it’s a little floral like but it’s also sweet..not honey leafhopper sweet, but still sweet. This is a tea that is lighter…but not lacking in flavour. Overall another enjoyable tea from Camelia!

I totally forgot I’d had this one, and pulled it out of the stash as an easy sipdown.

YUM. How delightful.

If I didn’t have SO MUCH TEA, I’d totally consider getting more of this one. I do like it. The spice notes and warming sensation are really neat.

Thanks so much for sharing, Dexter!

Happy New Year, all! :)

Edit: Whoops. Thanks so much, Dexter! I really appreciate the sample. :)

This seems like a pretty typical shou.

But holy &^%*! I can FEEL THE WARMING that Cwyn mentions in her note. OMG. Whoa.

…whoa.

Let’s see how far I can get with this tea.

2x pour-in-pour-out rinses.

Steep 1: IDK, time. WHOA. Yeah, it smells a little of that fishy smell that shou puerh does at times. But the taste is all DARK TEA and WHOA.

Oh man. Is 7pm too early to go to bed? It is? Guess I should have more tea. Ok.

Steep 2: 4-5 seconds. That’s really dark. Little mushroomy-fishy smelling. That warming taste/feeling is still there. Wow. My mouth almost feels like I’ve been nomming spicy foods. But I haven’t. Sadly. (Oooh, maybe I should order in Chinese. Or not. I am feeling kinda lazy. And IDK if Vancouver has one of those things where you order and pay online so someone just drops off food for you and there is a minimum amount of interaction.) A bit of sweetness is lingering.

Steep 3: I just want to nod off. I’m still enjoying this, but I’m not sure I’d want a lot of it. Fairly smooth, that weird “spice” flavour, a bit of lingering bitterness/sweetness.

I’ve been distracted and have done more steeps. I think I shall thaw a steak and do some dishes and cook the steak and NOM IT. Because that’s what I think my body needs.

I am a fan of this style and know it is difficult to produce. Traditionally it is a 30 hour or so process.

This was well done in my opinion and very smooth…very enjoyable to drink.

First to review this, really? Well let’s try to do a good job at it then, it’s worth it!

I was quite intrigued with this tea as soon as I saw how unusual it looked like and read its description….I knew I had to buy some. Anything that has maple in its description gets my attention. (My grandpa had a sugar shack, I grew up literally “in” maple!)

Interesting fact, this tea was compressed and aged in bamboo baskets.

Its dry appearance is light and flaky. It looks like giant flakes of roasted maté, and pretty similar in terms of color.

Its smells a little like damp moss and seaweeds.

I rinsed once as recommended.

The first steep was a beautiful golden yellow.

It feels round in the mouth, almost oily, very nice.

The taste is super sweet, with a light earthiness to it. Maple water, yes please…the description did not lie.

I get a nice fresh camphor finish just like some puerh do.

It’s so tasty, some sweet spiciness emerges in the background, reminds me of anise.

Bonus: it provides a very relaxing and warming qi. I feel giddy :-)

This is a superb tea and I’m now adding Liu Bao to the list of favorite tea! It will be interesting to also try their 1996.

I take this opportunity to give some love to the wonderful teahouse that Camellia Sinensis is. When I used to live in the beautiful city of Montréal, I was a frequent customer of theirs. Superior product and impeccable service.

Americans, take advantage of our low Canadian dollar and encourage them! They even offer free shipping to the USA for all orders over $50. (Did I mention they have exquisite teaware? Cause they do!!)

Link:

http://camellia-sinensis.com/en/tea-store

Pics of this amazing tea:

http://instagram.com/p/ybE9jHQhxV/

http://instagram.com/p/ybGNmcwhy-/

First review for this one! This is a blend with dark green tea leaves and dried raspberry pieces, though I didn’t identify the orange peel pieces from the description. There is a raspberry scent that reminds me of the pastille type of fruit hard candy, and also leans toward floral and perfume-like. These qualities become stronger after steeping, which produces a yellow-green color. This is a very solid dark green tea, vegetal but not vegetable-like or grassy. The raspberry flavor is potent and refreshing. Aside from the scent being a little too perfumed, it’s quite enjoyable.

jury is still out on this one…though i think it’s leaning towards “no thanks” i tried this one gonfu today, to try and get a better handle on it. it didn’t work. the first steep was amazing in it’s uniqueness and then later steeps went weird on me. I have no idea how to classify what i’m tasting here beyond “weird” and “different” haha I only picked up a small amount of this, so we’ll see how terri fares with this one haha since she wanted to try more CS teas :)

This is really, really light, sweet, and somewhat resinous. Very fresh feeling, although I wouldn’t say there’s menthol. It’s also sticky and kinda sorta (at this steep level) is making my teeth feel weird. That’s probably the tannins. It’s also rather thick.

(5 minutes at 95C, decided it was too light so I popped the basket back in for another 5 minutes.)

Another tea from this morning. Still feeling very meh about this tea. Not going to be a restock unless someone can convince me otherwise via a spectacular harvest or something. Just not a lot of complexity here.

pulled this one out while i was going through my cupboard. I haven’t had it in a really long time. I think this has aged a bit bitter but there’s still an underlying taste of what i think omgsrsly refers to as “dirt”. It’s malty and there’s a little chocolatey taste to this, but the “dirt” detracts from it. poop :(

i told omgsrsly that i would try this one today since we both ended up ordering it from CS during their sale the other week. This tea has super cute little curly buds that made me smile as i wasn’t expecting that today.

So i don’t actually get cocoa from this one…it’s more of a slightly sweet, malty tea..with a hint of “dirt?” lol maybe there’s a little cocoa there in the background if i concentrate, but this one is vastly different from other cocoa/chocolatey teas that i’ve had. I’ll have to try this one gonfu as well to see how that changes things up.

Sipdown! Another tea i don’t mind picking up from time to time from CS. It’s not AMAZING but it’s better than “alright” lol

mmm a small bit of this from variaTEA was a nice opportunity to revisit this one. I still prefer it as a latte, but it’s a nice cup of tea on this dreary sort of morning. …er afternoon haha. So glad that it’s a long weekend AND my other half has at least 2 of the 3 days off! woot woot! Maybe we’ll get a bike ride in this weekend.

Latte of this one this morning that i thoroughly enjoyed. It added the creamy facto to a really nice chocolate puerh :)