De Vos Tea

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me a bit of this tea.

I don’t know if my feelings toward this tea are simply because the sample is a bit on the old side … or if it is just because I don’t like it. But… I don’t really care for this. I mean… it’s drinkable, it’s just not enjoyable. Sepalika is supposed to be a night flowering jasmine, but, it just tastes off. It is bitter and not the sweet, delightful jasmine I love. It almost tastes as if it were flavored with an essential oil rather than the layering process.

The grassiness of the green tea is also on the bitter side, and I’m finding that to be a bit off-putting as well. I was gearing up to write a review of this for the Tea Review Blog, but since they don’t want anything but favorable reviews, and I don’t really have anything nice to say about this one, I guess I’ll forgo the review.

I won’t even give this one a numeric rating, because, I don’t know that it would be fair, since I really don’t know how old the sample is. But as it is, I’m not enjoying this, and I’m pouring the rest of the cup down the drain.

Interesting, and unexpected. I was expecting a light, floral green and instead found this darker, rich, and earthy. The sepalika added a nice sweetness, but not floral notes in the way I was expecting, especially after reading the “jasmine” bit. I found it got bitter quite quickly even during subsequent infusions, but with that under control it was a nice experience.

To me…dry…this smells like a bitter berry and flowers. It infuses to a medium brown. Post infusion aroma is more floral and not really berry or bitter berry at all. I was excited to try Sepalika in a tea. I will say I like this more than I thought I would after realizing Sepalika was the cousin of Jasmine. It is different than your regular Jasmine and in a good way…at least in my book it is. It’s smoother and more wine-like and not overly floral or stale-flowers if you know what I mean. It’s a tad grassy – but just slightly. It’s more smooth than I thought it would be and that is a pleasant surprise!

This is a Ceylon green tea blended with a strange Ayurvedic flower called Sepalika Mala. It also goes by “Night-flowering Jasmine”. Not to be confused with regular jasmine. The petals sorta smell like lotus. As a tea, combined with a remarkably dark green tea base, it imparts a liquor that is oolong-ish gold with a taste that resembles a sheng pu-erh in its even-textured – almost wine-like – notes. Probably the first green tea blend in a long time I’ve been absolutely floored by.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/03/28/review-de-vos-tea-floral-green-tea/

I had this tea before and loved it. I found it to have a lovely light taste.

This was almost a rating for a perfect white tea. So close. The flavor possessed notes of honey, chrysanthemum, lotus, pale grapes and wilderness. It was wonderful. But the presence of an unwanted “ingredient” in the sample knocked it down a notch…and made it not-so-virginal, per the tea’s description. That said, I can see why it is a rare treasure. It tops most of the Silver Needles I’ve tried.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/03/07/review-de-vos-tea-virgin-white-tea/