Enchanted Teacup

I’ve been drinking this one at work every since I removed it from GCTTB Round 6, and I am quite happy that I chose this one. It’s a quite lovely mix of light flavours: peach, floral notes, and delicate white tea. Not much else to say, other than I am almost out and since I liked it so much I am considering getting more!

GCTTB

i think i’m just tired of mint. this isn’t a bad tea…but i just have the blahs about mint these days.

I do enjoy this as a cold brew!

I tried this as a cold brew this time and I really enjoyed it. I like that it isn’t overpowering floral. The peach comes out more as a cold brew or fine (or this cup did anyway!)

I took a sample of this out of the GCTTB5.
I really enjoy peach teas, but I found that the tangerine kind of took over in this cuppa. I didn’t really get any floral notes, but that’s alright. I think I would have preferred the peach alone rather than paired with the citrus. Oh well, I’m glad I got to try it. I have a teensy bit left, so I will try a cold brew sometime.

GCTTB

This tea was in the box for the last round and I didn’t try it then. I took a sample out and gave it a try yesterday.

It was pretty good! It reminded me of the Vanilla Mint Cha Pu’erh from Rishi Teas. It was the very first pu’erh I ever had. Now after having straight pu’erh only for awhile it was a bit strange to try a blended one again. I just think of them as being in their own class of tea separate from straight pu’erh.

This one was minty & earthy with a hint of vanilla. There was also something in there giving it a faint spicy edge. Maybe the cinnamon? This blend works well for a ripe pu’erh and I really enjoyed it. I tried to keep notes at work but it went down pretty fast.

Sipdown. I was rationing this blend because I found that it’s good at settling an upset stomach, in addition to tasting good. But sadly it’s finally done and no more where that came from. :(

The company I purchased this tea from was sadly short-lived but I’m not too surprised – we’re more of a Tim Hortons coffee-type city than anything resembling cultured. They did have some interesting blends while they were active though, among them several flavoured pu’erh blends.

The pu’erh base in this one is fairly mild and gentle with a nice, rich peaty flavour. As you might guess from the title mint is the main flavour component but the vanilla gives the tea a creamy sweetness and the cinnamon gives it a hint of warm spice. It all works very nicely together and it makes me wish I’d thought to grab more of the company’s flavoured pu’erhs while I had the chance.

I thought I would be impressed. But I was only mildly so.
Lots going on here, and yet nothing at all. Mild sweetness, a hint of pepper. Is that floralness? I can’t quite tell!1

So the Travelling teabox A has finally arrived after some hiccups. As a result, i’ll be sampling a bunch of teas in the near future so that I don’t actually have to add them to my cupboard but i still get to try another of “ALL THE TEAS!” I have a short list of the teas i really want to try which i’m starting with and then if there’s time i’ll try a small cup of anything else left over ;)

I picked this one to start as it seems to have had the least amount of love in terms of people taking some of it. Greens are not my preferred cup of tea but the promise of a “sweet yet slightly spicy green blend” peaked my interest.

On the whole? this isn’t a terrible tea but it’s not all that wonderful for me. It’s a rather flat blend that is lacking in a distinct taste for all that there are berries and peppercorns in here. It’s for sure not spicy (and i’m a wuss when it comes to spicy things). It comes across as being pretty damn close to just a straight up green tea, though there is a flavour there that makes that not entirely possible to say. Overall? meh. Not terrible, but not at all what i’d hoped for.

I can totally see this as an iced tea, it’s got that fresh, thirst-quenching quality to it that would be wonderful in hot weather. The flavours are sweet and juicy – a mix of mostly peach but there’s a little bit of citrus tucked in there as well. The white tea base compliments the flavours well by giving the tea structure but not drowning the out the fruity notes.

This was a Christmas gift from a coworker (part of a Secret Santa exchange) and it comes from a small local tea shop which I would visit more often if not for the fact that it’s located in a rather rough part of town.

This blend has that nice, nutty, vegetal flavour that you get from pan-fried green teas and the sweet strawberries and slightly tart rosehips compliment it quite nicely. I’m not getting much pepper but otherwise it’s quite a nice blend. It’s not really screaming “Christmas” to me though – actually it seems more like a summer tea – but whatever. ;)

The problem with green chais is that I never know whether to steep them like a green tea (ie. short and at low temps) or like a Indian chai (ie. boiling water, long steep). This time around I just followed the directions on the package which seems to have worked out reasonably well.

The dry tea smelled very chai-ish, redolent with cardamom, cloves, and a bit of cinnamon. Interestingly, when I added the water a strong black pepper note came out. The green tea base made for a lighter, greener tasting chai with a touch of bitterness (thought that might just be an indication I need to decrease the steeping time). The black pepper gave the tea a nice little bite and I thought the rest of the spices were nicely balanced.

I don’t often drink green chais so I don’t have a lot to compare this too, but on it’s own I’d say I think its quite good.

A new tea store opened in my town – much to my surprise since we’re mostly a Tim Horton’s coffee kind of place, in my opinion. I checked them out and they’ve got a pretty decent selection – not so many single-estate teas, but lots of good blends.

This one is great as a good, basic chai tea. The base is a robust CTC black and the spices are well balanced. Nothing too special but it’s a good, solid tea and goes great with daal pakoras. I might try doing a traditional-style chai latte with it next time.