English Tea Store

Today I’m doing my long ago, ancient history tea review revisits.

This bag of tea has not been reviewed for 6 months and was one of my first purchases as a newbie tea drinker. This was before my intro to Teavivre, Butiki or Verdant Tea’s to name a few.
I bought a whopping 16oz bag (which is why I have plenty left) of this heavily flavored Pu-erh tea.

I made a 24oz pot of tea. Gutsy to make that much, but it’s a coolish afternoon and I’ve been catching up on some DVR saved programming.
Being careful not to over steep, (something I’ve learned in the past 6 months is that over steeping increases the sourness of artificial flavoring) I poured a good mug of dark coffee colored liquor and added cream and sweetening. (I did taste the tea first but decided to go for the complete latte route)
It tasted like flavored tea but not like a Pu-erh. I’ll admit that this was a splendid effort by The English Tea Store at covering up the Pu-erh taste. There is lots and lots of toffee and caramel flavor!
After a cup, I began to find that I had enough! It was too heavily flavored. Cloying! Too artifical and still, a tad bit sour.

My taste in tea has changed. I have to admit to it. And with the stroke of the keyboard and one craggy old finger, the rating is coming down too.

An average little tea.

Second tasting note…a brew for St. Valentine’s Day while listening to Tony Bennett and waiting for some more snow to arrive…(snowkeling right now). My son in San Francisco put me up to Tony Bennett since he’s singing there tonight (heard him at the 50th anniv. of the Golden Gate Bridge years ago…"I left my Heart in San Francisco…ah) anyway…I’m not that sad to be alone today…better than with someone creepy or abusive! So, this strong and muscular Pu-erh swept me off my feet (my daughter says blek tastes like socks but she has 5 little boys at home and 3 girls so everything is socks!). I love Pu-erhs! Smelly good like History and Earth and Culture and Wine Caves (you should smell Winery Caves if you want SMELL! all wet and dark soury and wonderful). The smokiness could cure sausages…and the caramel is just enough…not too sweet and not too strong. Toasty. I could add this when making gravy like people do with coffee ( if you never did this it’s the way to make rich gravy!). The mind is boggling. My husband divorced me when I became disabled a couple of years ago…so sad? Nah…I get to go to Coldstone Creamery tonight and meet up with my grandkids for Ice Cream with it snowing outside…is that great or what! Happy Heart!

I’m falling in love with Pu-erh’s. As a former /hic/coffee…LOVER!!!….I think the appeal of deep, sultry, sexy, smokey Pu-erh has seduced me. This smells like an early morning campfire all smoke and woods (tall trees) with breakfast jacks and maple syrup in the background. What Toffee! Coats your mouth! You can almost smell someones caramely lovely pipe tobacco way off in the distance. Moist. The smoke lingers through the nose. Must be sweetened and add cream in my opinion. I steeped 4 minutes…it is too weak to drink on a shorter steep.

Yum blueberries. No blueberries in Ecuador. : ( Thankfully I can get blueberry tea to make up for it!

This tea is very pretty to look at. Gunpowder tea has always seemed visually appealing to me. It is both interesting and beautiful. The cornflowers are also beautiful. but very scarce. The smell is very much blueberry. Sadly not fresh blueberry, but more a blueberry jam type smell. While not as great as fresh blueberries, blueberry jam is still great.

It is freezing today, so I couldn’t wait to have my hot cup of tea. The brewed tea smelled a bit more like fresh blueberries, I believe that the green tea base helped with this illusion. The plantiness that it adds to the scent really helps it. Unfortunately, I also caught a scent of anise. I have no idea where it came from, but it was undoubtedly there.

Unsweetened it was pretty good. Green tea up front with a fresh blueberry aftertaste. Unfortunately there was still something that lingered in the background reminding me of Anise. When I sweetened it the blueberry became stronger and more enjoyable. The green tea was overtaken, but it wasn’t gone. I enjoyed the subtle vegetable green that it added to the flavor.

It held up decently to a second steep (2min) which was still tasty, just watered down.

Sadly, it doesn’t get a higher score because I got random anise flavor in the brew. I have no idea how or what was making me think this had anise in it, but it didn’t make me happy. It was tame enough that I could enjoy the cup of tea with no major distractions from the phantom flavor.

On a completely unrelated note, my puppy won 2nd place in the bulldog puppy category over the weekend! : ) I was so proud of her!

Tasty standard breakfast blend.

Wow… Today was one of those days that come to and end and you have to pause and think to make sure that everything that happened was for real. I am so hyped up right now, that hopefully typing this up with settle down my hyper mind so that I can get some sleep.

First off, my Dad accidentally broke my favorite tea cup last night. I actually shed a tear for it. It was a gift from my best friend when I left the US, and I can’t buy another one here in Ecuador, so I am going to have to order one and have someone eventually bring it to me. So, my morning cup of tea, had to be prepared in a different cup… : (

To start off my day, hopefully on a more positive note, I had some of this tea. I purchased it from a lady that was selling it at a Christmas fair here in Ecuador. It was random enough to find someone in Ecuador selling loose leaf tea in Ecuador at a Christmas fair that I had to buy it…

The leaves were pretty to look at. I feel that rose petals add a ice delicate touch to almost anything that they are added to. In this case, the only role they played in the blend was visual. I could smell rose at all. It was pretty much all cinnamon with a touch of vanilla/cake smell. Weird, because it doesn’t mention having vanilla in it at all.

The brewed tea smelled like a plastic cinnamon. Yep. If cinnamon were made of plastic, it would smell like this… It wasn’t terrible, just not quite natural. The flavor, thankfully, was a lot better. It reminded me of red hots, and the plastic smell somehow turned into a creamy taste. So, in the end, it turned out to taste like creamy red hots… I like it enough that I had a second cup of it, sweetened with Splenda. Sweet it was pretty good! : )

I wouldn’t buy this again, but I am happy I gave it a chance!

So, after I finished the tea, I went with my boyfriend to buy ice cream, and we randomly ran in to an English Bulldog breeder! So, one thing led to another, and I am now laying in bed with my beautiful French Bulldog (Sencha) and tiny little baby Mona Lisa!!!! So surreal… Sencha is very jealous at the moment, but I really hope that the company will suit her well!

…and that wraps up my surreal day… : )

I got this tea from Culinary Teas, but it’s the same tea. It’s so refreshing. Love the floral sweetness it has. Very nice tea blend base. Love this iced, wonderful for a perk in the morning. It has a nice creaminess to it. I love Nilgiri iced, and with the flavoring, it’s perfection.

I am super happy. Ecstatic. Thrilled. : )

They opened a small tea shop in Ecuador. It isn’t very large, but it is quaint and enjoyable. And honestly, a huge step for tea in Ecuador. I always had to bring all of my tea from the US or Europe whenever someone came to visit! But, now I get to buy some of my own tea, at decent price, right here in Quito!

The tea shop is called Le The, and they sell a decent variety of teas. Most of them flavored, which is all right with me. I asked them what company they imported their tea from, and the store clerk didn’t know. So after I chose a few varieties I came home and went to work on Google! Since they kept the names on the teas I was able to find that all of the teas in the shop came from English Tea Shop! Confirmed! I am so excited! I am going to be able to get some of my tea right in the comfort of my own country! I love trying new teas!

The first tea I tried was this one. I only found it bagged on the site, but I bought it loose leaf. The leaves were small and dark. Didn’t smell very much like maple, but more like a light lapsang souchong. I decided to try it since I loved 52teas pancake tea so much. The blackness of the tea was pretty monotonous, but not really knowing what to expect, I went ahead with my 2 teaspoons for 16oz of boiling water.

The liquor also smelled smokey, and I got a bit worried. I do not like smokey teas. Not at all. They taste like chimney soot to me (sorry to those who enjoy them!)… I decided to go ahead and sweeten it before I tried it, just in case. I used 1 heaping teaspoon of brown sugar. I took my time stirring and dissolving the sugar. I was nervous that it would taste like a smokey sweet mess.

And… Sip… Sip…. Yum!!! I like it! It actually reminds me quite a bit of 52teas pancake blend! Not quite as smooth and a tad bit more smokey, but still enjoyable. It didn’t take me long to finish up my cup with a contented smile on my face. I didn’t get any chimney soot flavor, there was more of a Maple and Camp Fire flavored Cotton Candy thing going on (hope that makes sense!).

I am happy this tea is decent. I am happy that I can go wander around a (even if small) tea shop! And I am happy that I get to write about it and there is a possibility that someone out there has also had the chance to try it!

OK, happy giddy excitedness is all in writing now! : ) I might have to try this tea again and readjust the rating because my excitement might be influencing my taste buds…

This was totally awesome cold-steeped. It was sweet and creamy and citrusy… really very delicious. I really love an Earl Grey Cream iced… there’s something about that combo that is great when combined with cold black tea. The flavors in this one were so bold and strong, and yet not artificial tasting. This seems to be a pretty solid EGC tea.

Yet another from SimplyJenW! Since my throat seems not interested in calming down, lots of hot tea is very appealing right now. A cream Earl Grey is definitely something I haven’t had in a long time, but I do very much enjoy them. The dry leaf on this one smells nicely of bergamot and cream. The bergamot brings out a sourness to the cream, which doesn’t sound very good when I say it like that, but the smell as a whole reminds me a bit of cheesecake. Mmm, bergamot cheesecake.

When it’s brewed it loses most of that sour cream-cheesecake aroma and the cream this time is bolstered by the warm aroma of the black tea, which makes it smell nicely rich. The aroma is actually very well balanced between bergamot, cream and black tea. The flavors are nice on this one as well: citrusy bergamot, smooth, tasty cream. The black tea base is pretty nonremarkable, and I’m wishing perhaps for a rich ceylon note to anchor the bottom, but it’s also not overwhelming or bitter. Overall definitely a nice example of its kind.

This is a very, very good lemon rooibos. Rich, liqueur-like and slightly sweet with a nice deep tang. Wonderful!

A very nice Irish Breakfast, strong, but not overly aggressive. Great value for price.

A very nice, well-balanced Assam at a great price.

Still working on an opinion of this tea. Stay tuned.

Good quality tea with excellent character and distinct smoky flavor, not quite strong as blacks from India, but it is not mellow as many Chinese teas that I have tried. Excellent price. I use it for the afternoon 5o’clock brew.

Really good strong tea. Do pay attention to the brewing times it can get bitter. It has excellent character, distinct woody scent, it has that bitter taste that I appreciate in real teas. Well worth the purchase to wake yourself up in the mornings.

First thank you Brandy for sending me this tea and sorry it took so long to try it but better late then never. :-)

As for the tea it definitely isn’t my cuppa. I actually had to dump it. I only got through half a cup. The flavors were all over the place, they didn’t make sense together and I didn’t even recognize tea flavors that were in the there. I will sum up by calling this one a mess.

This a wonderful Assam, particularly for those of us who don’t like milk or sugar in our tea. Substantial without being overpowering. Great price, too.

So I just had the BEST REALIZATION EVER.

This is the fruity rooibos I measure all other rooibos by, but as far as I’ve seen, English Tea Store isn’t readily available in Canada. But guess who will be in the States for Christmas?

I am so stocking up. I love this tea, it’s fruity and strawberry-y and wonderful. I have yet to find another rooibos I love as much as this one.

I don’t know why I’ve been craving rooibos lately. I think it has something to do with the creamy mouthfeel it gives me and my recent decision to give up milk. shrugs

Anyway, this is a definite winner. It’s not tart, it’s not artificial tasting, it’s just plain good. I think I like the Strawberry Shortcake better, but it’s good to have this as a backup in case I can’t find the other!

Backlogging from yesterday, I had this in my travel mug to wander around with. I really enjoyed it! It didn’t get artificial on me like the Tealish strawberry rooibos, and if there is hibiscus in it, I couldn’t taste it. It was wonderful, thank you for sharing it with me SimplyJenW (I think…my spreadsheet failed me on this one)