LeafSpa Organic Tea

I’ve shared this with many people as I had a large tin of it. Oddly, no one else has logged it yet. I’m sending the rest to Mercuryhime. I’m doing my best not to send her any black teas LOL – So I am going for a large assortment of other teas and companies :) I do like this tea and hope she finds it alright as well, if not, she should have some to swap LOL

This is a very plain jane type of Green Tea that has a nice green tea type taste and is a no non-sense type. It’s very clean and semi-grassy/semi-sweet tasting. A nice, solid Green.

Sipdown no. 12 of 2018 (no. 368 total). The second to last Leafspa in my collection, the last being the lapsang souchong, which is also the subject of a concerted sipdown project.

I cold brewed the last of this. It’s a good iced tea. It’s sad to see so many tea companies come and go. I remember when Leafspa was a Steepster select choice, which is how I ended up with so many cans of Leafspa tea way back when.

This makes a really excellent mellow spiced cold tea. I cold brewed it in the fridge and was so happy to have a true tea I could drink while chilling in the evening.

I was never caffeine sensitive until I got somewhere in my forties. Or if I was, I didn’t notice it until then. After becoming a mom, I went from being that person who could sleep through an explosion to that person who wakes up if someone shuts a book two houses away. I was talking with a former colleague about this at lunch yesterday. He says in his new job he’s anxious and not sleeping well, but also says he can drink a double espresso in the middle of the night and go right to sleep. Denial, much?

I know that Leaf Spa closed its doors years ago, which is one of the reasons I feel compelled to sip down my entire inventory of their teas, which I bought for a song during a Steepster sale. Of the original ridiculous number I bought, and going in and out of tea for a number of years, I’m down to two cans — this and the lapsang. The lapsang is ok, but I can drink lapsang about 2 times a year, and not cold.

But this, this one I’ll miss when it’s gone. I had written a rather comprehensive note about how it tastes hot a while back; cold it doesn’t have the milk and sweetener and the flavors blend together a lot more, but it does just what I want an iced tea to do. Refresh me and taste pleasant. And being able to drink it at night? That, that is a nice bonus.

So sometimes I do things that make me wonder about myself. Like buying decaf chai, and then realizing I have no plain black decaf to mix it with to do the Samovar stovetop method. Grumble. How hard would it have been to add some decaf black tea to the order? Grumble grumble. If I’d only thought about it then. Grumble, grumble, grumble. It’s not like they didn’t have one, it’s the Korakundah. Pout. I attribute it to stress and lack of sleep. And age. Specifically that thing that starts to happen to women when they hit my age. [sigh]

I mixed with the Darjeeling Goomtee since the chai had a darjeeling base. I am hoping I will be able to sleep tonight. I’m enchanted by the idea of a decaf chai I can make on the stovetop. I was getting some mileage out of the Tazo teabags, but it’s just not the same degree of comfort as I get from the stewy, milky stovetop version. Imagining that, late at night, and sleep afterwards, gets me all warm and fuzzy.

This is the first decaf chai not in a bag I’ve tried and it’s a good one. It’s hard to know what it would be like as a fully decaf version. I must try again and compare when I have some decaf black loose leaf in the house.

No single spice predominates. It’s not overly gingery, nor is it overly cinnamony. Just a very balanced flavor. The spice is fairly gentle, more along the lines of the Golden Moon spice than the Rishi Masala Chai. There are red peppercorns in the mix, but while they may add flavor they don’t add bite.

I’m thinking chai is a good choice for decaf in general. It seems less likely to have that washed out, something’s missing thing going on because of the distraction of the spices.

I’ll enjoy having this one when I’m worried about being overly caffeinated but need a filling, coma-inducing, tasty warm milk snack.

My current go to green tea.

Starts of mango-E but turns a little bitter – but not a bad bitter, really. Could have morphed with age a little…still good but lowering rating a bit…

This was a little bitter today. I still like just not as much as I did the first time I tried it…lowering a little…

Mango, Mango, Mango! Love it, Love it, Love it!!!

I think this is one of my favorite mango flavored teas so far!

It’s black but flavored and bold and full of mango! The chunks of mango are HUGE!!!! Smells and tastes WONDERFUL!

Had 2 cups! One HOT and one COLD and loved them both!!!

Had a cup of this one because I really wanted a nice plan black tea – this did the trick but it’s time to move on to other teas as I got a large shipment from Red Leaf today and can’t wait to jump in!!!! YAY!

WIth a tad of maple syrup for kicks! :)

backlogging 2 cups from this morning…I’ve had a hard time logging in to steepster all day so I will backlog what I have had so far today…

Great follow-up to a oat bagel!!!!

Backlogging…started my day off with this…it’s been a hellofaday! Oye!

I started this crazy day with 3 cups of this…

Read my other tasting notes on this one! I am packaging up some swap boxes and including this in many of them…it’s a goodie! At least I think it is! :) Cheers!

Great medium black tea…smooth ending…

First cup of the day – I had some backlogging to do and this morning has been a full morning of emails! Oye! I’m just finishing up this cup and enjoyed it very much. Check out my previous review here on steepster.

Just got this today! Woot!!! :)

I’m surprised I am the first to log it – I hope I do it some justice.

This has a ‘warm’ black tea smell – very smooth. It’s medium-dark in color with a hint of redness to it…or maybe maroon would be a better description of the hint of color.

The taste is very clean and smooth yet crisp and mouth watering. If there was a near perfect standard black tea that everyone should have on hand – this is darned-close!

The reason why I am liking this so much is because it’s the no nonsense type – one that you can always rely on when a black tea is needed. It’s not overly strong and yet it IS flavorful. It’s one of those “just right” type teas, ya know!?

Smooth, smooth, smooth. Not the same experience as drinking a first or second flush single-estate Darjeeling as it isn’t nearly as intense, but I don’t think it’s meant to be. A great beginner Darj or day-to-day black tea. Love it.

Sipdown no. 156 for the year 2014. I had the last bit of this this morning as I somehow let myself run out of coffee.

This one rather whizzed by. After trying this initially years ago (judging from my first note), I returned to it when I went on my second major tea binge earlier this year. I managed to polish off the entire tin (4+ oz) in not very much time, largely through a combination of cold brewing and using it as extra tea for chai, and if I didn’t have so much tea I would regret having plowed through it quite so quickly without really savoring it.

It’s a nice yunan. In looking back over my first note I mentioned a thick mouth feel, but I didn’t experience that this morning. It was rather on the light side in terms of body and flavor. Pretty much everything else I said in the initial note seems right, though.

And it made a really nice cold brew.

My tin was full to the brim as well, and the top of the tin is very tight — which is good for the tea, but not so good for my newly cleaned countertop. At least it was the countertop, not the floor, so I could salvage…

It’s very tippy, giving it that (brown) salt and pepper look that I find so appealing. The dry leaves have the soil-like smell of some Assams, but with something stronger, sweeter and vaguely bready (as opposed to yeasty) about it. Bready good. Yeasty (unless winey or beery or bready) bad.

It makes a medium-dark amber liquor with a bready aroma. I totally get what Stephanie mentioned in her note — warm, sweet bread. It leans toward, but doesn’t completely reach maltiness of the type I recall from the Numi Chinese Breakfast. It isn’t the sugary, yam-like orgy of complexity that was the Samovar Yunnan Golden Buds. But it is quite nice.

It has a thick, substantial mouthfeel which adds to the perception of breadiness. I would not have identified the pepper note without reading about it here, but now that I do, yes, that makes sense. It’s not a spicy pepper though. It’s like the flavor of pepper without the spiciness.

A nice, all-purpose, Yunnan black tea.

Tried this one w/the cold brew method. Not sure if this turned out as successful as the others I have tried this week. I did not taste pineapple at all. Instead, this tea had a tangy refreshing flavor. But still respectable and a thirst quencher from this overbearing heat…

I needed something to cleanse my palate after the tomato basil tea and since I wanted something clean and light rather than something like matcha that would have also worked, but would have coated my tongue, I went for this. I also don’t have much matcha left lol. 2x cup just the way I like it- lotsa leaf, cooler water, short steeping time. I’ll be so heart broken when this is gone.