LeafSpa Organic Tea

I received my Leafspa order yesterday, so brought this one and the passionfruit into the office.

Prepared hot and unsweetened, I’m getting that bitter unpleasant “flavoring” flavor that I dislike. I should have payed closer attention to the ingredients. Adding splenda smooths it out and gives it a more fruit flavor. It’s a mild fruit, but I can’t for sure identify it as “pear” or “apple” or anything. I’ll take it back home and try this as an iced tea.

This is a refreshing tea for the summer. After coming home from a sweaty jog, I was suprised to see my Leafspa package arrive …Anyway, I needed something cooling and this did the trick.

I only detected a slight – very slight pear and not much apple. But I did taste honey…yum..

Alright – I got this one back when it was a Steepster Select, but I’d been waiting to log it until I got a steep I liked. Someone recently said that the dry leaf smelled like fresh cut hay, and that’s about right. The taste is mildly sweet, and reminiscent of sunshine, meadows, warm summer days. Not overtly floral, but not really grassy either. I’m having trouble pinning the taste down, clearly, but the sweet/dry/sunshine smell of hay is pretty close. The mouthfeel is nice and full, the aftertaste lingering and faintly sweet. I had meant to make this iced, but it’s pretty nice at just above body temp – warm, but not hot.

3 grams of tea, 3 oz water, 185ºF, 1st steep just over 1 minute; cut 1:1 with cool water to make 6oz tea

this has easily become a favorite green tea of mine, it is especially tasty on rainy mornings like today :)

been sipping on this cold brewed style for the past few days, now just finishing off the last of it. :( Such a great tea to drink though!

I’ve featured this tea in a recent video blog..check it out :) http://bit.ly/ckEqqQ

Very Pleasurable to sip on! The leafspa eagle nest ever drop tea is a very full bodied green tea. The tea has vegetal notes as well as creamy,thick notes that remind me of a black tea. The green tea really coats my mouth and is creamy before I swallow. After swallowing, there is a hint of dryness on my mouth, reminiscent of cotton, but for me,this doesn’t take away from the tea at all.

Mm. Very solid green tea. I really like this. I’ve steeped it twice so far and the second steep was just as flavorful and remarkable as the first!

steeping this tea is like steeping a nugget of gold. the leaves unfurl and you just know by looking at it what you’re in for. the taste is amazing. light but complex at the same time. one of the best oolongs i’ve ever had. and literally my favorite tea at this point in life. plus, i can steep this tea at least five or six times and each steeping is a different experience. i love this tea.

This tea has really grown on me and I really love it. I love its malty, sweet roIl quality. It almost tastes like liquid Kings Hawaiiian Bread. I’ve been drinking this all day for the past several days and it’s just all-around great!

It’s so easy to brew too. I basically just toss a teaspoon in my travel mug, add hot water and forget about it. It’s always delicious. I can’t make a mistake.

I’m upping the score to perfect!

Wow, my last log was almost a month ago! I feel kind of guilty for neglecting my notes. I’ve definitely been drinking tea all this time but it’s been a crazy, stressful summer where even jotting down tasting notes seems like a chore. But, despite that feeling, I have to get back to my Steepster habit! I have to remember that evaluating teas is fun!

Anyways, on this note:
I’m getting a nice, yeasty, honeyed bread-like flavor from this tea today. Very mild and almost “wheaty”. No pepper. No bitterness. And it’s been steeping forever in my travel mug. It’s a comforting, uncomplicated tea. :)

Yum..I’m getting warm sweet bread again—in both the aroma and first sips of the freshly brewed liquid.

As the tea cools, I’m getting more of an unsalted, soft pretzel flavor. It’s still very bread-y to me. Scented with hints of freshly grated black pepper.

Toward the bottom of the cup, the flavor is like a Carr’s® Table Water® Cracker!

How is it that a tea can taste so much like baked wheat flour?

A very comforting cup! All of the flavor of wheat-laden baked goods with none of the bloat or empty calories!

The brewed aroma is deliciously toasty, bready and peppery. Like steaming, sweet malt. Sooo yummy !

The first sip seems sweet and yeasty to me—like King’s Hawaiian Bread! I love King’s Hawaiian Bread. I remember eating so much of it, as a kid—it was like cake to me.

I’m not getting much of the typical Yunnan pepperiness or earthiness, in the initial flavor. Maybe more as an aftertaste.

Very smooth, no bitterness or astringency (despite boiling water and a longer-than-recommended steep time).

I’m enjoying this cup immensely! It’s simply a delicious black tea!

Delicious almost sweet light flavored tea

Silky smooth going down, an unassuming everyman of tea. . . I bring it to work in the morning when it’s too early to care. Gets the job done so I can.

Ya it’s good. . . not blow your mind good but good. Like potatoes are good. Plus I got a ton of it for like seven bucks.

I’m surprised on how much I like this tea! Usually white teas have been a “meh” for me. But this is actually pretty yummy. I’ve kept the leaves steeping in my travel mug and the flavor just seems to get richer and richer. There’s a thick, almost buttery quality to the liquid and the scent is like brothy white flowers. I also added more leaves than normal—like two tablespoons in my 12oz—because I’ve read that it’s good to be generous when brewing white tea (you have to make sure to add enough leaf).

I’m now down to the last dregs in my mug and the taste is almost starchy—like potatoes—and bit bitter, but I still find it good!

Steeped this longer than I normally do and added some milk, which I also don’t normally do with Yunnan teas. It mellows the tea out a fair bit and emphasizes a bakey-malty flavour as opposed to the smokey and tannic flavours I can tastes when I take it without additives. Interesting – I think I like it this way. :)

Reducing the steeping time a bit lessens the smokey flavour of the yunnan and helps the spicy taste stand out – though it’s still not what I’m able identify distinctly as pepper.

The resteep (@ 3:30) is okay, but most of the flavour was in the first steeping – this one just tastes plain and tea-like for the most part. Yunnan teas on the whole don’t seem to be very good for multiple steeps in my (admittedly limited) experience.

Like most people I picked up this tea when it was offered on the Steepster Select. Good advertising, BTW LeafSpa.

I wasn’t expecting the canister to be so full, so I almost spilled it when I pried opened the lid. The appearance of the leaves seems similar to most Yunan teas I’ve seen – although they’re smaller than some of the prodigious leaf curls I’ve seen. They’re mostly black in colour with little flecks of gold here and there. The smell of the brewing tea sort of make me think of a pu-ehr, only much lighter – it has that same sort of earthy scent with notes of tanins and maybe something a little spicy.

Taste-wise I’m not picking up the pepper people always talk about when it comes to Yunan teas – maybe there’s something wrong with my taste buds. To me it’s more or a slightly smokey, earthy/tanic flavour with some faintly (and not unpleasently) bitter notes.

As a second note: second infusion was fantastic – 3 minute infusion, hot, no additives. Definitely added to the caffeine of the day :)

Third and final infusion – 6 minutes, hot, no additives – still good. Might be able to get a fourth infusion out, but at this rate, I wouldn’t want to risk it…

Ahhh, Good Morning! What a day already, super busy since 8:30 and started to drag a few minutes ago. Realized that it was tea related and quickly remedied the situation.

Brewed up a full cup of Lapsang Souchong; hot, four minutes, no additives. The liquor is a golden brown color, it smells smokey but faintly sweet. The flavor is to be expected, smokey, hearty, full-bodied and rich, very faint astringency at the end, but still some how refreshing and rejuvenating. Overall delicious.

This morning, when my alarm went off, I was absolutely positive it was Sunday, and furious for making myself wake up so early on a Sunday. About a half hour later, I realized, it’s Monday, and after my ten day vacation, it was time to get back to work…

So needless to say, I desperately needed a pick-me-up and it came today in the form of my new favorite caffeinated friend: Lapsang Souchong. The first pot I absolutely downed, couldn’t really even rate it based on how fast I drank it. But once I was awake, I was able to brew up some more and try and get a good sampling for a rating.

So my first infusion: 5 minutes, hot water, no additives, was downed with no rating. Sorry.

Second infusion of the same basket: 4 minutes, no additives. The smell is perfect, the liquor is spot-on, however, the flavor is a little weaker than I expected (I tend to compare all Lapsangs to Golden Moon’s). A little concerned at this moment, I decided to make a fresh pot with new leaves. This time taking careful notes as I do.

The leaves are small and dark, curled tightly, with the usual smokey aroma. Infused 5 minutes, no additives. The flavor is stronger, more what I expected, yet it is still lesser than GM and Adagio. Overall, I think this might be a good thing. When I say “lesser” I mean that the smokiness is not as strong, it is not kick-you-in-the-face smokey, it is slightly smoked, like the scent left on your clothes after a camp fire a few days ago. It is a distant smokey, an aged smokey, this gives a chance for more of the tea to shine through: a little astringent, definitely black tea, yet crisp and clean, the hint of smoke, the slight earthy natural flavor. Overall, good.

Since I got what I wanted, I decided one more infusion from this basket was worth a shot. Hot, 4 minutes, added milk (no sweetener). The milk made it creamy, and subdued the smokey flavor a little bit more, but overall it was more of the same. Cleaner tea taste, slight smoke, slight earth, a little less strong than I would have liked.

To get the stronger smokiness in the tea, I will probably aim for longer infusion times in the future, but to all those who do not like the smoke, or want a more subdued smoke, I think this tea might be more of what you are looking for.

In the end, I enjoyed this tea, I will enjoy finishing the tin of it.

Got really cold tonight, I am on my second pot of this tea and I am finially thawing. This medium strength ceylon is the perfect companion to a sweet cookie. No need for milk, I did add rock sugar in the infuser basket.