Royal Tea Bay Co. Ltd.

GCTTB
This is really outside my comfort zone, but that’s what I like about TTBs, getting to try things I would never buy or swap for. :)
This isn’t as rose/floral as I thought it would be. It’s actally pretty interesting. Nice woody, mineraly, dark oolong with just a hint of rose. Those flavors actually work pretty well together. I still don’t think I would buy this, but I’m glad I tried it. I’m putting the rest back in the box for someone else to try.

Our final tea of the evening (for by then it was evening, and I was learning the mesh knitting pattern of my new shawl project!) with Dinosara was a tea sample I got from MissB. I don’t know how to describe this tea other than extremely unique with an indescribably good smell that reminds me of… something… I just can’t place it but it was so good! I think this may have to be the first tea of all my samplers lately that I’m going to have to buy a goodly amount of! On the the steep records:
10 seconds: Creamy sweet, almost vanilla flavor, which is just fantastic! There is a bit of crushed green something on the sip that contributes a freshness to it.
20 seconds: Indescribably good smell in my aroma cup that would continue through the rest of the steeps. Maybe fruity, maybe floral? Light astringency, but a vanilla and butter aftertaste that is fabulous.
30 seconds: A bit beany now, but that wonderful smell continues.
35 seconds: Mildly green beany, but good almost-vanilla still on the sip and aftertaste.
45 seconds: losing the smell, and the astringency is up. Reminds me of buttered collards.

Equusfell brought this one and it was quite delicious. I honestly was not expecting much, not because I have experience with these type of teas, but because most green teas are just ok to me. This had a lot going on though. The early steeps were sweet and had an almost vanilla-like creamy note to them. The later steeps were more floral and also buttery, almost like a nice TGY, but with different florals. Quite tasty overall; I’m curious how this would perform as a western steep as well.

http://postimg.org/image/myf05dssv
This is the most difficult tea I’ve ever tried to brew. I know it’s a yellow pu’erh cake which means I shouldn’t use too hot of water, but dang… I ended up brewing this 7 times until I got it to about what might be considered ideal. 190f is too hot and 30s is too long. I ended up brewing 180f for 10s and it came out rather smooth. I am going to try again at 170f for 10s next time because these leaves seem to be delicate. The tea smells stronger than it taste which is nice and the taste is not something I can describe. I will say that they is no bitterness like many shengs have. The taste is a bit funky, which I expected after reading reviews online. I’ve drank quite few cups of this which should account for something, then again I had to tinker a lot with it. I can tell that the taste isn’t as appealing as say a shou would be for many, or even a sheng at that, but I find it interesting in a calming way as I try to figure out what I’m tasting.
This came from the cake that has a piece of hay in it :) https://instagram.com/p/3AIuZMRYBb/?taken-by=liquidproust
I don’t expect anything bad to come from that though since it’s dried hay and not something like, say, packing tape :p

Wow, I got this tea back in April 2015 and it’s still good. Hard to believe! Royal Tea Bay did not have very good greens on the order I made in the fall of 2016. In fact most of them were so bad (I suspect already old when I got them); I threw them out. Yet this tea is still amazing.

I brewed up today in my red cast iron teapot for Hubby & I trying to used up that small amount I have left of this tea. It’s still a winner. Buttery, milky, floral & sweet.

Oh this tea is delicious. Sooooo milky. In fact it’s so milky I was wondering if it was flavoured but I’m not getting any tongue tingling I get when flavours are added. The package does not show it as flavoured either.

I brewed it in my gaiwan with the infuser this morning. I’m loving this gaiwan and think I will get more like it. I find it a bit annoying to transfer from a gaiwan to a pouring pitcher. This just simplifies the process with it’s own infuser.

So did a quick rinse on the leaves this morning and even from the quick rinse I was reluctant to throw away the water. A beautiful milky aroma was coming from it.

Meant to brew 30 for first brew but it went 50 before I got to it. Didn’t matter. It was still good. There might be a faint floral aroma from this tea but it’s mostly all milky & buttery , smooth & sweet. Yum!

Had this one today. Just western brewed with no fuss. It was really good. The base is a high mountain oolong. It was sweet, creamy & peachy. There was also vanilla notes. I can’t remember if there was floral notes on this. It went down pretty quick and I really enjoyed it but will try to take notes to leave a better review for next time.

Thank you Ubacat for this sample. This is a nice tasting green tea. It is floral, somewhat vegetal and buttery in nature. If i plain didn’t have too much tea I would be tempted to buy it.

Brewed this once in a Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 175 degree water for 2 min.

Thank you Ubacat for this sample. This is somewhat malty and somewhat sweet. It is not bitter, it is not astringent. This is a very tasty black tea. This is one I would buy at some point, after I have drank down my supply of black tea in general.

I brewed this once in an 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 3 min.

I think this is going to confirm that I don’t really like rice scented pu’erh. The last one I tried was a shou – this is sheng. I don’t really like either of them
I do think the sweetness of the rice offsets the bitterness (not that this one is really bitter) of the sheng. This is better in later steeps as the rice flavor dissipates.
Happy to have tried it, happy I didn’t buy a bunch out of curiosity. Thanks so much Sil for the opportunity.
https://instagram.com/p/0guI9kuE_4/?taken-by=dex3657
https://instagram.com/p/0guWFOOEwJ/?taken-by=dex3657

I had to get adventurous on my last Royal Tea Bay order and get this tea. Not a clue as to what it would taste like. It’s supposed to be anti-cancer, lower cholesterol, good for flu and cold, good for balancing blood sugar , and high in Vitamin C. I was looking for some healthy herbal drinks so why not?

The leaves are HUGE, as big as my palm and some are bigger. A bit tricky to cram in the infuser basket but I got them in. LOL I might try breaking up the leaves next time so I can get a stronger brew.

I brewed for 5 min. I think like most herbals it could be infused longer but quite a bit of flavour came through in 5 min. It’s got an unusual flavour and I’m not that good at picking out notes or flavours but I’ll give it a try.

It’s a bit of that herbal taste from a lot of the herbal blends. There’s also something in it that I find in some green teas- a kind of sweet green vegetal flavour. At the bottom of the cup, there’s a hint of fruit. That was the only fruit taste I got from the cup and it had very little aroma.

Overall, it’s a fairly pleasant cup (definitely not unpleasant). Of course nothing that alights the tastebuds like my greens & oolongs but it is what it is. I would reach for this occasionally to keep my caffeine intake low and for the health benefits but not for the taste alone.

Dry , this tea doesn’t look quite like the picture. It’s more to the yellow side. I compared it to my Yunnan Sourcing Soba-Cha. The grains are very tiny and yellow with this one compared to YS’s which is bigger and more brown colour. For taste I think it’s a bit lighter in flavour than the YS one but still a warm buckwheat tea with less toast. From the two I think I still prefer YS but this one is good.

Mmmm, just wanted to add that a cup of buckwheat tea is just so warm and cozy.

Quite a lovely sheng. It brews a light orange color at this point (Jan. 2015), and has quite a fruity overtone of apricots/peaches. Later steeping reveal a touch of bitterness which turns to sweetness and a nice salivating effect. I like the tea.

Oh, today is an amazing day. Imperial College London just emailed me that they will be making me an offer for a place on their Computing course. So delighted! London, by the way, is an awesome city, especially the South Kensington region. It’s certainly like Beacon Hill in Boston, Massachusetts.

So to celebrate this, I decided to clean up my tea stash only to find that I have this tea. I completely forgot that I bought 1.5 ounces of this from Ebay a couple mongths ago.

I’ve decided to try it Gongfu style. First a ten-second rinse, then a five-second steep. It’s sooo smooth! I never expected anything like this from a black tea. Most of my black teas are a little bit astringent on the tongue, but this one is different. I expected this to be very dry and astringent.

Second steeping (15 second steep): Woha, now we are talking astringency business! I tend to like when a black tea is pulling my mouth together.

Third steeping (25 seconds): The tea is losing it’s color now, meh, I guess it isn’t that high quality. After all, I bought this on Ebay for $6, so it was a pretty good deal nonetheless. Anyway, the taste is still smooth, but I fill that it has lost its power now, so I’m ending this now.

Bottom line: It’s a smooth black tea that is really cheap, but it won’t last long in your gaiwan. (At least it didn’t in mine, a 4 oz gaiwan)

Bonnie sent these my way a while ago and i thought that they would be perfect for today. I’m working from home so i wanted to get around to trying a couple of my puerhs since i have the time. I THINK the ones she sent my way are these ones, and not the other entry but i’m not sure how to confirm. Either way, let me just say. YES! YUM! love these!

It really is like like sweet flavored kettle corn. I will have to look in to more of these since these are really tasty and could be handle for travelling.

Lewis & Clark TTB #9

The dry tea was very tightly compressed, so I let it rest for 5 minutes after a 30 s rinse. It didn’t really separate until the second steep.

The tea is rich and smooth, with flavors of wood, leather, and cherry. There is a little bite of astringency at the finish, which doesn’t detract from the taste. I want to say it has lots of cha qi, but it may just be that a lazy Sunday morning is emphasizing that aspect of the tea. I lost the cherry in the second steep, but the cedar notes came to the fore, with what I think is a touch of smoke. Overall, an enjoyable tea; I nearly purchased some today, but need to think about it for awhile.

Brewed this in my Yixing teapot this afternoon and it seems a bit disappointing. Perhaps I didn’t get the brew temperature right. I used 195F but I think this tea might need a lighter temperature or less leaf. It seemed to be missing a good floral bouquet and there was a tiny bitter edge to it. It wasn’t a bad oolong but it wasn’t a good one either. I’ll give this another try again with slightly lower temperature at another time.

Oh no! Tea organization emergency! I keep a google e-mail draft full of the teas I haven’t written tasting notes for with the usernames from trades for those teas and the list of teas that are almost sipped down. This morning the list is completely messed up, somehow a bunch of html was added to the list when there wasn’t any before mostly a lot of

Thank you KittyLovesTea for this one a while back! I have so many samples I haven’t got around to trying. I would say the teaboxes I participate in are bad for my tea collection, but then I remember some of my tea collection goes into the teaboxes, so it balances itself out. :D

Steep #1 // rinse // just boiled // 1 1/2 min
A good size chunk of this goes into my infuser, after a rinse the mug is a deep red as only these lovely pu-erhs can make happen. The flavor is crisp and refined somehow. It brings to mind darkened studies filled with ancientbooks… whatever studies are, but this is that tea. There is a pine or cedar flavor here (that isn’t like the oversteeped leaves flavor). I don’t drink wine, but it kind of reminds me of wine somehow.

Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 min
This cup seems to mellow out in flavor, but it’s still a strong pu-erh, deepest red color. Not as much crisp/pine/cedar… more sweet! I’ve noticed with this pu-erh that my appetite is ridiculous, even drinking this while eating things like muffins and spaghetti. I’m hungry faster… not necessarily a good thing for me. I know that pu-erh is supposed to boost metabolism or something but I’ve never noticed it until now.

Steep #3 // just boiled // 3 min
Still going as strong as the second steep, or should I say as sweet. No noticeable difference in flavor. Delicious but it doesn’t have that little something extra I love about pu-erh… and I don’t mean the pondiness. But that is missing too.

Sipdown!

Wow, this one is way past it’s prime. When I had it fresh I gave it a 90. It sure doesn’t taste like that anymore. No rating since it’s too old now.

Dry, this tea smells so mossy & nutty. Delicious! The dark mossy smell reminded me of Bi luo chun tea. Brewed it at 185 for 1.5 min. Nutty , buttery, sweet. This one is supposed to have hairy tips An excellent tea from Royal Tea Bay.

I bought 100 g of this tea for $8.75 Cdn, free shipping! Wow! I had some this morning. It looked and smelled like a Mao Jian Tea. Brewed at 190 for 2 min. It was a rich buttery flavour, just like Mao Jian. It had a slight bitter edge so I think I need to reduce the temp for next time. 190 is too high for a green anyway. Next time I will keep the temp lower and less steep time. Overall a great tea for the price!

I’ll update this review when I brew it at the lower temp with less steep time.

I just got my Bi Luo Chun from Royal Tea Bay yesterday. It doesn’t look like the picture on this one. It looks like Teavirve’s Bi Luo Chun. In comparison, it is excellent! Buttery , nutty, sweet grass. It has that same wonderful sweet mossy grassy smell. Love it. I’m giving this the same rating as Teavirve’s.