Tea Palace

This is exquisite. I think it is going to become my go-to green tea. It tastes, looks and smells so absolutely delicious!

The smell of this tea is indescribably beautiful. I tasted some in the Tea Palace store. The taste didn’t live up to the scent – it was weak and bland to me though perfectly pleasant. I may still buy a sample and make a stronger brew of it at home and check it out

As well as being incredibly good for you this infusion is absolutely delicious. You really taste the lemon peel. It’s light and sweet-ish but with a bitter, tingly aftertaste. Absolutely wonderful infusion containing some fantastic ingredients that will detox the liver, soothe you and encourage lymph gland detoxification. Did I mention that it also tastes great? I’m rushing back to Tea Palace to buy the biggest pack of this tea available.

I added my own pink rosebuds (bought elsewhere) to this and it was divine. I just bought the small sample caddy but I will most certainly be back!

My morning cup, brought to you by the lovely Dinosara

Listening to Gorillaz, enjoying my Thanksgiving Day off. Yep. I work in the US Department of a life insurance company, so I get no Canadian holidays off, just American. I have to say, it sucks. But anyways! Here I am :) Sippin a tea latte.

I didn’t read Dino’s review before my first sips, but I agree with pretty much everything. I was struck by the dry smell, I want a candy that tastes like that smells :D Or some kind of preserve… droool. Nice strong bergamot and a sweetness, with light rose.

After steeping, I still get that yummy smell, but the bergamot is playing hide and seek! Just like my current quest on Skyrim [/nerd]. It’s a mostly floral tea, but I thought I would London Fog it up regardless. Steamed milk and vanilla to the rescue, but it’s just a latte, not quite a London Fog!

Still a nice morning tea, I feel all girly with the rose scented goodness surrounding me – I can almost forget what my greasy morning hair must look like n_-

This one was a real treat! I actually got quite a bit of – oh, thank you Dinosara! – ahem. Quite a bit of orange flavour coming out and mingling with the bergamot. It was quite unique, and after just having the plain Earl, there was a great, bright, fruity/citrusy contrast with this tea. It really shone, and I savoured every sip.

From the queue. To my vast surprise it has transpired that Dinosara actually shared some of this with me two years ago, thereby being my actual real introduction to Tea Palace. It was Scheherazade, however, who sent me something that actually made me look the shop up, so I’ll continue to consider her my gateway to TP. I’m going to post my queue post anyway, even though I’ve had this before, because I went at it like it was completely new to me and… well, I’ve already written it. It’d be silly to waste all those key strokes, wouldn’t it? Seems I largely agree with myself, but I’ve nudged the rating upwards a bit. It was at 83 points before.

Another one from my TP order. I can’t just now remember what is in this blend, but I’m willing to wager that it’s something with vanilla or caramel or both. In fact I’m willing to wager rather a lot. Any takers?

It definitely smells vanilla-y. That’s all I can pick up, really. You could have told me that this was plain vanilla flavoured and from the aroma, I would have believed you.

The flavour is quite lovely. The base tastes a lot like the base for the vanilla toffee treat, with some generic Chinese and some high-grownish tasting Ceylon. And then there’s vanilla again. Unfortunately it has the same sort of slightly disjointed feel to it that the vanilla toffee treat had, where I can pick up both, but they don’t really mesh properly. It doesn’t taste balanced.

As it cools, however, it becomes a lot better. It’s quite vanilla-y now, but I can’t for the life of me work out what else must be in it. There must be something in it that distinguishes it from the plain vanilla flavoured black that they sell, and I can’t really imagine that the only difference is the presence of yellow flowers in this one. Particularly when one knows that these flowers tend to impart little to no flavour at all. From what I understand they are more of a texture thing.

So what’s in here that makes this blend different from just a vanilla flavoured tea? Can it be the base? I’m getting a slightly smoky, grainy note from it now and it’s reminding me strongly of keemun. Could the Chinese part of the base be a keemun? That sounds likely.

I think there’s something else in here as well. Caramel? Could it have both vanilla and caramel? In that case, then what sets it about from the vanilla toffee treat? There’s definitely a caramel-y note here, but that could also just as easily have come from the vanilla. Perhaps the difference really lies in the type of vanilla used? The other vanilla flavoured black that Tea Palace carries is a Madagascan bourbon vanilla. Perhaps this is a different type of vanille?

Or am I just descending into pure guesswork? I think it’s time to look the blend up now.

Okay, so it’s definitely vanilla! I win! What have I won, what did you all wager?

The bit about different types of vanilla was not hte difference, though. My previous guess that it had something to do with the base was correct, though. The description says a blend of the finest single estate teas, but not which ones or the country of origin. I expect many of the high quality Chinese teas that we get are probably single estate as well, or close to it, but there doesn’t seem to be as much emphasis on this when it comes to Chinese teas as there is with Indian and Ceylon teas. Therefore whenever I see ‘single estate’, I think India or Ceylon, not China. Perhaps the keemun-y notes were actually something low-grown. I’ve had a low-grown Ceylon (Galle, I believe) which had a flavour similiar to a standard keemun.

It’s a lovely blend this one. I’m glad I got some of it.

Dinosara shared this one with me, and it’s a blind steeping in the sense that I made it first and looked it up to see what was in it after. I’m living dangerously, me! Turns out it was a vanilla flavoured black. You know, I have a suspicion that the lovely Dinosara has been paying attention to my quest for the perfect vanilla black… I must say I whole heartedly approve of this. (It’s such a nommy quest too, because all the ones I’ve been trying have been really good, but just not quite there yet.)

It smells very sweet and vanilla-y. Almost ever so slightly too sweet, but not quite into cloying territory yet. It’s just right on the border of being a bit much. Additionally there is a note of something kind of honey-y and nutty or perhaps more sort of fudge-y or caramel-y. That all sounds very awesome, but somehow it’s just not quite my perfect vanilla black perfect aroma. It lacks a bit of roughness. A bit of that leather-y pod-feeling to it. This all smells too sweet and adorable, and I want my vanilla black to be a bit more of a villain, really.

The flavour is strongly vanilla, but not the honey-y sweet fudge-y flavour from the aroma. This is more in the way of the perfect vanilla black, although still not quite there yet. It has that bit of roughness to it, and it is one of those that taste like tea primarily and the flavouring secondarily and not the other way around. It just doesn’t have that pseudo-coconut-y not that I like in a vanilla black. If it had that, we would be well on our way towards perfection, but I have come to realise that this note is bloody hard to find.

Sipdown, 153.

Today was an unexpected work at home day. It also has cooled down quite a bit (enough that I am wearing a sweater in my house this morning), so I can enjoy some of the teas I have at home. Fortunately I have a lot more teas at home now than I used to, and I had brought a few home recently as well. I used this partly in a failed cold brew combo, and had just enough left for another pot.

This is a pretty tasty tea, although it is very light on the flavors. This is a flavored tea for people who love unflavored black teas already. Back before that was true of me, I didn’t really like it. Now, I quite enjoy it, even if the flavors have probably faded further with age. Still a tasty pot of tea this morning.

More rose! So currently I have a couple of rose Earl Greys, but actually none that really are really exactly what I want. Bergamot Rose Laoshan Black is of course delicious, but the Bergamot is very light on that one so it doesn’t come across as an Earl. I have the new Scarlet & Grey from my local tea shop, but it’s not powerful enough with either flavor. An then there’s this one. This one never quite worked out the way I’d hoped, and it continues to do so. I just want more bergamot and more rose from it. Still, it’s a decently tasty tea and I enjoy the base way more than I did when I first got it.

Really, the solution to my rose Earl Grey deficit is to purchase some Rosy Earl Grey from Teas etc, which is my favorite of the type. Perhaps one day!

This morning I have an occasional shooting pain in my thigh that is really not pleasant at all. And since tea cures all ills, maybe my morning cup with help. A girl can hope, right?

Apparently I’m having rose-scented things lately for Valentines day. Actually if I went through my cupboard I bet I could drink only different teas with rose in them until then. There is the weekend, during which I don’t drink much tea, but I would still have today, Monday and Tuesday. I think I have just set a challenge for myself, and I accept.

This tea is a lot better than I remember. My first time I logged it as a 76 because I didn’t really like the black tea base they used. I’m not sure if my tastes have changed or brewing at a lower temperature helped, but I find it perfectly fine now. The bergamot is still pretty light (probably just above Harney’s Earl Grey Supreme on my bergameter (© K S) scale… read his review of that tea if you don’t get it), but definitely more present than last time and the rose is nicely, lightly floral. I hadn’t gone back to this one in a long time because I’m never very enthusiastic about going back to a tea I don’t care for much, but now at least I can go back to my sample without fear.

Well, this is actually the last of the teas I brought back from Europe that I have yet to sample. I want to love Rose Earl Greys because I love both flavors, but I haven’t quite found one for me yet (admittedly I haven’t tried many!). I admit I’m a little worried about this one potentially having the same black tea base that I disliked on Tea Palace’s Earl Grey St Clements, but we’ll see. It certainly smells amazing dried: bright and citrusy bergamot, slightly sweet, with the floral rose undertones. The mix has lots of rose petals, some partial buds, and also bits of citrus peel in it.

Moment of truth (when it comes to the aroma at least, since I can usually tell if the black tea contains whatever mystery black I dislike)… not what I expected, but not bad either. The black tea base is what I smell here, with perhaps a hint of rose, but the bergamot has gotten lost. This isn’t the English Breakfast black tea base that the St Clements had, though, this is warmer, with spicy notes, perhaps with a bit of roasted grains. I’m still wary, but only a taste will tell.

Not bad. Not my favorite cup of tea, but certainly drinkable, and likely enjoyed by someone for more of a taste for unflavored black tea than me. I’m not really getting any bergamot or Earl Grey flavor at all, just a light, herby rose at the end of the sip and in the aftertaste. The primary flavors are from the black tea (origin unknown, unfortunately): a bit of pepper, some bright note, a roasted flavor, and a rather prickly mouthfeel. I’m afraid I’m pretty terrible at separating out all the myriad of notes that many people get out of a black tea, so sorry for the paltry description.

So I think I can pretty safely say that Tea Palace’s Earl Greys aren’t for me. At least I was able to get samples of them instead of buying more on aroma of the dry leaf alone (I’m really not sure how that strong of a bergamot aroma can just completely disappear, but it does).

So I have always only used the cupboard here on Steepster to list teas that I had a significant amount of, generally greater than one ounce. This was good when I did a whole lot of swapping when I didn’t have a lot of tea, because I could always tell the person that I was requesting a swap with that everything in my cupboard had “swappable” amounts in it. Then I was reading some of Sil’s notes about being under 200 teas, etc, and I wondered. How many teas did I actually have? And wouldn’t it be a better way to keep track of all of them than just stuffing them in a sample drawer? So I went through today and logged every single tea in my office, even if there was only a cup left, plus what I could remember from home (but the majority of my tea is at the office, so there will only be a few add-ons). 227 teas! I was afraid it might be worse.

Well, now it’s 226 because I just sipped down this one. I’ve had it for a long time, and as a white tea it is getting on in age. Still delightfully rosey, though. I do like white tea and roses, though I think I like it even better when there is jasmine in the mix, ala the Tea Spot’s Meditative Mind.

I haven’t had this one in a really long time, and this time I decided to brew it with the parameters that Teavivre gave for their white tea that I had tried, which are pretty different than the parameters I used last time (175°F, 3min).

The brewed tea smells hay-ish like I’ve come to associate with white tea, with a light rosey aroma. The flavor is pretty nice; it’s got that hayish note, and the rose flavor is light and not perfumy at all, and the whole thing rounds out to be a bit sweet. I actually associate that kind of sweetness with hay; sweet alfalfa is actually sweet if you chew on it (no wonder the horses love it), and this has the same type of sweetness. About midway through I started eating a slice of dark chocolate birthday cake (for one of the faculty in our department), and wow that’s an awesome pairing. I’m not sure whether my fondness for this tea has increased because my palate has changed a bit since I last had it, or if the brewing parameters made a difference, but I’m definitely digging it more this time. Especially with cake. Mmm, cake.

I needed a break from black teas after this morning, so I decided to go for this white tea. Another last minute addition to my Tea Palace samples, this is one of the first relatively additive-free white teas I’ve had. It has rosebuds, true (and lots of shattered rose petals in the leaf), but I have my doubts that they will add too much, since it’s not a true “rose-scented” tea. The dry leaves smell—I’m not joking—like dried leaves. Tree leaves, I guess, like fall. Once I got a whiff of rose in there as well. Besides rosebuds and petals, this blend appears to include rose leaves as well, which is probably where the dried leaf aroma is coming from.

I’m not sure if I trust the steeping instructions on this one (for one, how much is a “dessertspoon” of tea??), and I don’t have a default white steeping setting really. I may have oversteeped this one, but I have plenty to play around with to see how everything changes. The liquor is a dark yellow/light amber, which is darker than I was expecting, and it has a light aroma that’s leafy with a faint rose undertone.

I probably don’t have a subtle enough palate for a tea like this, but I’m enjoying it all the same. I’m getting that leafy note that’s persisted through all phases of this, and a light rose note lingering at the end of the sip. The rose isn’t very sweet, but it’s more of a vegetal rose if that makes sense—not rose candy, actual roses on the bush. As in most cases, I would usually go for a more highly perfumed tea. This one’s good, but it doesn’t quite blow me away.

Sipdown, 154. Cold brew.

Well I tried to cold brew this one (in combination with some Organic Rose Grey from Tea Palace) but something went horribly wrong. I tasted it this morning and it was sooooo bitter. I’ve never had a black tea get bitter on me while cold brewing so I think it has to be the lemon peel; I had the same horrible bitterness the other day with a different tea I tried to ice that had lemon peel in it (although that one I brewed hot). I guess the lesson is lemon peel: dangerous for long infusions. Oh well.

I bought this tea quite a while ago, had a cup, decided that I disliked the tea base (which is prominent) and gave most of the tiny tin I have away. I always remembered that first experience and shied away from having it again, even though I have more recently had Tea Palace’s Organic Rose Grey and realized that I enjoy the tea base way more now.

Well today I finally decided to have another cup of this. Wow, what a difference two years makes. I really, really didn’t like the base on this one before. I rated it a 60, which is to say that I barely didn’t throw the cup down the drain (or maybe I did, I don’t remember). Now? Now it is smooth, malty deliciousness. I think this is a predominantly keemun base, and keemun seems to be growing on me. There are still times when I dislike it, but more and more keemun-base teas are tasty to me. The bergamot is light in this, which is one of the reasons I disliked it before, but now it doesn’t bother me so much. I mean, it makes it not optimal for an Earl Grey for me, but it’s still a tasty cup of tea. Tasty enough that I’m now somewhat reconsidering my plan to cold brew the last of it (although I’ll still probably do it). I would happily have another cup of this tea.

It just goes to show you how subjective ratings and tasting notes are. I mean, I disagree with myself from two years ago!

Even though Earl Greys are some of my favorite teas, I didn’t buy many while I was in Europe because I wanted to reserve the precious space in my luggage for (for the most part) more unusual blends. But when it came down to picking extra samples at Tea Palace, being unprepared, I fell back on some versions of Earl Grey that sounded interesting. This is one of those EGs that is combined with other citrus besides bergamot, which I’ve usually enjoyed. The tea definitely matches its photo: this thing is jam packed with fairly sizeable hunks of orange and lemon rind. The dry leaf smells like a bergamotty EG, but perhaps a tad sweeter—if bergamot is a high, bright note, the orange fills in the bottom and is warmer.

As is often the case, the strong flavored notes are much more subdued in the brewed tea. Here the black tea base is at the forefront and it smells a bit like an English Breakfast blend, actually. Which is a bit disconcerting, as I’m not the biggest fan of most English Breakfasts.

When very hot, it definitely reminds me of an English Breakfast. Cooled a bit the bergamot starts to come out, adding a high bright note, but it still tastes primarily like the black tea. Disappointing for me; I was expecting more flavor from the added orange and lemon. I wish Tea Palace would said what black teas went into their blends (on other Earl Greys they say “China Blacks”… not that helpful). I can imagine some people really enjoying this, as it’s not highly bergamot flavored and is really all about the black tea base, but I’m not really one of those people, unfortunately.

Its funny, because it seems like a lot of people get into tea on flavored tea blends, then move toward unflavored and purer teas. True, I got into tea with flavored teas, but I went through a period where I enjoyed plain black tea (and I’m talking about a straight up English Breakfast or something like that, not the high quality single-source blacks which I haven’t tried many of), but now I really do not like it. It may be one particular tea in the blend that I’m reacting to (Assam perhaps?), but I don’t know because I can’t really parse them out. I guess even though I’m not a plain black drinker, maybe I need to do a tasting of a bunch of different single-source plain blacks just to figure them all out.

Sipdown! So my clever scheme to empty tins was briefly foiled when I realized that I had already moved the lychee congou into a smaller tin, and the larger tin was being used for Lupicia’s Grapefruit Green, and there is more lychee congou than I can quickly sipdown in there anyway. But! I did find that my sample tin of this was nearly empty, so I cleaned it out and now I should be able to shuffle some teas around again. Also through more creative shuffling I now (nearly) have four empty large tins. Too bad I need seven! I guess I will have to break down and order more.

Anyway, back to this tea. I’ll definitely miss it. Floral and fruity and even a touch creamy, which I think comes from the mallow blossoms. When I eventually get back to London and the Tea Palace, I just might have to pick some more up.

This counts for my sample reduction because while I didn’t polish it off, now I only have enough of this tea left for one cup. I’m also encountering the tea dust that always seems to occur at the bottom of a tin/pouch, which means this cup is a little stronger than I would normally prefer. Still, I totally love this tea. I can order it online from Tea Palace (located in London), and shipping isn’t too bad, but I have a feeling it is a tea that won’t be in my cupboard until I make another stop in London. Of course its going to be quite a long time before I am ordering any new teas online, so its kind of beside the point! Still, I will miss this one after my next (last) cup.

This tea is just one of those teas that makes me smile as soon as the hot water hits the leaf and a wave of wonderful aroma comes out of the cup. It’s just so good! It’s also one of those blends where I don’t even know what all the different flavors are, but I like them. Yes, I get the florals, including the rose, but there’s also a fruitiness that I’m not quite able to identify. Sometimes I wish I knew, and other times I don’t really care because whatever it is, it tastes good.

From dark and rich to sun-shiny and fresh today. This is my second tea that features a large number of somewhat indistinct mixed florals + fruits, but they have totally different characters. This really is a “blue sky” tea… it makes me think of springtime flower-filled fields and ripe, juicy orangey-yellow fruit (you know, citrus, tropical fruits, the like). The green tea base just adds to that fresh feeling. An all around delicious, if slightly unseasonal tea!

I went back and read my first tasting note of this tea, and wow I was impressed with this tea the first time around. Which is funny because although I remember really enjoying it, I didn’t remember being totally blown away, which is why I hadn’t gone back to it yet. But I was tasting a lot of new teas during that time period, including a lot of other incredible ones, so I guess it makes sense that I might lose track of how much I liked things. Anyway, the aroma of the dried leaves and of the steeping tea smells incredibly delicious, like tropical fruit and flowers.

It doesn’t take long to remind me why I found this one so entrancing in the first place. It is so my kind of tea (especially right now): intensely floral, a touch of fruitiness, a grounding tea base that isn’t completely overwhelmed. I love how mixed florals all taste a bit different based on what flowers are in the tea and what’s the dominant flavor, and it also means that I never feel like multiple floral teas duplicate what I already have. Which is one way of saying that this is going to have to be a cupboard staple.

When I went on Tea Palace’s website before my trip to London to scope out the teas I was going to buy (that’s right, I was that prepared), this one piqued my interest because I do enjoy rose and mallow blossoms, but I wasn’t sure about it. Then I tasted a sample in the shop and I was sold. The flat leaves of the sencha green tea have a ton of flower petals mixed, both roses and mallows.

I no longer remember what exactly the sample tasted like, but the dried leaves smell remarkably fruity. I wanted to say passionfruit, but then I smelled it back to back with Passionate Rose and Blue Sky is brighter and more citrusy, but with a rosey floral overtone. There’s a warm sweetness underlying it; I’m pretty sure that’s the mallow flowers. The liquor is still a very pale yellow after 3 minutes, but it’s a very fragrant brew. The brewed tea is more subdued in aroma, with the grassy green sencha coming through. The fruity note has resolved itself into a more floral aroma, though still with a definite sweetness.

The flavor gives the feeling of dense, fragant florals. The rose is the primary note, but the mallow rounds things out a bit I think. It has a lovely natural sweetness, almost like fine jasmine pearls (but not jasmine in flavor). It is the nectar sweetness that comes from outstanding florals; I’m beginning to realize how much I love that in a tea. The tea has a soft tartness (is that an oxymoron?) as well, reinforcing a tropical fruit feeling (mango? passion?), but overall this is a floral tea. The green tea provides a grounding backdrop, like being in a lush flower garden (you not only smell the flowers, but the soft fragrance of the greenery all around them).

Now I’m remembering why I was sold on this tea! Delicious, and it fits in well with where my taste buds have been taking me lately.

ETA: I don’t always resteep, but this one told me to. The second steep (same parameters as the first) is equally delicious: still slightly sweet, floral, lovely, but this time with a bit more grassiness coming through from the green tea.