teabento

Not much tea today but i did manage a cup of this before we went out walking with doggo and then played some games.

Afternoon tea while we get organised in the house…3 day weekend means we actually have a little time to clean up and get some things done around the house. Still enjoying this one, though not likely a repurchase. want a less finicky tea.

Another one from this morning. Still enjoy this one a bunch, as long as i drink it hot/warm. I don’t like how much of a difference in the taste there is between hot and cold, but it’s interesting at least.

looking for happy dance music today to shift my mood. I’ve had a few painful days at work with obstinate project managers and people just not doing work. So suggestions welcome. I’ve been trying to dance around the house and drink tea to shake things up. This one is great, but dropping the raiting because it’s a finicky tea that is hard to get consistency with AND has to be drunk hot.

Steepster’s back up…yay for intel security issues!

now to record a few of the things i’ev had over the past few days while i get ready for a friggin’ cold weekend!

i went in to work today…for tea. it was worth it…but it was EARLY…so i made this as a treat to myself for not only going in to the office but for being there before the lights turned on. i love this one…delicious milk chocolate goodness.

mmmm milk chocolate goodness. Not LB like…but creamier and more chocolatey….for sure an indulgent treat given the price – so it wouldn’t replace LB in my cupboard but i am a fan of this one.

Started the day out right with this one – in a travel mug works wonderfully since this tea changes as it cools. 2 more days left to do crazy amounts of baking and cooking for fun, so today i’m going to try making wonton soup…and pick 1-2 things to bake. heh. Soooo many delicious treats this week. Happy to have this in my cupboard after the sample i tried from teabento.

yeah….this tea makes me happy – what a delightful surprise.. Milk chocolate goodness. thanks again teabento!

I really want to tell you all that this is a terrible tea, so that there will still be lots left when i can make another order. Seriously, this is DELICIOUS! I’m going to have to agree with Jake on this that it is like LB used to be but a much more delicious milk chocolate taste to it. I recommend drinking this hot, to really have the feeling of hot chocolate come through, since, as it cools it’s a little more like chocolate sweet potatoes…or something like that haha. Love this! thank you so much for sharing teabento!

Another one from this morning. This is a tasty treat. It will be interesting to see how this stacks up against the TTC teas that just arrived heh.

noms. Another sample from teabento (thanks again!). This is a non smokey lapsang for those who are interested in trying it. There’s a fruity aroma to this one but the taste is largely malty, smooth and delicious. I had some spicy food while drinking this one, so more to come next time i have this one heh

Working on finishing up my samples this week so that I can get a sense of how far off september goals i am. I had this one earlier today. Second time around i am a fan of this one still. It’s a really nice ceylon and one that i’d be tempted to try and cold brew next time just to see how it fares as an iced tea. thanks again for these samples teabento!

My samples from Tea Bento came yesterday and i am SUPER excited! I figured i’d start with the Ceylon since i’ve found that it typically gets a bad rap as folks tend to equate it with your base red rose sort of tea. Let’s be clear, i ALSO picked this one because it’s an elephant on their site.

A question that i do have though, is whether the larger bags have more packaging in line with how the teas are presented on the website? With the bento boxes, the teas are in great resealable bags with the tea information/steeping times add as an additional tag. What isn’t present is the elephant! So really just curious if the animal/images on the website are just there for the site, or if they’re part of the larger overall brand/marketing outside of the sample sizes.

Anyway, the tea.

This is a really nice ceylon. It’s not my favourite – that goes to one that i think it was nicole, shared with me. But this is a delightful tea. It’s smooth tasting and there are a few citrus notes to this that make it a ceylon for me. I’m happy i’ve got more to play with to see how the taste changes with various steepings. I’d pick this one up again i think, depending on tea bento’s other offerings :)

Interesting flavor profile. It’s not a great tea IMO, but it is still enjoyable and something I picked out for the day.

Thank you, Teabento!

I think the dominant note in this one is chocolate followed by light florals. I’m gonna wait to rate it as my nose is stuffed up, and I think that affects the flavor. It’s a nice tea—will revisit in a few days!

This is one of the samples I received from Teabento in exchange for honest reviews of their products. Now that I’ve offered that particular disclaimer, I’ll say that I was most interested in this dragon well from the outset, and brewed it up pretty much immediately after receiving the package. Also of relevance is that the packaging on their samples are resealable, which is one of those minor-seeming things until you go to move something in the tea cupboard (everyone has a tea cupboard, right? Just me? Oops), and loose leaf comes spilling out all over the place.

The dry leaves are absolutely gorgeous, with variegated jade and lighter greens throughout the flattened leaves. Once brewed up, this has a lighter flavor profile than I’m accustomed to in dragon wells, despite the fact that I oversteeped it slightly. The liquor is very pale, almost clear, and has a savory, broth-like flavor to it with toasty notes lingering underneath. I’m not getting much of a floral component, more sweet corn and something that could be chestnut, but, again, I think some oversteeping took place. With flavors this delicate, I’ll be revisiting this review in the future with a more accurate flavor profile, but I wouldn’t kick this tea out of bed as-is, either.

Thanks to Teabento for this sample. Up today we have silver needle tea by Teabento, and I have to admit, the cute little bento box it came in is rather appealing. I decided to steep this tea in a glass pot. I mostly went by their guide and used 4 grams of leaf, but cut the water from 200ml to 150 to give a slightly stronger brew. I also went with their recommended temp of 87c. The first brew gave a slight creamy, spicy aroma which is light and slightly floral, fruity and vegetal. There is also a very slight yeast or baked bread aroma which is fairly common I find in white tea, but not quite as intense. I also got a bit of white grapes.

The liquor is quite pale almost like a white wine color. Tasting it I got many of the same flavors, and the tea is very subtle and soft. It’s also a bit sweet and well rounded. Its quite a nice tea and has just a teeny tiny spice note that I cant identify.

Second brew is much the same, though there is a bit more fruit notes in as well as teeny bit of sour, which enhances that flavor of white grapes. I lost the spice notes at this point as well as the baked bread, but I am picking up more floral notes now, though I cant quite place it. Maybe possibly a teeny bit of honey, but its quite light.

This tea is nice for anyone who likes white tea or silver needle.

Recommended.

Tasty black tea with citrus notes. Thanks Teabento!

A nice fruity black tea. I’m a fan of these unsmoked lapsang souchongs. I’ve never described a tea as tasting like marshmallows, but this one has a bit of that character. It’s a nice tea, though I don’t think I would buy a significant amount of it at the moment.

Just read Teabento’s tasting description. It’s the cereal taste that reminds me of marshmallows—Marshmallows and Stars/Lucky Charms cereal!

Gong Fu Sipdown (615)!

I like milk oolong teas – a fair bit, actually. Especially when they’re completely natural but still have that thick creamy buttery mouthfeel AND taste. However, I don’t think I’ve ever craved milk oolongs in general as much as I have this winter. Like, I simply cannot get enough of them – and no milk oolong seems to be able to do me dirty.

This was a pretty nice milk oolong in the first place; but this Gong Fu session just hit the spot so well_. I came home from work last week, and usually I don’t brew Gong Fu after I get off work because it’s 6PM and I don’t generally want to commit to the caffeine intake of a Gong Fu session that late at night when I know I’ll have to get up the next day at 6:30AM. I mean, I can do a Western cup (_or maybe two) of something caffeinated because my tolerance is pretty high; but a litre or two of tea? Nah…

However the cravings were real so I broke my Gong Fu rule and steeped this up anyway. I, excuse the pun, milked this tea for all it was worth and got a beautiful fifteen infusion session out of the last of my sample. Creamy, thick mouthfeel – surprisingly sweet body throughout the bulk of the session (save for the first two and last two steeps), and this amazing mix of fresh churned butter, condensed milk, caramel, and orchid notes. All of those are notes I’ve experienced in milk oolong before – but I don’t know that I’ve ever had a session that featured all of them so consistently and beautifully.

Truly, this felt like an emotional sort of tea session – one filled with pure bliss, harmony, and peacefulness. I’m not really a stressed sort of person in general – especially relating to work at the lab (thus far, anyway) but even so by the end of the session I felt like anything I could have even possibly been stressed about had just sort of… melted away.

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs66NEzFCjP/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe0Enf31npc

So, recently I got the opportunity to sample and in turn review a range of teas from teabento – much to my delight that package arrived today so I’m digging into those samples! I have to just start by saying that I’m pretty impressed with the packaging for everything though!

The packets for the teas themselves are pretty nice; they’re in resealable bags bags that block out light, and have the perfect amount on information on them about the tea within! Plus the bento box is just so cute! And everything was shipped very well and securely – so I’m definitely impressed in that regard.

As for the tea itself…

I decided to do this one Western style for my first tasting because the majority of the milk oolong I’ve had in the past has been consumed Western style, so if I want to accurately compare this one to other milk oolongs I’ve had in the past that seems like the best way to do it!

Firstly, this one comes off as very light to me! Not that milk oolongs generally are super full bodied, but usually a bit more than this in my opinion. However, despite being super delicate/gentle in taste I’m initially fairly smitten with this one. It’s very smooth and silky, with a mild buttery creamyness to the flavour. However, as lovely as that buttery element is I think it’s actually second to a floral component; it’s more delicate floral notes rather than just heady florals. Things like orchid and lily notes! It reminds me a lot of the orchid notes in DT’s Vanilla Orchid sans the added in vanilla flavouring.

The most interesting thing about this tea to me, though, is the fact the company describes it as tasting like ‘mango’ – as soon as I saw that I knew I’d have to focus and see if I could find any mango notes in the tea. For me, the answer to that was disappointingly no; however, there were moments that I kind of picked up on a peachy sweetness in the finish of the liquor following that light wave of floral notes and buttery elements and I’m sure that’s likely what they were referring to?

So yeah – this was my first tea from teabento and I have to say that it was different than I expected it to be, but not in any way bad! I’d say among all of the other milk oolongs I’ve tried, I’d probably put this one somewhat in the middle or slightly above the middle. It’d be nice for times I wanted something light and calming; however I just wish it had slightly more body to it.