The Silk Tea Co.

Bought another Silk Tea sampler so that I could try this. I love a vanilla tea, and this did not disappoint. This isn’t a vanilla bean blend, but rather a slightly boozy vanilla extract. I tried it plain, and it was delightful. Added some black sugar syrup…which ruined it. Definitely needs a more neutral sweetener. Can’t wait to try this as a latte with raw sugar.

This tea smells SO lovely- rose, vanilla, and cardamom. The flavor combination is really nice as well, though it came out a bit bitter. I’m interested in trying this with some milk or cream.

Probably not something I would have ordered, as I don’t really like buying decaf green teas. But, it was included in a sampler (and I do enjoy rose teas).

This is a really nice rose flavor- not perfumey at all. I also get a bit of vanilla sweetness, as well as some lychee and cardamom. Seems like the flavors would contradict one another, but they work quite well.

Strange VariaTEA TTB: Tea 8

The packaging on this is so pretty. The tea is also quite lovely. It’s syrupy in its sweetness but not super dense, if that makes sense. There’s also a clear fig flavour with a rose top note. The caramel is present but blends into the fig. It’s nice. Not a flavour I would really ever crave but nice.

July Sipdown Prompt – a tea with more than five ingredients

This is the only tea I have the fits the prompt! I have several teas with five ingredients, but only one with more than five and here it is. The next time I drink it, it will be a sipdown.

They call this smokey but I have yet to discover any smoke, and for that matter, any black tea flavor. This tastes 100% like a delicious flavored oolong to me.

I made a big pot to share with ashman this morning before work, but we ended up with about ten ounces leftover. I saved it for lunch, stirred in a bit of sugar, and added ice cubes to enjoy it with lunch and what a shocker! This was amazing iced. The fruity and floral flavors intensified and made a beautiful glass of cold, refreshing respite from the heat.

I am really tempted to use what remains in the bag for a small pitcher of iced tea instead of a pot of hot…

When I looked this up to add the company description, I was surprised to see that they shut down every summer! I don’t recall seeing anything like that before. Fortunately, I was able to just take it from the bag.

April Sipdown Prompt – your fanciest tea

I almost saved this one for tomorrow to fulfill “your most aromatic tea” but I actually have one or two equally aromatic and this one definitely feels like the fanciest. A gift from Superanna – of course.

Clouds and drizzle all day yesterday, and clouds, rain, and storms expected today and tonight. I went all out by having this with breakfast and lighting a candle I hoard – Charles Dickens by Paddywax. If a candle can be a good pairing, wow is that one ever perfect to go with this tea.

Smoky Assam is the first ingredient listed. In aroma and taste there is no smoke and no Assam flavor. What there IS, though, is wonderfully fruity oolong that gives you three really good solid steeps. In the steeper, I saw a whole cardamom pod float to the top. There is so much fruit in this that you would think it would take two scoops of the blend to make enough actual tea in the basket, but not so. Golden color shimmers from the lovely oolong base.

I finished my waffles and the bacon I share with Sam and went to pour another cup. About two ounces dribbles out of the pot. I have glugged this 21 ounces down without even realizing how much I was drinking.

Due to the ingredients, I have to stop hoarding it now and drink it. I refuse to commit the crime of letting it fade.

June Prompt – a pricey tea

This was a gift from Superanna, as is pretty much every pricey tea I own. I drank it Sunday with Youngest. We steeped it twice.

Her first comment was, “SOOOOOOO FIGGY!” This is the tea that made me supremely disappointed in Harney’s Capri, which is supposed to be fig but just tastes like lemon with the ghost of vanilla.

Big chunks of dried fruits, oolong, and supposedly some smoked black Assam that no one yet has been able to detect in this tea, so if the smoke was preventing you from buying this, go ahead and get it!

This is a true luxury tea. I need to try it flash chilled for these muggy afternoons.

My final tea of the second pass through the May Sipdown Prompts – a tea with unique or unusual ingredients.

This tea is jam packed full of goodies, but the unique thing about it is that they feature Smoky Assam prominently in the ingredient list and in the description, but it simply isn’t there in taste. The taste is mostly oolong with fruit.

A decadent and delicious tea!

I completely forgot MadHatter’s review of this and adding it to my wishlist. Maybe because I was trying to be good and not buy tea. But Superanna saw it on my wishlist and got it for me!

Looking at the bag, the first thing it says is “smoky Assam.” I love smoky tea but no one else who was here today does. Still, everyone was willing to give it a try.

First – there was no smoke. Ashman and Superanna said they didn’t get smoke and thought it tasted more like a green base. I would say there was little Assam, and mostly Milky Oolong and fruit. The spoon was full of fruit chunks and cardamom pods when I measured the dry leaf. The steeped tea was yellow, not at all the color I expected in a tea that lists Assam first.

It was absolutely delicious. I tasted caramel first and foremost with fruit right on its heels. Superanna felt it was super fruity. Ashman doesn’t care for anything fig, although he doesn’t detest fig, just doesn’t prefer it as he says. When I asked him how he liked it, he said it was right down his alley, mild, not brisk, and very fruity. We didn’t mention there was fig in it. With the dates, caramel, and cardamom I doubt he really picked out separate fig flavor.

I will really, really enjoy this one, and I agree with Superanna that it will probably also be super iced and will not even require any sweetener.

Thank you, Superanna!

I absolutely love this tea blend. The hint of smoke is hardly present, and the creamy fig note is heavy on this brew. It’s borderline a “dessert in a cup,” but in the healthy sense. I’m reminded of yogurt with figs. I’ve already sipped on bag of the tea and working on the second.

This has been in my ‘to try’ pile for awhile, and I just haven’t been in the mood to try it. I’m rarely in the mood for green teas anymore, and on the rare occasion that I am, I usually go for a straight green tea rather than something flavored or a blend.

I really like the smell once brewed (the dry leaf smells really mild and somewhat indistinct). The strawberry scent is quite candy like and sugary.

The strawberry flavor is much less pronounced than the scent. The main flavor I’m getting is a stale honeydew. Kind of like if you were to apply an old honeydew flavored chapstick and got some in your mouth. Not great.

This is going into my giveaway pile.

Just a touch boozy, but in a way that really elevates the vanilla notes. Reminds me a bit of a good whisky, which is of course a welcome comparison given the name of the blend. Someday I wanna taste this tea side by side with Epice de Cru’s Vanilla Osmanthus because these two teas are the ones that pop in my head when I think of a really good vanilla blend.

Mmmm! This was a highly aromatic cup of tea with a lot of really floral but thick and dense vanilla notes that gracefully but heavily coated the entire palate. Really quite peaceful but commanding. Like, I don’t know if I’m conveying this well but it just felt like a cup of oxymorons in the most beautiful way. Kind of an “everything” vanilla blend.

My God. You know when you open up a bottle of vanilla extract and that incredible smell hits you!? I feel like everyone, as a child, has had a tiny sip thinking that it would taste as good as it smells and it just… reaaallllyyyy doesn’t. Well, this cuppa tasted the way very good vanilla extract smells. It was divine.

Hot cuppa with some coconut milk.

I thought the addition of coconut milk added a nice creamy and thick texture to the mouthfeel/liquor but I do think the unadulterated taste of authentic and aromatic vanilla that I’ve gotten from this tea in the past was tainted by the coconut milk and I don’t actually think the trade off of a richer mouthfeel was worth it.

I think this is my favourite from this sample order!

Also, this is the only tea from this batch of five from The Silk Tea Co where the name feels a bit out of place for me – I’m not entirely sure what the connection is supposed to be because it’s not really alcohol flavoured in any way…

What it is, however, is a very delicious vanilla tea! I could smell immediately on the dry leaf that it’s real vanilla bean – just super aromatic and strong with an underlying fruitiness to the flavour. A lot of North American facing vanilla products are actually more of a “vanilla cream” or a “vanilla custard” – I think of it like the ice cream effect, where people view vanilla ice cream as this neutral representation of vanilla flavoured things when it’s really not. So, I always appreciate a true and authentic vanilla tea when I find one and this is one of the best that I’ve come across in a long, long time.

It steeps very rich and full bodied with a lot of the black tea coming through in the flavour as well. Rwanda Rukeri, which is the black tea that was used here, is a naturally robust and tannic black tea with a lot of really deep notes that compliment this almost haunting vanilla and burnt sugar flavour profile. The little smidge of creaminess coming through is very clearly from the Jin Xuan, and I love that it’s there but differentiated from the vanilla. This is super complex and lovely, and I’m immediately obsessed with this quality vanilla tea!

Cold Brew!

This is very lush and almost dewy tasting, with mellow floral undertones perfectly accenting the juicy notes of white peaches and sweet, rosy lychee. I definitely taste more of the brisk, muscat and petrichor notes of the Darjeeling in the blend than the osmanthus oolong, though I’m sure that osmanthus is definitely blending into and supporting both the overall stonefruit and floral notes of the blend. It’s very, very refreshing with a playful but nuanced feel!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBRsmLtyr0U/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xh0Diulhzg

So MJ kindly added an extra bag of this in my last order as a free sample, which I was super excited to see because I really enjoyed this one a lot in my first order! It was actually the first one that I’d sipped down since I ended up revisiting it so frequently.

I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again, but I definitely do not love the name of the tea. However, the fresh juicy taste DOES hold up perfectly to my memory of it. Really, really wonderful white peach and lush lychee notes with a soft floral undertone. I had it today and I just finished the mug off it what felt like seconds. It was probably more like minutes but, well, you get the point.

Sipdown (1583)!

My last cup was a little bit weaker than I expected it to be but there was still that really lush peach juice type of flavour that made me think of taking a bite out of a peach so perfectly ripe that it practically melts in your mouth. The undertones were more of a floral greener oolong mixed with the slightly drier nuttiness of the almond in the blend.

I’ve decided over time that while the peach note in this tea is so incredible I’m slowly getting less and less enthused with the almond addition. It really detracts from the focus of that succulent tender sweet peach for me. I do think that, were I to place another order with this company, I would still consider reordering this tea though.

Iced!

Sad to report that this tea isn’t as nice when made iced. The juicy peach notes and floral character were both still present, but overall there was also a dryness to the mouthfeel that was very distracting to me and I just felt like the flavours popped so much more when made hot.

So, reverting back to hot cups for the rest of my sample.

It is not lost on me that a tea called “In The Nude” is peach flavoured…

I really enjoyed this blend a lot! Like other teas from this company, there is a lot going on in terms of flavour components, but they click together really nicely. This is sweet and fresh with a lot of very ripe and juicy stonefruit notes like peach and apricot that really pop on the palate. I could see it being too cloying for some, as there’s not really any acidity to offset that sweetness – but for me it was pretty perfect. I loved the floral undertones from the osmanthus, rose, and lychee – the latter of which adds to that fresh sweetness. Osmanthus also contributes a sort of honey flavour is perfect with this style of peach – the whole thing feels so tender and sweet that it could just melt in your mouth.

Lastly, gotta give a shoutout to the black tea for holding its own among all this flavour happening by adding a substantial amount of body.

This was a hot hotel cuppa late, late in the evening after one of our busier days during the trip. Unfortunately I kind of understeeped the tea and it was really just a faintly tart/fruity cup of pretty bland water. It was so late at night that I didn’t want to resteep the tea, so I just drank my sad cup and went to bed.

Found myself with a spontaneous late night craving for this tea yesterday and I just couldn’t help but oblige it. I did let the tea cool to just above room temperature before drinking it; not intentionally at all though. I remember getting a nice sweet fresh strawberry note with a hibby edge to it offset by more of the grassy, vegetal and slightly bitter moringa and a mild but coating sweetness from the fennel. I definitely still need to try this as a truly “hot” cup of tea because, if I’m remembering correctly, the first time I tasted it was cold brewed. It seems well suited for this kind of temperature zone, though!

Cold Brew!

This was the only one of the teas from this haul that I didn’t try hot for my first cup, so I’ll have to do that too. It just seemed really well suited for a cold brew.

When I started drinking this, I wasn’t enjoying it – but I’m glad I kept pushing through my brew because by the time I finished it I was really loving the flavour. Initially it was very herbaceous and vegetal forward with notes of moringa and nettle being the most prominent alongside hints of lemongrass and tart hibiscus. However, the flavours build on the palate while sipping and the ones that ended up emerging and becoming the strongest were the light bergamot, and a sweet medley of apple, strawberry and citrus that was softened and supported by the coating sweetness of the fennel.

I think this is an interesting and unconventionally fruity herbal blend. I’ll be curious to see how those flavours translate when made hot, since it wasn’t an immediate love as a cold brew.