The Tao of Tea

This was my breakfast tea today. Good and strong malty deliciousness, turning into yummy caramel. A little bitterness as it cooled. I drank it plain, then tried adding cream, which was lovely. A second steep was good too. I don’t think this is a complex tea, but it does malt/caramel/bitter very nicely.

Actually, I think Assam may provide the slurp factor in Andrews and Dunham’s Caravan. I acquired this Assam in an attempt to prevent a broken heart when I run out of A&D. I mixed a little with my cover version of Caravan this evening. Mmm, not bad.

Also, this was my first tin from The Tao of Tea. I didn’t realize their tins were so pretty! They have a little knob on the inner lid. So nice!

Nice rose aroma – not sickeningly sweet but definitely right there in front of you. You don’t have to look for it too hard. I did, however, have to look really hard for the tea flavor. Maybe I let this sample get too old, but I just couldn’t taste tea! The rose scent and flavor were both very nice, but I would have liked to detect the base a bit more. Not bad, just didn’t ring any bells for me. Glad to have gotten to try it, though, especially since I ordered a sample of Harney and Sons Sally’s Secret which is rose and bergamot and I want to see how they compare!

Compared to oxidized rooibos, this tisane is much more mellow and light in flavor. It’s got some similar herbaceous and sweet notes, but it’s slightly more straw/hay-like in flavor. I bet it would be great for blending.

The overall flavor is fine to me, but the aroma is extremely off-putting; it’s practically all “hay” (similar to yerba mate and guayusa) and I just can’t stand it. Therefore, I much prefer oxidized rooibos.

I’m having a difficult time rating this tea today. It’s…very unusual.

Earl Grey is probably the tea that drew me to tea, years ago…strange but true. Especially strange in light of the fact that I tend to have an aversion to intensely perfumey sorts of teas.

This one combines lapsang souchong and earl grey, and there is definitely no mistaking that fact: you can find both very powerful, very fragrant notes together here.

I’ve read that other people have thought ‘smoked pork’ when they smell lapsang souchong, and I’ve always been a little bit tickled by that; for me, lapsang souchong has always just smelled like a campfire, more pine-like than meat-like.

This is the first time I’ve opened a bag and thought…oh…definitely smoked pork.

The tea does not, thankfully, taste like smoked pork.

I’m sort of reminded of Samovar’s Scarlet Sable, unsurprisingly, but I think I prefer this one. The longer I sip it, the more I’m enjoying the sweet, citrus-floral component. It seems to linger on the palate just as well as the smoked lapsang does, making this tea feel lighter than your average lapsang despite the fact that I think it’s really not, in actuality. It does lack the harsh, acrid tar element that some lapsangs seem to tend toward, but since that’s my least favorite quality of lapsang souchong, I can say I’m pretty glad that it does.

This was definitely not the tea I wanted when my order from Tao of Tea came in, but I was so curious about it that I couldn’t help myself. I’m not sorry that I had some. It’s a strange combination, but it works! Citrus and floral and smoke. Gonna have to say…this tea…is a harlot in a housefire.

A little bit more in-your-face with the flavor than many teas I consider staples, but one of those blends that probably occupies a space that no other tea can wholly occupy.

For a Ceylon tea, which I generally find boring and not very noteworthy, this one is pretty good. But I still have yet to find a Ceylon tea that makes me say “Wow!”

most fav tea ever

very nice Oolong good flavor

Its okay, nothing special.

It was really delicious and mellow.

This tea smelled good while brewing. I was expecting a hearty roasted tea, but I was disappointed. The flavor isn’t as roasty as it smells, just nutty. I generally don’t like strong nutty flavors.

Thanks for letting me try it out Amy oh (^^)

After reading the positive reviews for this tea, I just had to try it. GiggleGoddess was kind enough to share a sample with me. But oh gee, is it NOT the tea for me. I don’t know what dimension everyone else tastebuds are lingering in, but this tastes like noxious weeds and I dunno, sugar snap peas maybe? Whatever it is, it made me feel sick after two sips and I had to dump it. Fortunately, it had no bad aftertaste so I was able to overcome the queasy feeling quickly. Not every tea can be a winner. :)

Getting to the end of my tin and dreading it!

(brewed western style) Nice warm weather tea. Note to self, buy this again sometime.