The Tao of Tea

It’s a foggy day and I had to go to the balcony to take pictures of this tea for my blog to achieve sufficient light. So tasting it now is what I really desserve because it ’s chilly this morning.

This is an Oolong , result of a swap with Jillian. The Tao of Tea is another company I did not know before.

The smell is slightly roasted but nothing truly exceptional.

The tea is steeping for 5 minutes and the leaves unfold a little but not that much. The liquor is of a beautiful amber .

The taste is rather disappointing , slightly roasted , slightly woody but nothing transcendent. Correct.

This is so a sympathic Oolong but I do not really want to redo a second teapot now .

It’s a tea I ‘ll take to the office on Monday , it will be perfect there, I’ll drink it without too much attention.

Pics are available here : http://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/black-dragon-oolong-the-tao-of-tea/

Happy New Year, everyone!

This is another sample from cookies. I’ve been curious about Tao of Tea as a company for a while, so thanks to cookies for allowing me to sample some of their black teas! The leaves are fairly intact, and they’re long and thin. Color is extremely dark chocolate, almost black. They smell of sweet, dry hay.

This is definitely a malty, somewhat generic Assam. The malt comprises most of the flavor, but there’s a little touch of dried fruit and caramelized sugar richness. I don’t taste salt as others have mentioned, but there is something very mild that almost reminds me of menthol? But I could be imagining that part. ;) Astringency is mild to medium with no bitterness.

Another sample from cookies. She recommended I try this one next since it’s apparently quite similar to the Wild Black from Titan that I just tried. The leaves look somewhat different – the color is more of a chocolate brown than black and they’re more broken. There are some stems and golden tips included as well. Dry scent is similarly woody but with more of a sweet note.

The taste is also fairly similar, with strong wood and earth/mineral flavors. However, this tea is a bit smoother and less harsh, and there’s a nice creamy note and smooth mouthfeel. It’s a bit sweet, and it’s a clear sweetness that, along with the mineral note, makes me think of cool stream water. There’s also a teensiest bit of dried fruit, possibly raisin or cherry. Pretty tasty!

It’s not pure smoke, you can taste the tea, and it’s good :) I love cooking with it and taking it camping.

I love rose tea. I have three separate rose teas on-hand right now. This one I picked up as a little present to myself while I was out gift shopping. It smells so wonderfully rosy when dry that I can just sit there with my face in the tin.

Normally I put sugar in my tea, but this? This needs nothing. The rose flavor is strong enough that it comes through without any help. Sometimes I’ll have it with sugar when I want something sweet, but it’s not necessary.

Purchased a tin of this at the Berkeley Bowl last night. I’ve been looking for a good rooibos chai but sadly, this isn’t it. I should have read the list of ingredients on the tin. It has cinnamon, clove, cardamom and spearmint. Why would you put spearmint in a chai?

The flavor of this is… interesting I guess. I definitely taste the cinnamon and the spearmint but the clove and cardamom aren’t too prominent. I added soymilk and about a teaspoon of coconut sugar but I’m not too impressed with it. I will need to tinker around with it and see if adding fennel or a bit of ginger improves it somewhat.

I will probably finish it off eventually but definitely don’t love it. I think I just need to go to Rishi’s website and order their West Cape Chai.

p.s. it also leaves an aftertaste in your mouth like toothpaste… ick

This is a yummy pan-fired Mao Feng from Tao of Tea.Unsurprisingly, the quality is quite good. I’ve yet to bump into a mediocre (much less bad) tea from this purveyor. The flavor is slightly vegetal but also a bit nutty and sweet. The liquor has a somewhat viscous texture—not exactly silken but more like licorice root—except that the flavor is Mao Feng!

I am surprised by the middling ratings on this organic offering, as my first impression of Lincang Maofeng, only this afternoon, has been quite positive.

Okay…this one really doesn’t fit the title to me…
It’s kinda malty, like enough to notice. But it’s also super woody. More like woody Assam with a touch of malt.
So yeah…not really my kind of tea. In fact, I might actually like the other one better.
Ahhh hate when titles of teas betray me like this! :(

The dry leaves in this one are quite lovely. They’re the deep black twisty twig type leaves that are nice and full. Brewed, the liquor smells a bit smoky. More of the Keemun sort of smoke rather than a Lapsang though. Like a smoldering bit of cedar wood. The taste isn’t smoky at all, but the wood notes are there with a bit of very ripe black cherry. It’s smooth with no astringency.
It tastes like its own thing, not being particularly comparable to any other region. What an intricate interesting tea! I don’t know that I’ve ever tried a black tea from Vietnam before, but I’m definitely going to seek them out after this.

And a hearty Happy Thanksgiving to all my American Steepster pals. I hope you all had a lovely day.

Got a tin of this for pretty cheap in my Iherb order!
So, was expecting a lot more in this tea, but find myself kinda disappointed.
When it was steeping it mainly smelled like wood (as you guys know, I really dislike woody teas).
I ended up over-steeping this one by like a minute or two on accident, But I kinda doubt that that is why it mainly tastes like wood. There was a little malt, but mainly wood taste. :/ Think I will have to try this a couple more times before I decide if I should keep it or not. On the bright side, at least I got it really cheap and I don’t feel like I totally wasted my money! XD

This is another tea that I picked up at Whole Foods recently in the bulk section. I go to Whole Foods only occasionally and it’s usually for tea, I’m much too broke to buy my food there hehe. I knew that I wanted a Japanese green. That brisk, refreshing vegetal character has been calling me all week and I had none at home.

I was honestly pretty impressed by the appearance and aroma of the dry leaf. The leaves were in pretty large and regular pieces and posessed a nice dark emerald color. The smell was a bright mix of hay and fruit. Once brewed, the overall flavors matched what I had expected based on the smell: a bit of the usual vegetal flavor (fairly light), some “hay” flavor reminiscent of a Chinese white tea, and some pleasant and refreshing fruit notes. I can’t put my finger on what fruits I would say it evoked, but if I had to pick one I suppose it might be melon. Not bad stuff.

Thanks for the sample cookies

This BOLD tea was exactly the kick in the pants I needed this afternoon. It is sweet, malty, bold and a little astringent. Did I mention it is bold? OK, just making sure ;)

Good stuff!

I found this matcha at the Bi-Rite supermarket in San Francisco. Usually I get my matcha in Japantown, but I figured I would give this a whirl. The price was reasonable – approximately $18.99 for 3 oz.

I would say this is much more a food grade matcha than a ceremonial matcha, which is fine because I mostly will use it in smoothies and lattes. I did want to try it plain at least once, however. It isn’t bad plain, it has a strong seaweed and grassy flavor. I should really get some ceremonial grade matcha for drinking plain.

My favorite part of matcha is just the preparation, here’s my matcha bowl which was whipped with the standard type chasen:

http://instagram.com/p/uvtZ9PILeq/

2 minutes, 2 pinches at work.
Leaves still tight after first steep.

Oh, sweet malty. This is very good with my apple pie. It has the nice, malty flavour. There is also a sweetness, and it is smooth. Thanks to cookies for the sample.