Upton Tea Imports

I made this twice this morning. The first time I messed it up big time. Too much tea, too long of a steep, regular ole tap water (I had just woken up and was stupid). It was extremely bitter. D’oh. Re-made according to Upton’s directions and liked it quite a bit. I still picked up on a slightly bitter aftertaste, but I felt that it actually became less bitter as it cooled, which sounds like it might be unusual?

Made with Crystal Geyser water in a Bodum Tea for One. Added half and half.

Really enjoying this. I made it the other day at work and felt it was meh, but today I actually took the temperature of the water coming out of our ‘boiling’ water spigot and discovered it’s only getting up to 160 degrees. So I stuck my mug in the microwave to get to around 212, which took much longer than I would have thought. I think I will get a cheap kettle for work.

Edit: I made this in the For Life tea infuser that came in my Whispering Pines set and lots of bits got into the actual tea. Should I not make a non-leafy tea like this in an infuser? What do people use for making this kind of tea?

I abuse tea… I have to come to grips with that. Especially work tea, so work tea has special requirements that need to be meet.

1. Must be hardy and not get astringent with over brewing – a common occurrence
2. Must be drinkable hot all the way to room temp/cold (as it cools in the cup)

So first off.. I over brewed this while emailing. oops? It’s not too bitter, yay! Chocolate, tobacco, nice solid cup with a brightness to it… unfortunately, as it cooled, the brightness turned sour. I will have to taste this again when I can be fair and pay more attn to the brew times, but unfortunately for work this one won’t do. I’ll stick with my Upton Hunan Mao Feng which was restocked after I picked up this sample.

Very mellow. Nice color.

Okay just to put this review into perspective – My first puerh was from the Verdant 5/$5 deal. I wanted to get an idea of what their quality was like before ordering anything. That puerh pleasantly surprised me.. After the initial hit of loamy earth, I really liked the mushroom flavor that dominated the cup and kinda found it addictive. I also cold brewed the leaves after the first infusion and enjoyed that too.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have tried this at work? This is my 3rd foray into the world of puerh. Yay puerh noobie me!!! I received my Upton box of samples last night and tossed this mini into my bag and have just brewed it in a little ceramic office cup/infuser set.

The mini tuo has a slight smokey savory scent to it. Ok, not bad, smells like the green Upton Saiqing mini-tuo last night. Looks nicely packed and smooth.
Tossed it into the infuser and poured hot water over it… uh oh! it started breaking up immediately into very fine fanning like pieces. o.O I’m supposed to rinse this, it’ll all float away!? Alrighty then just do it… and done, whew. Poured more hot water over it and watched the mini crumble like crazy.. omg.. I’m gonna be drinking bits of leaves! They are gonna escape the infuser and I’ll have to check my teeth constantly! The water is having a hard time getting past the leaves to drain… oy? Then panic sets in. This is taking too long.. it’s super dark already.. this is crazy! Go water goooooo!!!!!!! Finally, it’s drained and I can ignore the infuser to peer at the crazy dark cup. Alright, I know.. I know… I was warned about this, this is normal… REALLY. Dang thing is darker than coffee.. I’m so very afraid… do I really want to drink this? I mean, it. could. kill. me. Drink a coffee this dark and bitter is the name of the game. I’m so screwed… JUST DO IT!

Drama aside, I’m drinking it… 1st steep slight smokey flavor and tree bark wood. Not bitter at all! YAY!! For whatever reason, the smoke really reminds me of a snack type food we have here in Hawaii called smoked ika (squid), and I can’t get the association outta my head.. The sediment at the bottom of the cup wasn’t as bad as I feared. I’m grateful that the main flavor is woody with the smoke as an accent.. though the smokey flavor is what I’m carrying in my mouth after the cup is gone. 2nd steep more wood, still strongly flavored and scary dark.

Overall, while not unpleasant, this isn’t really floating my boat. I did feel a little light headed about 1/2 way into the first cup.. when I started typing this review… but I’m not sure if it’s this qi thing folks talk about or just relief that I actually got through steeping and tasting it.. hahaha!! I’m guessing it’s the latter. ;)

In keeping with Upton’s tendency to undershoot with their steeping time recommendations, an extra 15 seconds of steeping really brought out the incredible flavor of this tea, earning it the highest score I have ever given any tea here on Steepster!

I was thrilled to receive a 250g packet of this tea for Christmas. I originally tasted this tea when I was in college as part of a winter sampler, and I immediately fell in love with it. A friend of mine (who introduced me to tea) was so impressed with this tea that he made it a special exception to his policy of not drinking blended teas.

This cup was slightly underinfused, if anything, but still absolutely wonderful. Next time, I’ll increase the steeping time to 4:15.

Not a bad chocolate tea. I had four times in the past three days because ’Tis the season . I can taste the hazelnut flavoring, cinnamon, and cardamon (strongest to weakest), but the malty Assam base can easily overshadow these notes. This tasted best with a little less leaf and slightly lower water temperature than suggested, just so I could enjoy the non-tea ingredients.

Tastes alright grandpa-style , but wouldn’t do it again:

https://www.instagram.com/p/xNJBcwNn/

On bringing up to nose the smell of mixed berries, raspberries and blackberries mixed, hits hard. Is strong delightful sweetness of scent before the much harder taste of the tea.

The tea is a light standard black but with no charcoal or cinder to the taste, none of that acrid burnt of often black tea tastes. It has the darkness, but a yellow to the lightness that exists. And a sense of citrus at the very back top of throat.

The sides of the tongue are yellow, too, but with hints of green further you go on them. The yellow is much more burgundy in its depth and shape, as hard as that is to describe or see to others with them being such different colors… But it’s there inside the yellow.

Sweet malt blues under the front of the tongue in the pit behind the front teeth and about 1/2 way backward to base underneath.

As the tea cools those berries come out clearly onto the center tongue where they didn’t show before in the taste itself. They roll over and as the tea comes into the mouth and other favors stay much the same everywhere else. A bit of astringency creeps in as the berries quickly disappear and the rest of the tea mellows into its lower-temp’s finish.

I love the golden, yellow, citrus, dark, red, and berries in full of this yunnan. I’m a fan of yunnans and having that lighter and yellow tones compared to the rich thick darkness I like in assams.

Loving this one.

2.25g/6oz, 205 degrees, 4 minutes

I brew it in Gongfu style, very smooth oolong tea with a hint of bitterness. The aftertaste is sweet and pleasant. Highly recommend if you like tea with sweet-flowery aftertaste.

Good stuff! Enjoying this as a nice morning cup. Really an excellent blend of tea and fruit.
Full review, here: http://www.createwritedrink.com/2015/11/tea-review-tuesday-review-of-upton-tea.html

“If I were a coffee drinker easing into the world of tea, I’d like this,” I thought as I sniffed the aromas of my freshly brewed cup of Upton TI69: Jolotigo Estate Orthodox Java BT. Richly tannic and woody smells were evident in the leaves after brewing (it’s wise to use an easily-cleaned strainer with this tea, since the leaf pieces are rather small), so I was surprised when I tasted the cup without milk and found the tea tasted so mild. I added milk to tone down the tannins and that subdued most of the flavor; even though my cup was a good strong color, my milky tea tasted more like tea-ish milk. It was nice of Upton to send this to me as a free sample with my recent order, but this is not my cup of tea.

What is “bop” anyway?

Had this tea with breakfast this morning. I’m going to be seeing my in-laws today and they enjoy tea quite a bit, so I’m actually going to give the rest of my sample tin to them! I thought of just plowing through the rest of it myself, but I just feel like life is too short to be drinking tea I’m not loving. I will never be a sipdown champion for this reason, although it also probably speaks to my not being good at picking teas i’ll like haha.

Anyway, still nothing wrong with this tea. It just tastes like tea, you know?

So glad it’s almost Friday. This week hasn’t been nearly as stressful as last week, but working full-time is just really draining on my overall reserves of just about everything.

Anyway, had this tea again this morning as promised. With a generous amount of cream and sugar, a tea with what felt like ragged jagged edges was transformed into a smooth and flavourful cup. I also only steeped for three minutes, which helped.

So far, this tea still falls into the perfectly acceptable but not scrambling to restock category. And it’s just as well. At least it reminds me that my love for tea isn’t broken.

I’d been off tea for a long while, and have only recently meandered back. I’ve not been having too too much luck, to be honest. A lot of the teas I brew fall flat for me, and I’m quicker to give up this time around, whereas in the past I would have probably soldiered on, attempting to brew this way and that. Anyway, I decided that I’d try to go back to basics for a while and just explore plain blacks again, so I ordered an introduction to fine tea sampler from Upton tea Imports (also an excuse for me to get another finum brewing basket, which I’m in love with). Anyway, I thought I’d try this one first.

Brewed this just under boiling for about four minutes, but might try about three minutes next time. I mean, it’s certainly got a decently strong caffeine kick. If what you want is a brisk tea that will make you sit up and take notice, this will absolutely do the trick. It is quite strong, and tastes quite tannic. It absolutely requires cream and sugar, and even then, I could sort of feel it roiling in my stomach a bit. Once it had additions though, it became a strong breakfast tea, that has that sort of dry, thirst-quenching characteristic I would imagine i get from an unsweetened apple juice, although it doesn’t taste remotely of apple. I liked that aspect of the tea very much. Aside from that, however, it was just an ordinary if perfectly acceptable breakfast tea. So I’ll finish it off (that’s my rule before I’m allowed to open another sample tin), but so far, likely won’t be rushing to reorder. Expect more notes on this one though, and feel free to hit me if I review another Upton tea before this one is out.

I use an extremely fine screen when dealing with any tea that is either (a) not whole leaf or (b) very broken or dusty.

And yet, this tea still manages to fill my cup with things which then stick in my teeth. I have no clue how they can be small enough to get through the screen and then big enough to be visible along my gums, but there it is.

Also, it clumps into itself very badly and clogs my yixing spout so that I end up with a lot of overly long steeps because it is taking longer to pour the water out of the pot than I actually want the length of the steep to be. This results in “burning out” the leaf in too few a number of overall steeps.

I bought this tea specifically for convenience over picking apart an actual brick of pu-erh and it has been the precise opposite.

I don’t recommend this tea unless you’re going to cold brew it and strain the result through cheese cloth.

Very nice. Subtle but pleasant vanilla flavor. Not artificial like most vanilla teas. A bit weak, though. Will try brewing it stronger next time.