Upton Tea Imports

This Shou Mei has a surprising smoky, earthy taste to it, with hints of spice.

By the second steeping it has mellowed out some, with a subtle sweetness similar to dried fruit and slightly earthy gourd-like flavor.

I am not terribly experienced with a diversity of white teas, as a local company here specializes in white teas and has many award-winning offerings that are of wonderful quality, so I do not shop around for white teas much. Thus, I will not rate this one. I find the flavor agreeable but would not likely purchase it.

MUST TRY ALL THE YUNNANS! Lol… Another one from Nicole! This one looks less tippy than the other Upton variety I tried yesterday, or whenever it was. The leaves are small and thin, not remarkably twisty, and almost all black with just a few golden spots. They smell of hay and dried leaves.

Whew, I could tell by the aroma that this is one of those Yunnans. Meaning, the manly kind, lol. The aroma and taste are basically exactly the same. It’s very earthy with a mineral edge. There’s a woody taste along with a definite smoke note (Nicole, you’re not paranoid on this one). A bit of malt in there too, but it mostly tastes like what I would call “forest floor” – earth and rocks and twigs. There’s a bit of a musty taste to it as well.

Finding myself to not be a fan of these darker Yunnan teas. I’ve been far too spoiled by their lighter counterparts! :P

This sample came from the lovely and generous Nicole. There’s quite a bit of gold in these leaves, more so than the others I’ve tried recently. The leaves themselves are quite thin and twisty. I can’t really say much about the dry scent, because it smells like milk oolong. HAH! Clearly some cross-contamination there. :P

The brewed aroma is light malt with honey and that lovely stonefruit note I’ve been missing. Confession, I kind of forgot about this tea while I was browsing stuff online… Oops! Luckily for me, it didn’t get bitter or astringent or anything. Definitely a mark in its favor! It has that lovely light malty toast flavor that I’ve come to expect from lighter Yunnans, drizzled with honey. There’s a little hint of raisin in the background, but it’s more of a golden raisin. I also get a bit of stonefruit, yum! I suspect I’m getting more fruit because the tea has cooled so much, so I would assume it’ll be less prominent when hot. Still delicious though! I would have a hard time differentiating this from other similar teas. It’s not unique, but it has all the things I love about Yunnan!

This one was a sample someone sent me! It smells delicious. The taste is nice. It’s creamy, smooth, has a nice base, and has a lot of natural tasting vanilla.

MzPriss’ Unflavored Tea Box – Tea #7
Another nice keemun! Again, not really smoky… I could swear keemun is supposed to be a little smoky but it seems none of them are. I love the scent of dry keemun leaves. The flavor is on a mid level – tangy again. It seems only keemun have this tangy flavor I’m talking about. I wish I could describe it better. It was almost like the Andrews & Dunham Spring Keemun I had a few days ago. I also had this tea a couple days ago, which is why my note is more terrible than usual. Whoops. Not a bad two steeps (the second cup was similar) but I’d prefer my keemun darker.

So, it would appear that I have had this tea before at least 2 times. :) I guess it is unremarkable. Either that or I’ve simply had too many black teas to remember them all at this point. This time I got some mild fruity notes when hot that vanished as the tea cooled. But yeah, unremarkable basic black tea. Thanks, NayLynn!

This is not one of the tiny CTC teas like a lot of the African teas are. The leaves are not huge, but still much larger than you find in most standard tea bags. There is an odd taste to this – fishy? Lake-y? Lake-y, I think is the best way to describe it. Woody and lake-y. It is a fairly consistent taste across Tanzanian teas I have had. All the bagged teas I had while over there had this same flavor profile. Not sure if this is because maybe the bagged teas I had were all made with Livingstonia Estate teas (doubtful), or if it is the terrior there that leads to the similar flavor.

Regardless this is a perfectly acceptable cup of tea. Nothing awesome, nothing standout, nothing to keep around but nothing to refuse a cup of. :)

These cute but eminently stinky Tuo Cha from Upton Tea Imports were my very first purchase ever of this type of tea. That was more than a decade ago. Seriously. They sat in a drawer alone, neglected and scorned for all this time, never to be infused until today. They aren’t nearly as stinky as I recall, but I figured, how can pu-ehr go bad, really? Perhaps they have improved with age!

The strong scent of the initial sample (which contained 6 tuo cha, now 5) left such a lasting impression on me that I completely avoided this entire category of tea. Why would I want to drink such a thing? I asked myself most logically.

After seeing the throngs of pu-erh devotees out there in the world wide web, some of whom spend time here at Steepster, I realized, at last, that first impressions might deceive. Perhaps it’s really true:

Don’t judge a book by its cover or a tuo cha by its stench!

I tossed the first short infusion and proceeded to brew this tea using near-boiling water, which swiftly produced a dark brownish amber liquor with not a trace of its former stinkiness lingering in the air. To be honest, and a bit surprisingly (or not!) the flavor strikes me as a cross between a Yunnan black and a Lapsang Souchong tea. Does anyone else find similarities between pu-erh and Lapsang? Or is it just this particular batch?

Anyway, it’s good, and now I’m off to the races for many new adventures in the vast land of pu-erh! I needed to clear this hurdle before I could try any other pure pu-erhs. Mission accomplished, and happily, too!

The leaves smell soooo vanilla with sweet bergamot… reminds me a lot of Paris from Harney. But when steeped, there isn’t much vanilla or bergamot. It is however, massively Darjeeling. Deeply muscatel with stone fruits and some grassyness. I got zero astringency as well. I quite like this one, even if it wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

This has darker leaves than the Yunnan Black Buds from Upton. It also has more of the flavor I expect. Hay, dust, minor hint of smoke (or maybe it’s just my super paranoid smoke detector tastebuds), some sharpness. I normally would expect sweetness rather than sharpness though. While this is better than the Black Buds, it is still a wholly unremarkable Yunnan. Still, better than no Yunnan, but nothing I’ll get more of.

This was a fairly plain Yunnan to me. I steeped for 1 minute and then for 3. Not much change and the flavor didn’t really deepen or expand at all. At 5 minutes there was more classic Yunnan flavor. It’s better than no Yunnan, but aside from the dry leaves being very pretty with a goldeny mix, this is not a standout for me.

Wow, I LIKE this. I’m a big fan of keemuns and this one is so nice. It seemed to change character a lot as it cooled in the cup. The first sip was surprisingly astringent, but that quickly gave way to lovely maltiness with a subtle sweet note. Subsequent tastes got almost chocolate-like, and through to the bottom, it has a wonderfully full and soft mouth feel.

Now, here’s the thing: the second steep was almost completely flat. Maybe a tiny bit of malt, but really, it was almost like drinking hot colored water. Weird. This is a keeper for me, but I’ll have to remember that it’s a one-cup wonder.

Super old sample, I think from Tastybrew!

Was actually a decent caramel black tea. I will have to make it side by side with teaG’s caramel tea just for fun :)

I got this sample from KiwiDelight. I’m not really going to go into the dry leaf, because I think most of us know what dry sencha looks and smells like (at least, anyone who reads my notes will know by now). Steeped for 1 minute as per usual.

The aroma is pretty standard but still nice – a mixture of spinach and alfalfa with a buttery edge. Tasting this, I assumed that this was a heavily steamed variety because it has more intense flavors. However, it’s actually because it’s not harvested until autumn (I don’t know how steamed it is, it didn’t say). It’s a nice balance between the intense and sweet flavors of gyokuro and the more savory flavor of sencha. I get notes of spinach, zucchini, and butter with a little touch of savory seaweed. Overall, quite tasty and I would definitely drink it again. :)

This came as a free sample in my last order from Upton. I needed a strong cuppa when I got home from work yesterday and thought, sure, I’ll give this a try. “Strong cuppa” indeed! The dry nose was somewhat smoky with maybe a touch of malt, but the wet aroma (I like to stick my nose way down deep in the leaves) was strangely flat. The brew was very smooth and full, with a somewhat coffee-y touch and minimal tannins. I found no hidden flavors or much aftertaste. It just is what it is: strong black tea. Note to the caffeine-conscious: this one packs a wallop. Perhaps next time, if there is a next time, I’ll add a spot of milk to see if that brings out some of the malt. I’m in no rush to try this one again.

This, like most Ceylon teas, just doesn’t do it for me. I carefully followed Upton’s brewing directions (1 tsp/3 min/212°) and came out with a tea that was mildly tannic, mild all around, and with no aftertaste to keep me interested. Even sticking my nose deep into the gloopy mass of freshly steeped leaves didn’t give me much of an impression. Nope, I’ll pass on this one. Perhaps it has redeeming qualities, but I’m not finding them. Might a bit of milk help?

I lean toward bolder black teas, so perhaps my tasting of this dainty green is somewhat skewed. I saw what I was in for when the dry nose was dusty and smelled of hay. After a three-minute steep at 180° (per Upton’s instructions), the leaves were now bright green and smelled somewhat of bread dough (that’s a compliment – I bake a lot of challah and other breads and I love the smell of the dough). The pale yellow liquor still had a bit of hay, plus some citrus. It had very little finish and overall did not excite me much. Then again, perhaps my palate is not refined enough for this delicate brew.

I was surprised at the number of sticks that were mixed in with the leaves. Is this typical of this style? It made it hard to measure, so I had to make my best guess (I really need to get a scale).

I did three 2-minute gaiwan steeps of this tea. The first was almost too subtle. Sort of herby with a clean finish, but nothing really jumped out at me. The second had a darker liquor, with less herb flavor. The final steep seemed slightly more astringent (though not much) and had a bit more forest-floor-dry-sticks flavor.

Overall, I liked this but was not wowed. I’d recommend it for when you’re in the mood for something subtly warming and comforting.

Oh no, I’m the first to review it. Pressure!

Haha. Okay, so this 88th Night Shincha is kind of magical. It’s traditionally picked on the 88th night of spring , 88 nights after the Vernal Equinox (which puts it somewhere around June 17th most years if I counted right).

This shincha smells a lot like a high quality matcha to me. It is very rich. I’m getting lots of green leafy notes, some pistachio and a hint of green bean in the scent. In the taste it is vegetal and nutty like pistachio, mellow and has a nice sweetness to it, not a sugary sweetness mind you, more of a mild sweetness like you might describe some vegetables as having (carrots for example). There are delicate hints of mint. It’s lacking the mineral and ocean qualities I’ve tasted in other senchas, which is a nice parting from what I’m used to. The color is a beautiful green-yellow.

I’m gonna have to say this is the best sencha I have had yet. I have only had maybe 4 or 5 so my experience with them is not too broad, but this one is definitely the most enjoyable to me, for its mellow sweetness and hearty vegetal taste. Oh, and if anyone is curious, shincha is a first flush (first harvest) sencha, so that’s why I am comparing the two. :3

Edit: I served this tea at an event I held at my house where I served night-themed teas and it was a favorite among the guests. They said it tasted like a green smoothie. I can’t argue with that!

Dry leaf smells malty and a little earth-like. Liquor is golden, clear, a little astringent, and surprisingly light-bodied. The malt and honey flavor, too, are light, and are roughly equal in strength. A cup of this tea is nice yet stimulating to drink during a summer’s mid-morning.