Upton Tea Imports

i love this tea! smells great and tastes like almonds

bleh, the Cinnamon and other flavors ruin it.

I’ve noticed that this tea may take multiple single cup steeps before it will start to darken more during a steep. (unless you are willing to wait like 7+ minutes)

an awesome green pu-ehr tea! tastes smooth!

update!

actually its really good now! i even eat the apple pieces after i cant steep it well anymore so awesome! i have re-rated the score to 100

it was a good tea :) however i was expecting apple pie flavor not apple flavored candies.

a really good green tea. verry smooth

so I wanted to try something new :D

so I made some of this tea with 15 grams and 5 teaspoons of sugar in 750ml of water and let it steep for 8 minutes

ITS…. JUST….. AWESOME!!!

New score 80 —→ 85

i assume the grassy taste is unique to Japanese tea? still this is a lovely tea. i’m adding 5 points

time to do a full review:

when i open the pack, it smells like green tea and matcha powder.

when i steep the leaves it smells sweet and grassy, so does the tea.

when i taste it. it tastes like freshly cut grass. (no pun intended.)

a nice green tea! A good starter for those who never tried Japanese teas :) nicely priced too :D

a great tea! tastes like matcha :D

a really good tea! tastes/smells like brandy :P

Sipdown no. 84 of the year 2014. Holy basil, Batman!

Apparently, I never wrote an initial note on this, though I’m now sipping down the end of this sample packet. It was opened, so I know I tried it once. I also have a memory of having a mishap and spilling a bunch of it all over the counter. Perhaps I got distracted and never made it to the note.

Upton is a class act. I love how they personalize what they send with your name and the date on which it was packed. The date on this is 3/29/10, which is shortly after I joined Steepster. However, there wasn’t a ziplock on the sample packet and I neglected to treat this sample well. I may have been mad at it for spilling. ;-) And since I don’t have an original note, I have nothing to compare the taste of this aged sample with from when it was fresh.

On top of that, it seems I only have enough for 3/4 of a cup. Here goes.

It has a spicy savory scent that is reminiscent of cooking spices. I smelled it against some dry basil and it’s similar, but not anywhere close to identical in fragrance.

The steeped tisane has a slight anise-like scent along with the savory spice. It makes a light brownish orange liquid with particles suspended in it.

The flavor is also somewhat savory. I get a cooling note, which is the anise-like one. It has a vaguely medicinal taste, but not in a bad way. It’s the cooling aspect, which is sort of a menthol/eucalyptus sensation. Rather like one of those fancy cough drops though not as sweet.

Supposedly this can do all sorts of great things for you from lowering blood sugar to inhibiting cancer. If I knew that was true for a fact, I’d happily drink it every day as a sort of tonic.

But as a flavored beverage for pleasure, I’m not so sure. I have some Tulsi blends I’m more eager to try now, but plain it’s sort of plain.

The leaves were broken up more than the Special Organic (SW58). A good mellow tea, not as many fruit notes, but not musty like the first white I tasted either.

Very nice. This is the second white tea I’ve tasted. The first was a bit musty compared to this one, which is much more smooth and stable.

Earthy, but not too bitter. After the first couple of sips, I added a dash of milk to give it some sweetness. (Thank you to shmiracles for sending the sample!)

2/8/14 Sipdown. 3g/60z/212F/3min. This is the first CTC tea I can remember having loose, though I’ve seen plenty in tea bag dissections. It’s made a good pot of tea, properly brisk, pleasantly colored, good scent. But the physical tea is a little disturbing to me. It looks like very fine mulch, and when I picked out a bit of the steeped leaf to examine, it sort of smeared away into just a kind of smudge of mud on my finger tip.

Pros — 3 minute steep time made an wicked strong liquor. This tea would be great for iced tea, for cooking, for anytime an intense traditional English style black tea flavour is wanted. It’s a good cup of tea.

Cons – mulch.

Side note – 15g is the perfect sample amount for me. It’s exactly the right amount for one pots worth western brewed, and one gaiwan session.

TTBB #2. I’m not going to add these to my cupboard unless I keep more than the cup I drink so there won’t be any sipdowns for a while.

I’ve never tried green rooibos before, though I’ve been meaning to. I have some….somewhere in the tea tubs but I couldn’t even tell you what brand it is. This smells very strongly of fruit, mostly pear as other commenters have mentioned.

Just took a drink and it’s reminding me of SOMETHING very very strongly. I’m having a sense memory but I couldn’t tell you what. Maybe…root beer? Something in root beer is twigging at me. Pear up front but this mystery flavour in the back. In the middle is something vaguely horrible that I think is the green rooibos. What is that?? Anyway, aside from the visceral shudder reaction, I think this tastes good. I would never buy it, but it’s good.

I am getting a quick onset headache since drinking this so I might have found another food sensitivity. Crap. I suspect the rooibos but I don’t have enough data points to tell. Possibly a flavouring.

In other news, my kidneys have been sore all day and I’m not sure why. It’s very irritating.

So with all the snow we’re getting here in NY, I felt today was a spiced tea sort of day. Since I have a sample on-hand, I figured this tea fit the bill.

It tastes and smells mainly of cinnamon and apples. There was a nice big piece of apple in the scoop, so that probably helped. I guess the vanilla’s what’s giving it that little bit of creaminess. No bitterness at all. If you add sugar though, I’d advise moderation. This gets VERY sweet if you add too much.

Such a nice blend for an afternoon cup of tea. I was watching a mini marathon of 1954-55 Sherlock Holmes TV programs yesterday, so of course had to have a pot of this. The blenders created something really special here with just a touch of smokiness that does not cover the base of keemun and darjeeling. Whole leaf blend actually holds up well to a second steeping and tastes good iced as well.

Got this as an extra sample with my first Upton order. It reminded me of Twinings’ Irish Breakfast which I also enjoy, so this little free sample went a lot quicker than expected.

I don’t normally add milk to my tea, but I added a splash to this along with sugar and it made all the difference. Still not something I’d buy on a regular basis, but maybe once in a while. Bumped up my rating a little because of this.

I have a love-hate relationship with vanilla teas. Sometimes I love them, far too often they taste like canned cake frosting and I hate them. Figuring I might have better luck with a tea that just had vanilla pieces in it as opposed to all sorts of added flavorings, I decided to try this.

I’m glad I only bought a sample. I wouldn’t say I hate it, but it’s not exactly great either. It’s…alright. Drinkable, but not remarkable, and not something I’d buy more of. The vanilla gives it a sweet note without being obnoxious, but the tea itself had a nasty bitterness when it cooled. Maybe I’ll change my mind with different steep times and some sugar, but for now I’m really not impressed.

Made a cup of this at least half an hour ago and then couldn’t taste it because dinner was strongly spiced. Oops!

It’s cooled down now but it’s really nice: lots of cardamom with a dry, solid cinnamon/cocoa taste in the background. The aftertaste is sweet and aromatic. This is not much of a chocolate tea—the cocoa taste is definitely more like powder than a chocolate bar, but it works. I’m so happy I picked this up in MissB’s sale! I’ve found over the last few days that cardamom even beats out cinnamon as my favorite spice in tea. I’ll have to keep one around constantly to get my fix.