Upton Tea Imports

1/20/14 Evening pot. 3g/6oz/190F/3min. This finishes off my sample of this. The tea brews a pellucid pale gold green, with a heady aroma of clover honey and spice. It is light in the mouth, smooth and with an astringency that fades as the tea cools. The changes in the taste as the temperature changed were lovely, from a bright ping in the first sips to a sweet dryness in the last.

I’m not usually one for English Breakfast but I gave this one I try because I wanted a strong morning tea.

I gotta admit, Upton did a pretty good job with this one. The blend of assam and ceylon was well balanced. I actually made it a good 1/4 or so into the cup before adding my half and half.

Like I said, I’m far from an English Breakfast connoisseur so I can’t say if this one ranks in the top, but for a strong wake-me-up tea it does the trick.

This is an interesting blend. Its a basic black with a whisp of acidity and the fruit comes through a bit in the smell and aftertaste. I taste and smell peach, mango, apricot and almonds. It is not however overwhelmingly sweet; just a bit refreshing and tart. Almost like the jammy notes you’d find in a big red wine. I would definitely drink again as the fruit notes are light handed which is hard to find in the fruit flavored teas.

Smells promising in the bag and on steeping, like good green tea (vegetal, woody,) yet I’m also getting a scent that reminds me of vanilla cake for some reason. Taste is pretty good, a little mild, no bitterness. Vegetal, with a faint note in the background that kind of reminds me of cinnamon. This is organic, which is always a plus. With the price, which is more reasonable than some similar teas I have tried, plus the easy drinking experience, this would be a decent daily drinker. (current upton # for this is ZG46)

1/18/14 Afternoon tea. 3g/6oz/190F/4min Just a plain oolong. To borrow a beer term, this is a session tea. Pleasant to drink when I want to drink a tea just as a background to doing other stuff. I’m almost out of this tea, which I got from Upton in 2011.

2/6/14 Morning pot. 3g/6oz/212F/3min. Pretty sure the descriptor ‘brassy’ was invented for this tea. It is bright and brassy, the way I imagine a brass bedknob would taste if it tasted like tea instead of brass. Don’t ask how I know what brass bedknobs taste like. This tea is good brisk breakfast blend, nice taken straight, and maudlin-makingly good with milk for those of us with deep “English Breakfast Blend” yearnings. If your gran ever served you milk toast made with tea/milk, she’d have used this tea to make it.

caveats: again, a tea in which I may taste more sentiment than Camellia.

1/18/14 A potful for the afternoon. 3g/6oz/212F/3min. Had a cup earlier, and had to make a potful. I was right, it is wicked good with milk. The fantastic smoky aroma and brisk liquor buddy up with the milk to make a cup that drives off the chill and makes the whole world seem a finer better place.

caveats – drinking this made me want to read Wodehouse

1/18/14 Noontime cuppa. 3g/6oz/212F/3min First impressions. A thick smoky/malty aroma. This tea is gorgeous in the cup, a rich red-gold. Brisk and bright to drink with a good punch of astringency – like most UK blends, this would be great with milk. A good eye-opener that’s making me wish I’d brewed more then just the single cup.

Great blend! My new favorite. It tastes like a strong Ceylonese tea or Darjeeling, without the astringent aftertaste. I keep waiting for it but it never comes. Very smooth and worth the extra price I’m sure.

1/28/14 Morning tea. 3g/6oz/212F/5min. I made a large pot of this, and it is drinking very nicely with milk and sugar. A great straightforward tea. The brewed tea is an attractive dark amber, a pretty taupe with the milk in. The aroma and taste are tea, with a faint masala like spiciness that boosts the drink from ‘oh its tea’ to ‘Ahhh, tea.’ I’m happy I have so much of this tea! I think I’ll try a stronger infusion next time I brew this.

1/18/2014 First tea of the day on a cold morning. 3g per 6oz @ 212F for 4min. First impressions. Dark in the cup but lighter in the mouth. Aroma is … tea. Good, straightforward, simple. Aroma matches to taste – a smooth and straightforward cup of tea flavoured tea. It’s making me want to play with it, try it with milk and sugar, try it at different steeping times, try it with a wash before steeping.

Caveats – first morning tasting which is when I can’t taste or smell well, tea has been stored (unopened) since 2013.

Nice mild taste with a hint of annus flavor. A light and brisk drink.

I really like this Irish Breakfast Blend. I think this will be my standard waking up Cup from now on. The smell is awesome. Great blend!

My wife wanted this one. She liked it. The smell is very very nice. The taste is a bit more like cranberry juice to me. With the same aftertaste. Very nice and not too strong.

The best Darjeeling I ever had to date! The more I drink it the more I love it. Will buy again.

My only other Darjeeling teas I have tried is Tazo and Bigelow tea bags. It tastes most like the Bigelow One, but with a more complex taste. I am glad I bought this.

Oh my gosh! I bought some teas from MissB and also asked for some samples of others and suddenly there was a sample explosion of way more samples than I expected! It is very appreciated. thanks so much! That means I should really be working on sipdowns… my collection seems ridiculous right now but maybe 2/5ths of them only have 1-2 teaspoons left. I’m going to try strictly sipdowns OR trying new teas for the moment… not so much old favorites I have a lot of. SO I apologize in advance for the continuing avalanche of tasting notes. :D I had to try this one first, as I saw in a tasting note that someone mentioned this one tasted like SpecialTeas Earl Grey de Le Crème. Now, if there was a catastrophe, and there was only one tea I could save from my collection, the Crème would be it… my ancient one ounce package that only has a few teaspoons left. Of course, it was an old Steepster select tea that another Steepsterer generously sent me. Here’s hoping this one has the same magic…

Steep #1 // just boiled // 3-4 min
This one is lovely, but I can tell right away it isn’t the same blend as the SpecialTeas, unless both of these blends had different batches I wasn’t able to taste or something. The SpecialTeas had crisp bergamot, very strong. This one has an almost candy-like lemon myrtle flavor to it. Different than most Earls I’ve tried, but good! Of course the cream aspect makes it taste like a lemon donut or something. The black tea bases are also very similar, but also not quite the same. I think the SpecialTeas has more of a briskness to it. A different blend than the SpecialTeas, but not terrible and a nice change! The second cup was the same as the first.. it’s odd that it reminds me of a lemon cookie (or the lemon donut that was in my dream last night!)

This is the first genmaicha I’ve ever tried. One of my favorite authors @neilhimself had mentioned this is his favorite tea and I wanted to try it ever since. I happily got this as a free sample from Upton. I really though this tea was outstanding! The idea of rice in the tea blend was very strange to me, but as soon as I tasted it, I understood. The counterpoint of the greenness of the tea with the nutty toastiness of the rice is very balanced. Its almost like taking a whiff of a bucket of popcorn and drinking tea or smelling your morning cereal. It sounds strange, but it works. Its a very smooth and relaxing cup and I would most definitely buy a tin of it.

My first words after tasting this tea for the first time were “wow, that’s good.” It’s a bit earthy, but has an almost sweet or mint-like aftertaste. Medium-bodied, with a smooth texture. I like to almost slurp it, because I think that pulls out more of its earthy tones that I love in a good oolong.

I got this in a sampler pack, and I have a sneaky suspicion that this will become a staple in my cupboard.

Update: I tried this at 185 degrees for 3:30 and I believe it was much better. More earthy (which I love) and a bit thicker.

Brewed up strong pretty quickly. Has a classic tea taste which always makes me want to make iced tea (and that is exactly what I did with it), yet there is also some earthiness to it. This is really hitting the spot tonight after doing a ton of yard work on an unusually warm Winter day. Very rich…the taste is lingering in my mouth for some time after drinking it. The price is very reasonable as well. Worthy of a re-order for sure.

I finally got back around to this tea in my morning-tea rotation, and it is every bit as good as I remembered it being. The comforting buttery texture and the slightly-earthy taste are the perfect start to the weekend