Upton Tea Imports

Not as fond of this one as I feel like I should be. Withholding rating for now. Will give the sample another chance in the future :)

I’ve never done First Flush Darjeeling sampling when the crop was fresh before. In fact, I’ve only had two FF Darjeelings ever. They tasted decent, and so I decided to buy several samples from Upton. BTW-Upton ships so fast with standard shipping!

The white and silver tips in the dry leaves are beautiful. Dry leaf aroma is more floral than I expected, but not unpleasant. Indeed, there was a lot of foam as this tea steeped. The brewed leaves were mostly a pungent floral with maybe a vegetal note stuck in.

At this point, I am tending to agree this has oolong characteristics. The liquor is more yellowish with orange mixed in. The floral notes in the flavor remind me of a green oolong-not my favorite. There is one floral note that reminds me of a specific flower-unfortunately I cannot recall what that is just yet. I do detect a hint of pineapple which is nice.

I don’t think I liked this much on the first sip, but was starting to get used to the flavor before it cooled too much and became overwhelmingly floral. Not sure just yet how I feel about this. I’ll try this at least once more before giving it a numerical rating.

Second tea of the morning…… (SRP #28)

This one is very interesting! It is a green and black blend. The green leaves are the most prominent as they are a long and somewhat twisty pale green. I steeped it up at about 190. The liquor is a light amber. The taste is brothy. I get a little salt and pepper, even! There is a slight nudge of a vegetal note at the beginning, and it finishes smooth like a black tea. Very interesting and well done. It probably is not something I would drink on a regular basis (they are out, so it really doesn’t even matter if I would!), but I am glad they had a few samples left when I last ordered.

Usual teapot method with a 2.5 minute steep. No additions.

I’m sure a lot of women I know (and some men) will not be able to relate to what I’m about to say, but I’m always looking for the holy grail of shoes, one pair I can wear for most occasions—work, a night out, at home in the country and city. I guess this is a quest that spans many areas of life: skiers want one pair of skis that will excel in powder, ice, moguls, and trees; motorcyclists want one bike that can go touring, race through the back roads, or putt around town. It is this impulse in humans that is the genesis of the Desert Island list (what is the one book/album/food/famous person you would take to a desert island?)

Now I know it would be heresy to suggest that there is only one tea that would satisfy all tastes, but there are those teas that I regularly turn to when I’m not in the mood for something specialized. A good mid-priced Assam or Ceylon, or now, this Yunnan from Upton, back in stock due to popular demand. It’s fancy enough for an elegant night out (chocolate and fruit) but unpretentious enough for a trip to the corner pub (malty, frothy, cherry pipe tobacco).

I wish I had found this earlier, but I guess I was too busy being wooed by the flashier golden-tipped Yunnans I love so much. But as every romantic comedy has taught us, sometimes the best partner is the guy or girl next door who has unobtrusively been there the whole time.

I’ve never had straight gunpowder tea before-always mixed in a Moroccan Mint blend. Since I bought the mint and the tea separately this time, thought I would try the tea straight.

The dry leaves unfurl very nicely (although I did not watch). The liquor is a golden yellow. The brewed aroma is slightly vegetal and slightly floral. The flavor is pretty similar. The floral taste is not that strong, but strong enough (meaning too strong). Reminds me a bit of a green oolong-which I don’t really care for. Straight, this tea is not for me. Fortunately, I have a giant bag of spearmint to blend with it and I would not hesitate to buy this tea again as long as I was blending it.

I returned from my uncle’s funeral service and was compelled to have a cup of this tea as it represents the rebirth of nature after a long cold winter.

Word has it that the first=flush season is not a good one, so I’m glad I have some of this stellar tea left. It has held up well—a heady mixture of honeysuckle, peach and freshly-mown grass, with that singular muscatel essence that makes tasting first-flush darjeelings the non-pareil experience in the tea world.

And the reviews of the first flush darjeelings begin! Luckily it’s still freezing and gloomy here in Maine, so a hot cup of flowery goodness really hits the spot.

This Sungma was shaping up to be a classic first flush until I tasted it and was surprised to find how fruity and effervescent it is. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does lack the deeper honey notes that I usually expect to find in a first flush. Maybe it was more lightly fermented, which results in something closer to an Oolong or a Nepalese tea. Anyway, these are mere quibbles, and will not prevent me from enjoying this top tier tea.

One does not immediately think of Ceylon when looking for green teas, but this is a wonderful selection. The dry leaf has a nice apricot aroma which turns to apple when the leaf is infused. The taste is a mixture of hearty/earthy and flowery. It actually reminds me of a raw pu-erh in many respects. This green definitely stands out from the crowd!

This is the first Vietnamese tea I’ve had in years and only my second overall.

Maybe I got a little overexuberant in buying this tea-only one review here (over a year ago) and none on Upton’s site in the past year. The dry leaves are short, tightly rolled and dark brown with a just a few golden tips. Can’t really describe the leaf aroma-just kinda a generic woods-ey type smell. It brews a coppery liquor and tastes very similar to Assam (which I was kinda expecting). However, this tea is off. Seems stale to me. I assume the tea hasn’t been sitting in a foil sample pouch all this time waiting for someone to order it. This is why I have started to gravitate toward companies that can give me a harvest date on their teas. Hope this is just an aberration. Too bad-it was a promising tea.

From Wednesday, this tea is larger in appearance than the Palkum tips, it also had a stronger aroma and was more shimmering when I rinsed the leaves, if that counts for anything. Two competing flavors on the first steep were a mild cocoa and melon, more specifically honeydew and cucumber. This however was not chocolate dipped honeydew. Second steep was a bit more herbaceous, can’t pin point the herb but there was also some hay and asparagus (like really fresh crisp asparagus, not overcooked soggy limp spears my parents used to over steam, which turned me off of asparagus until quite recently) but the melon stands its ground as well with cocoa undertones fading away in the third infusion. An enjoyable enough white, but special? Not to me.

Got this one from Tommy the Toad in a swap. The first time I had it, my water wasn’t hot enough so the leaves didn’t quite unfurl as much as they should have. But I noticed them sort of doing the same thing this time? It was a good, smooth tea, but it didn’t really have much of a character.

Meh. This did not impress me much. I had two or three sessions and now it’s gone and I don’t even remember much about it. Not melony as that’s what stood out about the white I drank immediately after this. I think it was vaguely sweet with a bit of spice in later steeps. And the tips were very very tiny, but not broken as far as I could tell.

I’m pretty sure drinking an old Darjeeling is a dumb thing to do. I thought I got these recently until I realized a) March was last month and b) it’s not 2012.

Oops. I drank another one before and it was alright but not my favorite harvest. Autumnal is second fave, so hopefully this goes better.

It does not taste a thing like my previous note. I get the impression it was average and nothing I really cared for. This time around… It’s SO sweet. Like nut brittle.

It’s also really good cold now, I thought it was going to taste terrible or turn bitter but I guess I did a decent job on protecting this one.

Also I am so excited because being an awesome person on yelp means I am going to the Ritz Carlton tomorrow! Super fancy, one day I would so love to do afternoon tea there.
Also their website gave me that feeling where you’re like wow I want to have a wedding. They have passionfruit filling for cakes! A dark chocolate cake with passionfruit filling, all of a sudden I’m like oh my god I want a wedding cake.

My 300th tasting note! Yay!

So I finally retook the test I missed 2 weeks ago today, and it had a lot to do with Brazil, China, and India, and I found myself really wanting tea in the middle of it. Then I got home and I’m faced with the decision of Chinese or Indian tea. Since I had some kind of jasmine tea ginger ale with lunch (they had a couple other bottled Harney & Sons drinks but this sounded awesome and it was), I went Darjeeling.

I think after this one I only have two more to try from my Upton order, yay. I’m on the fence about tasting everything I haven’t had or finishing what’s there. And now I feel like I’m making poor decisions but this is in the name of 300.

Autumnal Darjeelings are not my favorite I think. They’re good but I prefer just second flush ones. They’re bold and astringent, which I like but I’m not getting much else. Maybe it’s a bit buttery, but mostly it’s just kind of just…tea. I miss that muscatel taste that’s more prevalent in the earlier flushes.

This is nice right now though because it’s way cooler than I thought it was going to be today, so a more hearty tasting Darjeeling works out after all!

This was interesting, I couldn’t resist adding this sample to the cart with my husband’s British blends, as we had learned about the Sacher Torte feud in German class. I had one the Earl Grey Ceylon Select sometime with in the last week and this was definitely more mild. The Darjeeling wasn’t over muscatel, the Celyon not too winey, but it was nice, I felt kinda European drinking it. I tried a second steep and it was very light, but still drinkable.

This is such a well balanced cup, I get a bit of sweet cocoa from the Keemun, there’s a winey buzz from the Darjeeling, but mostly I get the high cider note from the Ceylon that unites the two. I don’t know where I get this cider Ceylon association, but I just finished my second steep and it was like a mulled cider, with just a bit of spice at the end. Going for a third! (Edit: didn’t translate well into a third, or a fourth, :shrug:)

Glad I read the description of the grading before I started commenting, helps me understand why I am looking at darker, more broken leaves. So I’m drinking this the day after Upton’s Pai Mu Dan and to be fair I should have done a 2 and half min steep but I felt like short steeps. When I brewed it up and couldn’t pin point what I was tasting I decided to do a 30 sec steep of Pai Mu Dan and the differences became very clear. Pai Mu Dan is all honeydew on the first steep while Shou Mei is all veg and pine and herb, more sipping back and forth narrows it down to rosemary and sage. Second steeps mellow out both teas a bit but adds a bit of cocoa sweetness to the Shou Mei while the Pai Mu Dan got less sweet and the third steep of Shou Mei is more cocoa and spice while Pai Mu Dan is like over ripe melon. I enjoyed the later steeps of the Shou Mei more than the Pai Mu Dan, even though its supposed to be a lower grade tea. Tomorrow Moonlight, just found out its Yue Guang Bai :)

Revisiting this nearly a month later with longer steeps, which interestingly enough makes the herbaceous notes take a back seat to cocoa and nuttiness on the first steep. It does make sense as I am basically drinking all three of the shorter steeps in one, I find it very interesting.

This is enjoyable. I steeped it for the recommended 3 mins as I have a massive headache and was not feeling the gongfu mojo. As such this review shall be brief and edited over time (I have enough for one or two more samples).

Smell is very familiar, reminding me of the white Darjeeling, but I can’t be sure. Leaves are very unfamiliar, I really only have experience with variations on silver needle so very spring green leaves amongst the buds was most welcome though there are also brown bits and scraggly bits and choppy bits. Smell of brewed leaves and liquor is familiar as well, sweet artichoke, that is probably not at all close to artichoke but it comes to mind. Taste is all nectar and grain though after reading the brief description melon and but certainly fit the bill.

There is something similar to Upton’s Downy White Pekoe Yin Zhen which I did go ahead and finish up western style the other day, that says not quite top quality. Maybe it’s in the floaty bits or the dull brown bits but it translates to the cup and while it’s not poor quality and still enjoyable, I’m not blown away. But I’m cranky right now and am going to withhold rating.

Drinking the last of this nearly a month later: first steep is definitely melon with some herb, second steep is totally green beans, I should know, I’m eating some for lunch ;)

So this is actually from today. Dried leaves smell quite earthy and are smaller, green/grey/browner than the downy white silver needle I’m used to.  Rinsed leaves very winey sour, muscatel but a 20 sec steep renders them less so.  The glass infuser has lots of particles in it that don’t want to settle and pour directly into my bone china cup and only settle once the first cup is drained.

A lot going on taste wise but all of it subtle.  First sip is sweet and that’s nice but it doesn’t last.  There’s a nuttiness and flouriness, like dough.  There is perfume snd some later sour notes that come through more in the second steep which is override very flat and blah which is not to say that it’s flavorless, just nothing bright or deep or exciting, but second steeps tend to be my least favorite.  Still even the first was dry, not what I would call refreshing.

Third infusion leaves smell Darjeeling cup smells sweet, tastes like spicy cardboard, black pepper.  I think I may try a fresh brew as I don’t see how this could get any better.  Might wait to get some spring water though.  Ugh. Must not rate.

I’m new to teas with smoke, so I don’t think I can give this a proper rating yet. This tea is a bit peppery, and it has an aftertaste of smoke. I added milk and sugar, after determining that in no way am I capable of drinking this sort of tea black. It wasn’t bad though – I can see how you could get to like this kind of thing. I will keep trying!

I’ve actually ordered this a couple of times because it has more flavor and substance than most green teas I’ve encountered from China. Delicious chestnut and honey flavor with a barley/malt base.