Upton Tea Imports

This was our morning tea at work today.

Malty, sweetish, fruity, smooth, little smokey. Definitely a Yunnan and also definitely a Darjeeling. Little hit of astringency at the end, but not much.

This is pretty decent, and I really love a good keemun, but this blend does not live up to the pants-kicking the phrase “best with milk” suggested. For breakfast/at school thermos teas, I like a tea that’s supposed to be drank with milk, but without the milk. It has to be STRONG. This is maybe lifting some 20lb barbells. It’s got muscles but it isn’t buff.

I am sitting in the library right now, and there’s a group of girls near me being rather noisy. For a split second I debated throwing a pencil at them, and thought of the line in Moby Dick “it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off”. Apparently I need to go to sea.

Really nice tasking tea. The toasted rice gives the green tea a nice finish. Excellent!

Description suggests that the bergamot is light on this tea but I found it plenty strong enough. Couldn’t taste much difference between this one and the Ceylon base. Actually the Ceylon might have a brighter flavor. I wonder what kind of Chinese tea is being used here. It was just a bit astringent. Added a bit of cream but that just completely muddled the flavors. Might be good iced for summer.

Don’t get me wrong. This is a good tea, but not as good as I was hoping for.

Maybe I’m not as big a fan of earl grey as I think I am. :(

Dry leaves smell like fruit. Non-specific fruity-ness. Both I and another Tea Club buddy noticed it.

Steeped for rather a long time as I got busy and lost track, but it was still smooth and light. Sweet without being sweetened, and definitely fruity. Again, can’t name the fruit it reminded us of – just fruity. I wasn’t around long enough to try the 2nd steep, but the reviews I heard were good. They said it was lighter, of course, but still good.

Sipping this one outside on a nice cool breezy day, I f##ked it up kinda tho because i put some honey in it, its not bad but it tastes like i’m drinking some kinda chocolate covered dried fruit, not sure what. Chocolaty, fruity, sweet, bold.
Oh THIS is totally differnt Black TGY Now at Upton its NOT the same as the one pictured, i think its changed a few times tho, Still Good :)

Damn good stuff, it taste much better these days than it did when I first bought it.

The taste of this one is wonderful, to me it is slightly woodsy at first with bold notes of cocoa ,maltyness and maybe caramel, kinda malty and just really super good.
The second and third steep were the best, they were malty and tastes of so much of cocoa it was almost like it was a flavored tea or something and caramel hints with some roasty toasty characteristics of a darker oolong and the flavor was lingering in the mouth with a slight bitter.
by the fourth and 5 steeps it had lost the maltness and caramel hints but the woodsy note is back and the cocoa notes are still there, on the fifth steep a slight “whiskylike” note somehow came about.
Read more and see a few on my blog please :)
http://toadsteablog.blogspot.com/2013/03/black-tie-guan-yin-from-upton-tea.html

Stellar! Quite enjoyable. Definitely getting the toast reference, though I first interpreted it as soft leather.
Since this was my first taste, I sipped both with and without milk. Without, it’s refreshing and earthy with a rather floral and delicately fresh note similar to something I experienced last week in another tea. Only this time it’s much milder. It’s quite lovely.
There is also a slight honey note in there that stands out on odd sips. Not really getting any cocoa like the description says, sadly. I had really hoped for that. Oh well, it’s still great!
With milk, that floral freshness really pops. Now I wish I had more than a sample.

Had this with a little bit of honey in it with my breakfast. Very tasty

A little citrus, a little green, the tiniest bit musky and sweet.

Nice cocoa-esque smell in the bag. Upon steeping, it has a classic tea smell, a little vegetal smelling too. Has a classic tea flavor, plus hints in the background that remind me a little of artichoke (comes out at higher temps). Relatively smooth. I made some iced and sweetened and liked it that way by far, would make a good every day iced tea. Hot score 80, Iced with sugar 84.

The big dark leaves in the bag are looking pretty enticing. Taste is what I’d expect out of a good oolong: minerally (especially on the second steep), nutty, a little roasty, but it has also got some fresh mixed herb-like notes that differentiate it from some of the other oolongs I’ve tried recently. Easy to drink, no harshness, and a good price last time I checked. I like it.

Free sample form Upton! Cool. I guess they started giving out samples with every order, as this is the second time I got a little bonus! =)

This tea smells nice and toasty, with a slight nuttiness and a bit of the green tea base.

Taste wise, this one is pretty good. It’s partially sweet, has the nice toasty taste I love in a Genmaicha, and is nice and smooth. It’s also got a nice vegetal/earthy taste mixed in.

It’s a basic Genmaicha, but there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s tastey, relaxing, and just what I needed after a really rough night at work. Happy I got to sample this!

This was on March 1st (day before the previous entry on this tea)

Tried this with a lower temp and shorter steeping than usual and got a smoother flavor out of it with less astringency though still a bit too much for my taste.

Brewed this using 1 tbsp leaves for a 12 ounce pot and a lower steeping temp and shorter time than Upton suggests. I found it yummy and smooth with only a slightly astringent aftertaste after several sips. When I brewed it 5 degrees hotter yesterday, it wasn’t nearly as good.

I really like the flavor of Yunnan golden teas in general, and now I’m pretty happy with this one!

Got a sample of this in my last Upton order. Glad I did, as I do like it and was happy to get to try it.

This tea smells nutty, roasty, and earthy/woodsy once brewed. It’s interesting. I was actually expecting a slight vegetal note because of the slight green character of the oolong, but I’m not really picking any up. Not that this is a bad thing. I don’t mind either way.

The taste of this one is slightly roasty (though not nutty), with a stronger earthy/woodsy character. It’s pretty smooth in the front of the mouth and slightly (very slightly) drying in the back. I’m also picking up a slight sweetness, and that sweetness carries into the aftertaste. The more it cools, the more that sweetness is highlighted. Interesting. There’s also a nice champagne like smell coming from the cup, now. I don’t really think it’s coming through in the taste, though.

Overall, this is a nice oolong offered from Upton. I’ll have to see how this stacks up against the other oolong samples I ordered from them. I like the different aspects of the flavor and how they work together. It’s got some nice complexity. I’d buy this again. It would make a nice standard, everyday oolong. =)

Brewed 2T of pearls in .6L of water for 5 minutes. The tea still tastes weak.

This morning I brewed 3 teaspoons of the pearls in .75L of water. I’m trying to make it a bit stronger, but it still was fairly weak. Not sure if that’s how the pearls are (more subtle) or if I just need to add more pearls. Will keep experimenting

I had some of this in the morning and am working from memory, so I might come back and update this when I drink it again.
The leaves looked pretty good – not very broken, brownish-greenish.
Astringency was minimal and the tea is nice and round and mellow. The mouthfeel is moderate.

There’s definitely some of that typical floral flavor I expect from a Darjeeling. There are also more mellow malty notes. I presume the more mellow, robust notes are coming from the second flush leaves. There’s a hint of this brothy taste that I notice in some Chinese blacks and Japanese greens that I don’t care for. It really bothers my girlfriend, but it’s not the end of the world in my view. Overall, I prefer a first flush Darjeeling, but this is good too.

This tea has mostly black leaves, with some orange tips. They’ve grayed a bit and are generally “imperfect” looking but not “bad” per-se. They may be not the freshest or just be harmed by the decaffeination process. They have a vaguely floral scent that is not as pronounced as some higher-grade Darjeelings. They are fortunately free of any chemical scent.
They produce a medium red-gold shade liquor with similar scent to the leaves.

Astringency is nicely controlled, and the mouthfeel is very light.
The flavor is quite sweet, mildly floral, and with hints of maltiness and vegetal notes. There’s unfortunately a vaguely earthy-stale flavor in the background, but it’s minimal and not as pronounced as most decafs’. The flavor of this tea overall is slightly muted compared to a non-decaf Darjeeling, but not dramatically so.

A second steep was weaker and more vegetal than the first.
I was actually very pleasantly surprised by this. I’d almost given up on decaf teas and decided to stick with tisanes for decaf. But this tea actually has very decent quality leaves and a very drinkable (though not perfect!) flavor. This is a really decent tea – much better than most low-grade loose black teas, although not quite as good as a premium non-decaf Darjeeling. But I’d be genuinely happy to drink this whenever, and I will be ordering a bag of it soon.

This tea’s leaves are a variety of green and brown shades – definitely a lighter Darjeeling, edging into Oolong levels of oxidation. They’re nice and large and unfold upon steeping.

The liquor is a golden color, and both it and the leaves have a floral, slightly fruity (white grape) smell.

Astringency is muted but present. Note that I steeped at 190, as I typically do for Darjeelings, so it may be more pronounced at a higher steep temperature.
The mouthfeel is very light.

The flavor is primarily floral, almost jasmine, with notes of white grape and some vegetal hints(perhaps string beans). It’s reasonably sweet, but not overwhelmingly so. The floral and sweet notes are not as pronounced as the best first flush Darjeelings, and it tastes very slightly stale (it’s close to a year old, since it’s from the 2012 harvest).

The second steep hold up relatively well, although more malty and earthy notes start to show up, and the sweet, floral notes are diminished.
I enjoyed this tea quite a bit and would definitely consider buying a bag of it, although I’ll likely wait until the 2013 harvest. I’d recommend as a very well-priced first flush Darjeeling.

4 tsps in 12 oz.

Even brewing 3 min at 190, this tea was a bit too astringent for me to appreciate its flavor. But the flavor is similar to other Yunnans I’ve tasted. This tea does not have as much gold in the dry leaf as most others I’ve tried.