Vermont Liberty Tea Company

Has an earthy/ pleasantly salty pu-erh taste, which the toffee mingles with nicely. The almond pieces give it a vanilla cake note as well. Extremely well-balanced, high quality ingredients. This is one of those teas that you can just tell was blended with love and attention.

Drinking this to compliment my scrambled egg on an English muffin this morning. I enjoy it. It’s bready and rich. Very savory.

Such a strange concept, genmaicha, if you think about it. But somehow it works, and works well.

This is the other tea my fellow library intern friend gave me. I’ve never tried genmaicha before, either.

The dry leaf smells sweet, like organic candy. When I steeped it, it smelled strongly of burnt rice. It tastes like toasted bread, butter, and grassy green tea. It’s a very savory tea, and I can tell that this particular green tea base is very good quality. Not bad!

Note: I tried for a second steep, and I think either I oversteeped it, or the popped rice doesn’t do well with second steepings, because I got a burnt-tasting, highly vegetal cup, which I didn’t enjoy. More experimentation is necessary!

Oh, boy! I made this at double strength, with two spoonfuls in one of David’s Perfect Mugs. I steeped it for a shorter time than normal but the cinnamon still came out strong today! It cleansed my throat out like mint.

This is quite pleasant and steeped nicely in the almond milk (my new favourite thing). Thanks, Jackie T, for the sample.

This is near perfection. The smell upon opening the tin it comes in is buttery and caramel like. The taste is slightly floral and it completely coats your mouth. I’ve found ways to brew it well western style, but gungfu is definitely my preferred style on this tea. It’s not too expensive and I will certainly be reordering this tea.

Thanks for this sample, Jackie T! A cup of chamomile before bed is a favourite of mine, but I always seem to be out.

The dry blend has a subtle sweet tart smell to it- like a citrus. It’s still a simple and sleepy herbal, however, even with the lavender and moonbeams thrown in. Especially with the lavender and moonbeams thrown in.. the moon’s full and I’m off to bed. Goodnight, Steepster!

Wow, thanks to Jackie for a big sample of this. She gave me more of this than the other samples coz she knew I love EG. So sweet ^^

It is a nice EG Cream and I’m happy I got to try it in this never-ending journey of tea and EG :)

This seaweed smelling tea is from Jackie T! I read the vague wiki stub on bancha to get a sense of what this was; hopefully it isn’t completely inaccurate.

I steeped it in 175F, according to my kettle, for a little over a minute. My first cup was extremely buttery and smooth with a solid vegetal leaning. This cup was on the yummy and simple side.

There’s a good chance that the mug I used was contaminated with a dessert tea I drank earlier so I switched mug and strainer, and dumped in another teaspoon of leaves. Yep! This is a lot more vegetal and seaweed-like this time, like a less energetic sencha. It’s not very exciting but it does the trick.

Thanks again, Jackie T! I haven’t had a lot of green tea lately and this is a nice change of pace.

I typically have low expectations with Earl Grey because it’s usually boring, needs milk, and tastes like paint thinner. I should probably go in with a more open mind from now on because this one is proof that I’m a biased little ninny.

Detectable bergamot? Check
Detectable creaminess? Double Check
Bergamot doesn’t curdle the creaminess or milk? Check

I poured in some 1% milk and it came out cream. There are layers of creaminess, divided up by citrus tones. I want to own a huge amount of this Earl Grey. Thank you, Jackie T (please tell me where and how I can get more of this)!

Sometimes I want to appreciate the time I have during the day a little more, so brewing an oolong does that for me. I can appreciate the tastes of multiple steeps, see the beauty of the leaves getting fuller as they brew, and smell the sweet floral crispness :) I have about an hour and a half before my next appointment so I think I’ll sip slowly.

In my attempt to branch out into some oolongs, I discovered this beauty on my shelf! Who knew?! So to me, since I am not an oolong expect or even novice at any rate, I think it tastes a lot like the Jasmine Gold Dragon tea. It doesn’t have the sharpness of a green tea but it has the floral flavor, which to me is delicate and simple. I’m a big flavored tea fan, so this is a great step into oolongs.

I’m going to need to look up in the discussions some more information about oolongs and do some research because I feel that I don’t fully appreciate the flavor and fullness of this cup. I think oolongs are supposed to be fresh and beautiful and I feel very under knowledged about them. Wisdom welcome!

Oh my goodness. So last night I tried to make french macarons. Fail. I still wanted some delicious tea cookie treat and I had the ingredients for shortbread cookies.

I got to the part with a tsp of vanilla, opened the cabinet and yelled “NO VANILLA!” because I ran out last weekend and forgot to get more. However…I DID have banana extract. So I tried banana shortbread cookies. To complete the odd cookie, I sandwiched them together with some nutella between. BAM! Banana shortbread nutella cookie sandwiches. THE PERFECT thing to accompany a smooth, strong, simple cup of tea.

With sweet things I tend to want a plainer tea, instead of my regular dessert tea. So the earl grey was the perfect touch. This is also the best earl grey I’ve ever had.

OH! The shortbread cookie recipe:

2 sticks of butter softened (I wrapped them in parchment paper and smooshed them around with my hands on a cutting board, then microwaved for 20 seconds)
1/4 Cup of white sugar
2 Cups of flour
1 tsp of flavor extract

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix the softened butter and sugar until well blended. Add extract and mix. Add flour and blend it all together (I use my hands for this). Grease cookie sheet, roll dough into 1 inch balls and flatten. Bake for 10 minutes, let cool on tray for 10 minutes, move to cooling rack for 30 minutes…then they are ready to make into sandwiches if you want.

one more edit this makes about 2 dozen cookies. The original recipe called for double all this and that was just too much for me.

This is insane. I’m not a huge Earl Grey drinker, my dad is, but I bought this to host a tea tasting at a work retreat (breaks were centered around self care so I did this during one). This has a definite vanilla flavor, and such a fresh strong bergamot, but there is something else. Some other little kick. It is such a smooth tea, I would even call it beautiful, it’s an artistic blend.

If anyone would like to try some of this, I bought more than I will drink and I’m more than happy to share it. I love that it’s local for me, the owner of the shop is the nicest guy ever, and I have never been disappointed by his teas. OH! And you can order online, his prices are nice and teas come in tins! www.vermontlibertytea.com

yummmm…fresh, crisp, clean, floral, refreshing, enlightening, motivating. This is a local tea for me and though I’m usually a dessert tea fanatic, when I need to cleanse my palate and my soul I turn to this and man does it feel good!!

it’s magic.

I’m having a bad tea day so far…I brewed this too long by accident and the first tea I had just wasn’t so great. Hopefully the next cup will be better. Regardless, I do love this tea and will enjoy it even though it is a bit strong.

Drinking it again…this day is going slowly. Thank God for tea!

I’m not a big green tea drinker so sometimes I have to remind myself to branch out. I’ve had this one for a couple months and have sipped it maybe three times, it’s in my mug on my desk this morning.

The smell is so crisp and fresh and the taste is just as good. I like Jasmine in teas, it’s a subtle floral flavor. I don’t have a ton to write about this, most Jasmine green teas are similar, this one is just particularly fresh tasting.

In my attempt to get into green tea more I picked this up from a small locally owned tea shop. I’m a huge peppermint herbal tea fan so I went for it.

It’s very classic tasting, a nice strong full flavored peppermint, the kind you can feel after you sip. It’s balanced nicely with the sweet, crisp, bitterness of a typical green tea. As I continue to branch out into more green teas, I’m sure I will come back to this one to recenter my search!

My first and quite possibly favorite tea from Vermont Liberty Tea Company. I am not a huge fan of Rooibos by itself (although it is a nice mellow flavor), but the addition of the Raspberries just give the tea the exact taste it needs – it’s a great complement in flavors.

I find this tea works perfectly any way you decide to prepare it. I frequently use this tea for iced tea and receive a lot of compliments on the fruit flavor. I prepare this tea hot, with or without sweetener depending on my mood. The tea has enough flavor to not need the sugar or sweetener of choice, but sometimes it’s nice to add something to it to make it like a warm dessert.

I highly (and frequently do) recommend this tea to friends. Sometimes I push it on them when I’m making tea, but I never hear a complaint!

Like drinking cotton candy, or clouds! It’s very light and sweet and almost whimsical. I really enjoy it with some milk and a little bit of sugar, which I feel brings out the best in this tea.

Another winner from Vermont Liberty Tea Co.! The ingredients on the tin list lime leaves, papaya, pineapple & mandarin orange and there were bits of something (either papaya or pineapple, I’m guessing) in there. It’s a really tasty blend with a great smell (I can’t quite pin down what it smells like, but I can pick out the orange). Very nice, great colour too.

Just a bit oversteeped today, so I added more water after it cooled off a bit. Not the best cup of this blend I’ve ever made for sure, but still enjoyable. I need to drink this more often!

I was worried that I’d oversteeped this today but it tasted perfect. It’s so amazing when it’s brewed correctly! I skipped my Friday chai because I didn’t need the extra calories this week and this was the perfect substitute.