Virtuous Teas

This tea was sublime, full of peach and apricot notes, it was fresh and sublet. Gentle yet flavorful. I used very little leaf for how large my gaiwan is and I can push it to 7 steepings

Well balanced chai. Aromatic and smooth

Backlog from a couple days ago…
Thank you for the sale, Ali! I’m always up for trying a chai. This one seemed interesting as it seems to have a lot of powdery stuff – either cinnamon or nutmeg. A lot more of that than the CTC black tea leaves in the blend. I liked the idea of cinnamon and nutmeg and not a ton of other chai ingredients — it’s different! The flavor is on the lighter side, but I didn’t steep until eight minutes after boiling, so maybe that’s the problem. I also didn’t want to oversteep the CTC. The flavor was good though. Hints of cinnamon. This seems like one I will add a scoop to of another chai for extra cinnamon and nutmeg goodness. I’ll try at boiling soon.
Steep #1 // 8 min after boiling // 2-3min

Thank you Ali for this extra in the tea sale I had to buy a couple things from. :D I’m very happy I’m able to try this as it just happens to have my favorite characteristic of a smoky tea – a sweet hint of marshmallow that I’m only tasted in one other smoky tea before this one. The base is perfect with the sweet smoke – smooth and not too tough. The smoke brings all the tough it needs, but also the taste isn’t too smoky. The second steep kind of lacked a little more flavor, in the tea itself, the smokiness, AND the marshmallow. But the first cup was a good one… also a good one to try if you’re not sure you like smoky teas. I wonder if there is supposed to be a flavor difference between a Russian Caravan and Lapsang Souchong? I’ve never heard of Virtuous teas but their prices seem very reasonable, looking at their site.

This seems to be a nice minty black. The tea is well balanced and I’m not getting any bitterness. The mint isn’t super powerful, but it is present. It is a good choice if you are looking for a pleasant no frills black mint.

Rooibos is a sharp-tasting tea and the vanilla in this is strong and tends to soften it a little.

Travelling Tea Box C

Tea #38 from Another Traveling Tea Box

This is a nice mint tea with a background of vanilla. The addition of the vanilla is really nice, and adds a depth I wasn’t expecting to find. It hits at the end of the sip and reminds me of buttermints — a little creamy and quite smooth. Really yummy blend~!

Editing to add: I just got the coolest mug ever. The Cheshire Cat disappears when I add tea.

http://i.imgur.com/jlPhIL1.jpg

I took the little bit of this out of the HH teabox! These teabags you can fill are so handy for rooibos blends. Much more enjoyable for me when I don’t have a billion wood chips sitting on my throat. I’m glad I bought two boxes of 100 from Red Leaf (two different sizes – but I think the big ones are easier to fill.. even with rooibos it is tough to fill the smaller ones). But I might drink so much more rooibos because of these teabags that I will go through these filter bags fast.

Anyway, this tea is lovely! A nice candy like strawberry flavor… I’m confused by the description mentioning three fruits… and none of them are at all like strawberry. I swear it’s strawberry! The rooibos is a great base for it. Nice!

Also, I should mention I’m such a Steepster geek that I can’t wait until I have time to add all the teas to my cupboard that I acquired from these tea boxes (and also remove the teas from my cupboard that I put in tea boxes!)