Daylon R Thomas Send Message

A very solid Earl Grey that is a bit too strong for me. Very malty and astringent. The bergamot is really well balanced, but the black tea base was overpowering for me. And again, not a huge fan of the package price.

After almost three frickin’ tablespoons of grounded vanilla bean, I finally got it to taste exactly like the description. The bag has so much vanilla that it smells like brownies, but despite how intensely I flavor bombed the leaves, I can still taste the almond and the saffron. I can now be happy with my whopping three ounces of it.

…well, hello Coffee, hello Chocolate…Cherry Oolong? Okay, the flavor stayed in the tumbler and this tea absorbed every scent it could. Oddly enough, it tastes like a carbon copy of the Chocolate Cherry Latte Oolong. Attack of the body snatchers!

But to emphasize the point about THIS tea: it is VERY delicate. Who knew it would be this easy to flavor? I at least had a prolonged goodbye to a favorite.

Sipdown to make first class of the week awesome, and it did. I finished it off in my Urban Tea Tumbler and it was the perfect combo yet again. Chocolate covered cherries with coffee roasting in the background indeed making my morning that much better, and my classes that much more enjoyable. 5 or 6 grams yielding three strong steeps in 16 ounces, 15, then finally 11. Goodbye, and I look forward to meeting you again…

(Waiting for people to gag at my cheesiness.)

A little partner that joined me at the Chicago Field Museum, and I was hoping for it to be mediocre. Intelligentsia is the retailer of the Kilogram Tea Company, and the price is around 8.99 per bag lowering the temptation. But it’s actually a higher quality jasmine that did impress me. The Jasmine is strong and almost sweet in scent and taste. However, it was by no means overpowering and I got two solid cups, each soaked for 3 minutes with a fainter third cup that should have been steeped longer. Worst of all, it’s actually pretty creamy.

I’ve gotten Jasmine pearls the same quality for cheaper, but this is a really good bagged jasmine tea. I don’t think that I’d flock to buy it soon, yet it certainly made me slightly curious to try more of Kilogram’s and Intelligentsia’s offerings. So I’d recommend it, but not the $8.99 plus shipping.

One of my favorite samples so far. And as some of you can tell, I’m really developing a taste for Darjeelings….curse my expensive palette.

Teabox gave a good, accurate description of this tea and it is a very fresh, green black. Rose is really heady in taste and smell, and the liquor is actually very smooth and very mildly astringent, but an astringency with a citrus aftertaste. The grassy smell was a little bit off putting for me at first, but it is weirdly refreshing in the tea. It’s so green to me that it actually tastes closer to an oolong than a black, which shouldn’t be surprising considering it’s a Darjeeling. I had this tea at three minutes, and it continued to be good at five and even eight minutes being difficult to over steep. Personally, I would stop at five minutes and do longer brews in later cups.

The Giddapahar Special Muscatel remains as my favorite, but this one is one that I’d might buy. I’d recommend it for green tea lovers or as something to try if you want to find out the different dimensions Darjeeling has.

This is a very classic example of an Assam. The leaves are really nice to look at and particularly tippy with a gold strand on most leaves. Too bad they are on the smaller side and that I’ve been made snob by Taiwan Assams.

The liquor itself is malty, strong, a bit astringent with a little bit of dry fruit sweetness. I get the pine they describe in the smell and partially in the astringency. Honey is a bit more distinguishable along with the walnut. But honestly, it just tastes like tea. It would do well with rock sugar or honey pared with cream. Assam is a bit too strong for my preferences anyway.

Okay, not as good as it was last time. More spinachy than I like. It could be due to leafage…or storage. I only had the original bag in a scentless zip lock bag for a week before I put it in one of the pouches from LP. I hope that it didn’t somehow lose flavor, though I could be worrying too much. I need to see how the other cups go. I manage to get the pear and peach out anyway. Today has been more like a 85-90 in terms of taste.

Sipdown…..eheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!