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This is what’s currently in my cup! This is a sample that Bonnie sent me forever and a half ago and I haven’t gotten around to trying yet! Thank you Bonnie!

I was in the mood for something minty, and this looked and smelled like it was a minty tea, so I brewed it up.

It’s pretty nice! It’s verrrrry sweet (even with no sugar in it) and it’s got a nice minty flavor that comes out a lot in the aftertaste. This one would make a great latte and I plan on doing that next time.

Now, this part is mostly a reminder to myself but you can feel free to read this if you’d like.
Teas That I Need to Review This Weekend (* means for TeaTrade):
1.) Ripened Pu-erh Mini Toucha by Teavivre*
2.) Taiwan Jin Xuan Milk Oolong Tea by Teavivre (in gaiwan)
3.) Lapsang Souchong by Dr. Tea’s Tea Garden
4.) Coffee Pu-erh by DAVIDsTEA
5.) Chiran Sencha (white label) – Kagoshima by Chado Tea House*
6.) Keemum 3 Monkey Tea by Culinary Teas
7.) Huo Shan Yellow Sprouting by Mark T. Wendell*
8.) Compare Paris and Tower of London

Many thanks to ashmanra for sending this along!

This was very good, but to tell the truth, I couldn’t tell the difference between this and Paris! I will have to try them side-by-side to say the main difference, but since I haven’t had Paris for a couple of days, this honestly tasted just like it.

Another backlog. This one is from yesterday, and I remember it a lot more. Thank you Teavivre for sending this sample!

This was a very nice tea. I’m a pretty big fan of golden tip blacks, and this one was no exception to that favor. It had a nice, bold background and then a very unique sweetness (almost citrus-y) that climbed up through it and presented itself towards the swallow. As it cooled, more of a sweet potato-esque flavor emerged, and it was very lovely.

This was very nice and I plan on reordering it!

This is a major backlog as I have been SO stressed lately I can’t even handle it.

I still have a lot more left of this from the sample that Teavivre sent me (thanks again!), and so I’m going to have to re-drink this and write a review for it because I honestly don’t remember that much about it.

I remember it being pretty bold with a nice strong base (a little malty and grainy) and a fruity essence (very wine like, more savory fruit) that kind of grew up from it. It also had a nice smoky background to it that kind of lingered in the background.

It was pretty good but I’m going to re-review it with more detail.

Backlog from this morning.

This was okay. It wasn’t remarkable but it was pretty good. My only disappointment was that I detected very little Trail Mix-ness. Instead, it both smelled and tasted like cherries, with a little bit of nuttiness. It was pretty good but it was a little disappointing that it didn’t taste like actual trail mix. I’ll have to try again sometime and see what I can do with it!

One of the teas I received in a swap with Tegan Fyretyde!

The dry leaf of this smells amazing. I can smell the coconut but I can also smell the cheesecake. IN THE DRY LEAF! CHEESECAKE! Mind=blown! I didn’t even know that cheesecake had a smell, but it does and I can smell it in the leaf and now I can die a happy man.

I’m not actually that familiar with honeybush, but I rationalized that I could brew it the same as I would a rooibos, so that’s what I did. I used about 1 1/2 teaspoons of leaf for my 12 oz Noble Mug and used 195 degree water for 5 minutes.

The result is a very typical red-ish color. Unfortunately (and I don’t know if this is because of my mug or the leaves) the brew smells kind of icky…. Like…. BO. Ew. Luckily, it doesn’t taste like that. It’s very sweet. Really sweet. I mean I guess that’s understandable because it came from My*Sweet*Honeybush. But I mean it’s REALLY sweet. I can tell it’s coconut. It’s still pretty hot but there is a slightly creaminess in the background and that typically tang of a cheesecake. As it cools, the cheesecake aspect comes out more and more. It’s really nice actually, because the flavoring is REALLY accurate! It really does taste like coconut cheesecake, and I’m in love!

This is an excellent dessert tea. I really love it and I will definitely be repurchasing this (thank goodness it’s in MySweetHoneybush’s permanent collection-THANK YOU FRANK!). This is phenomenal, thanks again to Tegan Fyretyde for sending some along!

SO I HAVE A LOT OF GREAT NEWS TO DISCLOSE IN THIS POST

The first is that my first post on my TeaTrade blog is up. The blog can be found here http://serendipitea.teatra.de/. I explain more in depth there what I aim to do. Please take a click and tell me what you think!

The second (okay so there were really only two things) is that I’ve made the decision to stop rating teas. I know of only one other user who does this (JacquelineM) but I’m doing it for a slightly different reason than she does it (though her reason does come in to play a little). The main reason is that rating a tea means that all of the work I put in to making a review culminates to me making a rating that says if I like it or dislike it. Compared to many here, I’m very new to the premium and loose leaf tea scene. The goal of me having an account here on Steepster is for me to me able to explore new teas and learn as well as review the new things that I’ve tried. I feel like if I spend a whole review listing what I taste only to culminate it in me rating it on if I like it or not, I’m not really growing. I want to review every tea I try purely by how it tastes, and not by if I like it or not. I want to go into my review unbiased and focus simply on the liquid in my mouth from a standpoint that is as unbiased as possible. I feel like that will help me grow in my knowledge of teas more than rating a tea on a like-based scale. Once I feel like I’ve tried enough teas and taken my palette to a place that I feel comfortable that I’m at the peak of my journey, I will perhaps start rating teas again. But until then, I’m going to go without rating teas.

So, now that all of this has been said, onto the tea! This is a backlog from yesterday. Another sample that Teavivre sent me!

I was so excited to try this tea. I mean like. REALLY. Excited. I mean come on, it’s the highest rated tea on the site, how could I not be?!

So, trying to keep my excitement to a low, I opened this one up. The dry leaf smells a lot like bread. In a really yummy, toasty way.

The wet leaf and tea itself smell a lot like fresh baked bread. In a way that really entices you. The tea itself is wonderful. It’s very strong and certainly not light, even with only being steeped for 2 and a half minutes! It too tastes like toasty, warm, fresh baked bread. It practically screams bakery! It’s so wonderful. Even as it cooled it retains its boldness, as a certain caramel-y note (not too sweet) comes out. It’s almost like a savory caramel-like a salted one that has a little too much salt, but in a good way. It tastes…… toasty. This, again, is hard for me to put into words, but the best I can say is bread! A wonderful tea, and I can see why it’s the top! This is definitely going into my repurchase list!

My second batch of samples from Teavivre arrived today! I was very surprised when my mail lady knocked on my door as I didn’t think I would have to sign for this package (I didn’t have to last time, which is weird). Regardless, I was very excited when I took it inside and opened it up! Again, I was at a loss for what to try because I’ve been eyeing all the samples they sent me this time. So, I flipped them over so the label was facing the table and lined them up and shuffled the order around and asked my little sister (I’m babysitting) to pick a number between 1 and 5. She chose 3, and this was the third one in the lineup, so I decided to brew this up. I specifically asked for this one when I asked if I could get another box of samples (thank you again Teavivre!) and so I’m super excited to try this! I’ve also never had a milk oolong before, but I’ve heard wonderful things about them so I’m so excited to try this one.

So.
Dry Leaf: Again, the packaging is wonderful. For this tea (and two or three of the others I got), there are 4 individual baggies with tea in them inside one bigger bag. I don’t know how much is in each because the little baggies are in Chinese (further proof of the high quality of this tea) and it doesn’t say on the bigger bag they’re all in. I assumed that one package would be enough for 10 oz of water, so I threw one in. The dry leaf is pretty green and it smells very fresh and vegetal, a little salty, actually.

First Infusion: About 200 degrees (it says boiling but a.) I think that’s a little too high and b.) my kettle boiled and I wasn’t right there so it cooled for about a minute and a half and I was too lazy to put it back on :P) for 2 minutes in my Noble Mug from DAVIDsTEA. The resulting brew is fairly light. It still smells a little vegetal. Again, I’ve never had a milk oolong so I don’t really know what to expect. It tastes very fresh and slightly vegetal but not in a savory way. Usually when I think of vegetal I think of the opposite of sweet, but this is different. It’s like fresh garden picked veggies. Aasdklfjdaslk this is so hard for me to put into words, but the best I can say is sweet veggies. Definitely not as sweet as a fruit but still slightly sweet. There’s a very distinct heaviness left in my mouth afterword, which I’m assuming is the milk part coming through. As this infusion cools, the sweetness comes out more and more. This is a pretty good, but based on this infusion I wouldn’t repurchase.

Second Infusion: Boiling water for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. It’s times like this when I really wish I had a gaiwan. The leaves have opened up so much and it’s hard to brew them in a basket like I do. I’ll try to find one around here (though finding tea supplies is not-so-surprisingly hard here in Vermont). This infusion is much creamier. I can definitely sense the milkiness of this. It’s smooth and heavy in your mouth. This time it’s a bit sweeter. Not a lot, but it definitely got sweeter. Still vegetal though. I think the main difference in this infusion is the way the creaminess came out. Like the first infusion, as this one cools the sweetness comes out more. It’s starting to turn more fruity than vegetal. I don’t think the leaves have it in them to make a third infusion, so for now this is my review. Not phenomenal (I don’t think I prepared it exactly as I should’ve, so I’m going to try it differently next time.

On somewhat of a side note, I have a good idea for my TeaTrade blog (it’s still a little confusing to me so I don’t really use it). I was thinking about making a tea review blog that connects teas to the arts. Like taking whatever tea I choose to review and then say music that compliments it or art that it makes me think of. It sounds kind of weird now, but what do you guys think? Any comments/suggestions would be great!

I figured I’d make a nice black tea to go along with my Spicy Black Bean burger for lunch, and so I picked this one out from the selections that LiberTEAS sent me.

This is very nice! It’s very smooth and kind of light for a black tea. It doesn’t have a lot of astringency but it is there. What’s strange though is that the astringency can be detected while you’re drinking it, rather than after you swallow when it leaves that distinct dryness in your mouth. The one word I think of with the aftertaste is juicy. It’s very wet in your mouth afterwords (if that makes sense) and it leaves kind of a heavy feeling. It has a nice fruit taste, but not a sweet fruit. More like a savory apple, if that makes any sense. It definitely has an essence of sweetness without being like flat out sweet, if that makes sense. Kind of like a really convincing pseudo-sweet.

A very nice cuppa, thank you LiberTEAS for sending this my way!

Backlog from last night.

I really like this Bai Mu Dan. It’s verrrrry light (although all white teas typically are). The leaves were pretty green but once brewed it was obvious that this was a white tea. The scent was very fresh-slightly vegetal with a floral hint somewhere in there.

The taste was phenomenal. I was in the mood for a light tea and this definitely satisfied that desire. The word that I instantly thought of when I tasted it was fresh-it was very spring-esque, and it definitely invoked the feeling of being in a field in early April (that sounds cheesy but that’s what I thought of). It started of a little grassy and vegetal (almost nutty) and then at the swallow a lovely floral note came out.

Very good!