Featured & New Tasting Notes

i have been thoroughly enjoying this one from omgsrsly Nice to have this one back in my cupboard to remind me why i need to place another mandala order sooooooon! especially with new teas coming in the near future that are for those of us who love special dark. Not much to say on this one that hasn’t already been said. delicious. wonderful. yay for tea and tea friends!

Oh my goodness. This tea is friggin’ good! I am devouring it. The first infusion I didn’t allow the tea to steep for 5 minutes and I was greeted with a nice rich chocolate cinnamon flavor that had such a nice homemade chocolate dessert feel.

Where this tea really turns heads is when you listen (shame on me) and actually use the steeping parameters that are on the package. Holy cow! Spicy, sweet cinnamon, rich chocolate, with a creamy finish. There are hints of a roasted flavor there too. I have drank three cups of this tea in the last 30 minutes.

I’m not a fan of chocolate flavored teas at all, but I am loving this one!

http://www.cuppageek.com/index.php/2015/10/22/mexican-hot-chocolate-from-a-quarter-to-tea/

I’m super excited at the moment, because my Bluebird Tea Co. order arrived yesterday, and this tea is now officially back in my cupboard. It’s been too long! I also picked up samples of their other autumn blends (Kung Flu Fighter!, Nuts About You, and Pudina Chai). Of these, Pudina Chai is probably the one that has me most intrigued, because I’ve never tried a mint-based chai before. There’s always a first time. The other exciting thing about my Bluebird order was that they also put in a sample of this year’s Christmas Cake blend. That got me running back to their website to see if the rest of the Christmas stuff is available yet – seriously, they have the cutest hampers this year! They’re not in stock yet, which is probably a very good thing for my bank account, but I’m eyeing one up as a present to myself.

Yay tea!

Had a bit of a sloppy Gong Fu session with this during class today; it was a little tough to pay attention to both the infusing tea and what my instructor was saying. Plus, preparing everything on my tea tray/lap whilst sitting on my bed and not at a table probably didn’t make things any easier.

I liked the infusions I did though: my attention was focused else where but I remember the nutty, roasty notes quite clearly as well as the slight taste of ash/char which eased up later into the class/with subsequent infusions and instead show cased lighter notes of cinnamon and vague fruity notes. Or maybe the fruit notes weren’t vague, and I was just focused elsewhere. That’s totally a fair assumption.

I still haven’t written notes on last week’s tastings/class (the notes are buried in my queue somewhere – I’ll probably write about it tomorrow), but today’s class focused on the things that have to be legally included/declared on commercial tea packaging in Canada and on Nutritional Labels. Honestly, it was a little boring and hard to give my undivided attention as that information doesn’t really capture my interest strongly and isn’t information I’ll probably use on a more daily basis…

And next week is the final for this module! No cupping this time around, but I do need to design a tea related product in the next week for my final project. So far, I’m leaning on a ‘mock line’ of Tea Infused Soda since I feel like I can pull from personal experience making tea pop, and I know some of the Canadian consumer statistics we looked at discussed “ready to drink” teas as well as the sales of tea in relation to soft drinks. My logic for choosing “tea pop” as my product being that I can appeal to both the soft drink market and the tea market.

We’ll see though…

This is a fairly tasty loose ripe. It has a fair amount of fermentation flavor left but no fishy flavors. There is a slight note of bamboo and a sweet note. I only brewed this western style so I am not getting the full gamut of flavors but it is good.

I brewed this once in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 15 sec.

Received a 9.4 gram pre-production sample of this as loose leaves in my latest Mandala order. After three days of solid shengs, it was time for a shou. I spent half an hour waffling over how to best try this using several brew methods, but finally just threw the whole thing in my 100ml gaiwan and went for short steeps (5/7/9/11/15/20/30/60/120 seconds). That turned out to be a good choice.

Gave it a 5 second rinse, then let it sit for about 15 minutes. The tea was still opening up on the first steep, but steeps 2 through 5 were a rocket ride. The liquor was only medium bodied yet the flavor was intense. An incredible molasses sweetness was paired beautifully with a restrained Bu Lang bitterness that balanced the whole thing out. Around these two dominant flavors were notes of oak wood, leather and tobacco. Salivating citrus notes and hints of spice (felt more than tasted) popped their heads up a couple of times. The sensation was of a very clean shou with no off flavors. These early steeps had a heavy mouthfeel that felt like they coated my tongue, mouth and throat in rich shou goodness that lingered in the long aftertaste.

Steeps 6 through 9 tapered off in intensity and body, yet were very enjoyable. The Bu Lang bitterness tapered off a bit as well, yet remained present until the end. The sweetness became more like sugarcane. I caught a subtle note of chestnuts on the 8th steep.

I had a hard time sipping this tea because I could not pull my nose away from the cup. The aromas were intoxicating; powerful at first but significant all throughout the session. There was a super-intense sweet aroma that ran the gamut from sugarcane to molasses, with one steep having caramel and another pralines. There was also a strong, clean earthiness in the early steeps. I even smelled some cinnamon at one point.

I did two final steeps at 5 and 10 minutes, but they were pale shadows of the earlier session.

This shou really hit on all cylinders for me. The note on the sample bag said “soon in 200g cakes”. I hope soon really means soon. Assuming the final pressing lives up to the potential shown in this sample, this may be the best shou that Mandala has yet produced (no disrespect to the Original Phatty Cake).

Pix: http://instagram.com/p/9F40FTFi93

One of the few teas out of the 2015 line up from White2tea I hadn’t tried yet. Received this as a sample from Round 3 of the TTB.

Pretty enjoyable for a really fresh sheng, which is something I’m finding I enjoy less and less. Lately my tastes for tea with at least a few years of age on it seem to be more agreeable to my palate. If you have tried the Poundcake then this is pretty similar. Not quite as good but close and less than half the price. Sweet and floral, little to no bitterness. Really nice example of a drink now puerh. Has W2Ts typical thickness and oily texture which I love. Maybe what you would call their house taste/style/flavor. Either way I love that in tea and no one making new cakes does it better. Went on for about 10 steep with the the flavors and body progressively getting lighter after the first couple of cups.

When I make another White2tea order I’d probably add a cake of this for when I desire and nice easy drinking fresh puerh. Really can’t go wrong for 20 dollars. Good for someone not looking to spend a lot of money for their sheng fix, for someone new as an introductory sheng to get them started or to serve to someone that doesn’t normally drink/never tried sheng and may be interested

Tea of the day with my oldest son. His laptop is dead. I blame Windows 10 and its stupid insistence of auto updates that you can’t disable. My youngest son says it has corrupted the boot drive, whatever that is.

Anyway, so tea – I am not a chai person. Keep that in mind. This is a bagged tea that can sometimes be found at the local grocer. It smells very medicinal when opening the envelope. Once steeping begins the aroma turns more traditional. The taste surprises me. It is far lighter than expected. I like that. It has the traditional chai spices in moderation and a touch of vanilla. The licorice root and stevia do add some sweetness, but for chai I think it should be sweeter. I added a little sweetener (half packet). This livens up the mug and brings out the maple flavor. It also brings out the black pepper and ginger in the form of a light bite with a little heat. So then I added a splash of milk. It mutes the chai spices a little and lifts the maple. For chai this isn’t bad.

When I put in my order with 52teas, I kept going back and forth over whether I wanted to order this or not. Banana and coconut are both flavors in tea that I’m really picky about, and they’re not always done well. I wasn’t super impressed with the old 52teas honeybush teas that I tried, but I’ve been hearing so many glowing review that I felt like I ought to give it a chance. In the end, I decided not to order this one, which is perfect because I ended up getting it as a free sample! I decided to try it first, because I always try to drink up coconut teas quickly. The instructions say 1 tsp/8 oz and to steep it for 6-10 minutes, which is not at all how I normally handle honeybush. Honeybush is usually really lightly flavored, for some reason, and often goes sour if steeped longer than 5 minutes, but I decided to try the instructions as written first. That was a good choice. I ended up steeping it for quite a while because the boys were demanding my attention, but it tastes good, so that’s not a problem. I’m always happy to find another tea where I don’t have to worry about the steep time. The most prominent flavors are banana and honeybush. The banana tastes natural – like banana chips rather than artificial banana flavoring. The honeybush is smooth and woody, not at all sour or astringent. There’s a bit of extra sweetness, but I’m not really tasting coconut or cake specifically. I’ll try watching the steep time a little better next time to see how that affects the flavors. I’m definitely interested in trying more banana flavored teas by 52teas now. I’ll keep that in mind for the future. And their honeybush teas are really good now, so I’ll remember that as well.

This is a fantastic priced 2005 sheng, right now $88 for 400 gram cake. There are notes of amber, incense, camp fire, stone fruit, humid storage essence, floral potpourri, and orange. Lots of tea drunk in this one. I got around 14 infusions, so even more rocket fuel for your dollar. A good daily drinker for the daily tea drunkard.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2005-rocket-yiwu-sheng-puer-from-white2tea-tea-review/

TEAM ROCKET IS BLASTING OFF AGAIN!

This is emerging as one of my favorites from my recent sample haul—deserving of a cake purchase. It has some sweetness but it’s definitely a bass rather than a treble tea, most notably in the smokey, pine forest taste that really stood out to me this time. This tea deserves attention: one can parse out a panoply of interesting textures and flavors. And as someone that can handle pretty strong shengs, I can tell you that this one provides a pretty potent high.

Have this as a latte, they said. It will taste delicious, said sil. Just toss a buttload into a steepster and heat up milk until you’re terrified it’ll boil over, then heat it up a touch longer because you’re a badass and steep for ages.

So I did.

And it was delicious. Better than what you would imagine strawberry milk to taste like, because it actually tasted like fresh, orchard-picked (wait, do strawberries even grow in an orchard? what is an orchard, anyway? like an expanse of supple land where things grow? whatever, it sounds good) so yeah, orchard-fresh strawberries in fresh cream. I guzzled this down as I watched my country do the right thing, while the jays were busy kicking some profound ass. A great, great night for Canada! Let’s start undoing some damage, shall we?

So now this tea is all gone. I have the other strawberry one, strawberry pie, I think? Anyway, that’ll have to do until I can get my mouth on this one again.

This one left me scratching my head. I don’t drink a lot of oolongs because I don’t like the heavy roasted ones everyone else seems to prefer. This one is heavily oxidized but isn’t heavy on the roasting. It is a little sweet with the taste of honey but only lightly. The main flavor is a woodsy sort of leafiness accompanied by mineral notes like you would expect in a mountain stream where the water rushes across big rocks. This one seems so familiar but looking through my notes on Oriental Beauty and Bao Zhong, the two I thought it might most resemble, proved not even a close match. As I ended my blog post, I am going to have to leave the taste of this one as The Mystery of the Red Buffalo.

This is without a doubt among the very best sheng I have ever drank. It was sweet with very little bitterness, just a little bitter aftertaste. It had the commonly found notes of young sheng apricots and stonefruits. In there I’m pretty sure I detected notes of green grapes too. It is my understanding that this comes from quite old tea trees. Why Nicholas doesn’t advertise it as Gushu I don’t know. I am just now starting to feel the effects of the qi of this tea after some sixteen steeps. Even in the sixteenth steep the tea was not watery. I I had the patience for five minute and ten minute steeps I’m pretty sure I could have taken this to twenty steeps. I put his in the catalog as Yiwu sheng because previous years Misty Peaks were described as such. I hope I am right and it is Yiwu sheng. I don’t think that is actually on his website. Throughout all sixteen steeps there were no negative notes, no smoke and no sour notes. This tea was processed by a master, that is for sure. I seriously wish I had bought two or three bings but at the price of this I bought just one. If these go on sale again I may find myself picking up another.

I steeped this tea sixteen times in a 60ml gaiwan with 4.5g leaf and 200 degree water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 second rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, 2 min, 2.5 min, 3 min, 3.5 min and 4 min. Again the leaves were not spent. If I had the patience to steep it for five and ten minutes I am quite sure this tea would have gone twenty steeps. I cannot remember a raw puerh that I liked as much as this tea. I think it is better than his Spring 2015 tea.

The dry leaf smells of very little now, so I was half expecting the flavouring here to be past its best. WRONG! It’s delicious. The dry leaf itself looks really pretty, with its blue cornflowers and red safflowers, and the spindly, twisty leaves of the Purple Sunset Oolong. Once brewed, the leaf does smell like plum juice to me. Not strongly, but enough to be identifiable. I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 4 minutes in water cooled to around 175 degrees. I made no additions for my first cup, but I might experiment with a little crystal sugar next time. The resulting liquor is a medium golden brown.

In the initial sip, I’m getting mostly plum juice. It’s a sweet and a little tart tasting, but pretty flavour accurate for actual plums. The brandy is there too, but it’s more an “impression” of brandy, rather than an actual alcoholic flavour. There’s a warming fruitiness that’s maybe a tad grapey, but it’s not as harsh or as strong (or overpowering) as brandy itself would be. Probably what I’m trying to say is it’s like brandy after the alcohol has been burnt off – as it would be if you poured some over your christmas pudding and then set it alight. I’m not getting much in the way of cheesecake, but there is a clear background creaminess. It reminds me of the “cream” in some other Butiki teas – Nutmeg Cream and Traditional Plum Pudding spring to mind. The main impression this one leaves me with is a deep, intense fruitiness. I’m guessing the base tea has a lot to do with that – I remember trying it on its own and enjoying its strong stone fruit flavours.

I would have liked more of a cheesecake flavour, but this one’s still a winner with me. The plum flavour is like no other I’ve tried – so true-to-life and juicy tasting – and the brandy/cream notes add a pleasing depth and uniqueness. I’m sad this tea is no more.

Hello all! Hope you’ve had a great weekend! I’m almost back to the world of tea again. My mom and I made all the flowers for the wedding this weekend out of coffee filters and crepe papers. They look fantastic! Now just have to get the license and the party bus and we are set!

While I was making the flowers, my dad and I had some tea time. Since this tea will officially be hitting the site on October 26th, I thought yesterday would be a great day to try it.

This tea reminds me of pumpkin seeds. Roasted delicious sweet pumpkin seeds with a dash of nutmeg and cinnamon. Really good. I’ve already been told I have to stick to my buying hiatus on this one, but I’d love to get a bigger size. I just adore the roasted flavor mixed with the flavors of a pumpkin pie.

Happy Monday all!

http://www.cuppageek.com/index.php/2015/10/19/pumpkin-houjicha-from-52teas/

I don’t see any separate entries for the chocolate bars, people seem to be adding them to the tea itself. Odd.
Anyhow, I bought this on a whim the other day and shared it with my Goddaughter and family. Ugh. Kindof nasty, I gotta say! Both my GD and her sister gave theirs away after having a nibble and I almost didn’t bother finishing mine.
It tasted rather iffy for “chocolate” and there were little bits of twig within the bar which I presume was meant to be the tea part?
That wasn’t the worst part though! Nothing about the taste was red velvet like.
Overall, I’d rate this a 60, since if I was in one of those desperate for chocolate moods this would be a make do situation.
I actually don’t mind the tea, it’s a nice dessert cuppa despite the artificial ingredients(many of the DT ones make me feel like ick), so I won’t touch the ratings bar this time.

So excited to try a new (old) cult favourite!

I e-mailed liberteas to get steeping instructions for this, and she suggested that I steep it just under boiling for about ten minutes for maximum flavor. I said I liked my teas sweet, but she suggested that this would probably be sweet enough on its own.
So I steeped two heaping tsp in about 12 oz for ten minutes and started sipping. it is a very natural-tasting strawberry, although I don’t know that I got too much in the way of vanilla, but in fairness I was very distracted by this problem I’m having. I think the problem is this. I find pretty much every tea to taste too thin to me unless I add milk. Like, I do not actually understand how people find plain tea very fulfilling when at best it can taste like flavoured hot water. This is absolutely not the fault of the tea, and I feel bad that I’m venting about this particular problem on this tea’s page, because the tea itself was mouth-watering, and I am just dying to try it as a latte because I think that would blow my mind. No—the problem isn’t the tea, it’s just the concept. Like, maybe i’ll just need to add milk to everything. I don’t know—I’m kind of annoyed because I want to enjoy more tea without additions for the simple reason that it’s easier and less complicated to prepare, but if I’m after a thicker mouth taste, then I need to add things.

Ok but seriously, I would re-order this tea. It is a deliciously full strawberry flavor, and I’ve been needing more caffeine-free options. I really hope she makes this part of her permanent collection!

This is the new one, as of Oct 2015.

I really like the steeping instructions on the bags (thank you!) but I think it’s interesting how they all recommend 1 tsp per 12 oz, instead of the more typical 1 tsp per 6-8 oz. I usually use 2 scant tsp per 12 oz, and 2 full tsp per 16 oz. Silk Road in Victoria takes everything even further and recommends 1 tsp per 16 oz. Which is honestly not enough. I mean, I suppose it’s more hydrating, but there’s not enough caffeine!

Anyways. This tea. I think I had it before, and it was just OK. The base tea was never my favourite, but I have to say that the new base is really quite nice. A little lighter than my go-to CTC or Assam, but quite nice.

Opening the bag, it smells sweet and cakey. Steeped, it smells… I’m not really sure. Definitely tea. Sweetness which must be the caramel. A little spice I think? I just ate a peanut butter cookie so my sense of taste is feeling really weird. Sorry.

Anyways, I’m glad I got this one. If it was a favourite, it’s definitely worth checking out again. If you were kinda meh about it the first time, the base is better. I’m not sure it’s my favourite flavour, but I’m glad I grabbed a sample pack. :)

(1.5-2 tsp in 12 oz for 3 min at 195F.)

I figured i should make a point of having at least one of my green/oolong teas on weekends since during the week, i rarely drink them. I pulled this one out as i always try to drink verdant’s green teas as close to getting them as possible. This tea has some seriously neat twisty leaves. Admittedly, i had hoped the “pine” in the tea name was because they somehow added pine needles to the tea but that was silly of course. :)

Brewed this is a beany, sweet, green tea. I should do a comparison next week maybe of the several greens i received in the tea of the month club…this one is refreshing. I am a fan of this one so far. Will have to see if additional steeps change it up any.

Well I found my “one” apple tea. I’m kinda sad that it turned out to be from a non Canadian vendor. Darn you Cdn dollar. and shipping!
I’ve seen other notes that say it tastes artificial, and I suppose it does a little but to be honest this is the best apple tea I’ve ever had. Any of those which have no fake notes either don’t taste like apple at all or they do, just not in the way I was looking for.
I added no sugar and it was quite sweet, though not overly so like the David’s Tea version. The base is a bit astringent, which suits the “apple”-ness quite well. Definitely getting some mouth puckering!
You know, I’m a little worried about my rating. It’s the highest of the bunch. Perhaps I’m just easily swayed by unrealistic fruit flavours? Bah.
Sadly though, I only had the one bag as this was from the Lupicia sampler box I bought. Oh well. Hello goodbye wonderful!

I had this from awhile ago and some cinnamon sounded pretty good. I opened it up and took in a pleasant warm and spicy wood aroma. I had good hopes for this session. I placed a good amount in my warmed gaiwan and gave it a shake. The spiced wood aroma deepened to roasted spices. This scent was close to a chai aroma. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The flavor was heavily tannic and unpleasantly bitter. I’m unsure if I did something wrong. I tried to do flash steeping and the result was the same. The taste was like sucking on a cinnamon stick. I was reminded of when I was younger, and I did the “cinnamon challenge”. However, the session improved in later steeping. The tones softened to a burnt sugar taste and light roast aroma. This took quite a bit of steeping. This rock oolong carried no sweet aftertaste and was very rough. This might not be the tea for me.

https://instagram.com/p/8od6BHzGUQ/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

Literally almost crying. Among the saddest sipdowns I will ever have. Butiki was the first small tea company I ever fell in love with, and stacey’s teas will never be replaced in my cupboard. I remember feeling such a mix of feelings when I found out Butiki was closing: panicked sadness for sure, but also an incredibly selfish irritation: how could this happen? How on earth could stacey, you know, have other things to deal with? other plans? other priorities? why wasn’t she sharing her blending secrets so the rest of the world could discover and fall in love with her teas? and even as I thought those things, i realized how much I could understand. Those discoveries, that magic belongs to her. It’s her legacy, and her right to keep it. I mean, i won’t even share my mom’s chicken and rice recipe with friends who’ve been begging me for it for years, and it hasn’t reached nearly the audience stacey has. And so here’s to you, Stacey: to an artist who’s legacy will be remembered, missed, admired, and yearned for for decades to come. There won’t be another like you, and there won’t be another tea like yours. I hope you are happy and doing well, because heaven knows you deserve it! Your blending abilities and artistry helped me find more beauty, made me fall in love again, helped me dream, grounded me, made me remember such wistfully achingly wonderful memories, and also just tasted friggin amazing.

I got it all today: creamy caramel and vanilla, the mault of the assam, and this was seriously the last dregs, the bottom of the can. No whole tea leaves even left, and it still blew me away.

Good morning Steepster.
I found this lurking in my tea collection this morning and evidently I haven’t reviewed it (until now). This came as one of my dark tea of the month selections from Yunnan Sourcing a while back.

I decided to steep it for 2.5 minutes and with boiling water, which may have been overkill for this tea. It is an assamica variety and definitely has a lot of malt and chocolate. I am getting a slight bitterness in the finish which could be cut down with decreased steeping time, or a lower water temp. This is good on its own or with a splash of soymilk. I will certainly enjoy the rest of the package but I don’t think I will need to purchase this.