Featured & New Tasting Notes

It’s no coincidence that I had two cranberries teas in one day; cranberry tea is my jam.This one I had hot though – and in a timolino. Cranberry notes most prominent, but softened by a sweet nuttiness. I’ve sorta running out of ways to mix things up with this one; but that’s alright – it’s still amazing plain and hot.

Sometimes people really suck. I didn’t fall asleep until past 5am worrying about the person who was supposed to come today to buy my sofa. My gut was right. At the last minute, he said that his friend injured his hand and he’d need me to help him move it. Told him I could only load it onto his truck at my apartment, but he expected me to go to his place. And of course he conveniently finds this out right after I reveal my address and apartment number to him. Wow. Because you only know one person in the world who can help you with it?

So now my brain is numb and I don’t feel like doing anything other than anxiously hang around home.

So, enough yakking about me and my unimportant problems, this is the last tea in the spring collection to talk about. I know, I know, it’s an artificial melon flavour, but I really like that! Lately I’ve been into melon-flavoured things, like Melona bars and melon bubble tea, and this has a similar kind of artificial flavouring. It’s not over the top or overly sweet, at least. And we’re talking honeydew kind of melon, not watermelon, as I cannot stand artificial watermelon flavours, on the other hand.

Ok, good job tastebuds for spotting that this is honeydew and not cantaloupe. I can easily tell the difference in flavour of the actual fruits but sometimes their artificial flavour companions can be a little tricky. So yes, at least they put actual honeydew chunks in here and not just rely on melon flavouring.

No kiwi, unfortunately. I got excited when I saw a chunk whilst I was dumping some of the dry “leaf” into my jug, but alas, no beautiful, tart kiwi to be had.

Call me crazy, but I think I’m going to buy more once I finish the 30g I originally purchased.

Had this the other day. Wasn’t entirely sure that I’d still like it since my taste buds have changed so much.
But it’s just as good as I remembered! It’s super sweet like DavidsTea’s Birthday Cake, but it also has a creamy battery note in it that just completes it.
The DavidsTea one has kinda been tasting off lately, like just pure sugar which I usually like…but I don’t know…just is a bit too much for me :S
Oh well.
Glad I have this one! :D

Oh man, this is so good. I can taste the sweet AND the smoke right now, even though the snot monster is threatening to overtake my life.

I added a little sweetened condensed milk, because it’s what I have in the fridge right now. I need to go get some milk, but I got back from shopping an hour ago and collapsed into my chair. So tired.

On the plus side, I got what I needed while I was out, PLUS tried a Cartem’s gluten free donut. Which was sadly only ok.

So, I decided to try more teas this weekend. (Along with playing more Harvest Moon.) There is a light pumpkin scent, and bit of spice. Not sure if there is cinnamon in this, but my subconscious thinks there should be. The flavour is nicely pumpkin as well. It even has that slightly tangy taste that apple cider has. Good for the season of ‘almost Spring’.

Cup with 2% milk to accompany the breakfast I didn’t bother having until now: avocado with sea salt, freshly ground pepper, cayenne pepper, and cumin on toast. I’d say they went very well together. Still a lighter Assam than most of the others I have tried in the past, but that isn’t a bad thing.

The dry leaf of this tea is absolutely gorgeous….so many colors! The first time I tried it, I didn’t use enough leaf. The flavors weren’t what I expected and I thought it might have to do with the amount of leaf, and it turns out I was right. I used 6g this time, and it was way better!

The flavors in this tea are honey, hay, dried red fruit like cherry, and it’s also a bit boozy. The texture includes a nice honey silky-ness. It also turns a beautiful red color after a couple of infusions. I don’t think it’s really one I’d crave, but I can tell it’s good quality, and those who like this flavor combo would definitely enjoy it. Just remember to use enough leaf! ;)

There is something about this tea that I absolutely love. It has a wonderfully creamy feel to it, & there is a taste there that I can’t really describe, but thoroughly enjoyed.
Another sample from Sil, Thanks!

yay! comfort tea to get me through the day. Really trying hard not to push myself too much but i really want to get rid of all the extra crap in the house we keep holding on to for no reason. Today was clothes…good bye stuff i haven’t worn in a year! hopefully someone out there will be able to make use of them as they’re nice pieces, just not anything i wear anymore because of style/comfort/size etc.

sad to see this tea go but it was lovely to have. I really do love the way stacy did blackberry – the flavouring was always tasty!

I received samples from Nannuoshan for review.
let me just say its creative presentation and i really loved personalized letter.

Today i decided to start with Rou Gui. i sampled a few before so i knew what to expect.
i prepared it according to website parameters.
3g 90C 110ml porcelain gaiwan
rinse/ 60/60/60/90sec
i really loved the aroma coming when i rinsed the leaves. Simply divine. Mix of roasted nuts and florals. But floral notes in this tea are not strong (thank god). its just beautiful compliment to the complex mix of peaches and roasted nuts and cinnamon.

1 steep @60 sec – pleasant, not super roasty, some floral, hint of cinnamon. slight sweetness coming thru. Very aromatic

2,3 steep @60sec- leaves are opening up more, more intense in flavor. but never harsh. i found 2nd and 3rd steep are pretty similar.

4 steep @90sec – very nice and pleasant, not harsh in any way. Some citrus-y notes emerging and cutting thru sweetness of peach and nuts (not roasted any more lol). now im thinking it reminds me nectarines more than peaches.

To sum up: many people are not huge fans of roasted oolong. this one is perfectly fine and safe. Give them a chance, its like delicious fruit compote in your mouth. The sweetness is lingering long after i finished my session.

For the record I stopped rating any tea long time ago. it is hard for me to put a number. the more i try the harder it is.

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Oh no, put the cookies you’ve made last night away. Just put them away. I made tie-dye cardamom spritz cookies as well as tahini chocolate chip. Trying to use up ingredients since I’m anticipating moving. Speaking of which, I NEED ADVICE! Do any Canadians know of any reliable moving companies? There are so many scammers out there.

So now I’m all sugared up after having some cookies and washing it down with this cold brew. It’s a nice cold brew. Tart and citrusy, especially lemon and lime. It’s not overly sweet, laced with artificial sweetener, or anything crazy like that. Just a solid citrus fruit blend.

Many of us have loved this tea.
It’s reviews reached epic proportions of poetic descriptions, and I know for a fact that I purchased the very last little red packets that Verdant had, because I called them on the phone, asked how many were left, & bought them all. That was, of course, some time ago, but some of us still long for that wonderful black tea that was so unique & very much like drinking a cup of German Chocolate Cake, and then some. So it was, with a heavy heart, that I hoarded this tea forever, finally sharing the last few packets with Sil & TastyBrew quite some time ago, to be drunk ceremoniously & mourned forever after….sigh…

Imagine my thrill when JoonSusanna had a few packets of this tea left recently & gave them to Sil, because it just wasn’t her thing. Imagine my further thrill when I opened my box from Sil to find one glorious red packet of this wondrous elixer? Dare I say I almost swooned? Well, ok…I really didn’t, but little terri laughed out loud & clapped her hands in sheer childlike joy :)

Anyway, Ms Theresa said we had to save it for a special occasion, & we did for a few weeks, but today I decided to enjoy it. It was my first cup of the day & filled my morning with dreams of coconut & chocolate & almonds & buttercream…sigh…and now it’s really gone…again.

I recently tried the autumn flush from the same estate. They are day and night different. I only thought I knew what Darjeeling looked and tasted like. This one dry has a hay, grass, and orange blossom aroma. The leaf appears more like a green or a white peony. Steeped the liquor is honey yellow with a slight green tint. It certainly has no traits at this point to suggest black tea.

The wet leaf is freshly green and mostly whole leaves. Due to settling there are some large broken pieces but nothing to suggest this is less than top quality.

The wet leaf does have some woodsy muscatel notes to confirm it just might be a black tea after all.

Copying from my blog post concerning the taste: The What-Cha description on the sample label nails this tea, “A brilliant sweet start with a spicy finish.” Attempting to expand on this a little – after the sweetness I catch the first notes of muscatel. It is a light grape leaf like flavor. It fades quickly into a moment of mineral. Just as quickly it moves right into that spicy finish with the leaf taste moving below the spice. The aftertaste lingers well in a sweet fruity note, as just a touch of cheek tingle moves in to further please the senses.

If you find Darjeeling interesting (or if you know almost nothing about them) I highly recommend getting a sample of this one and the autumnal flush to experience the wide range of this tea.

I’m attempting to drink this tea at the moment. I’m glad to see that this tea has already sold out, because unfortunately, I can’t offer a lot of words that I think would encourage someone to buy this one. I’m just not crazy about it. (Sorry Frank!)

I’m not tasting a lot of pear. I’m not tasting a lot of ginger. I’m tasting jasmine. And it isn’t jasmine notes derived from the presence of the jasmine blossoms in the blend. It’s jasmine essence from jasmine oil. I really think that the people who sell jasmine oil should print on the outside of the bottle “for external use only” because jasmine oil is just not good on tea and I can’t imagine another culinary use that it would be good for.

This blend would be so much better if the jasmine oil wasn’t used and the jasmine was from either the flowers in the blend or if a jasmine scented tea was sourced for this blend. As it is, this just isn’t working for me.

ETA: As it cools, I pick up on more pear and ginger notes. It’s a better tea cold than it is hot. I still taste too much jasmine oil though.

I’ve had this a few times now, but I don’t remember the powder sugar being so pronounced.. or there at all. I think it was mostly plum before- now it’s all in with the cashew cake and tangy-sweet syrup. Magic. The kind that’s probably connected to cooler drinking temperature, shorter steep time, etc. Also, paying attention to what I’m drinking.. I don’t know.

This is going to help me not eat the last of the cheesecake in the fridge. Yes it is. The last of the cheesecake was the perfect accompaniment for this tea.

I did it!!! My cupboard is at 175 – yay goal achieved.

I drank the last of this at work today. It’s a really nice Yunnan Golden Snail style tea, but it’s not my favorite. This isn’t as chocolatey as I would like. It’s good, decent quality, Berrylleb is a great ebay seller and I’ve liked all the teas I got from them – but this is just more malty, maybe a little sweet potato – but not chocolate enough. Really Good – just not Fantastic for me. :))

Ooh, coffee tea. My kind of thing. The idea of a coffee-flavoured tea has always been amusing to me. Why not just drink coffee? Because a coffee-flavoured tea can taste so damn good too!

The dry leaf is coffee with heavy cream, kind of like a double-double (which reminds me that I need to get in on Tim Hortons Roll up the Rim before it’s gone again).

I’ve actually had this twice already. The first time I added less leaf and it turned out the best. Delicious iced cappuccino (Tim Hortons-style again, that is!). Then a whisper of cinnamon comes in. With 2% milk, this is smooth and creamy with some hard-to-describe dessert-like note in the background too, kind of like cake. My mind would like to think that it is appropriately coffee cake.

The second round wasn’t as good just because I had a weird amount left that was too little for two more cups, so I dumped the rest into my Nordic mug filter. The liquor was murkier, the coffee stronger, but those other flavours got kind of weird, slightly chemical. So the key is to keep the leaf ratio to a moderate level.

I’m actually tempted to get more sometime. Just maybe 20g or so, like I was thinking with Chocolate Macaroon. But I wouldn’t load up on it and drink it religiously.

this was one of my teas from yesterday – a generous sample from Wymm tea that came wrapped in paper. This was a a nice sheng…full of honey and creamy notes, with only a hint of bittnerness on the back end. Unlike some sheng’s that i’ve had, it didn’t turn in to a bitter mess that i didn’t want to drink (i’m still learning!) haha later steeps had more hay notes to it but they were still smooth and slightly sweet. I may have a few more infusions of this today if i get time.

thanks so much for sharing these teas with us Wymm!

Tea of the morning. I actually also drank this tea yesterday while I hosted a tea party for twenty-five ladies. It was a lot of fun, and everyone really enjoyed learning about new teas. There’s already talk of having a garden party this summer which I think would be lovely.

Back to the tea, this is such a staple in my life now. It has delicious notes of chocolate, fruit, and bread. It’s sturdy enough for me to reach for it in the morning, but it’s lovely enough to make me stop what I’m doing and enjoy a quite moment with a really nice tea.

Yep, I’m a fan.

First of all, LLAP, Leonard Nimoy. :(

Secondly, the dry leaf smells fantabulous. Bursting with citrus, especially lime. But I’m always skeptical when it comes to these kinds of fruit blends from DAVIDs because they tend to be overwhelmingly sweet.

Cold brewed overnight, this is pretty good, but doesn’t taste nearly as good as the dry leaf smells. A little sweet for my liking but it’s not overkill. The cold brew itself smells and tastes like pink lemonade, particularly Minute Maid’s frozen variety that I’d sometimes have as a kid.

EDIT: I stupidly posted this under Sunny Citrus because I thought I dumped that one in my jug. Apologies!

Ahhh! This is the last caffeinated tea I am drinking before I take my vicodin. >> On the bright side I’ve nearly waited a whole 7 hours before taking another pain killer! And I didn’t even sleep in that time! Now that is an accomplishment!
Anyway, this tea. xD
So I wasn’t sure what to think of this tea, for some reason I thought it was a black for the longest time, even though I looked it up a couple times. xD So I don’t know what happened there!
This tea was like half roasted flavor and half flower flavor. Not floral exactly…well not the floral that I enjoy so much in green oolongs. But more of just like actual flowers…if that makes sense. xD I usually dislike roasted oolongs…like a lot. But the flowers in this one made it a lot more bearable. It was such an interesting combo, I couldn’t stop drinking it. It’s alright. Don’t think I’d get it again ever though. A little too roasty for me!
But thanks soo much for the sample, LiberTEAS! I’m so happy to have tried it! :D

must remember to always pick up at least a sample of each years harvest of this and zhu rong because they both are amazing or not depending on the harvest lol.

I’m almost ready to break into another package of this tea! That’s exciting. :)

I still love it. SO licoricey, no sweet aftertaste. THE BEST.

What’s also super fun is that once it’s steeped the leaves turn a mossy green. Whee!

Remind me not to hoard this and enjoy it without it getting old. Because it’s whimsical and truly like a macaron. Oh, that creamy lemon note. Swoon. And the base is so beautifully delicate. I can drink this any day of the year.