Featured & New Tasting Notes

Sooo tried this one yesterday, but had to stop drinking it half way through becuase my body decided that I wasn’t already miserable enough pain wise, so I randomly got nauseous. >>
Don’t know how much I qualify for writing a tasting note, but I don’t want to hurry and drink it again because I need to qualify for writing a tasting note. xD I’d rather just save it for a special occasion.
Anyway, the point is, I have to save this tea for special occasions because like the other tea that I ordered, it’s pretty stinkin’ good, and I need to savor it.
The dry leaf aroma is definitely stronger than the steeping aroma. I opened my Butiki box and I was hit by the banana smell. xD It was crazy-haha!
When I was drinking it I mainly tasted bananas and some notes of walnut here and there. Not much butterscotch. But that’s probably because I could only drink half of the mug :( Sad times…. :( Health issues really suck sometimes.
But that half of a mug was still really delicious. And I am sure I will thoroughly enjoy it when I drink it more. This one also makes me wish that Stacey wasn’t leaving. xD
And this definitely helped her go out with a bang too!
This tea is such a win!
Thank you so much for making this-this one is really going to make everyone miss you even more, Stacey! D:

Getting this one out as it interested me when I re-read about it.
I think the easy Gaiwan will be the trick for this one. I forgot how tight these XiaGuans can be. I chipped off 10 grams to use, hard to get whole leaf from these. I actually rinsed this last night and I am getting to the brewing today. I noticed when I chipped this off the leaf had a little Huangpin (yellow) leaf if I got that right. The other leaves looked really rolled from what I could tell from the bits I had.
It brews with that XG smoke, almost forgot that aspect. It is smoky with a good hit of the bitter to go with it. The smoke really is the most dominant flavor on this one.
It has a bit thicker mouthfeel than the other XG’s I remember. I gives a bit of broth and smoked meat and bitter but not any sweet or any other notes that stand out. Almost like a beef jerky in a cup. I don’t really turn from smoky teas but you will have to like smoke to enjoy this one. I looked in the filter and sure enough some of those dark burnt bits from the wok cooking on this one.

Part of the “Noir” gift set by Tea Forte – I think these were just repackaged things from their normal tea line. Nevertheless, if you’re going to try a bunch of new teas I think samples are the way to go. Teas are from the Jamguri tea garden in Northern India.

The dry leaf smells really bad here, medicinal and cough syrup-y. So I wasn’t really looking forward to trying the cup. I am finding this isn’t too bad, though the cherry flavor is pretty light. It’s only slightly cough syrup-y. Also this tea has licorice in it, so take note of that, licorice haters. :) I think this would be a nice one to try as an iced tea. And I do like the black tea base here. So overall it’s not bad.

I wonder if these were reformulated recently, but I am not going to create a new entry.

I hate it when reviews disappear. I pulled this one out to be my puerh for today after reading misslena’s tasting note on special dark. :) I haven’t had this one in a long while so i figured it was time to work on my sample of this, especially if i place a mandala order for special dark! I’ll be drinking this most of today and that suits me just fine. My little turtle needs more tea love and this is a great tea. I’d say it’s a toss up on any given day whether i’ll love this or special dark most :)

Today’s tea of choice. I’ve been feeling pretty crappy for a while now, with headaches and nausea, and so today I wanted something straightforward and understandable to round off the week. This fit the bill perfectly. Assam is, and probably always will be, my favourite variety of black tea. Assam is what got me started drinking tea, and it’s what keeps me going when I’m at my lowest. I somehow reassuring and familiar, and I love it.

I used 1 tsp of leaf and gave it 4 minutes in boiling water. The resulting liquor is reddish-brown. I’ve drank this one a couple of times before and noted its tendency to astringency, so I added a splash of milk to smooth things out.

I feel like there isn’t a great deal I can say about this one. It’s deliciously malty, very bold, and makes a great morning or pick-me-up tea. It’s fairly smooth, but with a slight rugged roughness at the end of the sip that sets it apart. It reminds me a little of A&D Tiger Assam in that respect. To my mind, this makes a great everyday tea, albeit a premium choice. There are other Assams I prefer more for their flavour – Taiwanese or Golden Lion varieties tend to tick those boxes for me. This one is just malty awesomeness, which is perhaps a little one-note, but sometimes that’s all I’m really looking for.

This one’s a feel good tea, and as such will be sadly missed.

Thank you Angel for this sample.

In raw form the leaves are dark brown/red, curly and smell of malt, wood and treacle.

Flavour reveals fruity raisin and date with sweet wood, brown sugar and malt tones. Rather light in strength with no astringency though slightly sour at times. Clean tasting and fresh throughout. Some dryness in the after taste.

Overall: A delicious Dian Hong with clean tasting and pure characteristics. Soft and sweet which balances nicely with the dark and rather rich malt and wood flavours. Personally, I prefer it creamier but this made a very nice drink this morning and it went down a treat. I would consider buying some of this to alternate with my golden tips.

Brought some of this tea with me to the office today and it was AWESOME! I got notes of cocoa, bread, malt, and that fresh taste from the Darjeeling! I think Stephanie is right that, even though I have 4.4 ounces, it probably won’t last long! I’ve also decided I love it at 2 minutes steep. I tried their recommended 4 minutes and I think the malt takes over and you lose some of the complexity. 2 minutes is perfect. :)

Pic of the leaf: https://www.flickr.com/photos/97273956@N03/15728744884/

For the last couple of days I’ve been starting my morning with Tibetan Butter tea, only using coconut oil instead of butter. I like it! Actually, I have a few ideas for other substitutions that I want to try: Coconut butter is one obvious one, along with cashew butter, which I think would be decadent. It also occurred to me earlier today that duck fat makes an excellent butter substitute, & I think I have some in my freezer, so maybe I’ll try that one next week.

It makes for a satisfying & substantial cup in the morning, with a foamy head reminiscent of hot chocolate, & I’m thinking I’d like to steep some tisane cacao with the tea, & I bet THAT would be amazing. More to come!

Dry leaf smells like raisins and maple candy
Wet leaf smells a bit smoky, which I did not expect. There’s also an interesting apricoty scent if I stuff my nose in the gaiwan for a big huff.

I’ve been interested in this one for awhile, and it didn’t disappoint. It feels very soft when sipped. Kind of hard to describe. It’s definitely better on short steeps, IMO.

Next time, I will try it with some maple syrup in there because it seems like it would fit.

If you want to make your house smell amazing, as well as drink great tea, just leave the bag of dried leaves and shrooms open. My whole nook smells like candy. CANDY NOOK!

I brought a lot of white tea with me for my trip; white teas and black teas are my favourite tea types, but I drink a lot more black tea because of the convenience of brewing it and my white teas usually end up cold brewed or neglected. So they’re gonna get some love this trip; I want to take the time to drink a lot of them, and really enjoy the cups!

This was the other one I made last night; it was so amazing! It had the usual soft, sweet lemon notes but the vanilla “cake”-y aspect of the tea was really strong; I totally tasted vanilla sponge cake and marzipan, and it was easy to get lost in the cup. So delicate and creamy! I’m very happy I stocked up on this one.

My mom tried it though and proclaimed it tasted pretty much just like water; what a shame! Her palate’s just very, very unrefined – it’s sad though. I wish she could taste how amazing this tea is. She’s really missing out on something special.

I’m about to go make more tea now; it’s just me in the house currently so I’m blasting my music while she picks up my brother, and working on tasting notes. Not sure how long until they’re back. Mom has a soda stream, so we’re gonna try making some tea pop later today; and I brought a SBT (my first one!) that we’re gonna brew up since my brother only likes iced tea.

It’s just gonna be a casual, relaxed day.

revisiting. This is a perfect Assam. very smooth. no additions needed. i would call it elegant. it was comforting. no astringency, no bitterness. perfect !

http://instagram.com/p/yM2EDtBwoF/

I’ve never really done cold brewing before, but suddenly I have the urge to try cold brewing everything. I blame Roswell Strange and aisling of tea and all their notes about delicious cold brews.

So I have SO MUCH of this tea. I picked up the 250g web specials bag, and I love it, but I’m also never going to get through it all. This also just seemed like the perfect tea for a cold brew. And it is! It’s sweet, with melon, cucumber and mint notes, and is ridiculously refreshing cold brewed. All of the flavours come out wonderfully.

I think I’m going to be drinking this one a lot, come summer.

Cold Brew!

This one was a sort of surprise find in December when I was in Regina, and stopped at Cuppa’T to pick some stuff up. I hadn’t expected to see this available for purchase since it’s one of Cuppa’T’s summer blends and last year when I was hunting for it back in January and March I was told it’d be unavailable until the summer – and then I wasn’t back in the summer to look for it!

I’ve had this one once previously, but I adored it. Seeing it again and fearing I wouldn’t see it again anytime soon after I purchased 100g of it hoping that my tastes hadn’t drastically changed in the year since having it, and that I’d still love it.

- As amazing as I remember it being!
- Strong notes of dragonfruit, sweet cranberry, and passion fruit(?)
- Not sure about the passion fruit since it’s not in the blend; that’s what I got though
- Lesser notes of kiwi/pineapple/blueberry
- It’s just so juicy and flavourful with an ALMOST “punch” like quality
- Uber refreshing! Not too juice like or sickly/sticky sweet

The fact this tasted as perfect as I’ve built it up to be in my head was such a big relief!

EDIT: I should note, that because of this tea I’ve started eating actual dragonfruit!

Even though, for a fruit, it’s pretty expensive I’ve been aiming to eat at least one (but usually more) a week! It’s delightful in fruit salad or cut into fine cubes with just a small splash of white rum mixed with it. The fruit itself isn’t super flavourful and there’s a high water content, but what you can taste is phenomenal.

It doesn’t dethrone Pineapple as my favourite fruit – but it’s up there! Top 3 favourite fruits for sure!

Well, this isn’t a fruit tea, so I need to change that. It’s a black with added flavors, and surprisingly good ones. I actually get “McDonald’s crappy Blueberry muffin” out of this… Or what I’d imagine it to be. The commercials have two ladies taking a bite out of their cups, and showing a Blueberry muffin. Pretty accurate!

Grabbed this at a Middle Eastern Market in the Mission while I was in San Francisco. I’d say this is really coffee-like with zero coffee in it – although that may be because my son’s grandparents put cardamom in their coffee grounds prior to brewing. (Try it, it’s delicious!) Rich, full, heavy and thick tea, and surprisingly tasty for bagged.

Starting the day off right with matcha whisked into cold milk.

It’s banana medicine, in the best way. Now, what to do with the day…

Do I watch BBUSA, BBAUS, finish Gossip Girl season 6, watch the new Doctor Who stuff with Capaldi, start GoT season 3 again, or start watching Parks and Rec? So much TV, so little time…

This is a good tulsi blend, in my opinion. You wouldn’t think that caffeine and tulsi go together but somehow it seems to work here. I only wish they sold this in loose leaf form. Of course, it’s easy enough to put your own tulsi in black tea, and sometimes I do that as well.

i love this tea. its so good.
Its fruity and sweet with some savory smoky meat notes. Smoke is not overpowering, i quite like it.
Gongfu method
5g 100ml gaiwan 200F
rinse/pause/5/3/5/5/10/15/15 sec etc
some bitterness shows up at 3rd steep but nothing major. in fact i like it, makes it more interesting.
This tea was a sample from very generous Steepster fellow. Im so glad to be able to try. Thank you so much.
I’d like to pick up couple cakes, the price is $5.50 on US site

I’m heading out the door with the following teas in tow, to be drank in the order listed:
Hong Yun Black – Butiki
Chinese New Year aka Yunnan Golden Tips – Andrews & Dunham (I found a nut shell in there)
Black Beauty – Mandala
Laoshan Black Chocolate Genmaicha – my dessert after lunch

Thus begins my day…

I stopped by the shop on Friday whilst running errands and picked up a cuppa. So much yum!!!
Now, I could have very well brought home a whole bag of it for double the price of one cup but I really didn’t wanna bring MOAR tea into the house when I am trying my darndest to sip down my (slightly damp, but still, I can’t bear to throw it out) supply as it is. Atleast not until I know if I like it or not.
Either way, now I know that this is a highly delish tea filled with dark chocolate and malt notes, with a very slight hay-ish backround. There were also moments where I thought I detected a subtle pepper but then it was gone faster than I could blink so don’t quote me on that!
Would love to try this in my gaiwan :)

I’m enjoying a delicious cup of this tea, along with a deliciously relaxing Sunday morning.
Toasty, malty, nice tongue tingle, a little spice, a rich resinous feel, a sweet aftertaste.
Kind of like having a bowl of oatmeal, drizzled with bee pollen, cinnamon, & honey, & a piece of toast.
Now for breakfast…

Getting down to the last bits of this tea. Will probably have to add the little bit left to something else in order to make a cup of it. This tea is one of the first straight black teas where I discovered that black teas could taste different than “black tea” and have interesting notes like malt and raisins. I’m now quite the lover of unflavored black teas and continue to be surprised and enjoy how absolutely different good black teas can taste, from cocoa and smoky notes, to sweet potato, honey, fruity, or even artichoke notes. I love them all! Now I have a hard time getting to the flavored teas in my cupboard because the unflavored ones are just so darn good!

This tea has quickly become one of my favorite breakfast teas. I love the way it smells while steeping. It reminds me of a morning campfire with its smokey notes but there’s also something a little bright and clean about the fragrance. The taste is chocolate, smoke, sweet with a hit of citrus right at the end. It’s a grand way to start the morning, and as fall weather starts peeking in I’m finding myself enjoying this tea even more.

Queued post, written July 24th 2014

It’s a heatwave and I’m drinking hot tea? Why??? Well, caffeine really. I do the occasional cold brew of stuff, but I have to say in general iced tea leaves me… well, cold. Just not in the desired way. Tea should be drunk hot. It is, for me, the natural state of tea. Cold tea can be all well and good, but it’s just not something that I want.

So I’m having hot tea now. In a heatwave. A normal person would go and have a glass of Ribena instead, but apparently I can only take normality so far.

Another reason is that I’ve still got this box of untried things to empty. I’m down to only eight things in it, not counting this oolong I’m having now. I need to empty it so that I can be allowed to buy new stuff, and for the longest time I’ve been annoyed by the lack of dark oolongs in my possession. The cup of tea that I want the very most right now is Da Hong Pao. But I haven’t got any. And I’m not allowed to get any.

Yet!

So onwards with the box emptying.

This is the last of the three samples that Green Tea Terrace sent me. I didn’t choose this one myself. I said I would like to try an oolong, but as they were all greenish types so far as I could tell, I said I had no idea where to even begin. I said the one or two that I had tried before, and asked them to choose something for me that wasn’t too floral. This is what I won.

The aroma of it is indeed not very floral. Again, and I’m beginning to suspect that this might be a Taiwan characteristic in general, I’m getting a fair bit honey notes from it and also a little bit of milk.

The flavour also has a large honey note, which I immediately decided I liked very much indeed. It really is mostly a honey-y tea, with a leafy sort of note to the aftertaste. The GTT descriptions mentions notes of jasmine and lily, which under other circumstances would have made me disregard it completely as I really don’t like jasmine scented things much at all. In this, however, I can’t actually find any of these floral notes at all. For me, this is a big win.

I found I quite enjoyed this, and it makes me more curious about the greener oolongs. I’ve never been hugely interested in green or white teas in general (save for the occasional ambition to learn more about them which would always pass again relatively quickly) and greenish oolongs tended to fall to that same side of the spectrum. I just couldn’t tell them apart at all. Not the way I’ve learned to do with black teas. I reckon this is probably a question of gaining a lot of experience, but in order to gain experience you have to have an pre-existing amount of interest which has turned out to be much more difficult to achieve. I can’t say that this particular tea has sparked such an interest in me, but I can say that I’ve now become interested in seeing if it could. :)