Featured & New Tasting Notes

1 heaping TB for 500mL water, no milk or sweetener.

Rough time waking up this morning. My yerba mate tisance disappointed, and the caffeine monkey on my back started to jabber. So, a little pot of English Breakfast standing by, but first: this strange hybrid elixir.

If you’re in the mood for straight black tea, don’t drink this.

If you need a good smack upside the head and feel bold, drink this.

This morning’s brew is chewy, sweet, smooth, dark and mysterious, and just a tiny bit chicory-bitter on the aftertaste. The coffee beans feed my caffeine monkey, and the China black tea smooths everything out. I still need a good hit of Assam, but that wll follow.

As I’ve said before, a strange fusion drink, hardly a regular or go-to for me, but always satisfying.

Tiny tiny little CTC leaves. Once steeped, they don’t look like fun GrapeNut tea bits. Instead, it just looks mushy. So unfun CTC + Upton? Yeah, I anticipated lots of not greatness. So I used a generous teaspoon of sugar and a good sized dash of half & half in my 12 oz…. and it was good. Like, really good. The tea wasn’t covered up by the milky or the sweet, instead it was a great breakfast tea with just a bit of astringency hanging out at the end of the sip (but not so much as to make it feel bitter – though that could be the glop of half & half I put in).

Now, I can’t say how this is without additives (yet) and honestly, I’m a little nervous for it, but with? This blend makes for a nice stout and uncomplicated breakfast tea.

This smells so yummy—like fruitcake, heavy on the cake (and I love fruitcake)!

I can taste the orange most prominently, then the ginger, then cardamom. It’s citrusy like candied orange rinds and spicy like mulled wine. A walnutty, gingerbread flavor arises as it cools. None of the woodsy sawdust of plain rooibos.

This is really a deliciously flavored rooibos. I am enjoying this!

Just a few days ago I discovered David’s Tea at the mall. They had a tea of the day and gave me a sample, it was this tea. The second the tea was in my mouth I was filled with joy and warmth. It’s naturally sweet with a fruity and cinnamon taste that made me think of a winter scene (in a happy way).

I personally let the tea steep for 10 minutes and let it cool before drinking (I feel it tastes a bit sweeter that way). It does say on the label the water temperature must be 98 degrees C, and it does get the flavour out thoroughly.

This is a limited edition holiday tea, so get it while it’s still available!

The Final Sipdown: Day 16.1

Lots of phone calls happening today. Could be because my throat is dry from a nearly one and a half hour phone conversation, but I am gulping this down right now. Need to slow down to log it, but can’thelpitmustdrink.

Phew, okay. That was a close one. Still got some left.

There’s a lot of bitterness in this cup even though I only steeped it for 30 seconds [ish] but I put a lot of leaf in that little strainer and so that might be the culprit.

That bitter taste is met with a high, sugary, fruity sweetness. It tapers off at the finish and is completely overwhelmed by the sweeter part of this tea. The aftertaste is actually quite lovely.

As for the apple, it’s definitely present in the scent [at one point I got the smell of rubber cement in the scent of the liquid, though, and that wasn’t so nice]. Though it remains in the taste it isn’t nearly as obvious it is in the aroma. The apple comes through most clearly for me in the finish.

Here’s what I find interesting about this tea. The closest thing it’s tasting like in terms of liquid apple concoctions is sparkling apple cider. What it really tastes like, though, is apple. Like real apple juice. As in the juice that squirts out when you bite into an apple; not that sugary bottled stuff. I’m finding it light and refreshing. Springy, almost.

In the wake of the fact that I came home to the lid of my kyusu being BWOH-KEN [mistakes happen, but that sucker was over fifty dollars], I am going to take what enjoyment I can get. While I don’t like the fact that I really can’t taste the green tea in this tea, it’s lightening my mood. Well, that and this episode of Sarah’s House that I’m watching. And the Christmas tree.

I’m just going to sit here, finish this cup, and woo-sah. And bump the rating on this a bit.

Teas Downed: 29

I teach an early morning fitness class at a local gym and have recently gotten in the habit of making a cup of tea in my travel mug as I stumble out the door at ye olde early hour. This has been especially helpful lately because of both a.) the caffeine, and b.) my travel mug working as a hand warmer as I trudge over to work on the progressively chillier winter mornings.

This seemed like a good time to try the malted chocomate from my 52 teas order. I previously have only tried one mate, so I am not an expert by any means, but the previous one I tried (from another company) was… eh, not so good. I prepared this mate as a tea latte with soy milk and I believe a tiny splash of torani vanilla syrup (hey, it was still very early, so I don’t totally remember, ok? Lol.)

This to me tastes like chocolate and bananas and the soymilk added just enough creamy delicious taste to make it a satisfying morning drink. I don’t get any malt flavoring at all, unless that is what I am picking up as being banana flavoring. It certainly wasn’t bad… just different from what I expected. I noticed that other people noticed the banana-y taste too, so I do wonder. I think that this certainly woke me up. It was really interesting – I felt more awake, but not jittery at all like I tend to get with coffee. I will have to try this again to see if the same thing happens or if I was just imagining it from reading about mate!

The immediate wet leaf aroma is a very pungent sweet must and plum tartness with notes of truffle oil and malted vinegar. In the cup the liquor is sturdy and complex yet surprisingly light. Wafts of bleu cheese and saffron mingle with cidery sweetness and a malted vinegar acidity. White wine marinated mushrooms. The hui gan is ambrosial, a definition of umami, enveloping the palate more so than the actual taste of the liquor.

When brewed stronger, a delicate and entrancing malt is mingled with the fruity must and peculiar acidic flavors. This one gets sweeter as you go. Bumped the score significantly.

I received a sample bag from Numi for being a bit of a fan. There’s really not much to report about it other than the fact that it’s rooibos. But – as far as rooibos goes – it is a good one, even for a bagged variety. I tried to steep it for only six minutes, but I forgot I had it there. So…fifteen minutes later, it still tasted good. Nut-sweet, kinda light. Needs something more, but what can you ask of the poor li’l legume?

I’ve been sipping on this for a day and a half now. Lasted through almost four infusions!

The dry leaves smell a little sweet, there are fairly good sized chunks of chestnut in the tea, like the size of baking chips. I want to pluck them out and eat them!

The tea is so light, and doesn’t get dark at all. And it pairs perfectly with the chestnut. The flavor is almost pure chestnut, sweet, roasty, and the smell is heavenly!

I will say I am biased, I love roasted chestnuts, but darn they are so much work to make! This tea is just so lovely with its sweet chestnut taste. It’s not overpowering and the sweetness lasted through all but the very last infusion, when the green made a big show for the finale! Yum all the way through!

The Final Sipdown: Day 10
Decupboarding Total: 21

Oh no! How did I decupboard this one? I wasn’t supposed to decupboard this! I just wanted a cup of my favorite non-tea ever! But now my tin is empty and I’m starting to feel a little itchy. I’m not even done with my last cup of this but I feel the need to place a Samovar order for a refill right now. Especially since winter is almost here – the toasty warmth from the ginger and the pretty orange zest flair of this is perfect for winter. Actually, it’s pretty much perfect any time, which is probably why my tin is now empty.

Brrrrr! It’s cold outside – minus twenty-three degrees celcius with the wind-chill factor and genius that I am I decided to walk to the grocery store. Needless to say after that lovely adventure I needed something to warm my insides up, so I decided that I’d try out this tea.

It’s not a loose-leaf tea – it only seems to come in H&S’s pyramid teabags as part of their ‘Historic Royal Palaces’ line. This tea doesn’t strike me as terribly British (I could be wrong but I don’t think they grow a lot of coconut trees over there) but whatever. Honestly I’m a bit underwhelmed by it – maybe it just needs more steeping time, but most of what I can taste is just the green tea – there’s maybe a little bit of coconut and a hint of something that tastes like lemongrass – but none of the titular ginger whatsoever.

I’ve got two more bags, so I’ll see if the flavour tastes stronger if it’s brewed for longer/hotter – I’ll hold off assigning this tea a rating until then.

Backlogging. Yesterday.

I made a pot early afternoon for my husband and I. I was curious to see what he thought of this tea as he’s liked some flavored black but I haven’t tried him on anything but fruity ones yet. And cause frankly, I really liked this tea when I tried it earlier in the week and I wanted more. I steeped it for the full five minutes recommended and think it’s fine like that, not too strong or overpowering. It could go 30 seconds less but more than four minutes, I think. As for my husband, I expect him to like it or really dislike it. He liked it but didn’t comment enthusiastically as he has on others.

More vegetal and a little less sweet than the “Kotobuki no Tsuyu” Gyokuro by Bird Pick Tea. I enjoyed it more than the Bird Pick, but I need to try both a few more times before rating.

This was yummy though, especially after I increased the amount of water to 3oz (the 1st steep was good, but a little intense for me at 2g for 2oz water).

With the exception of the Award Winning Gyokuro that Den’s Tea had earlier this year, I’m actually having to learn to taste Gyokuro. I like it, but it hasn’t been the same eye-opening taste that my first Sencha and Shincha were. However, I’m still new to it, so I’m going to wait until I’ve experimented a bit more. I look forward to doing a real comparison between this and the Bird Pick one.

Ahhhh….now this is great tea! I’ve been really impressed with the teas I’ve sampled (thanks to *Jaime) from RoT’s Raw Green Bush line.

This tea smells heavenly, sweet coconut water with plantains. It is blended so harmoniously the taste is just like velvet, but lighter. This tastes like a flavored water version of a coconut banana smoothie. I will definitely be buying more of this tea. This is sooooo good!

My latest 52teas order arrived today!

I’m starting with this one, because out of the new ones, this is the one I was looking forward to the most. I have rather high expectations of this. Fruity and berry-y green and white blends have consistently been a hit with me from 52teas, and that alone is reason enough to give this one a try as well.

I really like raspberries and I really like watermelon, but the raspberry/watermelon combination isn’t one that would immediately have popped into my mind. I don’t think I’ve ever had a watermelon flavoured tea before, but I have had your various sorts of cordial or squash and such with watermelon in it. And always it seemed rather plastic-y and synthetic to me.

Please let this be different. Please.

The leaves have a funny sort of aroma. Fruity, but neither raspberry or watermelon. It’s a sticky, sweet smell. A little bit like… if you can imagine fruit-flavoured butter, that’s more or less it. If I concentrate, I can recognise it as primarily watermelon, but it’s a little difficult. I think it’s the aroma of the sencha mixed in that’s messing with my nostrils.

After steeping the fruit-flavoured butter is more cream-y. I’m reminded of ice-cream here, and the sencha is standing out more on it’s own here. Slightly salty and slightly vegetable-y. I like the steeped aroma better than the dry aroma, I think.

Now, the important bit. The flavour. The flavour really works! It’s summer-y fresh, but still a bit heavy on the sweetness so it’s got a lot of body.

I’m getting a lot of the sencha flavour profile primarily, but the fruity-ness sort of wraps around it and becomes a secondary thing. A companion piece, if you will.

This is not a bad thing. I’m a Kusmi fangirl, remember? I like it when it’s not totally in your face.

It’s not that it doesn’t have lots of fruit flavour, because it does. It just doesn’t cover everything.

I’m getting a lot of the watermelon, but again the flavour is a little twisted by the natural flavour profile of the sencha. Lots and lots of almost pure watermelon on the aftertaste, though. LOTS!

Not so much raspberry other than a creamy note on the finish, especially, and, to a smaller degree, aftertaste, which is a bit of a shame I think.

All in all, I’m quite pleased with this, and it’s totally living up to my expectations. And not synthetic at all.

“The best laid schemes of Mice and Men…” I planned on a light relaxing week yesterday – that was before my commute, which seems to get longer every day, got in the way. Today I refused to let the day get the best of me and I planned ahead (see Coconut Cream Pie by 52Teas review). This was the first tea I enjoyed during my commute.

I added the full sample packet, about 2 scoops to my very large travel mug. Added ¼ teaspoon of German Rock Sugar, in case it took me too long to get to the tea, then filled it half way with hot water, let it infuse 4 minutes, then filled the rest with cold water (so as to shock the tea and not let it over-infuse and get bitter). I was lucky in that I got to drink it almost immediately. The liquor is a pale green color, the fragrance is a light Jasmine. The flavor follows the fragrance very closely, it is light, slightly toasty and definitely jasmine.

The tea itself was very good, nice and light.

This is my first An Xi tea! The first cup – smooth, vegetal, very milky looking in the cup but light and sweet. The second cup – now the tea is very clear instead of milky, but has as much color as before. A good SLURP to aerate it gives me a new flavor – the tiniest nutty taste but lots of floral notes and a good roundness that carries the scent and taste well back in the palate and up. Probably won’t be able to review the remaining steeps right away, but wanted to get these in while I can! Steep time varied from 1 minute up. This oolong is very green! Thank you, JacquelineM!

Eeee eeee eeeeee! ashmanra was kind enough to send me a sample of this tea! When I went to add it to my cupboard, I noticed – dur – I had tried it almost a year ago, and dismissed it as being too delicate (because I put milk and sugar in it, and drank it with a butter cookie. I laugh!)

Well, now that I know better :) I am so very enjoying this tea sans additions. It is so naturally sweet and caramely. Honeyed. Mead like. There is a thickness and complexity that I am loving! Delicious! I think I could have taken it another 30 seconds or even a minute (I have more to sample thankfully!!!). It also has the milky mouthfeel that I’ve come to associate with Golden Monkey.

Steep #2 (4:30) is kinda ridiculous in the best way possible. Caramel, caramel, caramel! I’ve never quite tasted this from a tea that didn’t have flavoring added. Wow. `

My other Golden Monkey love from Teas etc. is much milder, and I would say a technically higher quality tea (smoother, longer leaves, more golden), but I like this one better. It has more gusto, which is my preference, but retains the things I like about GM. Harney’s GM is also much, much, much smoother than the so called Golden Monkey (which tastes like Panyang Congu) from Premium Steap.

ashmanra, you have No! Idea! how much you’ve made my day today! I’m crazy about this tea, and I’ve decided that even if I am not at my 40 teas in my cupboard state, I am going to place a Harney & Sons order in November. I remember clear as can be that my last Harney & Sons order came to my house the day after Thanksgiving last year, and I have like, an ounce of cobbled together chocolate tea and Florence tea and that’s all!! Clearly something needs to be done about that!

P.S. When all said and done – 4 steeps of deliciousness!

This is probably one of the darkest rolled oolongs that I’ve been blessed to drink that was not overroasted to the point of having a burnt taste to it. This Premium Tieguanyin tea brings a wonderful sensational experience upon each sip in the range of flavors that roll upon my tongue. During the initial start of the sip I experience the initial roasted taste before it fades away into a sweet mellow smoothness that lingers in my mouth. The later infusions maintain the same shift, although it slowly becomes less subtle as the roasted taste slowly fades out and the sweeter mellowness becomes more predominate in the tea. In the end I lost count of how many infusions I was able to enjoy out of the leaves but I can safely say that it was over 5 which was really impressive for such a dark tea.

Picked this up about a year ago and it has changed a bit, but not any more than difference in brewing parameters could account for. Still very “green” – basically Yunnan white tea with a bit more color and “ripe” quality to it. Funny how a partial kill-green and some hand rolling affects color more than the flavors (at least while still young). The leaves do look different, though – more breakdown has occurred and it’s getting close to needing a sifting.

Made the mistake like I always do and stuck my nose in the foil bag to take a whiff. Like taking a deep breath through my nose of the dusty underside of a bed. Not only has this broken down a little, but it was a pretty downy tea to start with, so all those little hairs and minuscule tea bits had me coughing and almost sneeze. Like any loose aged tea, it’s better to add the leaves to a warmed pot first and then take in the dry fragrance.

Used 4g with 215ml water in a duan ni clay squat shi piao style yixing teapot seasoned for sheng puerh (rarely brews anything over a decade old). Pour time is around 15 seconds – seems the leaves are blocking water flow a bit more than usual – so tack that onto brew times for full contact time. Single rinse. Infusions progressed: 30sec-86C, 40sec-86C, 50sec-84C, 60sec-86C, 70sec-84C, 80sec-83C.

While there are a few full leaf sets, most of the leaves are single and have some breakage to them. Similar to FOP grade, but not homogeneous in composition. Buds are really long. Dry fragrance in the warmed pot is cottony, somewhat toasty-sweet, with a tinge of honeysuckle and a vegetal fruit quality that’s very familiar to me but I can’t quite place. I want to say cooked zucchini or brussel’s sprouts, but that’s not really it. Wet aroma tweaks that note into an easier to place fresh, wet kelp aroma. “Ripe” quality sort of similar to an uncut pluot or longan non-fruit notes but with some pruned orchid aroma as well. Overall, wet aroma screams Yunnan white tea and this carries through to the liquor aroma but there’s a bit more of a dried marsh grass sweetness to it. Liquor is pale yellow at the shallow end and heavier yellow where the cup is deeper.

Aroma similar to a drying freshwater marsh. Sedges and rushes with some somewhat sweet cottonwood leaves or wild rosebush foliage notes as well. Wet leaf aroma characteristics carry through to the liquor better than I’m used to (much less woody, though). Flavor light and sorta floral, but bamboo and fallen leaves come to mind above anything else. Cottony mouthfeel, again like a white tea. A bit of astringency in second infusion highlights this. By third infusion, the body is up to full force – not as syrupy as aged or shu puerh, but still thick. Mouthwatering. Sort of a sticky rice and nori similarity. Kinda eggy, but not nearly as much as as Yin Zhen. By sixth infusion it’s tasting a whole heck of a lot like Genmai Cha but replace the grass notes with dried wetland grasses (think the smell of a woven basket but a little sweeter). Aftertaste subsides but the effect of leaving your mouth and breath slightly sweet lasts a bit more than half an hour.

Yummy. I wish I could buy more… Suppose I could break up a green cake to simulate the characteristics and aging speed, but this tea obviously had a lot of special care put into it to preserve its qualities in loose form.

Chai Ultra Spice is only ultra gingery to my taste, and not ultra spicy, possibly because they didn’t put in any black pepper. They claim there is cardamom in there, but you could have fooled me, I didn’t taste it at all. Also, I looked at the ingredients list, and I’d really like to know what “natural chai flavour” is. Last I checked, “chai” means tea, and I seriously doubt it is natural tea flavor they’re talking about.

But, that said, if you’re looking for a bagged tea that tastes like liquid gingersnaps when appropriately doctored up with sweetener and milk, this is the tea for you. Even though it wasn’t the ultra spicy chai I was hoping for, it was pretty decent anyway.

I’m basing this review more on what I expected than the actual taste. The taste itself is pretty standard. It’s black tea, with a subtle sweetness to it. Not too bitter, which I like.

However, where’s the actual honey pear? I guess it tastes pear-like, but that’s only because what it claimed to be. If you blindfolded me and had me guess what it was, I would have no idea. I was expecting something sweet (come on, it’s both honey and pears), but it was a little bland in that department.

Stuck some in the fridge for later; maybe it’ll be redeemed in the cold version.

I have to say first that this tea has beautiful leaves: tiny twisted dark brown and golden leaves tangled together. They smell sweet like raisins and honey with a slight floral note. Brewed there is a slight bitterness combined with the taste of raisins and tea. It is reminiscent of Golden Moon’s Sinharaja (though I like Sinharaja better since it lacks the bitterness).

What a find!!! I was attending the opening night of Food and Wine – Taste of Beverly Hills and what did I find under one of the big tops – nothing less than the best tea I have every tasted. I must say that I am fan of anything that reminds me of dessert without all the guilt. American Tea Room had a exceptional booth that smelled like chocolate, at first I though it was coming from the cookie vendor next to them but I was soon corrected. The booth was so crowded with people trying to get a taste and it was worth the wait……. I final got my sample cup of Choco*late, which is what they were featuring at this event and it was out of this world. They were handing out samples, which I took of course and made it the next morning and it was even better.

I went to American Tea Room’s store on Friday and bought 2 bags ….. all I can say is that it tastes fantastic and it is fat free and no calories!

This is a new permanent addition to my tea closet!