Featured & New Tasting Notes

As a general rule, I don’t find genmaicha all that impressive. Dunno why, it just doesn’t hit all the right buttons with me. The exception to this is Samovar’s Ryokucha, which yeah, I kind of adore (and am out of right now, which is really horrible). So I wasn’t expecting to get into this gemaicha. But apparently I was wrong. This is actually very tasty and makes me think of my much loved Ryokucha, particularly because it has a similarly milky flavor. This one is a little thinner feeling (no matcha in this one) and perhaps has a bit more toasted rice flavor but it is still remarkably smooth and the flavors mesh really delightfully. Quite a nummy cup! Thanks TeaEqualsBliss!
5.2g/10oz

The dry leaves had little to no aroma, which, for this style, I find unfortunate. Lifting the gaiwan to my nose after the first steep, a distinct rush of jasmine and cooked spinach come on strong. The jasmine is detectable to the point that, if I didn’t know better, I would say that this tea either had jasmine added to it, or was stored in very close proximity to jasmine tea. Unfortunately, I really, really dislike jasmine-scented anything. In the end, I feel two ways about the jasmine character: (a) if it is not an added character (highly unlikely), it has to be the strongest non-flavored character I’ve ever experienced in any tea, (b) the jasmine character is fleetingly light enough that if one were looking for a jasmine experience, they would likely be disappointed.

Pressing through the hazy cloud of jasmine occlusion, the green spinach character is noticeable again in steeps two and three. Hay-like grassiness picks up, but stays rather minimal. The sweetness is moderate to low and I find the overall complexity rather minimal. By the fourth and fifth steeps, the wet leaves smell of dry clay, a sign that they are exhausted, the soup singing a similar note of thinned out tiredness. Sadly, this may be the the least enjoyable silver needle experience I’ve ever had.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=134

I had this iced thinking this would be a nice summer tea to have, and it is pretty nice for a black tea (I’m not a black tea lover hehe, but I still try give an honest review on the taste and quality). I could definitley taste the strawberry and it didn’t taste artificial, which is a HUGE plus to me…the more natural it can be the more I appreciate it. I could also taste a slight sweet mango taste as well, but this was very faint. Before I read the ingredients I couldn’t even put my finger on what that “additional” taste/flavor was, but when I read the ingredients I said, “ah ha! that’s what that was!” Now as far as the black tea, I think it was slightly bitter, but perhaps that was the tartness of the strawberry that I was picking up on and not that actual tea itself? It was a bit hard for me to tell, but it was pleasent and refreshing for an iced summer drink.

Random draw from the sample box gave me chocolate. I added this sample to my order on a chocolate-crazed whim, and it’s not until now that I’m beginning to wonder if that was an all together good idea. The chocolate bit is good enough, but I’m getting concerned by the ‘Mayan’ of the name. Every other chocolate tea I’ve seen on here that was named something with Mayan involved chili or spice in some way. I don’t want spice. I just want chocolate.

The leaves smell like milk chocolate primarily, but there is also a hint of paprika there. I think. It might just be something that I think is there because I’m so scared that it’ll be true. I desperately don’t want it to be true! NBT’s info doesn’t say anything about anything else than chocolate and cocoa kernels though, so okay. That’s somewhat reassuring. One could hope that the paprika-y note is really the tea’s aroma being distorted by copious amounts of chocolate. It has lots of those little chocolate droplets that melt as it steeps.

It’s got an absolutely gorgeous red colour after steeping, although rather murky, but the aroma is… weird, to say it nicely. Something that desperately tries to be chocolate but doesn’t quite make it. The more you smell it, the more you’ll convince yourself that yes, this really is a full, rich chocolate smell, but in the back of your mind the initial ‘wtf is this???!’ reaction still lurks.

Well. At least it doesn’t taste like there’s spices in it. It’s still way worse than the aroma though. Nothing in this could ever convince me that this is ‘chocolate’. It’s not full. It’s not rich. It bears a vague resemblance to chocolate but that’s as close as we get. It’s got a nutty bitterness. Like hazelnuts that have gone a bit off.

I tried adding a little milk to see if that might help with the bitterness and bring out the chocolate more, but it didn’t work.

Xp

It’s not really a tea flavour. And it’s definitely not chocolate. It’s like a bastard child from the two. And it’s NOT very nice.

This is not going anywhere near my shopping list. In fact if we had a Never Ever Again Ever! list, this would be marching straight into a prime spot. I have had a few things that were more undrinkable than this. But not very many.

Now get me some proper tea, plz!

(Also, Sophistre, I’ve managed 95 words, yay!)

Done and decupboarded, and free to frolic with Earls I like better. I did have an interesting experience where I accidentally brewed this in the Breville one morning before I was awake enough to realize I had some Luscious Lemon by Simpson and Vail still in the pot and further too unawake to remember to rinse out the pot first. This resulted in a very very lemony version of the Blue Knight, which was actually not bad. But I wouldn’t recommend trying it at home as it would require buying two products, neither of which blew me away and both of which I have been on something of a campaign to drink up.

I am really looking forward to reusing the little tin this came in, though. It’s tall and tubular and kinda cute. Currently soaking to remove labels and hopefully a good bit of the Earl Grey perfume, too. It made me think of how my Dad, who was a stamp collector, used to soak stamps off of envelopes. Sweet little memory, that.

hrm. There’s a lot going on with this tea. It’s a very light, almost boring looking oolong once brewed up, but in the cup it tastes like it can’t make up it’s mind about what it wants to be when it grows up. It’s got dark notes, floral notes, spicy notes and honestly, it’s a bit too much for me. Complex is nice, confused isn’t.

It’s interesting, but I don’t know it would make it only my permanent shelf. I’m glad I got to try it however.

I had this iced last night and liked it much better this time than last time. Last time I brewed it cold overnight. This time I brewed 3 tsp of tea in a little teabag in about 1/4 cup of boiling water for 5 min and then poured it over ice and added a little water. Much better.

I think I might like the quick brew method better than the overnight method. But, I did use 2 pyrex measuring cups, a spoon, and a glass to achieve this. That’s a lot of dishes for a glass of iced tea. I used the pyrex cups because I was worried about breaking a glass by pouring boiling water over ice in the glass.

Anyone have a better quick brew method that uses less dishes?

First Steep

A sweet, full (malty?) smell. Has an almost “candied” taste, though more of a caramel flavor than just sweet; similar to sweet potatoes? A bit of a malty aftertaste.

Malty flavor is quick to overwhelm when drinking too fast. Needs something to go with it; would be good with cookies or muffins, or mixed down with a more bitter black tea.

I’m sitting here in Philadelphia enjoying a little bit of Florence, Italy. Two lovely, nostalgic, delicious steeps. I’m surprised more people don’t like this one! I am always the oddball :) I’m so glad this one is part of 52teas permanent collection because I’ve never tasted anything like it, and want to keep it in my cupboard continuously!

I feel like I am really starting to get in my groove as far as the teas I absolutely adore. I’ve done a lot of experimenting over the last 6 months, and have come to a few realizations:

-I love unadorned Chinese black teas!!!!!
-I continue to love Assam teas.
-I will always have a weakness for flavored teas with milk and sugar, but they are no longer my main focus. Give me a good Chinese tea that I can take plain, or a flavored tea that I can take without additions, such as this tea or Kusmi’s St. Petersburg, and I’m as happy as a clam!
-Earl Grey = ♥ Jasmine = ♥ Earl Grey, jasmine and rose together?? ♥ times 100!!!!!
-I love oolongs, both darker and greener!
-I have not fallen in love with green tea, no matter how I try. I adore the French greens that are flavored as a once in awhile afternoon treat, but if I never had another plain green tea I have to be honest – I really wouldn’t be all that put out!!! I will continue to try them hoping for some magic, but…
-I think 52teas Black Currant Bai Mu Dan is the only white tea I have flipped for.
-I am so surprised how much I am loving the herbals and the rooibos and honeybush tisanes. About 10 years ago I declared that if I couldn’t have a caffeine tea, I would not drink tea!!! My husband starting to not be able to sleep because of the teas this year (ah! Aging!) changed my mind real quick. I am delighted by so many of the flavors I’ve been experiencing. The key for me is NOT to compare them to TEAS and just think of them as their own flavored beverage things.

Thanks so much LiberTEAS for sending me some from your stash!!!

I should have started with this tea this morning! It’s VERY FLAVORFUL…naturally!

I can taste the Lemon and Caramel comparison…nice.

I am thinking it would be great iced too! Woot!

The aroma is extremely complex. While descriptions give it lilac I certainly note it’s gardenia counterpart. There’s a buttery sweetness to the aroma here as well as a hint of stewed chard.

The flavor is creamy, coating the tongue and mouth. A slight astringent bite when you breathe in is left to tease the senses. This tea certainly knows how to play!

While not very bold, this tea’s subtle pleasures and unique aromas and textures provide for a very interesting brew. I’d recommend this tea for Oolong fans of all kinds, enthusiasts of darker green teas such as Gyokuro or lighter ones such as Pi Lo Chun should find this an equally pleasing brew.

So, the last few days have been hell. Had to decide which tea to drink to make things normal again. Paris! Yes, Paris. I’ve been to the real deal and would love to go back. I, of course, picked Paris up for the name and not expecting much but when you smell it you really say ‘ohhh’.
The first thing that I think of from my visit to Paris is the citron tart I had. Oh if only I could bake that good. The tea brings back some of those memories and the other great foods that I had.
I will have to make sure I get more soon. I see some interesting days ahead. :DT he tea reminds me of a lighter Earl Grey but very smooth & not hard in flavor.
Drink w/ a bit of sugar in 8 oz cup ~ serveral cups were enjoyed.

Fairwell dear tea, this is the last of my sample from the PuerhShop.com. You were one of my first sheng pu’er samples. I treated you harshly, reviewed you poorly and then ignored you until now, when I gave you a more proper treatment, but still decided that you weren’t really worth chasing down any more of. I still yet do not know who you come from (is Bing Hao really a production company?) and, based on the chop and size of the leaf, am dubious about the composition of “big leaf” in your mix. You bleed a slightly orange cup, with solid bright bitterness, lots of honey, and some pale fruit sugars. Otherwise, you leave me wanting, for a little more complexity, a little more body, and a little less harshness. Onward, to other, better, teas.

I am excited to see if my temperature tweak improves this tea. I am making it 10 degrees cooler than last time, but keeping the steep time the same as last time. I was having trouble with bitterness.

sip, sip, sip…

Yes – it is definitely less bitter. It also has a little less flavor than I remember – but I’ll take it rather than have bitterness.

The second steep is more of the same. I am disappointed because these were not cheap.

I don’t know – I think these plain ole jasmine pearls stuck a few feathers and scales on themselves and are masquerading as jasmine dragon phoenix pearls!!! I have definitely had better. I will drink my little tin up, but I will not repurchase. Rating downward! I still think Adagio’s Jasmine #12 were the best I’ve ever had!!!!

EDIT: I have one more tweak to try before I get tooooo mopey – making them in my lil oolong pot sans paper filters (maybe they couldn’t unfurl properly with the paper and that is why I’m not getting great flavor?). In any case I’m getting some bitterness as it cools, so I’m not getting my hopes sky high… ah, ya can’t win em all.

EDITAGAIN: Ooooooooh the end of this second steep is so bitter I just can’t even finish it. How very sad. I think this tea is going to have to hit the highway!

EDITONCEAGAIN: I gave it to my coworker for his partner who loves tea – bleh bleh bleh! Life is too short.

Wow, quite an aroma when you open up the packet! Pungent – it’s the bergamot without a doubt, but the lavender is really prominent, making the whole thing much more aromatic. The leaves look nice; it’s gratifying that they seem to be using good quality tea as their black base.

After five minutes, the liquor is medium-dark brown, and is just about as fragrant as the dry leaf. Lavender is still muscling its way to the front of the room, with bergamot trying to get a word in edgewise. Taste, I’m getting the same dynamic – I’d probably call it lavender tea with the addition of bergamot rather than the other way around. Not sure if I’m a huge fant of lavender tea however – it’s an aroma I associate with perfumes and potpourris rather than consumable items, so this one is probably a bit too much for my taste. Interesting to try, though.

Guys, I have a monkey on my back! A GOLDEN monkey!!

I can’t go for more than a few days without having some of this tea! There are teas that I like more, but they are not the kind of teas that inspire frequent drinking, if you know what I mean?! This one is just plain GOOD. You don’t have to be in any sort of mood, the stars don’t have to be aligned a certain way, the weather doesn’t have to be just so…you don’t have to have milk, and you don’t have to have a certain sweetener. You just add under boiling water and it’s good…and I crave it! Sweet, caramel-tinged, raisin-edged good.

In my constant search for a breakfast tea, I decided to make this in a traditional stovetop method. Creamy and good were the end results. You know me, I thought it was too mild, so I made it again with 2 teabags and poured the contents out of the teabag. Better, spicier. I do suspect that 1 teabag is enough for 6 ounces of water and 1 ounce of milk. The key though is to pour the contents out of the teabag! Could this be my new morning tea? I don’t know yet. I did enjoy it, but it was not my beloved Sinharaja.

When I was at Ikea the other day, I couldn’t resist picking this up. First off, it’s rhubarb flavored. I’ve never had a rhubarb tea before (shoot, I’ve only had rhubarb itself maybe twice, both times in pie form) and I’m always up for something novel, even if it ends up icky. Second, it was cheap ($2.50 for 3.5oz!) so even if it was icky, I wasn’t going to feel bad about blowing a couple of bucks on it. Third, it’s tea and apparently I have a disease that makes me compulsively purchase tea whenever I see it for sale.

This tea is definitely more vanilla than it is rhubarb but it’s a pink-tinted vanilla. There’s vanilla but it has a noticeable hint of something else that just tastes lightly pink. (Or maybe that’s just me. Does anyone else ever taste colors? And I’m not talking about when you eat fingerpaints.) Eventually I figured out what the pink taste made me think of – lychee. Yeah, yeah, I know. This is rhubarb. But I still think this tastes like a lychee tea, though more on the lychee fruit end, not lychee flower end (no hint of rose). Of course, this could be because my only exposure to rhubarb has been in pie-form and, since I didn’t add half a cup of sugar to my mug this morning, I don’t really taste the similarities. Not that I’m much more versed in lychee – I think I’ve had lychee once but I have had a couple of different lychee teas and that has to count for something, right?

I’m in the mood for a chai, but I’m not sure if that’s because I knew this was one of my last two Golden Moon sampler packets. The dry leaf smells really good, plenty of warm spice – and with temps here now in the low 70’s compared to the high 90’s of just a few days ago, it almost feels like I need some inner warming.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a chai without milk or cream and sugar, but for the sake of being anal about these tasting notes, I’ll have at least a sip of it as is. Good thing! After five minutes in just-boiled water, it’s not near strong enough for my taste. Back in the pot with you! A few minutes later I check on it again and it’s much better, though still somewhat meek. Time for the additives.

Now I’m feeling sorry for this tea! I really think it has the potential to be good, but I don’t think I handled the steep very well. Next time I’ll stick to simmering the tea in milk for a good long time to get all the flavors out, as I’m finding this just too weak. I’ll leave off rating it until we meet again.

Intensely flavored! This reminds me of walking into a Folk-Artsy-type Home Decor type store with woodsy, cinnamony, old-time-country flowers, spices from wall-to-wall, etc.

It infuses fast and dark. The woodsy, cinnamon, floral smells are more in front after infusion.

The Black Tea is the more intense flavor when tasting which I LOVE. I’m so happy this is flavored the way it is…and not overly so.

This is quite delicious. I wouldn’t normally be attracted to a tea like this but am so glad I gave it a whirl.

Another black tea that professes to be unsweetened, this time from Kirin. Thankfully, it does not explain that the tea’s deliciousness derives from tea fairies harvesting the final “golden drops” of tea from teapots in order to make the tea, which, to be fair, coca-cola didn’t EXACTLY say either (but they may as well have). It also didn’t proceed to list sweeteners in its ingredients so I had a good feeling!

The tea is, indeed, unsweetened, although it has a certain very faint sweetness about it that is faint enough to not make me suspicious. I don’t know if its the low temperature steep that did it, but there is an interesting air about this tea, a tiny hint of astringency that never quite comes to fruition. I quite like it, and it’s nice to finally find an iced black tea that isn’t sweetened instead of just pretending to not be sweetened. AND it was on sale, which, unfortunately in a combini means that it’s not been selling particularly well and they are trying to get rid of the last bit they have so they can replace it wish something else. Probably extremely sweet royal milk tea. Or Yet Another Green Tea.

It’s kind of weird to me that the Japanese would be so adamant about sweetening their black teas, when their desserts/cookies/that type of thing are often much less sweet than ones in the US. Ah well, cultural differences!

Bumping up a few points for it’s great taste when iced. I actually craved more of this tea today. I may have to pick up some more of this when I head to MN in two weeks. I love that my family lives so close to this tea store. Loving the cherry flavor. Maybe I can mix it with another coconut tea (pina colada honeybush?) to get more of the black forest cake flavor.

What a soft, sweet and pleasing cup of tea. I was honestly quite surprised. I had assumed that it may just have too much going on for it, but really it melds together with nice softness and sweetness. The rice is not overbearing, but well-balanced in the profile, adding a delightful toasty note to the green sweetness from the matcha and the extra kick of kombu, which acts to deepen the kelpier flavors of the green tea beneath, which alone, I think might come across as quite and understated in this example.

Satisfying, hearty and fun and seemingly versatile. I think this would pair very well with a lot of umami-forward foods and fish fat. Thanks Chip for throwing this in!

What doesn’t this blend have?

This is a mix of black, white, oolong, yerba mate, peach flavoring, and flowers! WOW! Normally that would make me nervous…but whatever mathematician came up with the percentages for this combo is pure genius!

EVERYTHING makes sense in this blend. All of the ingredients play nicely and smell and taste good together!

Not to mention the health benefits in this tea! WOW! Nicely done, Compass Teas, Nicely Done! :)