Featured & New Tasting Notes

Thanks to these damp tea leaves, I now understand the proper meaning of “vegetal.” I won’t confirm whether this is positive or negative…

Anyway. This tea is pretty tasty. Lately I’ve been trying to branch out from greens, because it was all I drank when I learned of proper tea, but it’s my fallback. So when I requested a free sample from Chicago Tea Garden, I went with the green. I can’t resist it.

Good choice, though. This steeps up practically clear and has a light taste. I tend to oversteep my greens, but it’s no big deal with this one. Despite the ridiculous amount of green tea I have in my cupboard, I would buy this one, too. It has a complex fragrance, like a hint or roasted nuts or something beneath the tea. It’s quite fun.

I wanted a strong one to start off the work week, and this seemed like a good bet. Nothing too out of the ordinary in the scent or appearance of the dry leaf. I’m going for five minutes of steeping time to make sure I get all the flavors.

Well, it certainly is black tea. Dark, dark brown liquor and a full-bodied aroma with hints of tobacco. The first sip lets me know that there are plenty of tannins – I’m getting that scritchy feeling on my teeth, like I’ve been eating spinach. There’s some sweetness there too. Okay, time for the cream and sugar. Mmm, that really mellows out the tannins, but it’s not bringing any other flavors strongly to the fore. Overall it’s a fine tea, but not spectacular.

This is a very smooth Ceylon tea. Not quite as bold as some breakfast blends I’ve encountered, but where it lacks in robust gusto it makes up for in delightful layers of flavor. Lovely fruity notes, a hint of floral… very nice.

My first cup of this tea I tried first without sweetener, and it was nice. Mellow and smooth. A little sweetener brings the aforementioned fruity tones into focus. The second cup (which I’m enjoying now) I decided to add a little milk and honey to see how it would fair as a “traditional” breakfast tea – and it’s so so so good like this. Creamy. Pleasant. A very good breakfast blend, indeed.

Well, this’ the last bag of this I have. I’ll miss it. It’s one of the staples I carried in my Travel Tea Bag. I don’t plan to actively go out and pick this one up again, but if I come across it—maybe it’s marked down, or I have yet to find a vanilla black that I like more—I’ll probably pick it up again. It’s just a bit pricey. Fourteen freakn’ bucks? Come on. Otherwise, I will probably try Tealicious’ vanilla black next. Murchie’s was utterly flavourless, and I don’t know if Tea Desire even carries a vanilla black… They gave me a list of their full tea stock, but I seem to have misplaced it. Plus, I haven’t been to Tealicious in a while, and I actually LIKE the base used in their flavoured blacks, unlike Tea Desire’s.

As for the base used in Mighty Leaf’s, well, this is the only flavoured black I’ve tried from them. It’s not wonderful, but it’s far from terrible. Sometimes it takes on this weird spinachy taste—it’s particularly prominent in the second steep, although still quite noticeable in the first. But if I avoid a second steep (difficult, because I feel like I’m wasting it if I don’t—except for fanning teabags, which you usually can’t get a second steep out of anyways), and don’t mess with the recommended four-minute steeping parameters, it’s usually fine. Fairly enjoyable. Keeps my vanilla cravings at bay.

Now that I think about it, I had always meant to mix a sachet of this with some earl grey. Too late now, ahwell.

Yep, this is a bacon-y tea alright!

The aroma is spot on bacon with dribbles of maple syrup. But if I linger on it too long, I actually feel a little nauseous because the scent seems to get “oily”! I think I’m just imagining lard congealing on a plate.

I think the taste is more akin to beef jerky than pork. Or like meat marinated in soy sauce. It tastes very “meaty”. And there’s that sweet edge to it—like barbeque sauce with molasses.

Upon cooldown, subsequent sips remind me of the taste of tea eggs.

All in all, I like this very much. It doesn’t disappoint. It seems satisfyingly bacon-y, meaty and protein-rich (all with a dose of sugar)!

And yet it’s tea. Amazing! ;)

For a darker oolong, this is really smooth and enjoyable. I added a few cinnamon pieces to the pot, it added just the right amount of spice to an already good tea:) What I really like about oolongs are the multiple infusions.. I typically get four infusions from one pot.

I really just wanted something to sit with while reading or writing or some such. And by writing I don’t mean writing a tea post. I wanted something I knew, something I didn’t have to pay attention to so I could get some other stuff done.

But that black sampler box! Oh how she beckons!

So I took a random one out of the box. Or… a semi-random one. I first a second flush Darjeeling, but I thought I’d save that for later and have it in connection with the first flush from the same estate and see how much difference I could tell. Then I got one from Guatemala but since that’s such a special place to get tea from, I wanted to save that one. (Then I got the same second flush Darjeeling again) And then I finally got this one. It was so randomly chosen that it took four attempts to choose it. Randomly. Yes.

I haven’t got the faintest idea how to pronounce Sewpur. But it sounds like ‘Super’ in my head, so that’s a good sign, I think.

I tried smelling the dry leaves before steeping but they didn’t really have much aroma to speak of. If I breathed on them first there was fleeting note of something warm and spicy-ish and maybe a little pine-y. But otherwise nothing really.

It was the same aroma that I get from the steeped tea. Very dry and wooden, it smells. It doesn’t actually smell like something that is wet at all, and that honey-y note? Completely missing. Gorgeous red colour though. This cup is glass, so I can really see it here. Absolutely lovely.

It has a certain dryness too. It tastes… dusty. Like I made it way too strong, but I used a larger pot, so I actually made it weaker! O.o It’s not wildly astringent, or even all out astringent at all, but it’s borderline. It’s very woodsy in flavour. Nothing at all sweet here. Not even a hint.

I don’t think it’s so ‘Super’ after all. It’s like it’s missing something. The foundation is there, but there’s nothing on it.

Oh well.

After reading Auggy’s review of chocolate mate, it inspired me to brew a cup of mate (and hope that it would be a better tasting cuppa than what Auggy experienced). I ordered this sample some time ago, and haven’t tried it yet (I have a lot of teas in my possession at the moment that I’ve not tried yet!)

Yum! Chocolate-y smooth and yet earthy. I suspect that the flowers are here for appearance sake, because I’m not getting much in the way of flavor from them (although there is a very faint sharpness from the sunflower – very faint) I can taste a slight woodsy “rooibos” flavor but, it is also quite faint in the presence of the stronger roasted mate. The almonds and the chocolate are very tasty together.

I am not sure what the cactus adds to this flavor, although I can’t say that this blend would be quite the same without it, because this is different than other chocolate mate blends I’ve encountered – whether that be from the cactus, or the sunflower or even the rooibos … or more likely a combination of these three components.

Either way, I really like like it!

Another find from the World Tea Expo June 2010. I went by Village Tea’s booth at the closing of the show. I grabbed this tea because I had picked up no white teas during my trip at that point.
It was a busy day at the office so I didn’t keep track of the steeping times but I do know it wasn’t in there longer than need be. I had four 8 oz size servings – with & without sugar. The tea smelled like grass – very soft. Like a few hours after cutting the grass. The first steeping was without sugar. The taste was very soft & smooth. 2nd I added just a touch of Maui Brand Cane Sugar the taste picked up a bit but not enough. 3rd I added one cube of white sugar. Didn’t like the tastes more of bland then anything. 4th I added more of the Maui sugar & was very happy with the taste. Soft sweetness very smooth taste with the little extra sugar I added.
A bonus – I can mark this tea off of my Jane’s List (aka Teas listed in Jane Pettigrew & Bruce Richardson’s book The New Tea Companion book pg 104.)
I also had to laugh at myself as that I had forgotten that Village Tea included tea filter bags with the tea. I ended up using my Finum bags instead. So, I guess this is a note to self for the next steeping use their bags. =)

Thank you so very much to RABS for sending me this. I cannot imagine living without it now.

I rolled the die two times today for my GEEK PRIDE contest and came up with numbers that had already been used. Mindful that I could only take 3 rolls a day, I focused hard and came up with a “7” and this is the delightful result.

I don’t adore maple sugar. In fact, if given a choice between candied maple sugar and chocolate, the chocolate will win 100% of the time. I grew up in a family of 8 and packages of maple sugar candy were the default gift chosen by friends, family, and other unfortunates who had to find a gift to appease the gift-giving gods. I always thought that maple sugar was TOO sweet and used to give my pieces away to younger siblings who, in return, had to sign up for a tedious length of indentured servitude in making my bed, cleaning my room, and. my favorite of all, being compelled to speak in a French or English accent. It was the time of the Cold War so sometimes I made them approach a stranger on the street and announce that they were Russian as payment for the maple sugar. It was also the time when approaching a stranger on the street and speaking of your antecedents did not seem to shockingly creepy and dangerous as it does now.

In any event, the dry tea smelled like the maple sugar candy on quaaludes: the sweetness was muted so I was gung ho. I do like maple sugar when it’s taste is softened by a sufficiently of waffles, pancakes, etc. and you don’t feel as if you are applying cavities directly to your teeth.

I liked the aroma and was optimistic. But then I went crazy. Black tea is the BEST delivery system for maple sugar! This tea is sweet and filled with the great flavor of maple sugar but it is never cloying. That’s what I don’t like! Cloying and treacly! This is perfect. Now I totally “get” why people love Maple Sugar so much.

And I will place an order! This is simply the best use of maple sugar known to humankind, in my opinion. Totally and outrageously deliciously sweet but not too much at all. Just right! It’s a Goldilocks moment.

Thank you so much to RABS!

What’s this about an earthquake in Canada? Should we be concerned about our canadian steepsterites?

Anyway, I asked the boyfriend what tea we were having as I couldn’t really decide, and he was having Earl Grey. I don’t have any real EGs at the moment, but I have some of the Russian Kusmis. That’s close enough.

I picked this one because it’s one that has been largely overlooked in my sample basket, to the point of me actually being surprised at how full the sample tin still was.

(…and making tea is quicker if one turns the kettle on. Right.)

I can pick up the bergamot in the leaves as usual. It IS a fairly easy note to find. But today I’m also getting the mandarin quite clearly. That’s new, I couldn’t fully discern that before. Not sure about the orange there. I think I can find it, but I’m not entirely certain.

Tastewise it’s the same as before. The bergamot is laying down a solid foundation and on top of that the orange and mandarin keeping the brightness levels up. I’m getting the orange quite clearly here. Less so the mandarin.

Looking at the dry leaf, I loved how the tiny flowers were mixed in with the tea leaves. What was a bit disappointing was how crushed the leaves were. This might have been partly due to shipping, though few of the other teas I received at the same time were like this. Regardless, the dry leaf has a wonderful dark oolong smell with great flowery notes.

Steeping some of this tea as per the website directions (3 minutes, 1 heaping teaspoon per cup of water), the finish liquor has a pleasant aroma of a light oolong with great floral tones. The smell of the flowers diminishes yet improves, at the same time. My first sip, however, did not impress me. It tasted very flat, for an oolong, and the flowers did not come through at all. Not to be put off, I continued on with my tasting. The flavour grew bolder as I continued to drink the tea, and I gradually became aware of the subtle flavours imparted by the flowers.

Over a couple steepings, this tea grew to be quite pleasant. The moderately light flavour would make this tea a good accompaniment to some light appetizer dishes, such as a cheese and cracker plate. I enjoyed this tea, but one must have patience with it to get the most from its leaves.

Ok, this is my first Rooibee Red Tea. I bought a mixed 12pk, mainly for the flavors, but I am starting with the plain unsweet one.

Pros:
*It’s very refreshing, goes down easy. I had to force myself to savor it instead of chug it.
*No calories, sugar, etc, and it’s organic
*The natural sweetness of rooibos, plus the citric acid, makes this just as enjoyable as actual “sweet tea” in my book!

Cons
*The citric acid is a bit strong – this tastes like lemon tea, and seems more acidic as it gets warm
*No iron or vitamin C (or any other nutrients). If I made my own iced plain rooibos w/ lemon, it would be healthier because it would at least have those 2 things…

Verdict: Undecided. I do like it, but expect to like the flavored ones better. I wouldn’t go buy a case of this on its own, but I would rather drink it than water or overly sweet black iced tea. I’m giving it a 55 for now, may go up when I try the second one (I did forget to shake this bottle first, so there was some settling which may have affected the flavor)

Wet, spongy earth. Steel, iron and sun showers. Trees and mushrooms follow. Nothing raw or herbal in this cuppa. At the same time, I found it approachable for a pu-erh, on the sweet rather than fecund side of earthy, and might just brew it for a pu-erh n00b on a chilly autumn day. I myself drank it in the Tea-luxe window, and enjoyed two steeps to my pot.

Again finding this is one lovely green tea. I’ve been brewing it like an oolong, covering the bottom of my small gaiwan with the rolled leaves, and finding that they expand to intact leaves that mostly fill it. I use cooler water—160-170 degrees—because it is a green tea, and the flavor is more vegetal and less floral than the green oolongs, but it is as easy and flexible and forgiving in terms of slightly variable quantities of leaf to water, and varied steep times from 15 seconds to a minute or quite a bit more with later steepings. The steeps thus do vary in flavor and intensity but are never bitter despite that. I’ve brewed up several green teas in the past day (shincha!, korean green, dragon well) and each of those has reminded me that they need attention and respect to remain mellow and pleasant. This one just stays mellow regardless of my fumblings. Love that!

Edited: still haven’t reached the end of the flavor from these leaves, now at least 8-10 steepings in. I do like my teas somewhat diluter than many, but this is still amazing for a green tea. Very oolong-like in this too.

I received this as a sample with the “Blue Knight Special.” It’s my first green Earl Grey.

In the sample packet, there’s a definite bergamot smell, and some lavender, and something that seems almost like vanilla. The tea may be there, but I can’t smell it for the other fragrances.

It brews to a clear light yellow. The aroma of the tea is mainly a green, vegetal sencha. Not particularly on the buttery side, with a sharp note that reminds me of bok choy. There’s the tiniest bit of lavender detectable, but I can’t smell bergamot?

Taste. Hmm. This isn’t what I’d call a flavorful tea. There is some slight vegetal flavor, a cool character that seems attributable to the lavender, and a very hard to find citrus note. It isn’t bitter, but it’s the first green tea that has given me a grab at the back of the throat. Which makes me wonder how green the Assam component really is.

I have some of the sample left, so I can play with it some and see if I can improve it, but after this first tasting it’s not selling me.

What came over me, that I felt compelled to bump this tea down below the 90 bracket? I think what may have happened is that, in the course of my adventures in the land of sophisticated, complex teas — rare teas; teas with character; teas that cost as much as a nice-but-not-quite-fantastic-pair-of-cute-shoes — I may have begun to feel as though my enjoyment of this tea was merely the lack of a proper tea education. That I had been young, naive and innocent, with stars in my eyes for any teaspoon of leaves that didn’t make me cringe, inexperienced and far too ready to fall for whatever tasty morsel happened to be floating in my infuser.

Well, that’s stupid.

This is good tea.

Honestly I tend to forget that I have it, which may seem to indicate that it isn’t all that good…but when I remember that I have it and open the gigantic tin from Teavana that I dedicated to this tea, the aroma that comes drifting out practically makes my mouth water.

At this point, I have had a ton of black teas. Black tea is my every-single-day-without-fail tea, in its many varieties and iterations, and I think that I can say that I’m well armed to make the assessment that this one is kind of special, infinitely more savory than so many other black teas I’ve tried, with a sugary, raisiny profile and a subtle malt for a bready note. Sipping it right now as I nibble a slice of dried cantaloupe, the world is a blissful place.

The official information up top says that the batches capture the season, which makes me nervous. Would a re-order be as good as what I’ve got in my cabinet?

I got this one as a free sample from Chicago tea garden. I have been hanging on to it for awhile and boy am I glad I decided to try it this morning. First off the dry leaf look like little snails and I marvel and adore them every time I look at the bag. The are so cute!!

I didn’t get much off the dry leaf but I am a little stuffy from allergies so this may be why. I am also glad (whew) I read the steeping parameters as I usually go five minutes on black tea and the note said 212 for 1 minute!! Brewed up it is a dark amber, brownish color and the flavor is light and malty a little earthy with no hints of astringency. I really like it and would definitely order this. I appreciate the free sample as it will lead to me purchasing more Bi Lo Chun and others from Chicago Tea Garden.

This deliciously nutty tisane brews an interesting pink color due to the inclusion of beet root.

The aroma makes this tisane very approachable for coffee drinkers, but it’s not strong enough for those who like their java black as it can be. Those who enjoy milk and sugar in their coffees may well like this cuppa.

I really enjoy this drink. Mostly hot, not as much iced. The aroma clearly reminds of a cinnabon or an oatmeal cookie, and the flavor is nutty with hints of sweetness which I presume comes from the beet root.

It is worth noting that you won’t get more than two flavorful steeps from Forever Nuts.

Give this one a try. You may well find a new favorite.

Oh my, Angrboda! What a great big huge order you just put in there with Nothing But Tea!

Erm… yes. I had reached the point where I was allowed to buy the lemon oolong and the orange pu-erh that I wanted and erm… well… things got ever so slightly out of control. But they’re just samples! It’s just… there’s an awful lot of them.

Celebrating (ahem) that with the decupboarding with the other half of one my existing samples. Again I find myself wishing I’d done the whole thing in one go at first, because I really think I would have got a lot more out of it that way than I am with this half-sample business.

As it is it’s nice, sweet and buttery. Not too green tasting and not too water-y in flavour. But it might have had a little more oomph to it if I’d used the double amount of leaf. That new water to leaves ratio pattern that I’ve got going on here is really messing with my old favourites! What I thought was GOOD may only have been good. (On the other hand, teas I found bad may have really been truly abysmal, so it’s not a total loss. I must have saved myself some unpleasantness on that front)

It’s been ages since I had TGY though. It’s about time, and I feel like it’s an old friend in my cup, even if it’s not my favourite vendor. I think I’ll take it with me out on the balcony and read some more. It’s warm enough to be nice out there today when I have a blanket.

Today was coffee bean buying day, which means that it’s also free tea day! I chose Awake because oh man, do I need to become awake ;) It’s a bit flat, but with the milk and sugar I put in, very comforting and spot-hitting. I dare say today it has a tinge of honeyed goodness! I must have hit the magic steep time (which is sadly a mystery – the time it took me to walk across the street, wait for the elevator, go to the office. Who knows!?!?! Much better than the time it takes to get to my classroom at school – it’s always over brewed then!!) The full leaf is very much an improvement over the former bag.

Really looking forward to this one, to see what distinctive notes I could find in this Assam variety.

First thing, I’m learning a lesson here: I will no longer store anything next to previously opened (even if zip-locked shut) bags of tea flavored with coconut. The scent is too strong and recognizable to me, and it clouds my ability to tell what else might be in there.

So, I’m relying on the steeped scent of the tea (slightly fruity) rather than the dry leaf. The liquor is dark, clear brown, even after barely three minutes. In fact given the depth of the color, I’m surprised by how mild the flavor is. There’s a good mouth feel, a little bit of astringency, and a pronounced peppery note that I like, woven into some more subtle dry fruit flavors, somewhat akin to Darjeeling. I like it, but I think I’ll try steeping it a bit longer next time and see what else appears.

I wasn’t going to do multiple infusions of this now because I have so much new tea to try BUT…it was sooooooooooooo good and FUN so I’m ‘all in’.

Same ‘horns’
9 minutes infusion (did 7 the first time)

See my previous review for first infusion notes. Below are my 2nd infusion notes and differences…

2nd infusion smelled much more peachy! LOVE it! Awesome scent! It’s sweeter and juicier and more champagne-like it seems! The color is pretty much the same…a lovely yellow-orange-light brown.

Just goes to show you…UNICORNS…they really ARE magical!

LOVE THIS

And the ‘horns’ aren’t fully unfurled yet so I am going to see how many infusions I can get out of these!

WOOT!!!

Yesterday morning, after nearly a week without any tea at all, I braved the heat and made a cup of Darjeeling Goomtee. Just a single cup. Every time I thought about resteeping, I couldn’t bring myself too. I only actually drank 3/4 of the cup warm. The rest I walked away from and came back to and drank cooled later on. This time I increased the steeping time by 30 seconds. I think it came out a bit too strong for me, muddied yet over emphasized flavors. It may have also been the heat. I’m sure I will retry it again at some point in the future but for now I think I like it steeped at four minutes.

I think I prefer this tea steeped at 4 min for the 1st steep.