Featured & New Tasting Notes

I stopped by my local teahouse, Wystone’s World Teas, for dinner and my favorite Chai. Alas, they were out of chai, but I did pick up some food and this lovely Japanese Sencha. I had previously tried a Cranberry Sencha, and I liked the tea but found the cranberry flavor overpowering. This Japanese Sencha is perfect – grassy, mild, and natural in the way a green tea should be. A fellow patron of Wystone’s said this was his favorite green tea, and I can see why :)

On a whim, I decided to purchase this from Teavana because I was looking for a new oolong since my plum oolong ran out.

And for $20 for 2 oz., I was expecting an oolong that made me say “ooh girl”!

On the first brew, this has an interesting buttery note that plays off to a more floral after taste. I’ll have to try a different brew in the morning.

This is one of the one of the only herbal teas I can stand to drink on a regular basis. I like to drink this before bed. This is very strong lavender. If you don’t love lavender, don’t try to drink this infusion. Seriously. I like it because it’s not cloyingly sweet like so many herbal infusions, but the flavor isn’t weak like so many of the not-sweet infusions.

Just the second loose leaf tea I’ve tried and I’m already hooked. Steeped for 4 minutes at an almost boiling temperature. The aroma and color are awesome and are both much deeper than the green teas. This was my first time trying a predominantly rooibos tea, and I must say, I enjoyed it a lot. The taste of the rooibos is fairly sweet especially in combination with the orange, which I can faintly get a taste of. Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you if the chamomile is in the blend. I don’t have a clue what it is supposed to taste like. Anyway, this is a great tea and is worth a try (especially when you get it free with your order from Adagio =) ).

Smell of Dry Blend: Peach, Chocolate, Nutty, Black Tea, Almost a flavored Coffee type smell
Smell of Tea after infusion: Peach, Chocolate, Flavored Nutty Coffee-esque
Coloring: Dark brown with a little murkiness…hard to tell because it’s very dark in color.
Taste: Black Tea with Nutty and Peach Flavorings. Maybe a hint of flavored coffee taste…but not much at all.

This was certainly a treat. The warmness lingers long after the sip goes down. A creative blend that does work well!

I’ll do a full tasting note later, but I got to try this tea today! A&D also has damn fine shipping as well as damn fine tea, so it arrived on Saturday. I didn’t find the box until Sunday evening (oops!) and then tried it this morning.

Nice, smooth, and flavorful. Not too powerful. I can see myself enjoying this tea a lot!

This tea a finicky to say the least, but worth the hassle. I first tried this type of tea in a tea shop downtown. I loved the subtle fruity note. So I had to buy some of my own, but at a more reasonable price. It took a lot of time playing around with the temperature and time to find what worked for me. But once I did, I was sold. It is also good for multiple infusions, and grandpa style if you prefer. If it tastes rubbery, try again. It takes patience to find that sweet spot.

Pleaseexcusemyomgit’scoming…. tea*GASM*. Phew thanks. I just needed to break the ice with that.

Well this little ravishing thing is definitely a tease on the taste buds. I had the ecstasy of taking a sip of this tea a few days ago paired with a bag of Archer Farm’s Cinnamon Apple Pie trail mix. Um, until this point in time, I’ve always considered myself a prudent girl… however this whole little threesome between the tea, the trail mix, and my tongue was enough to make me into a permanent sinner.

I bought this along with a few other teas in a Desert Sampler set from Art of Tea. I haven’t gotten around to them, but if all the teas in that set are half as good as this one I might just quit my day job and take up teanography. Hmm.

The first few sips are a lovely heavier bodied rooibos with a hint of cinnamon. Later gulps (cup licking?) result in a fantastic end note of pears and other sweet ditties I just can’t place. It’s definitely smooth on the way down, not a single thought of dryness. (Haha.. dryness… smooth… [AHEM]).

Me and my little friend went for about 4 rounds (i mean cups, naughty thinker ;]), afterwards it degrades into a plain ’ol rooibos. I am definitely ordering more than 2 ounces because this little sample pack is NOT going to tide me over.

I had to actually buy this from a place in the States because this particual CS tea never showed up in my local stores. They were selling all the other holidays teas but not this one, oddly enough.

The smell…oh my god, the smell! The teabags smell like cookie batter that just had a bunch of fresh citrus zest grated into it – it made me want to eat the teabag instead of steep it! Then, when the water was added, it got even better, turning into the smell of just-baked sugar cookies, fresh out of the oven.

The flavour starts off tasting lightly citrusy and I got worried that that was going to be all there was to it, but then the sweet, sugar cookie goodness kicked in. I can literally taste the buttery, crumbly texture that you get when you take a bite of a cookie. This could easily become an addiction!

There are two equal flavors in this tea and they blend very well together so you don’t have to worry about flavor war in your mouth which is greatly appreciated. One is the pumpkin which is light and sweet when you put it next to the pecan. Here the pecan is very dark, taking on a heavily toasted nut flavor, and it forms the back bone of the flavor along with the after taste.

Apparently there are two different kinds of pecan pies. One is the sweet molasses with pecan to mellow out the flavor and I like this kind best. The other is dark and nutty with only a little sweetness to brighten the pie up a little bit. This tea tastes like the darker toasted nut kind of pie. I wish it was a little bit more like the molasses kind of pie but, it is good the way it is. And my wanting it to be like the sweeter kind of pie is really just a matter of preference.

Bottom line this tea is delicious and the pecan flavor is present which make the difference between this and the similar pumpkin pie tea very apparent. I like it.

Enjoying a wonderful cup of this Pu’erh this morning. It’s not organic (I typically consume only organic foods and drinks), but, I haven’t found an organic Pu’erh that comes in the birds nest shape yet and I really like that special aspect of this tea (even if it has nothing to do with the flavor or quality….it still impacts the experience).

I read a few other tasting notes here and think that folks might be using too much of the tea. I use a Sorapot (newest coolest tea product I’ve purchased thanks to Steepster’s recommendation) and throw one nest in there unbroken. The first steeping is always my favorite as the color of the liquor is the beautiful rose pink (don’t over steep!). I then continue to steep another two or three mugs using the same nest (which is now broken up after the first steep) but only leave the water in the pot for about 30 seconds each time. These final steepings produce a much darker tea but it’s the perfect coffee substitute!

The tea has a nice rounded mouthfeel but it is definitely not too complex versus some of the other “rare” or “vintage” Pu’erhs I’ve tasted. If you’re looking for a first Pu’erh experience, this might be a good starting place. Just pay close attention to your steeping time of course.

Not as spicy as some of the chai’s that I’ve had. This is nice and mellow, especially with some creamer and milk added. It’s not a chai for when you’re craving something with a kick. It’s more of a comforting kind of blend. The cardomom is definitely the start. There were two pods in my sample pack, which is quite a lot for the amount of tea in the sample.

I would recommend this. I’m adding it to my shopping list, which is now about 50% teas from Golden Moon.

I love how peachy this tea smells, it almost makes my mouth water. There’s almost no ginger at all in the scent of either the dry or steeping tea, interestingly. The reverse is true of the taste of the tea; at first it’s like a weakish black tea flavoured with ginger root – and nothing else. But as the tea cool, the fruity flavour of the peach slowly comes back in – although it’s not as strong as the scent would suggest.

I’ve been looking for a good decaf teabag; the Mango Ceylon by RoT was made of fail but this one is actually quite decent. The ceylon base seems weak to me like I noticed with the mango, but again I’m not sure if that’s just the tea they’re using or a result of the decaffeination process.

It’s gray and peaceful outside but warm and comfy inside. I had the previous cup of malty assam and it left me wanting something more, something maltier and more great flavor. I reached for this tea. It’s an amazing cup that’s a blend no less. Not all blends work well but this one is a mix that has a “wow” factor for me. It’s got a sweet malty pow that stands out and not in a sharp astringent way at all. It’s a bold flavor that with some sweetener really hits the spot. This is a really fantastic tea and will remain on my restock list for likely a long time. If you find something better that has a similar description let me know. For now I will sit back and enjoy this wonderful cup of flavor.

My 52teas groundhog day special order arrived today! I managed to wait a whole 2 hrs before tearing it open. Two thumbs up for a tea that can taste tropical and refreshing even while it’s hot. Everyone else said it and they’re right – it smells/tastes like pina colada. I think I’m getting a bit of rum flavor too, but it may just be the sweetness of the honeybush. I don’t care. I love it. I only suspect I will like it better iced. Love the big slivers of coconut. Didn’t realize until re-reading ingredients that that’s real pineapple mixed in with the honeybush! Cool!

Directions say to steep 7-10 min. The two good reviews w time info on here were based on a 5 min steep. I set my timer for 7 min but got impatient and stopped at 5:30. Next time I will steep longer & stronger and try it iced. I bet it would also be good in a smoothie…

I’ve been on a really big kukicha kick lately, so when I got some of this from Micah in a tea swap it was one of the ones I decided to try first.

First off, I want to say that I think that kukicha is really pretty. I think it’s something about all those linear strips of varied, yet tonally cohesive greens. It makes me want to pull the colors into a room with some warm medium wood tones and fresh cream fabrics. […Am I bleeding HGTV yet?]

This particular tea, while pretty, unfortunately couldn’t run with the refreshing aesthetic it inspires [at least in my head]. It wasn’t nearly as buttery as the kukicha I’ve been inhaling [Samovar’s] and while it had grassy and nutty tones to it, it was missing a lot of that sun-kissed sweetness that makes grassy teas enjoyable to me.

In a way, the taste almost reminded me of the pith of an orange, but without the citrus taste and residual tartness. It rested somewhere in limbo between bland and bitter, in a way that wasn’t completely off-putting, but also wasn’t enjoyable.

Fortunately, some sweetness eventually began to arrive on the aftertaste and grew in volume on my breath, but it wasn’t enough to make it good. I’m going to take the water temperature down into the 160’s on the next go round, maybe steep it a bit longer, and see if I can get this tea to bloom.

I generally enjoy minty, candy cane flavored black teas, and this one might just be my favorite of the bunch. There’s something about the flavor that’s just a bit different from other candy cane teas, and I’ve yet to figure out a way to adequately describe it. It’s not that it’s sweeter, it’s not that it’s mintier. This tea does have hunks of actual candy canes in it, so I suspect it’s something the candy canes themselves are imparting. Whatever it is, it makes this tea a favorite with me.

Today called for a Matcha Smoothie.

Ingredients: Matcha from Teavana, milk (skim or 1%), Splenda/Sugar to taste, Dole Frozen Unsweetened Mixed Berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries), Blender.

Recipe: I put in a 1/4 cup of the frozen mixed berries, 1/4 tsp Splenda, 4 ounces skim milk (cold), 4 ounces cold water, 1/4 tsp Matcha powder in the Magic Bullet blender cup, mixed for about a minute.

Makes a thick, frothy smoothie, tasted like ripe mixed berries and matcha. Fantastic.

My beloved Mangosteen Green with Matcha was on clearance at the grocery store, which scares me. I really hope they’re not discontinuing it. And they were all out of it!

So I had been meaning to try this tea for awhile (which was also on clearance) and bought it in place of Mangosteen. It brews up that thin red color that only comes from grocery store herbal teas (especially those with rosehips and hibiscus). It’s okay. Not nearly as good as the Mangosteen, but I’ll drink it from time to time.

I’ll confess: I’ve been drinking this as a latte.

Someone else (Ricky? Cofftea, perhaps?) was posting about matcha lattes, and since drinking a cup of just plain matcha doesn’t often appeal to me (sometimes it does, but only very selectively and only every now and then, as with almost all green tea) I thought I would give it a try. I haven’t the first idea what the temp or steep time are. My method is to mix water and milk (I use 2% for almost everything) at a 1:1 ratio in a pot on the stove, heat it until it’s hot but not so hot that it seems likely to bitter the powder, then I sift the matcha through the bottom of one of my mesh basket infusers to reduce it to fine powder and clear lumps, whisk it, and pour it into a cup into which I’ve already added a tiny bit of raw honey. The results are delicious. It’s a non-standard way to drink matcha, obviously (though my Japanese friend tells me that taking matcha with milk is pretty common in Japan, so I don’t feel like an utter heretic), so I’m going to avoid trying to review this matcha as compares to other matchas (especially as I’m hardly a connoisseur)…but I do like it. It seems tolerant of the method of preparation; I have yet to make a bitter cup. The caffeine content is fair, the color of the powder is rich and bright enough to promise that whatever their processing methods or sources are, they’re (more or less) legitimate, the aftertaste is sweet and grassy. No complaints.

I brought some sugar with me to work now so I’m giving this one another go. So I’m going to toss in a couple pinches of sugar and see if that makes this happy for me.

Things are pretty much the same as day before yesterday when I had this so I won’t repeat all that. Oddly, though, that spicy smell from yesterday is a little different (maybe because of the sugar?) and makes me crave boiled crawfish. Just thought I’d throw that out there.

The taste is sweet (duh) and light but the fruity isn’t as there any more – covered up by the sugar, I’m thinking. But the big question: does the sugar kill the astringency? Well, yes and no. The astringency isn’t there during the swallow or right after (yay!) but it seems to kind of sneak back up a few seconds after each swallow, coating the back half of my mouth with a tiny bit of bitter almost morning-breath taste/feel (boo!). It’s just barely a hint but I find I’m reacting to it strongly. Most of the time I can take a little bitterness – might even seek it out on the rare occasion. But something about this one just makes me wince a little after each sip. Not happy making.

Leaving the rating where it is. Oh well.

2g/5oz

Rated … points, not for the vendor, but for the maker, who manually controlled every single step in the processing of this tea, who also wrote a book about more than 70 varietals of Wuyi Yan Cha. I considered myself very lucky to have got this tea, and feel inadequate about describing it.

It is always hard to describe a good Wuyi Yan Cha. In my experience, a good Wuyi is often intertwining of youth and advanced age. The best tea leaves are from trees of 20 years or older, newer leaves and larger leaves mixed to a ratio that serves for the optimal flavor profile. The newly roasted Wuyi bears “breaths of fire” and should be “rested” for at least a few months before being used. When it rests for a year or more, the “fire” has faded and the taste becomes milder and smoother. At this time, the tea is like a perspicacious, senior man, with essence of age and vitality of youth.

About this specific Wuyi tea – it was made in 2008 and has rested since then in sealed condition. The first a several infusions yields a lighter fruity taste before the typical warm Wuyi flavor reaches your throat. After each sip, there is slight sweetness and fruity aroma lingering around. Within a few infusions, sweet aftertaste appears. One may not even realize existence of this sweet aftertaste, unless taking some plain water and finding the water tastes slightly sweet. Whether or not being consciously realized by drinker, this sweet aftertaste helps add flavor to each next infusion.

I would typically have 12 infusions or more in each tea session (with less leaf used and longer infusions, one may do fewer infusions than this). At the end of the day, I would love to soak the spent leaves in cold water. Then it becomes my first cup of tea the next day.

No matter how many infusions are applied, eventually the spent leaves always look so alive and in shape. I believe it’s a quality from the aged tea tree, young spring leaves, artisan roasting and patient resting all together.

7g leaves in 4oz. water

(I apologize if these notes look wordy. I am taking a writing class and having myself trained into describing every detail with a lot of words…)

Gasp! I don’t think I have enough for another full cup after this! :,( Decided to make a hot chocolate latTEA.

4g tea
2oz almost boiling water
4oz fat free milk warmed during the last 30 sec of the tea’s steeping
1tsp drinking chocolate milk

Steeped the tea for 6 min in the water then decanted it into the milk, added the drinking chocolate mix, and stirred.

The spice is most obvious in this drink, followed by the chocolate and last the tea base. It’s not a strong flavor, but just enough to say “hey, this isn’t an espresso latte”. The texture probably would have been a lil better if I’d used all milk, but I didn’t want to messs w/ it. A perfect cup of indulgence!