Featured & New Tasting Notes

Jasmine, Jasmine, Jasmin… All I can say is wow. It hits you in the nose like a prize fighter.
The tea is clean and mellow and is stronger than any other jasmine tea I have tasted, and not in a bad way. You can smell the jasmine wafting off the tea. My wife could smell the tea sitting 5 feet away. This is not a tea I would drink everyday, but its a nice change of pace. I really enjoyed this tea and will drink again when in the mood.

Pomegranate flavor pairs surprisingly well with the slightly smoky, vegetal Tikuanyin oolong base. The texture is very silky and buttery, and the pomegranate lingers pleasantly on the tongue. The flavoring has a good balance with the tea; I am always gladdened when I find flavored teas that still taste like proper tea.

A swap tea from jennlea – thanks!

I guess I’m losing my mind. I can’t taste any real floral or honey notes here. This tea is just screaming Darjeeling to me. It has a much lighter muscat flavor, but it’s there, and it’s drying out my tongue. Blergh.

EDIT: Maybe I spoke too soon; I’m getting a strong honey aftertaste the more I drink.

Yay.
Oh yay.

I ordered this on a whim after reading the other glowing reviews. I like pears, and I LOVE caramel. Rooibos – not so much. I’m not into the wood flavor.

Opening this bag, I actually swore out loud in joy – it SMELLED SO GOOD. So totally pear like. So yummy. When I walked it by a co-worker this morning, she said it smelled like pear skin and honey.

Brewing, it’s a beautiful brown-red. And then the flavor was amazing. When I first tried it, I wasn’t as excited as I was once I added a tiny bit of sweetner. I do like my teas sweeter. And for me, adding the half pack of splenda made it sing. The pear jumped out, and the caramel was extra creamy then.

I like this tea. I like this tea a LOT. Yum!

When this tea is steeping, it smells like fruity pebbles. When I go to drink it, it smells like fruity pebbles. I’ll let it be known that fruity pebbles are a guilty pleasure of mine. The tea itself doesn’t taste like the cereal (fortunately, I think that’d be peculiar for earl grey!!). It’s delicious, just like the description….smooooth. I don’t think it needs to be sweetened, it tastes fine as is. I did sweeten it and add milk, but that’s my preference. Dreamy.

I am having a string of bad luck with teas this week. Or at least my morning teas. This one I didn’t brew long enough and it left it feeling thin. 5 minutes is definitely the way to go on this one. That’s what I get for not checking. Also, it doesn’t benefit at all from being in a travel tumbler. Not having the chance to smell it while sipping makes this tea flat and thin(ner) and pretty much like construction paper. Thankfully, once I got it down below sloshing-out level, I took the tumbler lid off and that improved the tea quite a lot. It was still too thin (my fault with the shorter steep though) but it was back to tasting nutty and nicely cardboard-y and a little hint of fruity. So user error on this one. Oops.

I can definitely smell the cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg as soon as I open the packaging. I find myself imagining chocolate as well, but I think it’s more a mental association than an actual scent. As it steeps I smell mainly the cloves and cinnamon – a very “wintry” scent to me conjuring up warmth, mulled cider, and baked goods.

The liguor is a lovely shade of burnt orange. The taste is primarily of cinnamon and cloves/nutmeg, with just a hint of ginger on the finish. It is a bit “sharp” to me, but then I prefer my chai without too much spice. I added about 1.5 tsp sugar and a bit of milk and that mellows it out enough for me. I think it could use vanilla, but I feel that way about all spiced chais. Overall this tea tastes exactly how it should based on the ingredients. If you like chai, this is a very good bagged blend.

I hope this tea will wake me up. I’m feeling a bit fuzzy headed, maybe from the “get some zzz’s” tea I drank at 10pm. I did sleep a bit late this morning.

Oh, very nice! It smelled and looked lovely in the tin, but it had a very weak color and hardly any scent at all in the mug — I almost let it steep longer, and then I thought, No, I always do this to green teas; I should just drink it. And I’m glad I did, because all of that loveliness came right back out in the taste.

This is definitely my favorite blend to use for iced tea. When brewed for 10 minutes and iced, this tea is smoother than smooth. Full of flavor, but never bitter.

Smells amazing. That’s about it. I wasn’t to pleased with the deceptive nature of this tea. With what appears to be a hint chamomile and a few Goji berries this tea is easily over steeped. Perhaps I shall give this one another try in the future with a lesser steep time. Flavor over all misses orange as it’s primary target and we’re left with just the taste of chamomile to keep us entertained. If you like that then give this a try. If not, don’t be deceived by the aroma!

LOVE the smell upon opening the bag. I could just sit here all afternoon with my nose in the leaves. Sweety and creamy smelling, with a touch of greenness. On pouring the hot water over it, it goes back to smelling like any regular genmaicha, and then returns to its sweet malty scent when the leaves are removed.

Oh my, this is delicious. I might have difficulties sharing this one. I’ve always found genmaicha to be a soothing tea, and this one is no different. It almost feels /more/ caring because of the slightly desserty flavour. The toasted rice flavour is toned down quite a bit, and the green tea doesn’t leave me with that flavour that makes me dislike so many of them. This is pure delicious. This tea makes me happy!

(this is the bagged version)

I’m craving more Adagio sour apple, but I don’t have any at work. pouts

Lupicia doesn’t let me down though, I love their teas. This is a lightly flavored cherry black with a hint of sweetness.

Just not quite what I’m in the mood for.

I’m getting so predicatble – drink this late at night, report it in the moning whilst sipping Pai Mu Tan.
It’s worth noting that I again oversteeped this. It’s not a typical Darj, it’s pretty strong.
Oversteeping does bring on a tobacco-y resonance, but more subtle.
It can hold up from very quickly steeped to about 5 minutes, and even though it changes a lot, it’s good all the way across the spectrum.

Hit the wrong button and it all goes ::poof::. Sigh.

This is the last bit of leaf I have for this tea so I thought I’d do it in the gaiwan to hopefully help this tea go out with a bang.

I think it worked.

The smell is delicious – exotic and fruity with a rich and homey scent to it. And the taste? Yum. I’m not exactly sure what the water temp was (but I’m guessing a bit hotter than normal) but either that or the use of the gaiwan has really brought out the richness in this tea. Normally the fruity taste dominates but today, it’s the buttery caramel sort of flavor (like kettle corn) that takes top billing. The fruity is still there but as a bit more of a supporting actor.

This cup is a perfect ‘last’ cup for this tea. Hopefully the wonder will carry through a few more steeps but even if it doesn’t, this tea is leaving my pantry on a great note.

This is my fave tea from 52 teas thus far. (I haven’t been brave enough to try the maple bacon but it is sitting on my counter just waiting patiently for me.)

This is a lovely green tea with such a smooth, creamy flavor with a delightfully refreshing taste of mint. I made a pot for a friend and I this morning and I don’t think she liked it much as she only had one cup (I had at least 5, but they were from the traditional tea cup, not a big ol’ mug). This may be one of my new faves.

Sorry, time to head back to the office with a cuppa this delightfulness to go!

Eponymous tea! I’ve been looking forward to drinking, er, Shanti, for some time now. Ick, this feels weird, referring to it as “Shanti”. I know the Jessicas and Elizabeths and Jennifers of the world are used to this, but I’ve never met another Shanti before in my life, so this is exciting. Maybe I should take a page out of the GOP’s playbook and start referring us as “Shanti the Person” and “Shanti the Tea”? Or perhaps “Shantea”?

Mmm, these leaves smell mysterious and opaque. I know opaque isn’t a smell, but bear with me. You know how colors like lavender and periwinkle are always opaque and milky looking? Well, if that opaque quality had a smell, it’d smell like Shantea. It’s a very cozy, comforting smell.

Whoa. The smell coming from the liquor is smoky. Kind of like cigarettes, to be honest. And under the cigarette smoke, there’s the—OMFG I JUST SNORTED TEA UP MY NOSE. Well, that’s a first. Ow!

Where was I? Oh yeah. Smells like smoke and just barely like some kind of salted vegetable. Sipping now…Smoke! Smoke smoke smoke! There’s quiet a bit of bitterness, but it’s a good bitter. A drinkable bitter. A dull, non-astringent bitter. It fits in with the smoke nicely, and I think the tea would taste worse if it wasn’t there. The smoky, dull, opaqueness of the tea is actually making me a little sleepy. The more I sip on this, the more I taste sweet grass and hay. And gasoline, maybe. And, wow, now I’m getting flashbacks of the smell of the farms along the highway in my rural hometown in central California. It doesn’t even taste like smoke to me anymore, it tastes like driving home. And now I’m feeling all nostalgic and homesick and want to take a nap. Thanks a lot, Shantea.

Oh dear.

Looks like I’m going to pay a visit to the post office on wednesday. It’s a really small post office, my local one. Hardly more than a kiosk really. So I often get helped by the same person. This is the third tea order to have arrived in… let’s see… erm… a week.

Oh dear. whistles innocently

I’m in a green mood today. What luck that I’ve presently got a cupboard just teeming with new and interesting stuff!

I’m pretty sure I’ve had dragonwell before, but I can’t remember what I thought of it. The name just seems too familiar for me to not have had it. I just can’t remember, in that case, what I thought of it. So here we go!

OMG these leaves are flatter than a flat thing! They look like they’ve been ironed. Or a steamroller went over them. I’m all fascinated by how they look in the tin. All springy yellowy green and flat and stackable. (Whaddaya mean tea leaves aren’t toys?) They smell kinda sweet but a bit salty when dry.

I dosed the leaves like I otherwise would and let the water cool off a little longer before pouring it on. I’m not worried about the water temperature. It’s more the leaf dosage. For some reason I have a sneaky suspicion that I should have used more leaves. Not sure why. Maybe it’s the flatness of them (OMG flat leaves!) that makes me think so. They look like they take up less space. I’m tempted to throw in another pinch of leaves, but I think it would be better to leave that sort of experimentation for the next time. I’ll just use less water for subsequent steeps.

Okay, this is very very pale! Now I’m even more suspicious about my leaf to water ratio. The aroma is erm… interesting though. Salty and seaweed-y and kinda.. I don’t want to say what this note reminds me of. You’ll laugh at me. No, I don’t want to say. Okay, okay, Royal Canin Maine Coon cat food, okay?! Yes, I know it’s weird, but smelling it, I just got the strongest associations to when Boannan was alive and I’d mix up a bucketful of cat food. (2 parts RC Sensitive, 1 part RC Maine Coon, if anybody’s interested in that side of things)

Hm. Yes. Hm. I definitely should have used more leaf. Just a smidge. Apart from what seems like a slight weakness, it has a very special taste. Kind of like it smells. Salty and seaweed-y, but not as cat food-y, thank you very much. It’s smooth, though, with not a hint of astringency in sight, it’s just this rather special flavour. Right now it’s not my perfect green, but if I was subjected to this often and over a longer period of time, I think I might end up being rather partial to it. Rating is therefore likely to be adjusted a few times in the future.

I saw lately someone (Jillian?) wrote that supposedly the third steep of this was the superior one, so it’ll be interesting to see how this develops.

Panyang Congou has lofty, nutty scents, with faint additions of honeyed sweetness. With a beautiful raw sienna color, the liquor is soft, with nonabrasive flavors of baked apples and spring hay.

From the Fujian province, Panyang Congou is a close relative of Panyang Golden Needle and Golden Monkey, but slightly older and made in a more traditional style, with the least amount of tips.

Congou is a corruption of the Chinese words Gong Fu, or Kung Fu, which mean “High Mastery”. A tea trade classification for Chinese black teas with this particular twisted shape, the word refers to the masterful skill required to produce the teas by hand. Today, the teas are made almost entirely by machine. The leaves are expertly rolled into a tight twist before slowly oxidizing to take on the fruity but unsweetened flavor of baked apples.

Shin-Ryoku is a Shincha or “new tea”/“first flush”, essentially the first harvest of sencha in Japan. If I remember correctly, its traditional to only consume Shincha within the first couple months of harvest, regardless of vacuum-sealed packaging and freezing. But, hey, it was a free sample, so I have no real grounds to complain.

Anyhow, this tea is VERY temperature sensitive.

Den is kind enough to personalize each tea’s brewing instructions, on his website. Which calls for 1.5 teaspoons 4oz of water at 160f/71c for 60 seconds.
My first attempt, ended up with 1.5 teaspoons around 170f/76c for 60 seconds, 5 oz of water. It was too bitter for me.

I tried again with 4oz of water at 160f, maybe even high 150f’s by the time I put the leafs in, for 60 seconds. It came out a watery-pale yellow, compared to the more common gold-yellow seen in sencha, that I was worried I under-steeped it, perhaps I did, but I found it to be a smooth with natural sweet notes.

The suggestions for re-steeping on Den’s is not personalized. The FAQ area has some generic suggestions, and not specific to this tea, which recommended 15 seconds for Sencha’s. However this may not apply to Shin-Cha, due to quantity of leaf (for such small quantities of water, its common for most sencha to be only 1 teaspoon, not 1.5 like shincha).

Second steep, I “tried” 170f for 25seconds, and it had the taste I’m more familiar with in sencha, but I found the bitterness to sneaking in. I think the bitterness never left me, following subsequent steep attempts, always sitting on my palate. Re-steep at 185f for 3rd time, 60 seconds, the bitterness started to come in much stronger. By the fourth, 5mins boiling, and fifth 10mins boiling, it was more akin water, despite a strong colour persisting.

From my experience, this tea walks a very thin line between sweetness and astringency, that is ultimately decided on by the water temperature, sure this is common with all japanese tea’s, but in this case, the temps were almost gyokuro levels for me. If I had more of it, I would like to experiment with it further. I’m ultimately curious what would happen if I had kept the water temp low for the second steep. Or just as high, as my “guess”, but with only 15 seconds. Freshly harvested Shincha/Shin-ryoku may also affect the taste, but we’re going to have to wait another 3 months for that.

The tried-and-true go-to tea for me. I love the body on this Earl Grey, the other ones that I have come across have either been too drying on the palette or too full. It’s a wonderful medium bodied black tea with just a slight hint of bergamont. As a consequence, I usually drink it sans sugar and cream. Perfectly balanced, and I’m never disappointed with the brew. It’s a good pick me up and always satisfies… sort of like the same way a PB&J will tide you over when you’re sick of grilled cheese.

This is obviously a different batch than the little sample I had before. There’s a smokey sort of scent to the leaves and the tea – almost like a very light lapsang scent. I get some of the smokey/roasted/whatever flavour at the start of each sip – it’s not so much a taste as a combination of taste and smell working togther, if that makes any sense to you guys. I’m relieved that I can still taste the delicate, nutty flavour in the rest of the sip. :)

This is an incredibly hefty, filling fruit tea, absolutely my favorite of the Tea Table tea of the month teas so far. It’s delicious and utterly full of fruit, with the strongest tastes being strawberry and blackberry. No matter how I steep it, it never comes out less than chewy — I am at a loss to know why the company’s website describes this as a “mild flavor”! Although they’re quite correct about its lovely deep magenta color. I need to order more of this right away.

The light lemony scent is present in the dry leaves, but when brewed is sweet and nutty.
The liquor is a beautiful amber. I was also thrilled to discover that what I thought was just a twig in my leaves was two leaves and a bud, which opened on steeping.

The taste is sweet and nutty like the scent, with a bright edge from the bergamot but no noticeable citrus flavor.

I added about 1.5 tsp white sugar and a healthy splash of milk (I’m a heathen I know). To me, most flavored black are better with sugar and cream/milk. I find them comforting.

Overall impression – I bought a tin of this tea because I enjoyed it so much at the tea house. I’m not disappointed!

Wow! This was a lot better than I was expecting. Maybe because of the poor reputation for tea and England in the States, I always thought that “Earl Grey” would be dull and bland. How wrong I was! The sweet citrus smell given off by the tea leads to an equally pleasing taste. Definitely the most tasteful black tea of the Adagio sampler I have been going through. I wish I could tell you how it tasted with a little milk and sugar, I enjoyed it so much plain that I didn’t want to try it! Probably the Black tea I will be recommending to new tea drinkers, not once did I get even a hint of bitterness off it.

See all my reviews at http://teageek.org