Featured & New Tasting Notes

Shorter steeping times are the key to good 1st flush Darjeeling brews!! I was unaware of this at first, creating very bitter brews, but since I corrected my prep methods, I’ve found a new love for them. This one is excellent. For all of you who know the taste of 1F Darjeelings, this one has all the right characteristics in the right quantities…the sweet floral hints (different than those of light oolongs) light mouth feel, light astringency, not bitter at all, with that lovely Darjeeling “trademark.”

This Assam is a CTC BOP second flush and it is very suddenly apparent when you see, smell, and taste this tea. To start off, it has a deep brown, chocolate liquor (similar to coffee). It has a robust malty aroma that is unilateral in that it is strongly simple and flat. When you drink this tea, you really don’t taste much. There is a certain briskness to it (2.5 of 5) that is apparent on the sides of the palate; however the strength of the tea overshadows the briskness that would accompany the rear of the palate (and quite possibly mellows out the bit as well). The Numalighur is very full bodied and provides a powerfully clean finish. In addition to this, lingering on this tea is intense to the point that it feels like it coats the tongue. TeaGschwendner is right when they say that this tea handles cream and sugar well (for the purpose of tasting, I did not use any additives). My consensus, this tea makes a great post-meal tea if you’re in the need for pick me up. Keep in mind that it is strong.

Post-N.B.:
This tea will leave your taste buds shot. Not in a bad way; however, this should be the last tea one should try if you’re going through more than one.

Meh. Maybe I didn’t steep this long enough? It just tastes like hot cigars. And if I want that I drink Tea Spot’s Red Rocks. I’m really disappointed in Adagio’s Rooibos Sampler. I’ll give this another shot with a longer, stronger steep and add some milk & sweetener.

I’ve been drinking so much coffee lately I figured it was time to switch back to tea for a bit. This one is an old favorite and has the body (and chocolatey goodness!) to stand up to all the coffee. Drank it along side home made banana oatmeal brulee. Yum!

remarkably sweet and soft. Mix with half a teaspoon of honey and a dash of cinnamon and enjoy

This has got to be the lightest tea I’ve ever drunk. The first time I brewed it, following the guidelines for the tea, I could hardly believe I was drinking tea. I get very little floral quality and just a nip of pungent grassy character. Turning up the heat and increasing the time added depth, but it also added astringency. I’m not sure I’ll be pursuing too many more yellow teas. The post-steeping buds were very beautiful and fresh-looking.

Fantastic, deep color and fruity scent. Perfect nighttime tea – a little sweet with a full, fruity flavor. 1st Steep water:180 degrees, and steeped for just over 8 min.

All of you people posting about peach teas reminded me that I haven’t had any of this since I got back from my trip. I’ve now fixed that state of affairs.

This is still really good, still one of my favourite flavoured teas. There’s something about the combination of peach and oolong that works really well together, more so than many other fruit flavoured teas I’ve tried, and something about this peach oolong in particular that especially works for me. This really does taste like peach rather than peach flavouring, and the balance of the flavour and the tea is just right.

I got a bit overenthusiastic and used a little too much leaf this time, and used boiling water instead of water at just slightly below boiling point, so I ended up with a slightly stronger flavour and just a little more astringency than I prefer. Will make sure to go back to my usual method with this tea next time.

This is possibly the best masala chai I’ve ever had. The coconut and lemongrass blend perfectly with the other spices. Great both plain and mixed with coconut milk.

The smell of this tea is delightfully peachy and conjures up images of sweet, ripe fruit, that’s dripping with juice when you bite into it on a hot summer day. Mmmm…

The taste was surprisingly light and delicate without any of the biscuity/baked flavour I’m used to tasting in oolongs. But then again, I’m not exactly an expert with this type of tea – if there was a ‘Oolongs For Dummies’ I’d totally be there! Suffice to say I have no idea what a Wuyi oolong is supposed to be like, so I’ll skip that and just evaluate it on it’s own.

The flavour is smooth, sweet and fruity and the peach isn’t overwhleming. It tastes very natural unlike some flavoured teas which taste like someone dumped in a bottle of perfume. I’d say this is probably my favorite Stash tea to date.

This tea is great! Off the nose, I am getting a muscatel & vegetal aroma with a hint of cherry. It’s a full bodied green tea that lingers little and offers a very light briskness (0.75 out of 5, really that mild). You get a light buttery sweetness on the tongue alongside and a milder vegetal than you would get with a Sencha (the Shincha is the first month’s/Spring harvest of Sencha). I definitely recommend this tea. Not horribly complex, but a lovely tea!

(Caution: brew at 60°C/140°F)

Oh my Steepster account, I hearts you like air. And like tea. And like my LJ account. Which says a LOT. You inspire me to do experiments with long forgotten samples like today, which is loads of fun, even when largely unsuccessful in finding undiscovered diamonds. And on top of that I get to babble about each one at length which makes it even more fun. Never leave me.

Right, so I’ve made an emergency pot of Lapsang Souchong. I need it on top of all this experimenting. Especially that last one there which I think must have been the worst of the lot. (Especially because it could have been avoided if I had not stupidly decided reading the info on the package regarding contents was unnecessary)

This is a stable. This is always a great cup of tea. Smokey and rough and JUST right. Enough experiments for me. I’ll stick to this for the rest of the evening.

I’m not sure how to enter the temperature. I poured the water into the cup just after boiling (about 200°) but it quickly dropped to around 180° and stayed there. Anyway, It was pleasant start to the morning. I still smell more than I taste in this tea.

This is the first time I have tried this tea thanks to MandyB. This tea is a wonderful rarity because the name ORANGE Dulce makes me think pure Orange Black Tea but it’s very different because it’s floral and sweet, too…it’s not overly orange nor is it a BOLD Black Tea Flavor. It seems to be a nice happy medium of everything! Very Nice!

Ending the work week on an almond-y note. I love this tea. It smells so good. This tea makes me want to bake goodies and fill my house with this smell. There are so many almond slivers in this tea that when it’s super hot, you can see little oil globules on the surface. Mmmm…globules.

Oh yeah, if anyone is interested in a tea swap, let me know. I have several greens that I’d like to give to a good home.

I normally don’t like fruit flavored green teas, because the tea can’t stand up to the fruit, but this tea has a nice balance of strong sencha and cherry flavors.

Desperately needed something for chapped lips and cold hands. My choices are limited these days. I accidentally spilt all my Earl Grey. The Yunnan Noir is past it’s due date. I’m not in the mood for Jasmine tea. Blood Orange tea is too sour for right now. The others were all samples and have been summarily drank. That’s really okay, because Gunpowder shines in moments like these.

I’m going to break a precedent and try and analyze Gunpowder’s character. The liquor is Orange-Red. Smells like good tobacco, smoked herbs and orange peels. It has a thirsty smoke taste. The slight vegetable notes that you can catch are very dry. It feels fantastic on chapped lips, I can tell you that. Has almost a scotchy taste. Yep, yep, that’s it, I’m done. I’m comparing it to scotch… And you have to understand that this cup of tea is so perfect right now, that I really don’t care. Regards.

My first experience in Pu-erh, and definitely not a bad choice for a beginners Pu-ehr.
This tea is great for it’s modest level of complexity. Change steep times by 30 seconds, and find entirely new flavors.
The downside to this tea is that it IS a beginners tea, and as such lacks some of the maturity of other aged Pu-erhs, but still a great introductory Pu-erh.
I find that this tea brings me to a plateau, so it’s a great “long day working” tea.

I love this tea! Trilogy, Grape, and Passionberry Bliss are my favorite flavors :D Great after a big meal :) Grape tastes like Grape Soda!

I got this tea in one of the steepster selects. It came in a sampler pack. It was really good. It was a nice black tea with just the right amount of orange and cranberry without being too “fakey”.

I was craving a dirty chai misto, so I grabbed my chocolate chai.

3oz double strength premade coffee, boiled used to steep 2.25 g of tea for 5 min. Instead of placing my ingenuiTEA right on top of the cup I was going to drink out of, I placed the tea concentrate in a pan, added 3oz cold fat free milk and heated it up again and then poured the dirty chai misto in my cup and enjoyed!

This is quite nice – White Peony with a kick.
Smokey, with a hint of spices but still on the mellow side.
Holds two infusions easily.

Got 2 steeps out of this at about 2 and 3 minutes. I didn’t really know what to expect here, thought it would be sort of boring but it’s definitely not. Both infusions are really good – slightly vegetal and slightly fruity. The leaves are very good quality with lots of golden tips.

Does anyone else like to drink this only as iced tea? When I first bought some I made it hot and I couldn’t stand the taste. My next batch was made as sun tea and it was really good. Like it was a whole new taste.