Organic Victoria Tea

my least favorite American Tea Room tea i’ve tried so far. but i still like it okay. i think it’s just not my thing is all. i’ve kinda been on a rose overload lately.
i’ll give it a rest and taste it again in a week or so.

now hey look!
my tea from Dammann arrived.
http://instagram.com/p/iJoK4-Ic4J/
nicely done post office. nicely done.

I had this tea yesterday but never logged it. I ordered a sample of this tea because I wanted to compare it (bergamot, vanilla, rose) to the new Lady Grey (bergamot, vanilla).

The weird thing about this one was the fact that the steeped tea had a somewhat earthy note. It may have more Keemun in the base, I think. It’s not something I look for in my blends, to be honest, but I’m not really a fan of earthy teas. The flavors were somewhat muted… I wanted more of everything: more rose, more bergamot, more vanilla. But otherwise it was a fairly tasty tea and I had no problem drinking the entire cup. I do think I prefer the Lady Grey between the two of them, just because I like the base a bit better (but not as much as the base on Lemon Drop).

Definitely not your usual, manly Earl by any stretch. However, it is a pleasant take on an old hat. I was quite surprised that vanilla, rose, and bergamot could work so well together. One never tried to overpower the other. That and rose didn’t make this taste like bathwater, which is a common complaint I have with petal-blended blacks sometimes. If I had any gripe it’s that the vanilla presence wasn’t strong enough. But then again, I’m spoiled on Cream Earl Greys. More of an afternoon black blend than a morning one but still worth a looksy.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/04/12/review-american-tea-room-organic-victoria-tea-3/

Extremely girly/elderly-ladies-who-lunch take on EG. Name is fitting. At first I blanched at the smell of the dry leaves—rose perfume, whoa—but there’s a fresher, less musty floral scent in the cup. The creaminess of the vanilla keeps the perfume burn in check and rounds things out nicely. Definitely not a regular thing for me (I’m pretty durn ungirly most of the time) but kind of cool for novelty.

I have finally found the perfect tea to grace the fine bone china teapots from Great Britain. Organic Victoria Tea. First, it’s a beautiful tea. The dry tea is a mixture of black tea and rose petals. Such a beautiful contrast. It smells of perfumed black tea as the bergamot is definitely there. Very nice and dainty.

205/2 min – Wow. This is a dark tea. It smells just like a creamy Earl Grey. I can smell the bergamot, the roses and (ack) the vanilla. Okay, vanilla’s not exactly what I like in my cup of tea, but I’ll give it a go… The taste is nice. It’s like a floral Earl Grey. No single ingredient overpowers the others and it’s all very well-balanced. I like that I can actually pick out the flavor of the rose petals. Usually they seem to get lost in the teas that I drink. The vanilla is not as evident when the tea is hot. In fact, it adds a hint of a creamed taste to the tea. However, when the tea cools, the finish is all vanilla. I ended up pitching the remainder of my cup. This was quite a nice surprise.

This is a smooth, fragrant and balanced tea. A refreshing change from typical Earl Greys, and something that I’m probably going to sip a lot of this spring!

I agree with Dinosara and didn’t love the base tea. The combination of flavorings has the potential to be great but just didn’t make it. A cleaner base and somewhat bolder flavors would have won me over. It’s a pleasant enough tea, and I’ll certainly finish my 4-cup sample, but I won’t reorder.

Sip down! Part of me was tempted to save the last of it to symbolically drink it in one of my Fairmont Empress teacups but typical hoarding moi still has them, and the accompanying teapot, tucked away in their boxes deep in the back of the cupboard.

This is essentially a nice EGC with a touch of rose. Not sure if I’d buy more since I’d still rather have a cup of good ole ECG from Zen, but I wouldn’t mind having another cup any way.

This tea smells just perfect in the bag. However, in the cup, all I could taste was bitter black tea. It had even some smoky aftertaste. Unfortunately, no roses or other flavors became apparent to me. I didn’t expect much rose to begin with, but I was definitely hoping for a more distinct vanilla. On the bag, the suggestion was to brew it for 4 minutes. I wouldn’t recommend that. It would make this pretty strong tea even more bitter. I’ll experiment, brewing it for 2 minutes and see what happens, but I don’t think it will become my rose/vanilla/bergamot combination.