9 Tasting Notes
This tea is no where near as strong as I was expecting for a black tea (forgot to put that little bit in the name here…). The tea has a very light floral note on the first brew and doesn’t seem to get much stronger as the tea steeped in the rest of the water. The second pot tastes a little bit stronger (and was steeped for a minute or so more), but still tastes more like an oolong than a proper black tea. This tea is very nice for sipping on, but I don’t think my other oolongs will have to worry about being replaced any time soon by their pu-eh brother.
Preparation
This tea has an amazing floral scent and taste to it. If you’re not familiar with pu-erh teas, these are fermented, condensed tea “cakes”. You put one in your tea pot, add water, and then serve. One tea cake has made about 4 pots of tea before it got a bit of a bitter taste to it. Steep it for about 1 minute and use a ceramic tea pot.
Preparation
The smell of this tea is heavenly; the chocolate and hazelnut smell is present from opening the bag to brewing the tea. I think that I may have not steeped it long enough or the water wasn’t hot enough because the flavor was kind of muted. The chocolate taste is fairly faint, but the hazelnut is pretty strong, but still really yummy!
Preparation
This tea kind of threw me off guard. It had a pretty mild smell when I opened the bag (it was a gift from a friend of mine) and I was very unsure about how I would feel about a cucumber oolong blend. So I made a cup instead of a pot.
The smell after steeping (steeped for 3.5 minutes for the first cup) was faintly of cucumbers (no where near as strong/annoying as most body sprays) and the taste was crisp and clean. I felt extremely refreshed after drinking the cup that I had to go and make a whole pot of it. I don’t know if I will order some on my own, but I will definitely enjoy the bit that I have.
Preparation
I made sure to shake up the bag a little bit before opening it, so I could make sure that I didn’t have the same problem a friend of mine had (all the blueberry bits sitting near the bottom of the bag). Once I opened it, holy crap, the smell of blueberries hit me. In a good, sweet, fresh blueberry kind of way.
For the first pot of tea, I let it steep for 3 minutes and then took the basket out and set it aside. The smell of blueberries seemed to be even stronger than it was when I first opened the bag (which I totally didn’t think was possible). It has a light, sweet taste and was good until the last drop.
For the second pot, I used the same batch of tea leaves from the first and just steeped it for an extra minute and a half or so (4.5 minutes instead of 2.45-3). It was a little bit lighter in taste, but still delicious.
Preparation
It has a really strong strawberry smell before and after steeping. I’m content just holding it up to my nose and smelling it in. The taste was sweet and light and it didn’t have a bitter taste to it at all. Definitely one I want to keep stocked in my cabinet