Alphakitty

Bao Zhongs are my favorite types of oolongs. I got hooked on them when I received a sampler from The Tea Smith as a gift, and it was one of the included types. Of course their teas are almost impossible to get stateside, so I’ve been trying many other Bao Zhongs (or Pouchong, as it’s also called). I think they’re my favorite type of teas hands down, so of course I had to try one from Persimmon Tree! I’ve been really pleased with their blends I’ve tried so far, but I haven’t dipped in to the unflavored offerings yet.

Well, it’s everything I expected it to be: softly floral and fruity, with grassy vegetal notes and a very full body for a light oolong. There are notes of lilac, and it almost reminds me of mimosa, one of my favorite summer smells. It’s springtime walks, summer heat, and dewy grass. It’s also great iced, and cold brewed it has almost a citrusy kick. Possibly my favorite from TPT that I’ve tried so far!

Thanks to Azzrian for this sample! This has been on my list of teas to try for a loooong time, yet somehow I always forgot to order it. In fact, I placed an order at Persimmon right before I was sent this and somehow didn’t put a sample in my cart. Ah, my brain is a funny thing. Anyway, this one has such amazing reviews and I love oolongs so there’s no way I could pass it up!

I think I did something wrong here, so I am going to hold off rating it for now. I cold brewed it for the usual 12 hours, and the vanilla was totally overpowering! There was a nice citrus note in the background and the oolong base was lovely and bright and floral, but I found my palette overwhelmed by vanilla. It was… frosting-y, which is quite weird since pretty much everyone else says there’s just a hint of it. I have enough for a few more tries though!

Coconut and chocolate is the flavor combination of the gods. Chocolate coconut pudding, chocolate coconut cheesecake, coconut cream pie with chocolate crust, and of course coconut & chocolate tea! I can’t believe that I passed up a sample of this on my first order, so I threw it in this time. I got a coupon for a free ounce of White Guava, but I felt guilty getting a free tea with free shipping and not actually, you know, buying anything, so I threw a handful of samples into my cart. Of course I just got ANOTHER coupon so now I want more samples… it’s an endless cycle.

This is a lovely, earthy tea that reminds me of a coffee latte. Then again, most flavored pu-erhs remind me of coffee if they have a “mocha” aspect. Or more accurately, chicory coffee, it’s got that same earthy acidity. Which this tea certainly does! Though it’s not a sweet and thick chocolate taste but the bittersweet richness you expect from cacao nibs. The coconut is warm and toasty, but less pronounced than I expected it to be. I think I like the coconut notes in their White Coconut Cream better but I like how the coconut melds with the flavors better in this blend. In either case, Persimmon Tree definitely knows how to do coconut right!

I can’t believe I didn’t try this the moment I opened my Butiki order. Seriously, it’s so many things I love put together! Chocolate and raspberries and black, oh my. However, after a bad experience with Adagio’s Raspberry it wasn’t a flavor I really wanted to go at again for a while. It’s a shame, but sometimes a bad cup can temporarily “ruin” a whole type of tea for me—like after an icky green, I don’t want any other greens for a week or so.

I was feeling chocolatey the other day though so I decided to finally give this one a go. I love the huge chunks of raspberry and chocolate chips, it’s nice to see right up front the ingredients listed. The chips are teeny tiny though and my cup brewed up surprisingly clear (a pale amber, clearer than I expect from even a regular black), so I was worried there wouldn’t be a big chocolate punch. I was so wrong! This is REALLY chocolatey, not just in taste but in feel as well. It’s kind of heavy rich and and you can almost feel the chocolate coating your tongue.

The raspberry is subtler, coming in at the end of the sip with a hint of berry sweetness. It’s definitely not as strong as I thought it would be, and I was surprised (but pleased) that chocolate seemed to be the dominant flavor. Well… that might be a bit inaccurate, since I think the base black was the dominant flavor. It’s strong and at the very beginning of the sip it’s all you taste. Personally, I like when you can pick up all the nuances of the base tea—if you’re going to do super heavy flavoring, it doesn’t really matter what you use, but with this tea (and all the Butiki blends I’ve tried) the base really shines and compliments the other flavors. Definitely one of the best chocolate teas I’ve tried!

While my experience with Earl Grey Creams isn’t vast, I’ve liked the ones I have tried a lot. Citrus + cream + a strong black base, what can go wrong? Apparently nothing, since this is a very enjoyable cup. It smells like baked goods and frosting, quite similar to Upton’s version (which I am totally in love with). It’s very vanilla-y with a thick, creamy taste and the black base definitely holds up to these flavors.

However, if I didn’t know this was an EG I might not have identified it as one. The bergamot is a little lost under the other flavors, and I would have preferred it to be a little stronger and bolder. It really just came off as a delicious creamy black, almost dessert-y even without any additions. What I do really like is the base, which is brisk and a little malty which pairs nicely with vanilla and cream, keeping it from being an overwhelmingly sweet cup. I also got 3 steeps out of this, and the creamy flavors stayed strong!

Another floral from my swap with Kittenna! I’m making progress. This is one of the ones I requested since I love floral teas, so I was confused by this when I sniffed it. It’s so… peachy. The description doesn’t mention peach at all, nor is it explicitly in the ingredients, so what gives? I mean, it’s not lightly peach, it’s VERY peach. You’d think they would mention that.

Peach surprise aside, this is a pleasant blend! There are some big jasmine pearls in there, but the taste definitely is only mildly floral in mine. I think the peach kind of masks some of the other flavors, since I’ve lost the subtlety I’d expect from a white blend. The jasmine is there, but only faintly, and that nice “fresh” almost grassy/springy taste from the white seems to be hiding. It’s allllmost there, but it’s hard to pick out individual notes when your entire cup is all BAM PEACH. Funnily enough, this is one of the best peach flavorings I’ve tried, which is odd… why don’t they market this as a peach blend?

I’ve never had white hibiscus, but there’s a soft sharpness (oxymoron, but it makes sense… sort of) going on. A bit tart, so it’s reminiscent of a not-yet-ripe peach. Okay, that doesn’t sound so great, but you know when fruit is almost at its peak, and still has quite a bit of firmness left but the flavor isn’t as strong? That’s honestly when I like fruit best, I like ‘em very firm and that mushiness associated with fresh peaches is a big consistency problem with me. I’m fine with them in baked goods, but fresh… too squishy! So I do like the memories the white hibiscus brings up. I do wish it was less fruity and more floral though, so I’m going to give it a shorter steep! Or perhaps cold brew the rest of my leaves.

I got this in my swap with Will Work For Tea—is it just me, or are oolong and pineapple a very popular flavor combination recently? Or maybe I’m just noticing them more? In any case, I like oolong and I like pineapple, and I’ve found that I really enjoy Lupicia’s fruit-flavored blends so I knew I couldn’t go wrong with this!

The dry leaves don’t smell like pineapple, they smell like a milk oolong! With flavored oolongs I dislike when the “flavor” parts overpower the actual tea, so this made me happy. Plus, you know, I love milk oolongs. After a 13-hour cold brew the pineapple is a lot more subtle than I thought it would be. The oolong is front and center, buttery, sweet and creamy. I don’t know what kind they used, but it really does remind me a lot of a milk oolong, with gentle floral notes in the background as well. The floral aspect reminds me of Butiki’s pineapple oolong, though they are a bit less potent here. The pineapple comes in at the end of the sip, subtle and a bit tangy as pineapple should be. Very natural tasting and not artificial. Another winner from Lupicia, I really need to make an order there soon!

I’m on a chai kick, so I decided to revisit an old favorite tonight… apparently old enough that I haven’t actually logged it here, though I feel like I have a memory of doing so. Oh well! This isn’t going to be a proper review since I played around with it a lot. I was in the mood for a dessert chai: I wanted chocolatey, caramely, nutty. My obious option was to blend (I was going to go with RoT chai + Florence + Caramel Apple Supreme) but felt like I’d lose the spicy chai kick, so instead I made this and added a few things. While it was steeping I cut up a soft caramel candy and threw it in, along with some fresh-cracked pepper and a hint of cloves. Then I poured it over a spoonful of nutella, mixed it all together, and added a splash of milk.

Oh. My. Lord. It is SO good. The additions thankfully don’t overwhelm the chai so it’s quite spicy and strong and the apple is still prominent, but you get a wonderful sweetness from the caramel, chocolatey nuttyness from the nutella and creaminess (presumably from both the caramel and milk). It’s sinfully good.

This is my first warm cup of tea all week, believe it or not—I’ve really been in the mood for cold drinks but I had a stressful day and hot tea always helps me relax. I hadn’t tried this one yet and chai is one of my go-to “calm down, brain!” teas so into the cup it went.

I’m a bit perplexed by this blend. I like my chais spicy, and this definitely delivers, with that back of the mouth heat you get from whole peppercorns. There’s a bit of a bit from the ginger too, but I think the other spices are a bit lacking. I’m not getting much cardamom/cinnamon, and the vanilla is also very faint. The black base is also a bit underwhelming, with no real strong notes to tie everything together. I prefer malty bases for chais usually, and here I kind of taste that, you know, “tea” flavor but it’s really overwhelmed by the pepper and ginger. So it’s both strong and weak, which is kind of a funny conundrum. I think with a little bit of tweaking this could be a nice blend though, I am loving the addition of whole peppercorns!

I logged this a week ago and forgot to write anything! Aah, I’m so terribly behind on tasting notes. When I made my first (and only) Adagio order, I got some coupon thingy during checkout that gave me 10% off. Of course, that negated the free shipping so I had to add more tea! Rather pay for some samples than shipping. They’re sneaky like that!

Anyway, my two samples to balance out the total were this and Thai Chai… which of course were my favorites of the ones I ordered. I mean seriously, I got 3 oz of White Cucumber and 3 oz of Raspberry but NOT of this?! Argh, past me, WHY. This is such a nice, refreshing white. I’ve had it hot, chilled, extra-strength over ice, and this time cold brewed (since their samples are very large). Adagio can be heavy on the flavoring, but this one is done with a gentle hand. The white base is a middle-to-lower-grade white peony but it’s still wonderful cold, crisp and slightly floral. The blueberry is so natural that I was kind of taken aback, since it’s a flavor that is easy to make artificial. Definitely one of my favorites iced, I’ll have to bite the bullet and place another order there!

On a related note, I find Adagio perplexing. A lot of their teas are so-so, but others are downright awful. Yet some are totally wonderful. For example, their Raspberry tastes like cheap candies but Ripe for Romance (a chocolate raspberry black) has a great, authentic raspberry taste. I wonder if they source their flavoring agents from a lot of different places?

And this one is only from 2 days ago! I’m making progress. I got this in my swap with Kittenna, which worked out perfectly since she hates floral teas (particularly rose) and I love them! I’ve had a few rose congous before, but never one with a green base. Rose pairs pretty well with almost any base in my opinion, so why not a green congou?

I cold brewed this as per usual… I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing recently, but it is summer after all. When it’s really hot out I sometimes put a splash of rosewater in my ice water just for an extra refreshing drink, and that’s exactly what this tastes like! Well not exactly, since the green base is pretty prominent, moreso than I thought it would be. The rose though is so nice, perfectly floral and kind of… crisp. Like almost icy and cooling. It’s a different aspect of rose that I’m not really that familiar with since I don’t often have it iced, but I think I will more often now!

I am so behind on my tasting notes, this is from 3 days ago! I think it just slipped my mind, so I suppose I should dive back in. This was in my box from LiberTEAS, which yes I am still digging through. Honestly, I doubt I’m even halfway there yet! The shame of a slow tea-drinker.

I love mango, and it seems to be a flavor that’s pretty easy to capture in tea-form. After a 12-hour cold brew this had a really fresh, juicy mango flavor, almost like fresh juice or biting into a ripe mango. It’s not artificial at all, which is always nice. However, surprisingly I am getting a really strong floral taste as well. I thought at first it might be from the oolong base, which adds some nice grassy vegetal notes, but it’s clearly rose. Like, if I didn’t know better I would swear this was a rose mango blend. Though really, that’s not an issue for me since I LOVE rose! In fact, I think I enjoyed this a lot more because of the rose taste. The fruity and floral notes just go so well together. I’ve really enjoyed the teas I’ve tried from Lupicia so far, they really nail their fruity blends.

A few weeks ago Azzrian mentioned mixing this with vanilla powder, and Stacy was kind enough to send me a little baggie of it so I could try out the combo myself. Sadly you have to let it sit a week or more, so I actually had to be patient about something tea-related. When it comes to new purchase and teas, I am not exactly a patient person, so this was pretty difficult for me. I just kept thinking “has it been a week yet? How about now?” Of course I lost track of time and let it blend for almost 2. I am both impatient and spazzy it seems!

Anyway, this smells just as good with the vanilla, a little creamier and sweeter. I brewed it with some rock sugar as per usual but I think the vanilla adds some extra sweetness as well (though it still wasn’t too sweet by any means, the guranse kind of prevents that!). This is like a different tea now—a Tamarind Pop Float! The creaminess tempers some of the citrus flavors, and the vanilla really brings out the brown sugar taste. It does mask a bit of the woodsy/tobacco notes from the guranse, so I don’t think I’d say that I like this better than the original blend. I think I do like it about the same though, it’s hard to rank one over the other when they’re so similar. I think the no-vanilla is more of an everyday tea (I do drink it several times a week!) whereas the vanilla blend is an occasional treat. I mixed up about an ounce of it so there’s plenty more to go! I also have leftover vanilla powder and am considering putting it in other things too…

So I’ve been having issues with my fridge recently, it’s not nearly cold enough. It was set to 5 when I moved in and had been fine up until recently, when stuff started going bad way too fast. So I turned it to 7 and made my nightly cold brew. I woke up and… it was a tea slushy. What the heck, fridge! It goes up 2 more coldness settings, I shudder to think what they’d do to my tea. So I have it at 6 now… I feel kind of like Goldilocks. In any case, I was really worried that it might have messed with the flavor of the tea, since the leaves were a bit frosty around the edges and I wasn’t sure when it started to freeze up.

Well the flavor is a bit tamer than I would have expected for a 14 hour steep, but I’ll chalk that up to the giant chunks of tea-ice. I really like berry teas and this blend has a pretty unique combination: blueberry and pomegranate are front and center, complimented by a lovely sencha base. I am not familiar with goji berry so I’m honestly not sure if I’m tasting it. There were some pretty large berries in there so I’m guessing they did impart some flavor, I just can’t pick it out from the blueberry/pomegranate. But that’s one of my favorite flavor combinations so I am not going to complain! This is really an excellent iced tea, really refreshing and very natural-tasting.

I got my samples from Epi Tea today, and of course I dove right in! There’s a long list of teas I should try first, but I was dying to taste this one. Lavender Earl Greys are some of my favorite EG blends, and while my current favorite blend is ETS’ Versailles Lavender I’m looking for one in teabag form. I know some loose-leaf fans have kind of a stigma against teabags, but I enjoy having an easy way to brew up a cup when I’m feeling sick or, well, lazy. ^^; Plus these are pyramid bags, so the tea does get to expand quite a bit.

This is a very soft EG. The bergamot, lavender and black base aren’t very assertive, but not in a negative way. It’s very much a tea for slow evenings where you can relax and unwind. In fact, I might have said this was an ear grey cream if I didn’t know better, it has that soft creamy vanilla background taste going on. The lavender is very nice, not overpowering, only slightly perfumey. I let it steep for 6 minutes+ on the second steep (kind of lost track of time!) and it was more agressively floral, which personally I like. This is the best bagged lavender EG I’ve tried!

This is one of those teas I’d never buy for myself but I really wanted to try. I mean, it’s a bit risky to buy a pouch when you can’t know precisely what the flavor is going to be! However, I was super excited to see this in my grab bag because fruity greens are so good for summer and this seems like the perfect blend to experiment with.

Since each cup is going to be different in terms of flavor profile, I’m not going to give this a number rating. I’ve only cold brewed it once, but I got a wonderful cherry berry flavor, really bright and juicy and fruity. There was a hint of strawberry and blueberry, maybe currant going on in the background. Cherry was definitely predominant, and it reminded me a bit of a green-based version of DAVIDs Cherry Blossom. However, I think the “tea” part is more prominent here, which is surprising given how heavily flavored I assumed it would be. There’s a lovely butteriness going on, hints of grassy green poking through all the fruity goodness. This is really fantastic cold, super refreshing! I’m looking forward to making this a lot in the next few weeks, I want to see what other kinds of flavor blends I get!

I have to admit that while I was preparing this cold brew, I thought it was a totally different tea. I meant to make some iced Mandarin Silk, but apparently grabbed this instead. By the time I realized the leaves were already in there, but Kittena was nice enough to send me quite a bit so I’ll still be able to make it hot! This sounds like it would be interesting cold anyway, I mean anything lemon practically screams to be tried over ice.

It brewed up really pale, and I was wondering if maybe I didn’t give it enough time… but 14 hours should be more than enough! Indeed, it’s quite strong, I guess it’s just a light tea. The lemon is really front and center, bright and a bit assertive. It’s tempered by a nice creaminess, with backing floral notes from the white base. Honestly I’d never associate this with Earl Grey if I didn’t know there was bergamot in there, it’s very much a nice lemon white to me. Not that it’s a bad thing, I think lemon overpowers other citrus notes very easily so it masks the bergamot. It reminded me a bit of a lemon tart filling, not mouth-puckeringly sour but with a bit of a bite and a nice sweetness as well.

I went through my notes and noticed that I forgot to write anything about this 11 days ago. Almost two weeks! Oh my. Well, I still remember what it tasted like at least, though honestly I think this is kind of a forgettable tea which is why I, well, forgot it.

I mean, it’s not a bad tea, it’s just, you know, average. A nice chai mix but with no spices that really jump out at you, a gentle black base, soft chocolate flavor that isn’t very bold. I definitely don’t regret drinking it though, and it was a tasty cup even though it didn’t make a big impression. I picked it out of my box from LiberTEAs because I wanted something chocolatey and comforting, and it definitely hit the spot.

It’s pretty far from Christmas, but this smells so good and for some reason I am in a fireplace kind of mood. Maybe it’s the rain + having the AC on, but I wanted something soothing and warming. The ingredients in this fit perfectly!

The dominant flavor here is clove, and as I’ve mentioned before I loooove clove. It’s a complex flavor though, with hints of cinnamon and orange peeking through, and a bit of floralness from the rose petals. The black base is nice, though I’ve found that true of almost all of Upton’s blends. They’re very robust and stand up to bold flavors like the ones here, so while there’s a lot going on Melange Noel is still very tea-y if that makes any sense. I mean, I don’t feel like I am drinking mulled cider or a Christmas drink. It’s very wintery, yes, but a wintery tea, not a wintery drink. Err… I really am not sure if that makes sense, I’m a bit sleep-deprived! As “cold weather” as this is I made a second cup iced and it was just as good, maybe better!

Sometimes I have trouble differentiating Earl Greys. There are just so many, and the basic ones blend together. I do love them though, but I prefer blends with a little something extra to make it stand out. But I’ve been looking for a good everyday, “plain” EG so I was pleased to get this as a sample from Fusion Teas.

This smells strongly bergamot-y in the bag, but it’s more subtle brewed. The citrus is complemented by some faint smoky and fruity notes, and the black base is just as strong if not stronger than these competing flavors. It’s a particularly smooth EG, good both with and without cream & sugar. This is a good evening earl, without some of the astringency or briskness in some blends.

I’m a bit behind on my tasting notes, this was from 2 days ago I think. Since the short cold brews have worked so well with other Caraway teas, so I decided to do it with this one as well. I think I left it in a little too long, since the flavors were pretty strong, but still not overwhelming or artificial.

I’ve become very fond of currant flavored teas recently, though I find it usually pairs best with a black base. I found the idea of a white currant blend very appealing (both with a white base & white currants!), so it was pretty impossible to resist at the sale price. There are whole currants in here, which is always a good sign! They look like baby cranberries, those white ones that sometimes get mixed into bags. There’s a bit of a pink tinge as well, so the resemblance is strong! This is a pretty fruity tea with heavy berry notes, but I don’t know if I would identify it right away with currant. Then again I’m not that familiar with the white variety—it seems to lack a jammy, sweet quality though and is less subtle. The white base works well here, adding supporting floral and fruity notes along with a bit of sweet grassiness. It’s a nice iced tea, though perhaps not exactly what I was expecting.

I got a teabag of this in my fire sale/tea clearing out box from Emilie. Tonight is going to be long and full of work, so I needed something to keep me alert and perky, but is low maintenance to make. Bagged assam fits that perfectly! I’m honestly not even in a “tea mood” but I find when that happens I need to push through and make something simple that I know I’ll like, or I end up taking an extended tea break.

This is a simple but nice assam. It’s bold, bright, brisk… lots of b-adjectives. It’s not overly complex and is quite smooth, with a soft molasses tone. There’s not a lot of malty-ness, which is a bit disappointing since that’s my favorite aspect of assam. But for a bagged tea it’s quite pleasant!

Today I was hit with tea tragedy! Before I get into the gritty details, this sample is from LiberTEAS though I have a sneaking suspicion it was sent to me by someone else as well. Swap confusion! Anyway, I only have enough for 2 cups of this, which is important to my tragic tale.

So, I left some leaves in my IngenuiTEA for a few days… I’ve been drinking only iced/bagged tea and totally forgot about them. It smelled really gross and though I rinsed it multiple times with boiling water the funky smell was not leaving. I don’t like to use soap on any of my tea ware, but I kind of had to in this situation. I used a teeny bit and rinsed it for 10 solid minutes, getting every corner. There was no soap left, I was sure of it! It didn’t even smell faintly of soap! I was wrong, horribly horribly wrong.

I poured the water over the leaves for this tea and SOAP BUBBLES. I panicked and skimmed them off the top, hoping for the best. But alas, soapy tea. It’s actually almost drinkable, and I think it’s honestly a mental block more than a taste issue because you can’t taste soap. But I know it’s there! A shame, since this tea smells divine and in the sip I took there was a lot of maple and brown sugar flavor. I only have one try left with this blend, hopefully it works out better next time.

I have a love-hate relationship with banana. Mostly I hate it. Fresh banana grosses me out, and I dislike banana-flavored candies. But I do like it in baked goods (banana oatmeal walnut cookies, oh yeah!). I was really contemplating putting “please no banana!” in the notes on my grab bag but I’d already requested no rooibos and didn’t want to be too demanding. And there was only 1 banana-flavored tea, what were the chances that I’d get it? Funnily enough I got 3 teas I had been hoping for and… this. Ahh, my luck is both wonderful and terrible.

This smells like runts. Banana runts. I was all ready to swap it away instantly, but the bf saw it and wanted to try it. Funnily enough, I showed him the Banana Foster blend since it seemed like something he’d enjoy and it was met with a resounding “no.” I was thinking “oh we’ll make one cup, then I’ll swap it.” However, it was not to be, and I am officially adding this to my cupboard because it was a huge hit! Well, not really with me—I think it’s okay and tolerable (which is saying a lot, since the smell of the dry leaves totally horrified me), but it’s not something I am gonna be “oh I want more of this right now!”

The bf LOVES it. I mean, almost as much as Paris. I can see why: the grassy, earthy notes of yerba mate are right up his alley, and the banana is subdued enough to not be overwhelming. There’s just a hint of cherry which makes everything else pop. So I’m actually pretty happy I wound up with this: it’s always great to find a tea for someone else in your life I think.