Batrachoid

I’ve always been on the fence about Wuyi oolongs and this one is keeping me there. I’m a little disappointed because I don’t really get barley or honeysuckle notes (and I just had tea with real honeysuckle; hence the disappointment) but I do love the promised and delivered raisin sugar taste. Besides that, Chrine said my overall impression of all steepings with “toffee coffee.” It tastes fine but it just doesn’t feel harmonious.

No notes yet.

This tea is really growing on me. I couldn’t sleep and needed mild caffeine to kill my headache and sore throat and Honeysuckle was the first cure my groggy glasses-deprived eyes could distinguish. With lemon and a spoon of raw honey this fixed my throat, stimulant withdrawl and hopefully my insomnia.
It kills me to think that when spring starts and honey is fresh, this tea will be STALE. Bah-humbug. T_T This tea would be so good fresh and whole. Republic of Tea should follow their philosophy and sell their healthful wares in loose leaf form. Eh, I’m getting cranky. 　 お休み～

Huzzah! A happy and prosperous new year to you and whoever produced this tea! This was perfect companion to our “leap into the new year” ginger-orange frog cookies. I must admit, the single serving size per tuocha is part of the reason we picked this.
(^_^);

I rinsed the tuocha for 20 seconds into glazed gaiwans. Taking Jenn-cha’s experience into consideration, the third steeping was one minute and thiry seconds (I’m wary of straying from the 2-3 recommendation of Tao of Tea but also 2-3 minutes?!) and lo! Jenn-cha knows more than Tao of Tea! It came out with sweet and complex wood flavors. There’s oddly more oak than rose. But I swear peat moss and turbinado sugar were part of the tuocha! This was so good everyone went right along wtih the “weird” smelling your teacup. The leaf in the teapot smelled bizarrely like seitan, vegan bacon and rose.

The third and fourth steepings were both two mintes and yielded more mellow flavors that crept towards timothy hay and very little rose. The leaf in the pot smells more like damp hay and old straw piles. It was interesting to taste the natural sweetness of the tea and the actual sugar in the gingerbread. I prefer the sugarless tea.

Fifth steeping-At the suggestion of my rose loving mother we added some rose hips to the pot. What the hay? It says four steepings and was wrong about that.
I highly recommend this little addition towards the last couple of infusions because the fruity, strawberry sweet flavors were amazing with the hay and raisin flavors in the tea (and replaced the now undetectable rose petals). It was like drinking a summer day at the horse farm without the barnwork.
Out of curiosity I’m putting the leaf in the fridge overnight to see if it lasts for a sixth infusion tomorrow. Partially out of curiosity and partially because I need sleep.

Edit: Sixth and seventh steepings were weak but still had mellow orchard grass hay, plum, turbinado sugar and walnut tones! Maybe if I don’t wait over night I could get eight steepings with shorter times.

Mmm. I love the first cup of a new batch of tea. This tastes better more like honey than I remember, especially in how thick it tastes. I rememer trying some of the last canister with orange blossom honey and nearly slurped it down like matcha! I need to find some honeysuckle honey to try with this…

This is just the midmorning pick-me-up I neded with the ginger shortbread from yesterday. This is the best jasmine green I’ve had. Half the new Year’s cleaning down, half to put off for an hour so I can time finishing with snack and another cup of this.

So much backlogging to do. >.< Curse poverty and multiple medical disasters.
This was a somewhat ironic Winter Solstice present. Usually my solstice celbrating friends stick to green teas for solstice tea gifts (the whole “green/go away winter” thing, I suppose) but this is delectible enough to override my rooibos aversion. And anything tropical has a welcome place in my cupboard while I need snowshoes to reach my mailbox. (-_-;)
This is a bright, fruity bend that’s amazingly sweet from the pinappple. I could swear the main ingredients were guava and papaya and there was no rooibos at all (a plus for me) but it says the contrary. I guess that’s an interaction of the pinapple and marigold? Hmm… Anyway, this is my favorite dessert tea right now. Perfect for late night sugar cravings without a genuine contribution to diabetes.

No notes yet.

Some how my sore throat has morphed into a cold. In 90 degree weather. Go figure…
In lieu of chocolate I can only have this. It occurs to me that it would probably be best to stock a decaffeinated chocolate tea, but this is the best one I’ve tried so far. It tastes like liquid dark chocolate with a hint of floral levity. Miss Sweet has the right idea adding a couple rosebuds for extra rose flavor. And vitamin C, of course. =)

This was a nice end to a surprisingly cold summer day. 64 F on the last day of June? Balderdash!
It really does taste like honeysuckle-in hay, that is. I couldn’t help but think of early autumn and the first afternoon chills when I drank this. It has a sweet, thick smoothness that put me to sleep despite its spark of caffeine. I might pick this up in fall if I can’t find a better organic loose white to stash.

No notes yet.

I was really excited to try this tea as I’ve been wanting to try Indian green teas. And a tea that bills itself as sustainable and a perfect pairing with chocolate? Who could resist?
The dry smell is like seaweed, cut grass and swamplands. It intesifed while steeping. I brewed it in my green teapot (Green forest-friendly tea in a green teapot? Why not?) so the red-brown color was a nice suprise while pouring. Even better, the tin’s instructions were fairly close to the times/temperatures I find satifactory.
The taste is musty and vegetal with tones of what I think is oak, a bit of a malty Assam, like the tin says. It very much reminds of Florida everglades. I’ve gotten five good infusions from this tea before it slides away from strong and musty to vaguely herbacious, but still drinkable. I can only hope they harvest this every year for a while.

I purchased this because it was on sale for $2 and now I see why it was. The matcha and lotus listed in this blend are undetectable and the main components of green tea and goji are weak and flat, resulting in that “bagged tea” taste. I’ve been needing a cheap health-on-the-go tea, I suppose, so money wasn’t totally wasted. And it does smell amazing. Oddly, I can smell matcha, lotus, and the other missing flavors. I guess the flavor gremlins stole them mid-brew…

No notes yet.

Yep. I got a bad one the first time.
However.
The “fresh” one was still weak and a bit bitter. But for less that a dollar, I guess I can’t complain, especially since forgeting to bring good tea to work is my own fault…

This was the best rooibos I’ve had in a while. I love the real vanilla taste in this like others have said. Every time I have a tea with vanilla is seems to suffocate any other ingredients or taste odd. Even with bad brewing conditions the flavors melded well and highlighted the tea insted of trying to convince us it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

I was in the hospital for low potassium and a couple other minor maldies recently. All the first morning, I was told by a well-meaning (but paranoid) nurse that I couldn’t have caffeine because it’s a diuretic. Five hours later, the doctor said a little tea was fine and she should calm down. I got this from an over priced Boston Stoker stand.
It had a strong, tart berry flavor that almost eclipsed the tea. Not in a bad way, but I just wanted green tea, not fruit tea. The smell and color were great. Those alone made up for the price. I would buy this again if it were organic.

No notes yet.

Well, folks, meet your emergancy cooking matcha. I was delighted to replenish my supply with my recent visit to Phildelphia’s Chinatown. It has worked in everything I’ve tried from cupcakes and frosting to matcha based sauses and protein shakes. It even comes with a plastic teaspoon that’s very convienient and tucks right into the side.
But avoid actually drinking it straight unless you’re doing for pure health benefits. In that respect this tea smacks of ash and low standards. I’ve made tolerable “usucha” with hot soy coffee creamer or juice and this matcha when I’d rather choke a bit than diminish the covetable and costly ceremonial stash. For a $15 two pack of 200g, I can live with ashy and non-organic sometimes. So, for usefulness I give it an 8/10. Taste? 3/10. On a good day. With a sugar fix.

I don’t know why but my throat was caving in on itself today. This was the only thing around at work without caffeine (forgot my stuff). Fortunadamente, it was just the right thing to leave around, eh? =)
The licorice and fennel dominated but some other things like the mallow gave it depth. It wasn’t very different from other cold/throat teas I can remember but I can name a few organic teas that sooth throats with better tastes (Bija’s teas are still my staple “cure-most” teas).

I made this iced for the first day of my new job. After an overnight steeping, the sencha and sakuranbou realy stood out and were exactly the energizing boost I needed at lunch. I crunched some teacubes in it and it made a kalaidascope effect. It’s a useful visual distraction after four hour of repetive labor.

Yesterday the wind was against me during my entire bike ride. I had some ice cream to cool off afterwards. But..
It cooled me off too much. :P So I made a big stove pot of this and froze the extra in teacubes/iced tea. A very simple and cheap way to combat nausea and chill.
Granted, this isn’t the brand of bulk barley I get at the Korean grocery but I’ve had Puripan and it’s close in its subtle toasted cereal taste.

Perhaps the batch I got was off but this was bitter, sour, and barely tasted like green tea. The sell by was next year and I put it in the fridge the same day. I only had it once but if 45 cents more gives me a more surefire on-the-go tea, I’d rather play it safe.

…Then again, this is the only sencha bottled tea availble to me. Confustigated grocery constriction….

This was perfect with a berry scone as my birthday breakfast. The green tea had a nice asparagus flavor that highlighted the sweeter rose. It was a sample from a friend who had one pot’s worth left and decided to share it. And my “to buy” list multiplies threefold again…
Great if you want a floral green tea or something that you can smell brewing acoss the room. I’d like to say more but I’m aware my sample was a bit dated.