236 Tasting Notes
This tea has large, beautiful, multi-colored leaves that brew into a golden liquor with a sweet fragrance with hints of incense. The tea is from Darjeeling and I detect in it that same Darjeeling floral fragrance. The taste encourages a kind a lazy sensuality as it spreads its floral complexities across my taste buds. It is surprisingly light in taste for an oolong. As it cools a bit, the incense begins to come out in the taste as well as the aroma.
Preparation
The tea is exactly as it claims to be: chocolate. This is probably the most chocolate of any tea I’ve had. It’s very good. It has a slightly odd perfumed fragrance as well, which I assume is supposed to be the “cream” flavor. It’s a good tea but somewhat monochromatic. If what you want is just this side of hot chocolate, this is a good place to go.
Preparation
This is a tea takgoti sent to me since she knows that I enjoy trying pu-erhs. This one is quite nice. It has a very smooth taste. Of course it has that distinctive pu-erh fragrance. But I think I actually like this one. I will have to think on it further to determine what exactly makes it nice.
Update: Have now had three steeps of this and I like it more each time.
Preparation
YAY! Keep going with the steeps! I’ve honestly lost count with how many I can go for on this one. It can stand up to a lot; I think I’ve gotten around 15, no joke.
I have kept on going. It’s pretty amazing. Until this last cup of tea, I’ve drunk only Pu-erh. Thank you so much for sending this. It is really wonderful.
You’re very welcome! This has warranted a Cheshire Cat grin on my end. It tickles me very much that you’re enjoying it.
15?! Wow. I wonder at what point the cups stop having caffeine… I’m always worried about caffeine levels and it makes me feel ridiculous. :(
And yay, more pu-erh! There’s been a lot of pu-erh drinking going on on Steepster lately.
@teaplz When I drink pu-erh, I usually start it hours before I know I’m going to stop drinking it, because I really drag it out. By then, the caffeine usually isn’t what’s affecting me, it’s the nice little pu-erh high. Mmm…pu-erh high.
@takgoti Yes, there was a little pu-erh high (with much giggling as I cleaned the kitchen). Very nice.
@teaplz Pu-erh is supposed to have quite a bit of caffeine compared to other teas so I’m cautious.
The needle-like leaves have a wonderful nutty fragrance with slight notes of resin and flowers when submerged in hot water. The liquor produced is pale yellow and has a slightly deeper resin fragrance than the leaves alone.
The taste is rich and complex with notes of butter, nuts, pine, and a few other tastes I cannot describe. A very worthwhile tea with wonderful surprises in the flavor.
Preparation
I just bought my 1st yellow tea and I’ve been wanting to order from UTI for a while and when I do, I’ll be ordering yellow tea.
UTI? LOL, I’m not sure they’d want to be associated with the acronym for Urinary Tract Infections! XD
I was really tempted to say something like “so is a yellow tea from UTI better at getting rid of UTIs than say a black tea from Adagio?” UTI is also a car mechanic’s school.
I cannot separate the UTI acronym from its urinary counterpart. The fact that this is a yellow tea makes it all the more unfortunate. This does remind me that I need to order yellow tea from Rishi, though. May need to give this a go as well. Methinks I will be ordering a lot of tea tomorrow.
I confess, I’m always a bit leery of oolongs. I’ve had so much bad luck with them that I approach them much as I do pu-erhs, with a “Chin up! Be brave!” admonition. But I remembered I liked this tea from The Simple Leaf (and I love the company), so I thought I would try it this afternoon. Hopefully it will help quell my hunger pangs until I can get home and eat something healthy.
The fragrance is honey sweet and the liquor looks like honey as well. The taste has floral notes, honey, and a slight sharpness that I can see would veer into bitterness with a longer, hotter steep. It’s nice.
Preparation
I could drink these flavored senchas all day (and frequently do). Sadly, that means that I am ripping through my little bag of pineapple sencha and will have to purchase more.
Preparation
The tea has improbably large, twisted black leaves that smell of chocolate. It brews up into a brandy-colored brew that smells like chocolate. The taste is true to the fragrance, it is like a cocoa tea with no bitterness and the merest hint of astringency. This is so good! I really need to order more of this when I run out of my small package. I’ve upped the rating a bit.
Preparation
Oooh, that does sound rather delicious. If I may pry, what is it not doing that’s keeping it shy of perfect?
There are three qualities a tea must have to be a 100 tea: Perfection of Taste, Passion, and Lasting Joy.
Both 99 and 100 teas have perfection of taste and this tea is simply perfect in that way.
However, the primary difference between 99 and 100 is passion. Both 99 and 100 teas must taste perfect with no downsides. But a 100 tea must have that quality that compels me to order the largest size possible of the tea. It must engender in me a devil-may-care passion. I must feel that my life is simply incomplete if ever I run out of this tea. This tea has passed that second test. A few days ago I put in an order for a pound of it.
The third quality is that I must not regret it when the large size arrives and, in fact, seeing the large quantity of tea must continue to fill me with happiness for a long time afterward. This tea has not yet proven itself regret-free since the large quantity hasn’t yet arrived. My honest guess is that this tea is going to prove to be a 100. I am already looking for a yixing teapot to dedicate to this tea and I never felt that way about a tea before.
When I made a face and said that I didn’t like the tea I was drinking (Wild Monkey Masala) my beloved didn’t say, “Well let’s go for our run then.” (Though he’d have been within his rights to say so since we are late getting out today.) Instead he said, “Pour it out and have something better. I’ll wait.” I saw Cecilia’s review of mango tea and immediately thought that the Mango Tango would be a good way to drive out bad tea feelings.
Mango Tango is such a happy tea! Even the leaves are beautiful since they’ve been brightened with little yellow flower petals. The tea itself brews up into a sweet, fragrant liquor with a smooth ceylon black flavor peeking through the mango and passionfruit curtains. Now I’ll be able to run happily.
You’re making The Simple Leaf sound so delicious, Carolyn! Always a pleasure to read these reviews.
I cannot believe how much I love The Simple Leaf’s teas (especially Dawn). They are a fantastic company: a true gem.
No. No more new tea companies I want to buy from.
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