CharlotteZero

I made more of this to compare to the Subtle Roast Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong from Verdant Tea’s Reserve Club.

This tea is very sweet and easy to drink. It has a a much more subtle smokiness than the Verdant offering, and the leaves are smaller and more tightly rolled. I have to admit that I like this tea much better.

Ok. So, smoked teas aren’t my favorite. Also, you should never take my tea ratings as being what I think the objective quality of a tea is. My ratings are just for me, and they’re a measure of how much I like to drink a tea.

It’s smokey, of course. This was actually more smokey than I expected after having another “subtle” Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong from Aroma Tea.

In the first steep there was the aroma of hard cinnamon candy, but I couldn’t find it again after that. There was also the aroma of molasses. There are lots of woodsy/forest smells. This tea has a bitter note mid-palate which I have tasted before, but I have a hard time describing. It’s something similar to the flavor of that delicate layer of “skin” that covers a walnut.

I wish I knew what kinds of vegan food to pair with a tea like this. While I like this tea, I don’t like it enough to save it for drinking on its own.

I have so many new teas to try, but when I decided to have some dark chocolate and marzipan this morning, I wanted to have one of my favorites to drink with it. Yum!

Also, this is the first time I’ve been able to drink this tea without getting a song in my head that has “fo sho” in the lyrics. This is mostly because I currently have a really powerful earworm.

This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6V2oCX3Hn4

My favorite part is the “Larchmont country club” part. I grew up there, and went to many Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. None with werewolves. :-(

What an interesting tea! First, it has this unusual quality that I don’t love, (but only in the aroma of the wet leaves) it has this very savory/salty smell that I can only describe as smelling like ham water. I’ve only found this in one other tea I’ve tried so far (a gunpowder green) and I wonder if other people have had a similar experience or if they describe this same smell differently. I’m sure I wouldn’t mind it as much if I could conjure up a different image than a cube of ham in hot water.

Anyhow, this is a really nice white. I feel like it is helping my palate to determine the characteristics specific to a Darjeeling regardless of how it’s processed. It is sweetly floral and does have that classic muscatel characteristic.

I’m in love now! Lingering in my mouth is a satin-smooth French vanilla. Although I fail to describe the different flavors here, this must be the most complex white I’ve ever tasted.

This tea was pretty mellow compared to other Darjeelings I’ve had (which admittedly, isn’t many). Maybe I have unsophisticated tastes, but I like a Darjeeling that wakes me up a bit and is a little more refreshing. This tea is good, but it’s a little too soft to be ideal, but it’s still very enjoyable!

I’m not going to rate this one. This is the only Gyokuro I’ve tried, so I have no idea how it compares to other Gyokuros. I really enjoy this tea, though!

First, thank you to Courtney for sending me a sample of this.

It was very un-tea-like of me, but in my haste to get ready this morning, I completely forgot about this pot of tea and it brewed for up to 10 minutes. It still turned out wonderfully! It’s strong with pleasant tannins and no bitterness. It stayed really good even when it got cold. This is a nice English breakfast tea, nothing standout about it, but it’s very good.

I love Verdant Tea’s black teas. Today I brewed a big pot of this western style. What can I say about it? The hype is right.

No notes yet.

First of all, thank you to Toi Toi for this!

It’s funny the way that the name of something can influence how you experience it. I don’t smoke anymore, but smelling this tea immediately made me want to smoke a Gauloises Blondes. I discovered those cigarettes in Paris when I was 16 and thereafter, I would to go down to St. Mark’s Place in NYC to buy them. Ah, those were the days before gentrification changed the character of the Bowery and CBGB was still open. Damn, I’m old…

Anyhow, enough of reminiscing. This tea reminded me of being in a European bakery. I could smell jam-filled cookies, carmelized sugar, and marzipan. This is one of the best flavored teas I’ve experienced, but I’m not really into flavored teas. Personally, I like my sweets with my tea, not in my tea.

I’m not going to rate this one, because I really don’t drink enough white tea to know what they should or can be. As I poured this one I could smell steamed sugar snap peas. The wet leaves had a astringent smell that I really only usually associate with black teas. There is a unpleasant lemony note note mid-sip. As it cools down a bit, this improves. The aftertaste is a bit metallic, but not in the worst way… :-/

I let this sit for a couple of hours and then made a fourth infusion. Now the floral notes are dominating the aroma.

No notes yet.

I’m almost out of this tea (very sad), but I’m excitedly looking forward to the Spring 2013 teas!

I don’t drink a lot of Darjeeling. This may be the only Darjeeling that I have had more than once. So, take this rating with an especially minuscule grain of salt. It has a savory aroma (as described) and a floral note that reminds me of roses after a cool spring rain. It is light bodied with a pleasant astringency. I think I finally understand what people are talking about when they speak of a “muscatel” note. When I smelled this tea, I was momentarily transported to a night this past summer when I opened a Martinelli Muscat Alexandria for some friends of mine.

This is a wonderful tea if you want something to drink many cups of or to go with food. (I brewed up a big pot of this at around 11AM to drink with my breakfast of curried lentils and rice.) I guess I should also note that this tea had a lot of broken pieces in it and really clogged up the narrow slots of my glass infuser.

This “black matcha” is touted as being made from the finest Darjeeling and Assam tea leaves, yet inexplicably I was hoping this would taste more like a pu’erh. (This may have been because of Pure Matcha’s mention of the powdered tea of the Song Dynasty, which I’m pretty sure was in cake form before being powdered.)

Anyhow, despite defying my expectations, I liked this pretty well. I first tried making this in the style of a thick matcha, because I like my black teas strong. Not bad. I went a little bit overboard with the amount of powder used, and suspect that I should have used a hotter water temperature than for standard matcha.

Later I added milk and sugar to this, and it made a really good black tea latte.

Ahhhh! What did I just drink? I guess all I can say is that you should make sure you like rooibos before you buy this product. This pretty much tasted like sawdust to me (I will say that it tasted like the sweetest sawdust from the most delicious wood) but this drink just wasn’t for me. I will refrain from rating this one.

Thank you, ToiToi for swapping this sample with me!

I had to try another Ceylon after my disappointing experience with Canton Tea Co’s Sri Lanka black. I wondered, had I lost my taste for Ceylon?

Nope! This tea is beautiful. Pleasant aroma with nice citrus notes. Just a little bit of astringency in the finish that makes your salivary glands wake up. I hope the tea bag lasts until morning so I can brew another cup!

This was my first tea from the Canton tea club. I was totally psyched (yes, totally psyched) to try it, especially since I haven’t had a Ceylon in a while. Sadly, the predominant note to my palate was dirt a la the skin of fresh russet potatoes.

EDIT: Going with my gut. I’m just not into this tea.

This is a really excellent black tea. I would have given it a higher rating except that I didn’t like it that much when I brewed it in my usual gongfu style. I recommend following the directions and steeping it for 3 minutes in boiling water. Even brewed western style, this tea was also lacking a little bit of- I’m not sure if I’m describing it correctly- weight in the mouth?

I have been brewing this over two days for possibly up to 10 infusions and it’s still great. Even after these many steepings, it doesn’t have any bitterness or rough edges. I haven’t, however, given it the attention it deserves. Yesterday I started brewing it after eating very spicy food, and today I was eating a lemon lavender cookie with it…But, I’m going to be optimistic and give it a high rating.

No notes yet.

I am so lowbrow. I am drinking maybe two teaspoons of this mixed in with 5 or so ounces of “original” Almond Breeze almond milk, and all I can think is that it tastes better with the vanilla flavored one. :-/ Drinking it this way brings me back to childhood and eating green tea ice cream at our local sushi restaurant.

Going back to the tea, this is a really a delicious matcha. I enjoy this one more each time I drink it (whether I prepare it this way or in a more traditional manner).

No notes yet.

This tea is quite sensitive to steep time and water temperature. My first infusion (3 seconds) I enjoyed very much, but on the second infusion I let the leaves steep for 30 seconds, and suddenly the broth was very bitter and all of the delicate sweetness and floral notes had been overpowered. Is it bad, then, that I am still impressed by this tea if for nothing more than the price was right?

I received this tea in the mail today. The first thing I noted was that the smell of the dry leaves reminded me of these “jerky” treats that I used to buy for my dog. It was a smell similar to hickory smoke. Yuck! I brewed it up anyway, and the broth was pretty bland except for some smokey/sour notes.