Doulton

This is a delightful tea! Thank you so much to ASHMANRA for this sample. Although I did not pick up on the soy sauce overtones mentioned in Jacqueline M’s review, I did find it deeply robust and satisfying.

This is a different tea for sure and a keeper. I will have to place an order. It is very smooth. I had it straight up and loved it that way but I also think it could sustain milk and/or sugar and is stalwart enough to be experimented with.

Thank you, Ashmanra.

Thank you so much to ASHMANRA for sending me this exquisite sample. When I got it I felt an impulse to save it for just precisely the “right” moment (but not having defined right, I did not know when I would drink it). When I read that today is the 100th birthday of Lucille Ball, I thought “golden monkey!” to myself and promptly steeped this fine tea.
Jacquelin M and others are right when they say “caramel”. It’s full, fresh, brisk, and elegant. What a delightful treat!

Thank you so much to ASHMANRA for sending me this tea. I love Lapsangs so I saved this up for a while in order to titillate myself (which is not as obscene as it sounds). It’s delicious!

Warm, naturally sweet, smoky, but not overwhelmingly so, I can understand why it is rated so high. It’s got a level of refinement that I don’t ordinarily associate with a Lapsang. It’s a very nice break from my typical ash-tray tastes in smoky tea.

Thank you!

Thank you very much to ASHMANRA who sent me this tea. It’s a fantastic blend of three Chinese teas and they work together as if they were in a classically choreographed ballet. The “players” seem to include some Keemun and some Yunnan, I think, although I don’t know. There are tell-tale traces of flower and spice and chocolate plus a little bit of smoke (not enough smoke to scare you away, I promise).

All in all, a very solid and strong morning blend that I’d be happy to wake up to every day. It’s got a great dance of melismatic flavors subtly bowing to each other. You might want to give this a try if you are in The Simple Life’s DAWN detox.

My eternal gratitude to ASHMANRA for introducing me to this tea by sending me a beautifully packaged sample.

It has all of the spring-like vegetal qualities of the best green teas, but the spicy quality is the one that most captures and enraptures me. It’s almost as if somebody has grated a touch of fresh cinnamon and nutmeg into this tea. This is the kind of tea that has launched a thousand ships! It’s meditative and wise, if that makes any sense. It’s like the wise uncle of a capricious little Buddha child.

This is not a tea to just slurp up and run with; it’s a tea to gaze at and to swirl around in your mouth, and to sit still and appreciate it.

Thank you!

Excellent! This is one of my favorite Mariage Freres combinations: it’s like a smoky Earl Grey. It is rich, strong, and elegant.

This is an excellent Lapsang Souchong. Good, strong, stick-to-the ribs heartiness. I’ll reorder. It might be the best LS I’ve tasted thus far.

A bit disappointing for me after Harney & Sons superb Lapsang Souchong. It’s a good Russian tea, but I like more smoke, tar, and peat bog on my tongue.

A “Touch of Evil?” I think not. It’s a touch of cantaloupe. I like it well enough for a melon flavored tea, but what a misnomer.

I see that Leland is not longer selling this. I wish they would repackage it and rename it as “Mild Melon Morality”.

This is a lot like Red Zinger. The hibiscus is overwhelming. It’s a pretty dry tea, but I like tea with caffeine. If you like the hibuscus/rosehip taste, you might love this.

Mais c’est pas pour moi!

This is probably a great tea—-but for a smoke addict like me, it seems bland. I love TeaSpring’s other Lapsang Souchong offering, but this one is like the timid little sister who cannot speak out loud and clear.

The Lapsang Souchong from TeaSpring that I really like is relatively less costly. It’s all about the smoke and the tar for me. This one is too sweet.

I like the taste and aroma of licorice. I’m not a fanatic (I know some people who are, but I suspect I know more people who don’t like it) but it’s nice to have occasionally.

I’ve been impressed by American Tea Room in general. I have no affiliation with them, but they have teas that are most certainly on my list of “must haves”. I ordered a sample size of Cabochon and set it aside for a while. I was waiting for one of those days when the thoughts of licorice crept into my mind. Today, gray, gloomy, and wet, seemed like a perfect day for a strong flavor that pops.

And it did and it does! The anise is strongest in the aftertaste. The taste itself is warm and honied and the anise remains on the tongue and lingering around the nose. Cabochon would be a treasure for any licorice fanatics out there and would make a superb gift if you know any. For someone who enjoys licorice, as I do, it’s a nice hefty brew with a really tasty authentic flavor. I know that synthetic licorice can be simply dreadful. This is pure and true and I’ll invest in a larger package. Cabochon (which means a kind of treatment for a gemstone) is perfect for the upcoming chilly weather.

Wonderful if you love roses and if you don’t—maybe this tea will convert you. This is one of the best rose-immersion experiences I have had. I think it’s on a par with Rosy Earl Grey from Teas, Etc. The rose is not competing with an Earl Grey. Sometimes I really want the Earl Grey to be the backdrop for the rose but this is a more fragrant, floral tea. I guess I will have to keep both in stock!

This is an absolutely lovely tea. I don’t want to use specific words to describe it because each word that comes to mind does not do this tea justice. I prefer big black teas with lots of smoke and lots of flavor. When a subtle tea wins me over like this, I am really moved. I’m going to invest in more of this, knowing that it’s a tea for a special and wonderful occasion.

This delicious tea has got depths and nuances of flavor and I am reminded of the late, lamented teas from The Simple Leaf. The leaves are very large and long and they brew up to a toasty, nutty taste that evokes strains of chestnut and chocolate.

Absolutely delightful. It’s a lighter type of Lapsang Souchong, I think. The smoke is nicely balanced with floral overtones.

I was fortunate enough to get a sample of this delightful tea from the magnificent RABS (thank you so much!). It was labelled an “8” out of a possible “8” in the Geek package and I’ve been holding off on trying the two remaining 8 teas for a very rainy day—or for one of those dark nights of the soul.

Today I decided to indulge myself and opened the delightful package. I love this tea. It’s not a simple rose tea nor is it a simple Earl Grey. It manages to surpass Earl Greyness by an abundant bergamot taste and the rose makes for a delightful adjunct—both visually and, more importantly, in terms of taste.

I highly recommend this and must order a full package. Great job, Teas, Etc. I’ve never had another tea like this so far and, in a world where copy-cat teas seem to be the rule, I really like this original.

What an utterly delicious green tea. It’s brilliant green leaves have a fresh and vegetal aroma. The brewed tea (2 mins) is sensational: one of the best—if not the best—green I have had. It does have a very buttery vegetable taste with both elements of natural sweetness and a tinge of a bitterness that is not at all unpleasant.

This is like a really good liquid salad!

There certainly is a hint of beer flavor here. Basically I would call it a decent, strong black tea with a certain creaminess and a bit of maltiness. But I’ve had maltier blacks and creamier blacks and yeastier blacks. I don’t regret the purchase, however, but it just did not rock my socks off (on this barefoot day).

It’s a better than average black tea but not an astounding one.

This is a really delicious tea and the “rum raisin” comes through in a nice strong yet sweet brew. I believe this tea is very close to Bread Pudding from The NecessiTeas and will try to figure out some direct comparisons. Indeed, the teas might be identical.

I love these flavored blacks that go strong on the flavor and don’t wimp out. This flavor is one that I am predisposed to like a lot (have you ever had a really great rum raisin ice cream??) and Lupicia brings it!

This tea is acceptable. The Raspberry overwhelms the much more subtle melon flavor, alas. And the freeze-dried raspberries taste a little bit more like Smart-T’s than fruit.

Overall, this inexpensive tea might be worth a try. I don’t think I will reorder it because I’ve found a much nicer melon tea that I prefer (that would be you, Golden Moon) and the raspberry flavor is all over the place.

Today I rolled a “1” in the fabulous Geek Pride game created so wonderfully by RABS. Right now I have only two packets left and both are “8’s”. I was, of course, thrilled to see a Lapsang Souchong because that’s my personal favorite default tea. But because it had a label of “1” I thought that there might be a flaw.

Lapsang Souchong does not always work. It ALMOST always works but not always. I don’t know, for example, what that stuff is that Tea Farm sells under the name. This is better, but I gave Tea Farm a rating of “3” out of “100”. I wanted to give it a “0” but the furthest to the left I could go was a 3. I digress.

This is a better Lapsang Souchong, but I would call it only marginally better than Tea Farm. This one does have some taste but I kept drinking it and hoping to get something more. I felt a bit like a Marlboro smoker who was suddenly trying the lightest cigarette out there—-(not having been in the situation, my metaphor may not work). Sometimes you see smokers frantically sucking on their cigarettes as if they are trying to pull in even more tobacco. Well, I was slurping at this tea trying to find more flavor, more smoke, more something. It’s got enough taste to remind me that I love a good Lapsang Souchong but not enough taste to provide any satisfaction.

I felt glad to sample this tea because I am collecting Lapsang Souchong experiences and it’s good to know the gamut.

Thank you, Rabs for giving me a new one to try!

I have fallen in love with this tea! Does anyone else recall the mention of “Bohea” in “The Rape of the Lock” by Pope? I first encountered this word back in my university days.

Belinda and her bohea and her billets douxs is duly celebrated by Alexander Pope. I ever more appreciate the luxurious and wealthy life Belinda led when I sample this Bohea which came in a package numbered “6” in the wonderful, generous “Geek Pride” package which RABS so nicely sent to me.

One sniff of the dry leaves and I knew that I would love this tea. One person’s old ashtray is another person’s heady perfume! And so this tea brought me waves of exhilaration. It’s a smoky/sweet adventure treat!

Thank you so much to AmazonV for this loose-leaf sample. I concur with her review/tasting note except that I think I liked it better. The raspberry tasted a bit more true to me and the color of the brew is a luscious ruby red.

I also agree that this will be better iced. As a hot herbal tea, it really is not bad. Once again I am reminded of how much rooibos can interfere with flavors. No rooibos here, thankfully. This will be a contender for purchase.