Harfatum

Wowie! It’s not often that I taste a black tea that doesn’t fit into any of the taste categories of black tea I already know. The dry leaves are intensely fruity and quite pretty. But the way this tea takes milk is really something special. It may be because I use a pretty-good-quality whole milk, but it doesn’t affect most teas quite like it did this Golden Monkey Imperial. The flavor of the prepared beverage was almost like a black tea ice cream. It’s smooth and not spicy like some Yunnans.

I’m sure this would be a good tea without milk, but it’s a unique experience with.

This is a good tea. It gives it to you straight. Not a bunch of astringency, not overwhelming flowers or spice or unbalanced flavor. It’s a stand-up tea with just the tiniest hint of pepper, and it’s very yummy. It’s still unmistakably a Chinese tea, but it’s a Ceylon drinker’s Chinese tea.

I find a great many Chinese black teas too weak for milk, or just feel that their flavor is balanced in an unfavorable way. Not so with Copper Knot Hongcha. Very smooth. Being a Teavana tea it is overpriced, but it’s still one of my favorite Chinese blacks.

This tea used to be so good! A solid black tea, not too weak, with bananas!

Now, it is lemons. It is bitter, and it is bad. Milk doesn’t help it. I don’t like this anymore.

If you like lemon tea, though, it might be your thing.

While the Orange Pekoe and Pekoe black teas from Gorreana are quite similar with their deep flavors, this one is lighter in character. It is still strong enough to take milk, which I prefer. I quite like it, but it stands out less in my mind than Gorreana’s other black offerings. It is not flowery or spicy, which is a good thing in my eyes. I’ll add more detailed notes next time I have a cup.

What a fantastic tea, from Portugal no less! I was very excited to try this European tea – I didn’t even know it existed until recently – and I was not disappointed. It is robust, rich, and flavorful. It is highly reminiscent of The Simple Leaf’s excellent Mountain Malt tea, but doesn’t become bitter when steeped for more than 3 minutes. I don’t feel that the flavor is lacking in any way.

It is great on ice as well, using the method I described in my previous post about Taylor’s of Harrogate’s Ntingwe Kwazulu.

Shipping took quite a long time, but they included an extra tea for me, so it’s all good! I will definitely order more in the future.

I’ve been making this iced, according to the following process:

1. Brew tea, extra strong. ~1.5 times as much leaves in 2/3 as much water.
2. Pour tea into stainless steel water bottle, add sugar.
3. Shake vigorously under cold running faucet. This cools it in just a minute.
4. Add milk (~1/2 the volume of the brewed tea) and then ice.

It’s pretty tasty, and very refreshing on a hot day. I recommend it – whether with this tea, another black tea, or a cooked pu-er.

I use Steepster to log new teas, and don’t generally post unless I try a new tea, or discover something new about an old one. I went on a huge tea buying binge when I discovered Steepster, and have been living off of that since then – so I’ve had little to write about. I’m hoping to get some new tea for my birthday, which is almost here. Then I will have more to write.

On a side note, I’ll be moving to Boston in the fall. Any Steepsterites have a favorite tea place there?

It’s spicy. Quite spicy. Not very pu-erhy though. Definitely not very chocolatey.

It’s not bad, but I was expecting something else. Earthy notes of chocolate with deep foresty cooked puerh… nope. It’s mostly just a spicy tea. I can appreciate that it’s well enough made, but I’m just not a fan of the genre.

I’m curious about what will happen if I add milk to this, which is my general practice with black teas and some cooked pu-erhs. I’ll report on that later.

Got this one for Christmas. It’s crisp and very slightly brisk without being spicy, and has a full but not overly robust flavor. Classic black tea without a ton of deviation from what I’d expect. It doesn’t seem to be very fussy in how you make it, as long as your steep time isn’t too long – some teas give me results that vary bizarrely, but not Kaimosi. This is one of my favorite black teas.

This has almost no flavor. I used three bags in a standard 12-oz mug and it was barely tea. It’s not actively bad like Lipton or Red Rose decaf, but if you’re looking for a decaffeinated tea in a grocery store go with Tetley’s British Blend decaf which is much more satisfying.

Somewhat disappointing, as I kind of like bagged Twinings Prince of Wales tea.

Intensely mediocre, with little flavor. The girlfriend complained that it didn’t just taste bland, but it was actively bad. I finished my cup, she didn’t finish hers. I didn’t think it was quite so awful with milk, but it had little flavor in any case. Not recommended.

Late at night, at Meijer. The girlfriend and I were desparate for some black tea with milk, but it was too late to brew up a regular cup of looseleaf at home and we were out of decaf. We hesitantly picked up this, Tetley’s decaf British Blend.

It turned out to be very nice! I expected something flavorless or bitter, but this is malty, bready, cozy, and very enjoyable. We always took it with milk, so this may not apply if you take it without, but I’d definitely buy it again if I’m out of decaf.

This is a “green tea iced tea” mix, but it really doesn’t make green tea proper because it is tea leaf powder that you don’t steep. It is more like a matcha mix, although not with the same grade of leaves. It is very nice and mild, there is no astringency. It is lightly sweetened. I dislike many of the over-sweetened drinks that are on the store shelves but this has close to the right amount of sweetness.

It makes an excellent drink for cooling down in the hot weather, and I bet it would be good as flavoring for any number of drinks or treats. I am excited to try making a latte using a couple packets of this in a big mug of steamed milk. This isn’t a super nuanced tea but it is very refreshing and there is nothing not to like. It’s a little hard to rate because of it not exactly being green tea, but it is the best of the few iced “green teas” I’ve had.

The price was very reasonable – $3 for 12 single-serving packets at Noble Fish in Clawson, MI (I highly recommend the sushi!). I will definitely go pick up more of this.

I am having an incredible cup of this right now. It’s robust but bright. The ample milk I added cancels out almost all of the tannins released by the tiny leaf pieces. I would not take this plain, but with milk I am loving it. There is a hint of sweet potato. Am I allowed to like a fannings tea this much?

The dry leaves are really attractive. There is more variation in appearance from leaf to leaf than any other pure tea I have had; the leaves range from green, light, and thin to dark brown, thick, and twisted.

The smell… intersect a standard Darjeeling with a Rooibos, and add just a drop of grape soda. It is very mild and nice. The taste is even milder. The Darjeeling muscatel notes definitely come through. There is a woodiness, like a tree that is old enough to not smell green anymore, but too young to have the deeper aromas of old bark. There is a hint of baking soda, and after the last sip a light sweetness lingers.

The other day, i went to a tea tasting at the mostly excellent Goldfish Tea in Royal Oak, MI. One of the teas was an oolong, a Wuyi Yan Cha. It was not bad, and the aroma was captivating and powerful, but the liquor was so astringent! But, even steeped with more leaves than Simple Leaf recommends, Tankha is still smooth. Even on the rare occasion astringency results, it is slight. I can’t recall ever having a proper tea that was less mild. It is almost hard to believe that Tankha and Wuyi Yan Cha are even the same type of tea, save for the woody notes.

This mildness is what made Tankha so hard to rate. I’ve had it for several months but have never been able to put my thoughts together on it. Use too few leaves and the resulting brew is too close to being water. There’s almost nothing to be afraid of as far as using too many leaves, other than using up your stash!

So, stay away if you like your oolongs with a kick, but it’s very pleasant.

Having another cup of this late at night, and it is excellent as always. Prepared with sweetened condensed milk, this is giving me a Fruit Stripe gum vibe on top of the usual cocoa and chicory notes. Not what I expected, but I’ll take it. In the months since first trying it, I still have not had any other tea like Dawn. It is truly an accomplishment.

The first thing that I noticed when I opened my 1-kg bag of this (via Amazon) was how tiny the CTC leaf pieces were. They are so tiny! I can’t even steep it in my Beehouse teapot, whose filter has been fine enough for all my other teas besides rooibos. This made me sort of nervous about the quality of the tea. Actually, although the tea does suffer slightly from the leaf pieces being so small, it’s a good and satisfying cup with some character. A short steep is required, because the tannic spent-leaves taste comes out quickly; I recommend 2:30-2:45. I also noticed that as the tea cooled, the “tiny leaf” essence diminished; I feel like it was due to a genuine chemical change and thus it may be worth waiting a bit to drink.

Ntingwe Kwazulu is reminiscent of an Assam for its punch and overall feel, but it also has some Ceylon-esque briskness, making it more than just another PG Tips. Still, it lacks the smoothness of some other CTCs (e.g. The Simple Leaf’s American Breakfast) so it remains a good-to-great, not outstanding, tea.

I wasn’t really expecting this to be as good as it is. I threw it into my order when I got those tea/fruit-flavored gummi bears that were on Steepster Select a while back, just hoping to get some more experience with Assams. But it’s actually a great cup with milk and sugar.

If I had to compare it to some other highly-ranked teas, I would mention The Simple Leaf’s Amor and A&D’s Thomas Sampson. This beats Amor and comes close to Thomas, IMO.

I’ve already reviewed this one, so for more detailed info see my first post. But I enjoy this tea so much that I have to reiterate how good it is. It is so rich and smooth, and doesn’t have the leafy bite that makes some other black teas so sensitive to leaf quantity and especially steep time. This is definitely in my top 3 black teas. Mountain Malt is my #1, but even that is easier to oversteep or overleaf. My girlfriend also considers this one of her favorite black teas.

I use 1 gram of leaves per 5 ounces of water for this and most other Assams – I have never had a bad cup when I measured the leaf quantity carefully. There are some $10 pocket scales on eBay that are accurate to 0.1 gram, perfect for measuring this sort of thing. I recommend picking one up.

This is a very yummy green tea. Distinctly Japanese, the flavor is primarily hay, artichoke, and seaweed – I realize that this description might not sound as good as it tastes. There is a little bit of umami or mushroomy flavor, which makes the tea more craveable. There is only a bit of astringency on the trailing end of an occasional sip.

The package suggested eating the used leaves, but I ate some of the leaves dry. They were pretty tasty. The leaves have a sweetness to their smell and are very tender. Just one or two is enough to give you a pretty good bit of flavor. Try more than a few at once and it may be too intense for some, but I enjoyed that too. The used leaves were also nice to eat, though much more mild.

Multiple steeps work all right, the flavor stays nice. No tannins taking over or anything like that, but the flavor isn’t really enhanced by it. I am at my third steep now, and it’s pretty muted but still enjoyable. There is a lingering sweetness after each sip.

I don’t really have anything negative to say about this tea. I have not had many Japanese greens recently, but this is my current favorite green tea that I can name. At close to $.50/gram, it was very pricey, but I wanted to try a Gyokuro and was not disappointed.

This is what I have when I go visit my family and forget to bring my own tea. It’s probably the best unflavored black tea available in their Kroger, but not so great compared to the excellent looseleafs out there. It’s not quite strong enough, and too tannic and astringent; for this reason, I recommend using an extra bag but a short (3 min max) steep time.

When I was a kid, the Boy-Scout-styled church group I was in used some little leather straps to hang award beads on, and at some point I wound up chewing on one. That’s sort of what’s going on with Black Pearl.

It’s real black tea and not leaf dust, so that’s good. However, where its flavor deviates from the norm it’s not really for the better, and it doesn’t have the robustness to cover it up. Black Pearl is not proper bad, just mediocre.

This tea is every flower.

I first brewed it and it was jasmine. Then it cooled and became the flowers and herbs from my one grandma’s garden. Then it cooled more and became all the flowers and bushes from my other grandma’s garden.

It is also a friendly tea – not bitter and astringency is light.

I do not consider myself a fan of flowery teas, but this is still one of the better oolongs I’ve had. It’s worth trying for anyone, but flower lovers have to have it. The little packages it came in are very convenient and cute.

I need to spend more time with this one before I do a review, but it’s good. Black Frost is more robust than most Nilgiris that I have tried – the others were truly spicy, which I don’t like much. Seeing that in reviews of this drove me away at first. But I got a 1oz sample this time, and it’s not very spicy. There is a hint of the vegetality of other Nilgiris, maybe a little floweriness. Otherwise, it’s like a very slightly more subdued Ceylon. The dry leaves smell really nice, a full but brisk aroma.

I’m still tweaking parameters on the actual brew. So far it’s had a good but not particularly strong flavor. It definitely has less on the low end than The Simple Leaf’s Assams, but is quite enjoyable and is not too weak for milk.

Being a white tea, Decadence is understated, and just a little sip won’t get you all that far. But a mouthful brings out some very nice flavors. In short, the main flavor that comes out is caramel, but it’s a very specific flavor of caramel.

I tried this one too-expensive “Righteously Raw” cocoa bar one time, and it was all right. The outside was 90% cocoa and bitter, but the inside was really delicious. The ingredients were lucuma fruit, pink salt, agave nectar, dates, and vanilla bean. I’m not sure if it’s the lucuma (never had it alone) or just the combination of everything, but it made a unique caramelish flavor that I loved. Took me a minute to figure it out, but Decadence totally has this flavor going on. It is not harsh or astringent, and I am looking forward to steep #2.

EDIT: Steep 2 was not too different. 160 degrees for 3:30. A little bit of red grape started coming out. While a tiny bit of astringency happened, it was still very smooth and not at all bitter. I bet you could steep this more times and still get nice, subtle cups. When I was done with the leaves, they smelled bright and grassy. This is really not a tea for you if you like ’em with a kick – I let my gf try it, and she thought it was more like water than tea.

I’m not so experienced with white teas – I sort of quit them a few years ago – but I’ll keep drinking them if they’re like this. Now, if only it were cheaper.

I had never had a CTC tea before, besides possibly in a bag in my early days, so this is a new experience for me. Rather than recognizable leaves, this tea looks almost exactly like grape-nuts would, if for some reason wheat and tea traded places in the universe. The leaves have a slightly brisk but full smell, with a hint of dried apple.

The brew is a deep, dark red. It may be the smoothest black tea I’ve ever had, which is not what I was expecting from a CTC tea. From what little I’d read about them, it seemed that CTC teas would be powerful but harsh.

American Breakfast doesn’t really have much in the way of out-of-the-ordinary flavors, but there’s absolutely nothing not to like about the taste. It is robust and full, but mellow and without any bitterness or astringency, which is something of an accomplishment with a black tea. The mouthfeel is something like a very smooth coffee. This is a quandary for me, score-wise, because how do you compare this with a tea that does something more interesting and unusual but has astringency or some other undesirable characteristic? In any case, it’s a very enjoyable tea and one that I recommend. It would be very hard to dislike.

(taken with milk and a spoon of sugar, as always)