LENA

Well, the Traveling Tea Box certainly did its job for me. With this wonderful tea, I have now found a company that I never knew existed AND I will soon be placing an order with them. This oolong is classic. It’s soon to be a staple oolong. It smells delicious, tastes delicious…and it’s the first oolong I’ve tried in which the second steep is bake-y. A bake-y oolong! Oh yes. Ready the debit cards, folks.

The tea isn’t overly complex; it simply has a no frills, traditional oolong taste. And it’s great! Lightly roasted and smoky tasting, I just love it. No vegetal taste, just how I like it. I’m all giddy! I usually refrain from eating while drinking tea (other than the occasional cookie or sweet getting dunked in), but I would love to eat several traditional Chinese dishes with this tea in hand. It’s so good.

The sample from the TTB ended up just where it was meant to be.

No notes yet.

This bottle went delightfully with my left over Easter ham sandwich. My absolute favorite bottled/pre-made tea. Mmmm!

I selected a bag of this tea out of the Traveling Tea Box. I needed some tea on the fly this morning, so I went for the quick teabag approach. This tea isn’t awful by any means, but it isn’t going to knock anyone’s socks off either. It has a very light but pleasant peach aroma and taste. I’m not finding any depth to this tea, and the oolong that Stash used is about 5 kinds of bland. But it’s not awful…there’s just much better tea out there. As my cup cooled down, the taste was much sweeter and juicier. It would probably make a lovely iced tea if you made a fierce concentration of it first. This was a refreshing cup…I’ll give it that. Not too shabby for a bagged tea.

This tea is a prime example of a “green-tasting” oolong (in my opinion). While it is not my preferred flavor profile, it’s still a tasty cup. I’m getting nutty, lightly fruity, asparagus-like notes from it. The first cup seemed quite vegetal to me, but the second steep has calmed down remarkably. Both cups are smooth as can be. A big “thank you” goes to Jillian for sending me a sample of this. She mentioned Wuyi Yancha’s “re-steeping power” in one of her posts. I’m looking forward to getting a few more cups out of this!

Roasty and toasty, indeed. I really like the flavor of this tea. It’s a traditional tasting oolong in every way except the final kick of roasted/toasted, nutty notes. The color of the liquor is so light…I’m surprised it packs this much of a punch. It reminds me of Soba-Cha, but much more complex. Medium to Dark roasted oolongs are my preference, and this one is one of the best ones I’ve ever had. It’s nice to have an oolong that tastes just like an oolong…none of the green/vegetal notes are present at all. I might have found the right tea for my brand new Yixing pot. Maybe…I’ve had it since Christmas and still have not decided on a tea. It’s a big decision for me. :)

Major props to TeaEqualsBliss for including this one in our swap. I have found a new gem! Yay!

Dry.White.Wine.

The taste progression of this tea is super fast but highly noticeable. It goes something like this (but in a blur): slightly sweet, floral, grape skin bitterness, sweet, and ends with lingering bitterness. The astringency level is moderate…just enough to be unpleasant. It really does taste like a dry white wine…and it’s a wee bit odd to drink it hot. Wombatgirl gave me this sample when she was in Nashville. Thanks chick!

Time to drink some water to re-hydrate my mouth. :)

A big thank you goes to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me this sample. Sorry, I’m just now getting around to tasting it.

This is a very intriguing oolong. The liquor is a very light yellow and has a sweet, vegetal smell. The flavor is initially vegetal, then very floral…mostly of orchids. Nice! On an odd note, I swear I’m tasting a light cabbage flavor…and not in an awful way. I like cabbage. The aftertaste is sweet and lingering. Not too shabby overall. I am, however, encountering that familiar musty smell and taste that I tend to do with rolled teas of any sort. This is the main downer for me.
All in all, this tea is quite pleasant…but I think I prefer darker, less green tasting oolongs. This was really nice to sample!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. My life has been absolutely crazy since the 1st of this month. I interviewed for a position within my company that would involve relocating to Florida. I still haven’t heard too much, other than that I have made it to the “narrowed down” list. (Whatever that means.) My patience is truly being tested. I’m trying to remain positive…but not to the point of devastation if I don’t get it.

Anyway, on to the tea. Unfortunately, it sucks. There ya go…great review, huh? For starters, the tea leaves are very broken…not coffee grounds, but quite broken. The smell of the dry leaves was not very impressive either. It wasn’t quite cherry or vanilla, but something sour smelling. Meh. After steeping, only the faintest wisp of cherry/vanilla was present in the smell and taste…and that only happened after the cup cooled to lukewarm. Bland, bland, bland…and super astringent. I feel like this marks the last of my flavored tea purchases. (Other than chocolate…Numi’s Chocolate Pu-erh comes to mind.) I picked this up at Whole Foods on a whim. I’m much more into blends at the moment and picking out the notes of unflavored teas. Another phase of my tea drinking, I suppose.

Well, back to waiting and positive thinking.

I picked a few of these up at Whole Foods the other day. I was a smidge leary, but I had a hunch I would like it. Man, am I impressed! This tastes so nice and clean…so oolong-y and nom! It’s great with food or by itself. I wish they weren’t $1.99 a pop, because I could casually drink a lot of this. I drank the majority of the bottle ice cold with lunch. Yum! Now, I’m finishing up the bottle and it’s kind of luke-warm. STILL really good! I love that this was totally unsweetened and natural.

I guess $1.99 isn’t too bad if I only pick up 3 or 4 every now and then. It’s totally worth it!

This tea looks so pretty but tastes kind of…blah. Don’t let the pu-erh scare you away if that’s a factor for you not trying it. You can smell the pu-erh, but it’s not over the top taste-wise. It’s earthy and minty…and smells very cinnamon-y, but I do not taste too much of it. This does leave my mouth clean and minty as any good mint tea should, but this one is lacking in the taste department. It’s thin and weak despite having a very dark liquor. It should be called Pu-erh Mint because I taste absolutely NO vanilla. Rishi’s description (all of it) is WAYYY off on this one.

This tea might indeed benefit by being brewed like a chai, but I recommend saving your money for Samovar’s Moorish Mint instead. Mmmm….Now that tea can do no wrong.

After receiving this sample from TeaEqualsBliss, I was super excited about trying this one. I mean really…look at those ratings! Nice! Now the down side. Last night I received bad news about a friend of the family’s sudden failing health and I needed something comforting this morning. I’m out of Almond Cookie. Boo. :( Anyway, on to the tea.

I honestly wasn’t too impressed with my 1st cup. The dry leaves and spice mix looked very appealing to begin with so I was kind of confused. Of course I added milk and sugar as I tend to do with most of my chais. After the 1st steep, the leaves were fully expanded and that’s mostly what I tasted…black tea. The spices were fairly bland and very much in the background. As much as I like spicy foods, I don’t particularly care for super spicy chais. I mean “spicy” as in “heat”…NOT the cardamom, cinnamon, peppercorns, etc. This one did not have a “spicy” feel to it, but it was still kind of lacking. Regardless, I finished my cup and decided to steep again.

Take two. Now this is better! The liquor is much MUCH lighter, so I skipped the milk and sugar. NOW I taste the spices. Mostly cardamom…but that’s cool. At least this tastes more like chai! I’m not sure if my traditional chai preparation method would improve this blend or not. In my opinion, chais need that rolling boil to crack open all of those pods and make the spices come to life. I think the black tea was either too strong for the spices or that the company used too much leaf in relation to the ratio of spices. Or maybe I just like my chais WAY to freakin’ strong. Oh well, it’s not bad by any means. Just mild.

Sorry about the rambling post. My mind is kind of scattered at the moment.

Well, this is one of the best bagged chais that I’ve tried. Not very complex, but warm and inviting on a cold morning. I taste mostly clove, cinnamon and the black tea base. When I first looked at the bag I thought they went a little skimpy on the spices and black tea. After steeping, I was pretty happy to see that the black tea Chai Baby used was of fairly decent quality. The tea leaves fully expanded in the sachet and took up most of the space. I still prefer to make chai traditionally, but this one will work in a pinch. Taken with milk and sugar…I still think it was a little on the weak side. But then again, I like my chais very strong.

MY 100th TASTING NOTE! Cue the balloons and confetti.

For my 100th post, I chose a tea that I have never had before. I’ve kind of been avoiding Lapsang Souchong teas due to their smell. Not that the smell is offensive, I’ve just never been in the mood to drink them. The tea’s liquor is much lighter than I expected (even lighter than most black teas). I think I was expecting a tarry, murky, dark color to match the smell. Surprise #1. The tea smells like a campfire. Well, maybe not like a campfire per se…but it smells like your clothes after you have been close to a campfire. The 1st taste (the second it touches your tongue) is that of a smooth black tea. Then an overwhelming flavor of smoke and ash (and I mean that in the best of ways) takes over. The after taste is that of residual smoke and a very light sweetness. Odd and interesting. Surprise #2.

I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it either. I’ll be open to try other LS in the future now that I’ve gotten the initial experience out of the way. I really do like the lingering taste. It’s not like cigar smoke that can hang on for a day or two. It’s like the aftertaste of a nice meal that involved eating smoked ham or something similar.

Now that the world of LS has been opened, it might be time to delve into pu-erh…maybe. Slowly.

Here’s to experiencing 100 more teas.

The perky pyramid is back…and this time it has yielded much better results. It’s not too shabby for an herbal tea. One look at the ingredients and you will know what this tastes like. Yes, hibiscus is the 1st on the list. It’s really not too bad. The raspberry is present but in general this tastes very sour and very berry.
The color is outstanding. It’s kind of a cranberry, blood red. I love it. I steeped this in my clear glass cup and it was so cool to watch. Well, cool in a crime scene kind of way. A drizzle of red slowly seeped out of the mesh bag. It floated around and then fell to the bottom like a drop of blood. Slowly, the water turned light pink, then a tinge darker…then bloody.
Mmm, Mmm good.

A nice Darjeeling base with just a touch of vanilla. The tea in the sachet expanded quite a bit, unlike several others. Slightly floral and very mild in astringency. The vanilla is soft and sweet. A yummy cup on a freezing morning. My hands are too cold to type more. My office needs to throw another lump of coal on the fire. Damn, it’s like A Christmas Carol in here!

Let me just start out by saying how refreshing it is to try an “apple” flavored tea WITHOUT cinnamon as an additive. Thank you! It’s nice! Spread the word to other tea companies.

This tea is a very mellow and smooth black tea with just a smidge of apple behind it. Apple is not the main focus, but it is harmoniously playing in the background. It’s there when you want it to be there. I’m also getting that bake-y taste.

The sample I received in my teaswap was in bagged form. For my 1st cup, I removed the bag after about 5 minutes. I tried to resteep, but ended up with faintly apple-flavored hot water. For my 3rd cup, I used another teabag and left it in until I finished my cup. No bitterness…just a little more apple…or bakeapple. YUM! I added just a faint sprinkling of Splenda and it was wonderful. I bet it would be lovely iced. It’s light and thirst-quenching.

Daaaaark Tickle! shivers

Edit: OK, so there’s no actual apple in this. WTF am I tasting?…the word apple? LOL! I’ll stand by it though. I tasted a dry/tart (Granny Smith apple) kind of taste.

Now these are some cute teabags! That little leaf at the end of the string? Too cute for words! And the mesh that the teabag is made of stays perky even after steeping. I’m not sure why that is important, but it made me smile.

The tea wasn’t that great, unfortunately. Uber-cinnamon-y and that’s about it. I never tasted the “Sweet Orange” or any of the spices. Just cinnamon. Red Hots or Fireball candy type of cinnamon. Too strong and on the verge of spicy.

But man, those teabags are cute.

I expected more. I’m mostly tasting the Rooibos with a little aftertaste of orange and cranberry. All of the other flavors take a backseat to the Rooibos. I’m a little let down. I drank half of my cup piping hot and the other half cold, due to my lack of interest. The hotter the tea, the more I tasted pure Rooibos. I got a lot of the sour wood taste and smell. When the cup had completely cooled, I began to taste the orange and cranberry a smidge more.
It’s an ok tea. It’s “Ehh”…with a little head nod to the side.

Auggy, I finally get it. BAKE-Y!

Let there be light!!!

This is the 1st tea that has actually screamed bake-y to me. Some have likened it to plain biscotti or perhaps an unsweetened baked good. I have to agree. Tannic and bready…but kind of crumbly bake-y like biscotti or shortbread would be. I like it. I’ve had several cups straight and a few with milk and sugar…both very good. Thomas Sampson makes a good breakfast cup in my opinion. The tea is hearty and seems to carry a decent caffeine buzz. I’m relatively unfazed by caffeine, so this means something. :)

I tend to drink black teas, such as this, in the AM and then move on down the milder chain throughout the afternoon and after I get home from work. Just as I was beginning to get a little sad about finishing off the last of my sample, I noticed something.

40 NEW SETS OF SERIES 2 HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE SITE!
AND……
SERIES 4 IS UP AND RUNNING.

Word.

No notes yet.

A quick, on the go cup. Ick! This tea gets bitter very easily and lacks…taste. It might be salvageable with milk and sugar. Maybe.

No notes yet.

My husband called it “Jasmine Water”. Jasmine…Water. I also had to say to him, “No babe, it’s a green tea…you may not add milk and sugar to it!” sigh He’s still new. At least he tries all of the teas I bring home. He’s currently of the mindset that if it’s not Earl Grey or bold enough to smack your tongue like Thor’s hammer, it’s water. He’ll come around…eventually.

On to the tea. I really enjoyed my cup. Very floral without being perfume-y. I like that after swallowing the tea, my breath smelled like jasmine but with just a hint of the taste lingering. I’m not a fan of the jasmine teas where you can taste the jasmine “oil” all day and it becomes offputting. The green tea that A&D used to blend with was on the light side to me. The jasmine was the main event. Front and center. I do somewhat agree with my husband in that the green tea was so light in taste, that it could have been mistaken for white tea…almost. Still, very tasty cuppa.

Thanks again, Takgoti. You’re the best!