Michelle Butler Hallett Send Message

6tsp for 750mL, Breville, green tea setting, medium strength (3-minute steep) with basket feature on.

Yes, that’s a lot of leaf for 750mL of tea, but the older I get, the stronger I like my tea — except for some of the oolongs; those I’ll follow directions for. Also, this Dragonwell is fluffy for a green. The leaves are long, flat and lovely.

I’m not Dragonwell expert, but the Dragonwell from Boston Tea Party is delicious. I gotta ask myself why I don’t make this more often. My flashier teas tend to push Dragonwell to the back of the line. But when there’s work to be done and green tea to be drunk, a good Dragonwell or a good Sencha can make my day.

Notes from an earlier comment. These hold true even with the stronger liquor this time: “Body is light but creamy. Taste is sweet and very refreshing. No mineral or brine notes. Faint fruitness rounds out the aftertaste. Maybe some distant smoke — hard to say. Slight nuttiness.” The only difference now is a pleasant mineral note in the finish — very clean. Lots of buance and subtlety in this unassuming straight green.

Rating: 95.

1.5 tsp for 250mL, boiling water, 4-minute steep.

I love lapsang souchong and Carvan teas. Adore them. I drink them a lot when the weather turns cold, though on occasion I’ll take hot cup of lapsang on a hot summer day and get serious refreshment. (It just seems counter-intuitive to drink hot smoky tea on a hot day. Any hot tea on a hot day will help you cool down, of course.) This lapsang from my local indie shop is, as the copy promises, smooth and crisp. The smokiness is almost a bit salty. The tea does not gett bitter.

The main difference I find between lapsang and Caravan teas is the degree of smoke (natch) and the body. Lapsangs tend to be light-bodied, Caravans a little heavier. I am actually in the mood for a Caravan this morning, I’ve discovered, but I am still loving this lapsang.

Rating: 100.

1 TB for 450 mL, 100C water, 6-minute steep.

I like medicinal herbal teas. I like the idea of sipping on a hot drink that might help me feel better. So I’m always open to them.

This blend sounds enticing. Who doesn’t want inner peace? And I’ve wanted to try tulsi for a while but could only find it blended with lavender, which I generally don’t care for in a tisane.

This is very soothing. I usually stay away from fennel, anise and licorice, but they aren’t dominating the cup. Neither is the peppermint or the lemongrass. I can just catch the orange peel. A nicely balanced tisane, though I wish the licorice was less noticable. Hardly a fair comment to make, as I don’t care for licorce. Not a tisane I’ll turn to for pleasure, I expect, but for the effects. I definitely feel more mellow after drinking it.

Rating: 80.

4tsp for 750mL tea, Breville One Touch, basket cycle on, 3-minute ‘medium’ steep, oolong setting.

I made this last evening to have after a heavy meal of take-out Chinese food to celebrate hubby’s birthday. He also adores this tea, comparing it to cognac. Delicious and well-balanced, this nuanced blend is probably the only flavoured oolong that truly works for me. (I’ve got somr Citron Oolong from DavidsTea but still can’t decide if I like it. Similarly, I have some Smoked Assam Oolong (!) from Stash and can’t make up my mind on that.) Properly made, Long Life Oolong will delight you, so long as you like peaches.

Rating: 90.

4 tsp TB for 750mL of tea, Breville One Touch, 3-minute steep, basket setting on, oolong setting.

Exquisite. I’ve not gotten the water right for this tea before. It is sweet and medium-bodied, heady but not suffocating with magnolia, slight atringency like white wine, and a sweet finish with a some creaminess. With the water at the right temp, there’s no bitterness.

Rating: 98.

1 pouch of loose in 450 mL water, bare, steeped 5 minutes.

I got a gift box of Forte single steep pouches a while ago, and this one was my favourite. That said, it can get bitter once you hit 5 minutes; it was more pleasant at 4.

A competent and pleasant Assam blend with, to my surprise, what looked like some CTC mixed in with very small leaves. Some malt, lots of body, but again, a tendency to bitterness at the end. Not the best Assam ever, but far from the worst.

My IE won’t let me access the slider bars, so I have to type out ratings. I give this one a 75.

1 TB for 450mL water @ 82 degrees, steeped 5 minutes.

So DavidsTea reformulated this one slightly … it seems to me there’s more green and less rooibos. They’ve also re-classified this blend as a green tea. I’d found that this new version sometimes got bitter, and I’d been avoiding it. This evening I tried it with water at 82 degrees, like you would for green tea. While it takes a bit longer to get the rooibos flavour out, both the green tea and the chocolate are smoother and more noticeable. Definitely worth trying at the cooler temp.

1.5 tsp for 250mL water, 82 degree water, 4-minute steep.

It helps. Any steaming hot beverage will, of course, but I did find the lemon and ginger very soothing. I could not taste the licoreice, which is fine. as I don’t care much for licorice. The tea itself started to get bitter at the 4-minute mark.

It’s hard to rate this one fairly, as I am too congested to taste properly, and as my throat’s got that fire-on-sandpaper thing going. But it did give me a little boost — I just feel a bit happier after drinking it — and who couldn’t use a little extra green tea and ginger in their diet?

Definitely worth a try when miserable, but I’d have gone for the dicontinued Electric Ginger (is that was it was called? a lemon and ginger tea from DavidsTea back in the winter) instead, if I could.

Rating: 75.

1 rounded tsp of leaves for 250mL water, bare.

The best jasmine tea I’ve ever had. I try not to hoard this one, and I do drink others for variety — and to remind myself of just how good these pearls are. Balanced, nuanced, clean and almost intoxicating. No bitterness, no bad flower taste, no sharp leaf. Magic potions must all start with jasmine.

1 TB for 450mL water, bare.

This smells like the Long Life Oolong from DavidsTea, pleasantly peachy — although there is no peach in this blend. There is mango and pineapple and something, well, fermenty. But that’s supposed to be there.

I am not sure how this kombucha thing works. I thought kombucha was a leathery biomass that sits on top of fermeting liquid. Does this tea contain dried biomass? Or is kombucha the name of the liquid?

Anyway, the fermenty flavours in this blend do not agree with me. This tea tasted like peaches with malt vinegar. Acidic and strange and a bit sweaty. I could detect no oolong. Not for me.