Mercuryhime

Had this a few nights ago. I had ordered a sample since I really need more non-caf teas in my life and this one sounded pretty tasty.
The taste was weird at first. Tasted like dirty water. But then it cooled and it tasted a lot like Forever Nuts but with rooibos. And less apple. So mostly walnutty. Pretty meh. And the texture was all oily and filmy. Not a fan.

Got a bit of this at my meet up swap with Alphakitty and it is yummy! Most convincing marshmallow confection taste to date! Sure, all those teas with marshmallow root taste like marshmallow too, but this one actually tastes fluffy and sticky too. Amazed! And the sweet caramel. Mmm. Tasty! Would be a nice latte but I just had mine plain today. :) also enjoying this base as it doesn’t compete with the flavors. Ideally, the base works with the flavors but this is fine as it is. I think a nice chocolaty yunnan would be amazing with the flavors in this tea.

EDIT: forgot to mention how pretty the dry tea is! Glittery gold balls, blue and white Stars of David, puffy marshmallow balls. So cute! Is this tea kosher? Just curious.

Sad sip down. :( this was a delicious companion that I kept at work to brighten up cloudy stressful days like this one.

Also, yesterday snow. Today rain. Yuck. I hope Easter will be more springy.

Brewing this for the first time yesterday was a bit of a disaster. It tasted so weird! Sour and harsh and somehow underleafed all at once. I gave up after two steepings. Today, I decided to change things up a bit and see if it made a difference. I used the remaining half of the packet, but only half the amount of water as yesterday. I also used unfiltered water from my tap since I had used filtered last time. Result? Much better! So does this mean some teas taste better with unfiltered tap water? Or is my brita messed up? Water tastes fine… meh. Oh well. Now I know! And I can review this tea!

First, the dry leaves smell like a delicious chocolate truffle. mmmmm….

The first steep is luscious and dark chocolatey. Also mineraly, like hot rocks. Tasty!

Second steep tastes more like burning rocks and dry fall leaves. This is good. There is a sweet aftertaste. And something undefinably fruity. Still have that dark chocolate quality.

Going for a third steep! This is a nice mellow one with a lovely sweetness. I can definitely taste its oolongy origins here. Reminds me of forest soil, like many dark oolongs do.

This is a very tasty experiment indeed! I’m glad I got an ounce of this to play with. :) Next time, it’s going into the gaiwan.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone! Have a green day!

Help! Too much black tea today! I wanted to drink and write about Anxi Fo Shou from Verdant. But it tasted weird and sour. I think either the water is off or my tastebuds are off. Then I opened up my bag of Laoshan Black thinking I’d get one good cup of black, but had the same weirdness going on as for the Fo Shou. I had two steepings of each. Now I’m cold brewing them cause if I have more caffeine now, I think I might explode. But there’s so much flavor left in those leaves! I’m freaking out! I think it’s a good day to try that banana caffeine cure I read about. But first, this tasting note.

So I didn’t actually have this Earl Grey Creme Vanilla today, thankfully. I had opened this packet for the first time at work a couple days ago. It’s been crazy stressful and busy so I haven’t had time to write a note before now. But anyway, this tea smells amazing. So sweet and delicious. Like an orange creamsicle. It was always my favorite from the ice cream vending machine when I was a kid. Of course, I managed to spill half my sample onto the floor when I ripped open the packet, so I got to smell that deliciousness all day long as my rolling chair kept going back and forth on those leaves. Eventually, I figured out I could pick up the leaf bits with the lint roller I had in a cabinet, but then I could still smell it from my trash can.

Anyway! I can’t concentrate when I’m over caffeinated like this! So the tea! Tasted pretty good, but left an odd aftertaste that I associate with artificial flavors. Upton doesn’t always use natural flavoring, but I don’t make a big fuss about it since the majority of my diet is pretty natural, I figure a bit from the occasional tea can’t be too bad. But when it tastes funny like this…well, that’s when I wish they had gone for natural flavoring.

Overall, not bad, but I’ll be looking for a better EG Creme. The one from SpecialTeas was quite tasty. Alas…

Now for that supposed banana cure!

EDIT Okay, so, skeptical as always when hearing a vague scientific claim, I googled the banana/caffeine thing. Turns out the “science” behind the banana cure is pretty shady. Ah well, at least my banana blueberry smoothie was delicious.

Cold brewed this cause I feel spring in my bones if not in the air. You can tell it’s spring because the birds have moved back into my walls. There are these little holes under the eaves and they nest in there. I can here them chirping and scratching around in the wall area to the left of my desk. So yeah. Birds have migrated back. It’s spring! Time for delicious cold brewed tea!

And I have to say, this tea makes one mighty fine cold brew! So much honey sweetness! I might order tons of this just to cold brew all summer! That is…if I didn’t already have about a gajillion tons of tea in my cabinet. ah well! Too much tea is better than not enough!

Also, sip down!

Upon opening the package to examine the leaves, I noticed this round tan color thing. Looked like a small chickpea. Since I didn’t know what it was, I bit it. Mmmm…chewy caramel. I ate the whole thing. :D How much would it have added, really? hehe

This tea smells decadent. But the fresh greenness of the base makes it light. It’s just a sweet little something, not a full blown dessert. Very nice. Often caramel flavored teas are so heavy and rich. This is rich but not heavy. I’m so glad I got to try this! Thanks AlphaKitty!

That said, it does have, what I’ve come to recognize as, a Chinese sencha base. Probably my least favorite tea. Yet, it’s a common tea to use in green blends, probably due to affordability. But this blend was made with such skill that I could overlook the base. :) Tasty! I’d be happy to finish the rest of my sample.

I got some of this in my meet up/ swap with AlphaKitty yesterday! What a fun time!

This is a tea I’ve been wanting to try for a long time. It sounds so delicious! I can smell a hint of caramel. Toasty flavor. Lightly fruity. Very light. Hmm…not really tasting like honey and preserves. Whatever flavors there are, they are very subdued. In fact, I can barely taste it. I think Harney’s black tea blends may be formulated so that I can’t taste the flavors. I could never detect much in Florence either.

Soo…back to Marco Polo. My wallet weeps.

Description suggests that the bergamot is light on this tea but I found it plenty strong enough. Couldn’t taste much difference between this one and the Ceylon base. Actually the Ceylon might have a brighter flavor. I wonder what kind of Chinese tea is being used here. It was just a bit astringent. Added a bit of cream but that just completely muddled the flavors. Might be good iced for summer.

Don’t get me wrong. This is a good tea, but not as good as I was hoping for.

Maybe I’m not as big a fan of earl grey as I think I am. :(

Had this tea at a very impressive restaurant. Husband surprised me with a last minute reservation to Dirt Candy for my birthday yesterday. I’ve been wanting to eat there since foreeever! It was everything I dreamed and more. Their dessert menu featured a couple of teas from Le Palaise des Thes, proving that a stunning meal out doesn’t have to be followed by Lipton or stale coffee.

The tea came in a small insulated press pot. Elegant and convenient. I peeked into the pot and saw that this was loose leaf. Amazing. I felt that the ratio of leaf to water was a bit off, but overall, quite tasty! Sweet honey notes. Roasty. More like a dark oolong than black tea. Malty. Perfect end to a perfect meal.

Then we went next door to play with the kitties at the no kill shelter. Husband would normally stop me from doing this as I’m allergic to the cute little things, but it was my birthday! So I’m allowed to get all itchy from cat fur if I want to. :D at some point, I got a bit too wheezy so I dropped a donation and left. Made me happy. :)

Meh. I love the spice strong in my chai. This was okay but lacked pizzazz. Need some spicy burn from ginger and sweet heat from cinnamon! And floral vaguely citrusy cardamom. Where is all of that awesomeness? Bland for a chai but good enough for a caffeine free evening drink.

Got husband to have gaiwan session with me this morning. :) That means I didn’t have to imbibe all that caffeine by myself. Which means I can have more other teas. :D so we followed the directions on teavivre’s website. Worked well! He even poured a few steepings. :)

The tea developed beautifully. Husband’s comments were great. He said they were like burnt flowers. Which I translated to understand as smokey and floral. Haha. I thought it was smoked prunes. Tasty. But a bit savory. Like a balanced meal.

Thank you Yssah for including this sample with the Pear White from Ovation you ordered for us. :) I really like the little baggie it came in. It’s the perfect size for a sample of tea. :)

The smell is quite appealing, but I don’t know if I’d describe it as blueberries and cream. It is vaguely desserty. Tastes more like rock sugar than anything else. The tea base is quite good though. I forgot about the tea for a good 15 minutes while it steeped. No bitterness or astringency to speak of.

Bright fresh bergamot. No astringency in the otherwise nondescript tea base. Definitely a step up from dusty bitter tea bags. I can drink this without additions. Which is rare for EGs but I’ve only had them bagged before now. I actually had a packet of sugar ready just in case, but it was unnecessary. :) this is the one with a Ceylon base. I’m eager to try my sample made with a Chinese black as that is supposedly more authentic. Would be fun to set up shot glasses of all the EG samples I got and try them all back to back. No time for that at the moment though. :(

Good cup in for the morning. The bright bergamot awakens your senses and the caffeine here is gently injected into your system.

No notes yet.

Tasty and caramely and toasted-ricey. All together it tastes like caramel popcorn. All good good things. :) This is a very balanced tea with a slightly decadent and very comforting profile. I could certainly use more teas like this!

Tasty tea! It reminds me of the flavoring used for DT’s Chocolate Orange only this is used subtly so that the tea base can work with the bright citrus and creamy decadent chocolate. :) I would say the chocolate doesn’t taste all that authentic, but it is not unbearably fake. I am a bit of a chocolate snob so it might just be me. :)

Steep tea has a bit or orange rind flavor (nice and authentic here) and still a bit or creamy chocolate, but mostly it just tastes like tea. And not a bad black tea base either. :) Worth a second steep.

Thank you for the sample!

Yum! The smell! Wow! Smells more like butterscotch than caramel but I’m not complaining. And the spice! Frank has a way with spicing.

Definitely taste pumpkin and caramel. Love the nutmeg here. It’s an under appreciated spice. Tried it with a touch of cream and sugar but I like it much better plain. Cream hides the flavors. Might be okay with just sugar? Will try next time.

Second steep has little flavoring. Tastes just like a plain black with a hint of spice. Not a bad black base. :) I’m glad I took a chance on this one.

Hmm looks like I already rated thus one. I completely forgot I had it before. Doh! That means I have two sample pouches of this open. My brain is clearly on its way to dementia.

Well it’s worth reviewing against I seem to like this tea a lot more today. It is indeed fragrant. It tastes like a sweet potato roasted over a fire. Sweet and toasty and delicious.

The first time I had this tea, I had gotten it in a swap. I think it was from Kittenna. I remember being really impressed with how juicy sweet the strawberry flavor was, and now bakery smelling the vanilla and cinnamon made the whole thing. I finally got my own pouch of this and it tastes just as good as the first time I had this. Summery strawberries are so yummy. Can’t wait for berry season to come back! And the cinnamony bakey flavor makes me think of brown sugar cinnamon biscuits…which I haven’t heard of until I just imagined it right this second. They will exist in my tummy in the near future. :) Oh! Wait! Strawberry shortcake on a brown sugar cinnamon biscuit! I am a genius!! And this tea is my muse. :) Now I really can’t wait for berry season. :)

EDIT: This tastes better cool. I suspect that it’s because the honeybush flavor subsides and lets the flavoring through. So much more juicy strawberry… mmmm. :)

I was so excited when my 52 Teas package arrived! Yay! Tea! The best thing about being home on is getting the tea the moment it lands in your mailbox. And then brewing a cup of new tea right away! Perfect timing since I was feeling cold from walking my doggies in the snow. They were not pleased. They look absolutely adorable in their jackets though. :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23283174@N00/8456031767/

So since I’ve been wanting this particular tea the longest, I ripped it open and dreamt of sweet malty chocolatey tea while it brewed. Unfortunately, what it really tastes like is a vaguely sweet pure honeybush. If I didn’t see the cocoa nibs in there myself, I wouldn’t believe there was any chocolate in there at all. Where’s the malt? Where’s the chocolate?! So much disappointment. :( I’ve read some people saying that a newly flavored tea needs a few weeks to begin tasting the way it’s supposed to. But even if there seems to be no flavor whatsoever? So many good reviews for this tea from the past too… I guess I can only wait a few weeks and try again. I’ll hold off rating until then.

I don’t think my sample of this was from 2011 as the name suggests. I suspect this is from 2012, but I didn’t see one for 2012 so I’ll just stick this note here.

Snow storm Nemo has allowed me the opportunity to work from home today. That means pajamas and quality tea. I’m doing this one in my gaiwan, which I’m doing better with, but I need to work on amount of tea. I used way too much this time. But this still tastes lovely once I dilute what comes out with a bit of hot water. Not really focusing on this tea, which is a shame since it’s so wonderful, but I have to use my brain for working today. :) I thought I get this one sipped down since it’s getting on in age, which is not so good for a green oolong. :)

I’m glad I’m home. Snow storms are so much nicer when you’re watching from your window with a hot cup of tea. I’m just worried about getting home to my family tomorrow for Chinese New Year. sad.

Boring tea log tonight. My tummy is going through all sorts of chaos today. I don’t even want to put dinner in there. ugh. Mint is supposed to be good for tummies, so I busted this out. It tastes kinda funky today. Not sure if it’s the kettle. I’m on the market for a glass one.

Anyways, classic spearmint. sweet and fresh. Couldn’t ask for anything more.

I wonder if ginger would work for me or if it’s only good for nausea? I’ll try that next if this spearmint fails me. :(

Said to husband, “I’m about to start quiet tea time…don’t bother me!” Using my gaiwan today. I haven’t quite mastered it, but this tea’s reputation seems to call for something special.

Dry smell: bark, sweet buttery cream, coconut mochi, spice, light cocoa. It smells like dessert.

I love how the dusting of the brown tea fuzz makes everything look like it’s been covered in cocoa.

Steep 1: Hot water hits the leaves. Wow. Such a luscious sweet aroma. The taste is sweet creamy cocoa. Smooth and refined, yet dark and reminiscent of wilderness. Thick mouthfeel. I keep sniffing my cup. It’s fantastic. Non-tea scented air is so plebeian.

Steep 2: Hmm, darker. There’s some spice here…like roots. Still sweet and cocoa-y, but also more savory somehow. Mouthfeel is still brothy, but the moment the liquid moves past my tongue, I feel the effects of astringency. Liking steep #1 more so far. I probably went too long with this steep though. Let’s try again.

Steep 3: Oh my. The caffeine is kicking in. This is why I can’t do gong fu tea more often. Or if only I could convince husband to have tea with me. But the tea! mmmm… this steep is good. not so astringent as the last one. Dark and tastes like bark. Sweet cream and vanilla. Smells like ancient forest.

Steep 4: Last one till later. Something floral now. I’m terrible at recognizing floral scents and flavor except for jasmine and rose. And this is neither. More vanilla and dark spice.

This is a heavy rich tea. Nothing like the light springy green oolongs that i adore. Yet, I still enjoyed this thoroughly. More steeps to come, but my belly feels sloshy. I got a 4oz gaiwan, which produces about a quarter cup of liquid after allowing for the tea leaves and water absorption, but I’m still wishing I had a smaller gaiwan. They don’t seem to come much smaller than this.

Anyway, I’m feeling all warm and alive. Somehow relaxed yet alert. Lovely.

EDIT Here are my lovely tea companions (not imbibing)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23283174@N00/8438839204/

EDIT #2

Steep 5: Did not record this one while drinking. It was starting to develop that flavor tea gets if the wet leaves stay out too long. But the flavor of the tea underneath is still good. A bit weak, but I will blame that on my steeping time.

Steep 6: Reminds me to dark rye bread. It is a strong tea but the flavors are becoming more subtle now. There is bitterness in the swallow. Almost unpleasant.

Though I had originally wanted a ceramic gaiwan, I must say that this glass one has its charms.

Steep 7: This is, again, light. Reminds me of watered down barley tea. Or toasted rice porridge, which my grandpa was very fond of. This next steep shall be left to develop.

Does anyone else get super thirsty from gong fu sessions? I think I’ve chugged like 2 tall glasses of water since I started this late morning.