TeaSnob

The tea is a dark brown with deep red undertones. It smells like the dried leaves did. It is like someone stuck a campfire in the tea cup. Breathing it in it is as though you are sitting right in front of a fire. The tea is warm, not heat warm or spice warm. It has a flavor profile that is warm and makes you feel warm from the inside out. This would not be a tea that would make a lot of sense to try to make into an iced tea because of this warm flavor. It does sort of taste like drinking smoke. All the flavor of campfire or barbecue smoke is mixed up in the flavors of this drink. It’s not a sweet taste, although the start of it could be considered a little sweet, moving down into the a nutty and light flavor. This is a very thick tea, it sits heavy in your stomach. At the same time, it is surprisingly smooth.

For more information and pictures see below.

http://teasnobbery.com/2010/10/29/tea-review-russian-caravan-from-nm-tea-co/

The color is far darker than I was thinking it was going to be. It is a dark amber color, like a dark green tea, or a light black tea. The smell is light, and not very fragrant. It is sort of floral, like roses.

This has a very light taste that is easy to ruin. A slight overbrew and this will become bitter quickly. It does taste sort of like rose petals. Soft and sweet, this tea drifts over your tongue easy. At the end there is a bark like aftertone to it that finishes off the taste with a little bit of bite. This is the opposite of the smell of the tea leaves.

More information on pictures see below.

http://teasnobbery.com/2010/09/17/tea-review-white-peony/

This is a delicate tea and can be over brewed easily.

The liqueur is a light amber color, almost looking like it has no flavoring to it. It smells floral and fruity. The flower smells like rose but it tastes like jasmine. There is a lightly earthen tone at the back of the smell that is similar to many black darjeelings.

The taste is started off with a overtone of jasmine that slowly introduces the taste of fruit. It is sort of like a low roasted fruit taste though, like a low roasted pear or red apple. As you hit the end of the tea flavor it starts to hit a roasted nut and rice tone.

For more information and pictures see below.

http://teasnobbery.com/2010/11/19/tea-review-darjeeling-green-by-shanti-tea/

The liqueur is a deep amber tone. There are a couple of leaves left in the cup. There is a smell of cooked grass, sort of like leeks, and a soft hint of caramel in the smell.

This doesn’t seem to be a super complex set of tones to this tea. That doesn’t make this a bad tea though, it is just a sort of basic tea.

The tea has a warm flavor to it. The feeling of baking is in the flavor of tea. It tastes of an oven, just after you have pulled bread out of it. There is also a hint of jasmine and rosemary. There is also a hint of sweet grass, sort of like someone lightly glazed the grass with honey. I really do love the taste of this tea. It is straight forward and simple, light, but not so light that I can’t taste the flavors. It is a nice balance for a green tea.

For more information and photos see below.

http://teasnobbery.com/2010/12/10/tea-review-dragonwell-from-shanti-tea/

The tea is a deep amber color with red hues. This is definitly a black tea, although it doesn’t look as fermented as it smells. The smell is not all that much different from the way that the leaves smelled. Tangy with a hint of alcohol, the smell is that of unripened grapes, still green and juicy. There is a hint of something not as tangy lingering in the smell. It is sort of like jasmine and oak mixed together. Breathing it in, I feel peaceful. There are no grassy hints in the smell.

This tea has a slight alcohol taste to it, but it is not overpowering. It does remind me of a wine. It is grape like, slightly fermented, but not a lot. It is just enough to give it a hint of alcohol, but without having alcohol content probably. There is a hint of an oak undertone to it that is accompanied by a roasted almond flavor. It is clean and refreshing. In fact, it reminds me more of an oolong than a black tea. There is a strange sort of tangy nuance to the tea that seems to vary from sip to sip. There is a bitter aftertaste and the alcoholic taste of the tea seems to go up in the very end. There is a slight note of jasmine that is almost drowned out by the oak tones.

For the full information on this brew see the following post.

http://teasnobbery.com/2010/12/03/tea-review-vithanakanda-from-souvia-tea/

The tea is a bright orange coloring showing that this is a much lighter black tea than I was expecting. However, the higher steeping temperature doesn’t seem to have a bad effect on the tea. The smell is subtle and sort of like malt and Carmel. The malt I was expecting, but not the Carmel.

The malty flavor is traditional with an Assam tea like this. However, this tea seems to have a middle malty tone. It isn’t until after you have drank the tea and let it sit for a little bit that the malty taste gets stronger. This is a brisk tea that gets stronger as you drink it. There was not a lot of bitter taste in the beginning, but it sneaks up on you as an undertone as you continue to drink it. The Carmel smell in the taste flavor is the an undertone that provides a sweet flavor that livens up the tea. The overtone of this tea is a sweet and somewhere between leafy and grassy flavor which reminds me of wheatgrass. It isn’t quite as sweet as wheatgrass, but it has many of the same tones as it.

For more information check out my blog.

http://teasnobbery.com/2010/11/26/assam-ftgfop-from-chakra-4-herbs/

This came out a very strong brown color. It has a nice light smell to it, fruity, mostly like berries. The taste of this brew is what is interesting because it is a complex bunch of flavors. The beginning of the tea is light and fruity. Specifically it tastes like berries, but not so much that it overpowers the roasted, earthen, smoked taste that fills your mouth all at once. In the middle of the sip there is a bit of astringency that starts to soak the flavor out of the tea until you hit a flavor dry spell. It lasts for just a little bit, but it is sort of like drinking sand. As a beautiful end note, the flavor of the rose petals starts to soak in and give the tea a floral tone that gets sweeter and sweeter through the end until it tastes a little bit like honey.

More information about this at my blog.

http://teasnobbery.com/2010/11/12/tea-review-shalimar-rose-oolong/

This red robe actually comes out a deep golden color. It smells like chocolate and strawberries. The taste of this tea is slightly different though. There is a deep floral taste in the liqueur. It is sort of like jasmine, but a little bit harsher. In the back of the liqueur there is a smoky deep chocolate taste that lingers on the back of your throat before hitting the back of your tongue.

If you want more information about this tea check out my blog.

http://teasnobbery.com/2010/10/15/tea-review-da-hong-pao-from-a-tea-co/

The liqueur is a light golden color. It smells soft and subtly sweet. There is a hint of being fermented a little bit extra long. The smells are subtle overall and not very strong. The taste is a lot like the smell but stronger. The first thing I notice is that it is subtly sweet riding in the middle tone while the deeper tones are more vegital and warm. It makes me think of a flower garden when I taste the first few notes of the drink. The tea finishes not on a warm note, but instead on a colder note drawing with it a little piece of the astringency.

Further notes are available at the link below.
http://teasnobbery.com/2010/11/05/tea-review-ceylon-forest-green-from-shanti-tea/

This tea is a dark amber. It smells like roses, light and floral. There is no smell of berries like in the dry leaves. Tasting it, the primary taste is just like the smell. It tastes very strongly of roses, almost as if they were actually in the tea itself, although I have seen no parts of it. At the end of the tea, after I have let it sit for a while there is a sweet raspberry aftertaste that slowly overrides the other tones in the first brew. I brewed it a little too hot for the first brew, for a little too long, so it is a little extra bitter.

For more notes on this tea see the review on my blog.
http://teasnobbery.com/2010/10/08/tea-review-ontario-icewine-from-nmteaco/

The brew smells malty and sweet. There are sweet roasted undertones to the smell.

The tea has lightly roasted overtones. You can almost taste the ceder smoke in the tea. There are malty undertones, but not as intense as the smell initially suggested. It is also not as sweet as the smell initially suggested. The tea in fact has a little bit of a kick to it. It is not a bitter taste, but more like a hint of salt behind each sip. Sometimes it even reminds me of salted nuts because of the roasted salt flavor.

For the rest of the tasting notes, please check my blog.
http://teasnobbery.com/2010/09/10/tea-review-malty-assam-from-tao-of-tea/

Making the tea, the cup of tea is much darker green than I have seen matcha get. It is a sweet smelling tea.

The tea is not as bitter as some matchas that I have had. The Acai berry that has been added to the tea makes it a little sweeter. The tea is sweeter sort of with a tangy after taste to it. It doesn’t taste astringent like it usually does. It is still caulky and has a vegital middle tone to it. There are hints at a dark, almost bakers chocolate undertone that sits with you after you are done drinking the tea. There are some larger chunks of the matcha still in the cup, and I suppose I should next time sift the tea through a strainer to break up those chunks, or remove the chunks that are a little too big.

Although this is most of the review, please still check out my blog post on this tea: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/08/06/acai-matcha-from-shanti-tea/

The tea is a bright orange color, typical of Hoijcha.

The smell is a light roast, comforting and warm and slightly nutty.

The taste is rich and roasted, not quite nutty. Slightly astringent, but not quite bitter. It doesn’t have a very complex flavor profile. The flavor doesn’t really come out until you slurp it however. Caramelized and sweet, there are hints of strawberry.

For a more complete review go here: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/07/30/tea-review-hoijicha-made-from-kukicha/

As you can see it is a beautiful orange color that is not too far off from the color of the table we have in the living room. Warm and inviting, the Ti Kuan Yin is somewhere between a green tea and and a black tea.

It smells brisk and strong with musky undertones. After the tea has been poured out of the aroma cup the cup still smells kind of bitter. I’m a little worried I may let it brew a little too long. As the bitter smell quickly fades away, a fruit smell replaces it. If I close my eyes I can see myself in the middle of a fruit orchard. There are green apples, pears, red grapes and it smells like there might also be lychee. Coming back to it one more time, the smells have once more dissipated and changed and the aroma cup now smells like fresh baked apple pie, with lots of butter and no cinnamon or other spices to muss up the taste of the pie. I could probably keep this up all night on the one brew, so I am going to stop here and move on to the actual tea, but remember when drinking this to regularly check in on the smell of the tea as the smells in the cup will change.

The tea is rather brisk and sharp, but not necessarily in an unpleasant way. Next time I will let it brew for a little less time. This tea has a distinct taste of baked red apples. If anyone has ever done this before, some of the apple caramelizes as it bakes and makes it a little sweeter than normal, there are definitely caramel undertones to this tea. Taking a large mouthful gives a slightly different taste. It has a rich, nutty taste.

For the full review go to my blog: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/07/23/tea-review-foojoy-monkey-picked-ti-kuan-yin/

The tea tastes and smells exactly like the leaves did. It is dark and rich with intense earthy tones. It is like mixing dark hot chocolate with espresso, taking the sweet and the bitter out of both.What is left is comforting and caffeinated. This is a great morning tea because it wakes you up a lot like coffee with less caffeine and a better flavor.

For a more detailed tasting note check out my blog: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/07/09/tea-review-puer-tuocha-from-tao-of-tea/

It is a sort of orangy red. It is a very rich looking liqueur. It smells intoxicating. It is not too strong, but it does smell a lot like the orange flavoring. The tea shines through that though and smells vegital.

The tea is very interesting. It tastes sort of like Swiss chard with bergamot orange dripped over it. It is velvety and sweet, although I think I steeped it a little too high, a little too long. It is far more bitter than I was expecting it to be. It tastes like the bergamot flavor, not like the tea sort of bitterness, so I’m not too worried about having over steeped it, but the flavor profile seems to be a lot stronger than I was expecting. As I get to the bottom of the cup the flavor has changed a little bit, and there is a bitter sweetness there that isn’t in the rest of the cup. It is sort of like the bitter green grapes, and it makes my mouth pucker a little bit, but the sweetness compliments the orange flavor well. At this stage I like sipping it better because slurping it seems to wash out the flavor too much.

Find a more detailed review of this tea here: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/07/02/tea-review-earl-gray-from-chakra-4-herb/

The color is a golden red brown with emphasis on the brown. Almost like a translucent brick red.

I love the smell of this tea. You can really smell the lychee and the raspberry, but not the black tea all that much. The color sort of indicates that it’s not a very strong black tea. Most of the flavor looks like it comes from the fruits while the color comes from the black tea.

The first taste is a strong taste of lychee. The fruit is very strong and is almost over powering to the other two tastes. The black tea is soft and comforting and by far over powers the raspberry. I have always found lychees to be a little sour. What this means is that the tea is a little sour. I want to make it clear that it isn’t bitter though. It is also sweet. The black tea is a little milky to the taste. They have definitely added extra lychee and raspberry taste to the tea. I’m generally not a fan of extracts.

It smells sweet and soothing. Sweet floral undertones. I’m a little disappointed the fact that the tea seems to overpower the smells of the flowers. It is a great grassy, smokey aroma. Along with the floral undertone is a sweet syrupy smell sort of like caramelized sugar. It also has a hint of fresh rain as I find more jasmine teas smell like. The color of the tea is a deep golden.

It has a light weak body. I put quite a bit of tea in there, so I don’t think it is weak just because of the amount of tea. Although it smells fairly grassy it tastes vegetal, dark and smokey. It is incredibly sweet although the floral tones are not very present.

It smells sour with a complex flowery undertone. The taste is mildly sour but incredibly sweet. There are hints of a rose taste with overtone of a flower that I can not identify.

More detailed notes can be found here: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/05/28/tea-review-tao-of-tea-keemun-hao-ya/

The initial taste is spiced and bitter. The spiced is new, but the bitter is exactly like the dried tea only not as strong. The thing to note here is that yes, some teas get bitter when they are steeped, but this was bitter before it was steeped so it is safe to assume that the bitter is not from being steeped, but rather from the tea itself. After a little bit it starts to taste a little like dandelion, but with a splash of spice. It has the same type of bitterness of a fresh dandelion, mixed with a similar sweet aftertaste. If you don’t know what that tastes like it is light and flowery, with a rich bitter undertone.

If you would like to full tasting notes go to: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/05/21/tea-review-tao-of-tea-licorice/