__Morgana__

This is the third sample I got with the earliest green tea of 2010. And this is the end of the sample. It seemed appropriate to have it today because I’m in that oolong frame of mind (and now I’m going to have Billy Joel in my head for the rest of the day, unfortunately).

I have to admit to a bone-headed mistake the first time I tasted this. I was working at home and in a rush to get a cup ready before my next phone call, so I misread the package; I had it in my head that this was a green tea for some reason and I completely screwed up the steeping. Now I find that I don’t have enough tea left to steep a full cup. Under these circumstances, I don’t feel comfortable doing a rate-by-numbers on this one.

I will say, however, that having just come off of tasting another oolong that was essentially “meh”, this has a lot going on. Even with less than perfect brewing conditions both times I steeped this, its delicious, roasty flavor came through. There’s a white wine-like fruitiness in addition to the toasty flavor. And I want to say there’s something that’s an almost coffee-like note as well. That might be a hint of the smokiness Cait mentioned (but since I had Samovar’s Russian Blend earlier today my smoky radar may be a bit jammed right now for anything subtle).

I’d like to try this again, as I expect there’s a lot more to discover here.

The leaves are dark green and fairly straight with little yellow flowers mixed in. There’s a characteristically toasty smell about the dry leaves, though it is somewhat less pronounced than in the other oolongs I’ve sampled. The aroma of the tea is also toasty, and quite buttery, with a subtle floral note. It brews to a yellow, champagne-like color.

I used 2.5g of tea in about 7 oz of water, about what I’ve done for other oolongs I’ve tried, and with 4 minutes for the initial steep I expected a deeper flavor. I’m not getting a “deep, rich” flavor. It’s not that it doesn’t taste good, it’s just a bit on the weak side. The osthmanthus does give it a sweet, nectar-like note, which is nice, and which has something in common with honey. I can pick up on a hint of apricot if I concentrate, but although I can smell something slightly chocolatey, I am not tasting chocolate.

I added a minute for the second steep. The flavors are similar, but have become more buttery and floral-tasting, though not deeper. Six minutes for the third steep and seven for the fourth. I was looking for further development in these, but they were fairly similar to each other, and each a bit weaker in taste than the last.

As oolongs go in my limited experience, it’s reasonably tasty. And it’s not that I don’t appreciate subtlety. But this one lacks a certain depth that I’ve experienced in others, and that I’m finding I prefer.

This is the fourth Samovar sample I’ve tried and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever run across something of theirs I don’t like.

As a recent inductee to the smoky fan club, I was delighted with the smell of the dry leaves, which reminded me of how my dad’s pipes smelled after he’d smoked them. I realize that this may not sound that appealing, but I’ve always loved the smell of really good pipe tobacco. It’s a smell one doesn’t run across that much anymore now that the health dangers of pipe smoking are so well documented, but to me it’s reminiscent of an era of narrow ties, Fedoras, and big honking cars with fins.

The aroma is smoky as well, with that campfire thing going on, but I can also smell the fruit. I didn’t make the preparations necessary to taste this the traditional way — I’m drinking it straight up, but it is quite enjoyable without any additives at all and I am eager to give it a try the traditional way.

This is a beautiful, sophisticated tea. There’s a smoothness to it that I’ve come to expect from Samovar’s blends, and which I really adore. As with the others I’ve tasted, all of the flavors work together harmoniously; the piney/smokiness, the fruity/nutty upswing from the lychee, the sweet finish with an extremely interesting warm/cool after-effect on the tongue. I feel a foresty coolness in my mouth, but there’s a little heat and bite there as well.

I don’t need a crystal ball to see a very large Samovar order in my future…

It doesn’t have the natural sweetness of the red version; the sweetness here, such that it is, comes from the honeybush that is added in. The taste is decribed as woody on the box, but it seems to lean more toward reedy/grassy/twiggy to me. It has the taste of something that is supposed to be good for you (and this is supposed to be good for you). By that I don’t mean medicinal so much as health-foody. Though the taste isn’t the same, it’s the same sort of feeling I get from drinking wheatgrass or eating carob — virtuous as opposed to decadent, and I guess I’m looking for my tea adventures to be more Dionysian.

Although I’ll give it a few more tries to give it a fair shake, I don’t think I’m going to find this is for me, at least by itself. Good to know what it tastes like without additives (except for the honeybush), though, in case I come across green rooibos blends in the future.

For tonight’s dessert, I dug into my sample of this.

The dry leaves smell delicious, like those of all The NecessiTeas flavored teas I’ve tried. There’s strawberry, and something cookie-like about the smell. After steeping, the smell opens up to something more sponge-cake and cream scented. It really does smell just like a strawberry shortcake. Enough to make your mouth start watering if you have a sweet tooth as I do.

The liquor is a clear, golden yellow. The taste is lovely. Subtle, as others have said, but it definitely tastes just like it smells and I’m giving it high marks for that. There’s a sweetness to the strawberry, like the juice of a ripe, fresh berry. The cream and cake tastes are in the background, just like they would be in an actual cake. Even the tea is there, though it’s taking the role of the canvas on which the rest of the flavors are painted. There isn’t even a hint of the bitterness that troubled those of their flavored green teas I’ve sampled the past few nights.

I’m going to steep even longer next time and see what happens. The main improvements I’ll be looking for in steeping longer are for the tea to come more to the forefront and for the flavors to deepen a bit. If I can get those to happen, I’ll put this on my shopping list with all due haste.

Tried this with nonfat milk at Starbucks today while picking up some coffee beans (sacrilege? but I still like coffee first thing in the morning ;-)). A very tasty, soothing, comfort drink. I picked up mostly the spices and creaminess of the hot milk on a first tasting, but will try a more discerning tasting next time now that I have a baseline. In any case, it’s enough to make me want to put milk in my teabag version at home.

2 parts honeybush + 1 part lime = yum!

I’ve been over caffeinating myself with all this wonderful tea, so I thought I’d seek out a good decaf and maybe sleep a little better at night — so I could wake up refreshed and ready to drink more wonderful tea! This is my second decaf attempt and neither has been what I’d call overly successful. The results have been choices that are serviceable but not very inspiring.

This one has ingredients similar to the Tazo Green Ginger, of which I’m not much of a fan, minus the pear. (Green Ginger has lemongrass in it, though it doesn’t claim a lemon flavor in its description of itself.) I like Ginger Sun better than Green Ginger, mostly because the ginger is milder and tastes more natural to me in Ginger Sun. There’s more sense of balance to it as well, though the green tea is a shadow of itself compared to some other Numi green bagged teas I have tried. You can tell it has been de- somethinged, which is my basic beef with most decaf’d drinks.

So the search continues.

This has a wonderfully fruity lemon/strawberry fragrance in the packet. After steeping, it gives off a dilute version of the same, which is even further diluted in the tasting. As with the Tropical Green, it’s pretty thin.

Which brings me to an observation that applies to all of the flavored green teas from The NecessiTeas that I’ve tried thus far, with the exception of Caramel Dipped Apple and Pineapple Upside Down Cake (which had other things going on with them that caused me not to like them very much). This even applies to Raspberry Jasmine, which I’ve liked the best so far. The flavors are quite subtle. It seems to me this is intentional, because after all, these aren’t herbal blends like Teavana’s Strawberry Lemonade. The tea is supposed to be the main event, and the flavors have to stand aside somewhat to permit the tea to take the spotlight. And yet, my experience of these is that the tea isn’t stepping up. In fact, it’s barely discernible, if at all. I’m starting to think that all of these could be improved simply by basing them on a more flavorful green tea than what’s been used here. But this is to some extent the speculation of a novice, and should be taken for what it’s worth.

In serious sleep deficit today and trying to get work done at home. Among the bonuses of working at home is total access to all tea-making equipment and all recent loose tea deliveries.

I wanted something black to keep me running, so I chose this to sample. And a fine choice it was. Unless I’m very much mistaken, the black tea here is at least in part the same as in the Earl Grey Lavender that I liked so much. It has the same malt/brown sugar/molasses aroma to the dry leaves, a true reproduction of which can be found in the scent of the tea after steeping, only richer, rounder and otherwise more developed.

If there was a crayon in the Crayola box labeled “Tea,” it would be this blend’s quintessential color: a warm mix of golden, brown, orange and red. (No offense to green tea drinkers intended; I’m just gambling that in Crayola nomenclature-speak your drink’s color would be called “Green Tea.”)

As this is my first non-bagged breakfast blend, I can’t compare it to others, but I can say that drinking it for breakfast would make me happy. Drinking it now is making me happy. It’s luscious. Compared to the bagged versions of English breakfast I’ve had, it is downright voluptuous. It’s what Awake wants to be.

Back to work I go with a smile on my face, and a pleasantly astringent sweet aftertaste on my tongue.

I’d been wanting to try a plain rooibos so I could have a frame of reference when evaluating rooibos blends. This is actually pretty tasty on its own. Sweet, with honey and vanilla notes, and a tea-like flavor that is smooth and slightly toasty. I would probably pick a tea over this on most occasions for the flavor, but could see being in the mood for rooibos on its own every once in a while, or substituting it for tea to avoid caffeine if I’m overloaded (the couple of decaf teas I’ve tried haven’t been very good; I don’t like decaf coffee either).

I tried this tonight with one bag of the lime and one bag of Tazo Honeybush. While I don’t think I got the ratio right (it could take even more Honeybush-to-lime), I can see this being a good way of ratcheting up the sweetness of the lime without adding sugar or honey. The Honeybush significantly accentuates the natural after-sweetness of the lime, and makes it even more lime Sweet Tart-like. A fun experiment.

And it gets another little point bump tonight, for showing consistency with the improvement of last night. There’s still a bit of bitterness around the edges, but apart from that it has grown on me some. There’s also the possibility that it just varies from cup to cup depending on the concentration of flavors that makes its way into the spoon with any given scoop. For example, tonight, I’m getting more custard and less pineapple. Last night I got more pineapple, and it was sweeter (likely owing to the pineapple as well).

It does make me want to try other pineapple flavored teas, and it piques my curiosity about The NecessiTeas’ flavored blacks.

Dessert tonight was this pretty little tea; the fifth in my series of flavored green tea samples from The NecessiTeas. In the packet, it smells quite nice. The prevailing aroma is of jasmine, though there’s a berry tang as well. The berry smell becomes more obvious upon steeping, becoming clearly raspberry. Depending upon how the spoon fills up, the raspberry aroma can prevail over the jasmine after brewing, or it can be fairly evenly balanced. The raspberry part of the fragrance is sweet, not at all pungent or artificial smelling.

The tea itself is nice as well. When the dried raspberries reconstitute, they plump up considerably. I ended up with something close to a whole berry floating in my cup. The flavor is delicate, and the raspberry and jasmine are each distinguishable, and nicely blended and balanced. The tea itself is barely noticeable, and not bitter. I’d prefer a bit stronger presence of the tea, but also prefer barely noticeable to bitter (by a lot).

I would not pass this up if I were offered it again, though I think I’d prefer to drink it after a workout and a shower, where something clean and subtle would hit the spot. I’m much more in the chocolate lava cake camp when it comes to dessert than I am the raspberry sorbet.

It’s like a lime Sweet Tart! Yes, it’s definitely tart out of the gate, but surprisingly, I’m tasting a sweetness to it as well that shows up after a few seconds. (And I’m not using any additives.) There’s no bitterness; a big plus. I could see keeping this one on hand for when the mood strikes.

Having discovered that I am not the world’s biggest lemon myrtle fan, I also discovered that dropping a bit of ground cinnamon into this significantly improved the taste in my view. It cuts the soapiness of the lemon myrtle, and boosts the taste of the chamomile a bit. However, it is easy to overdo it and if you do you just get a mouth full of cinnamon.

Raisin hunt unsuccessful. Ah well. I still like this one an awful lot.

It’s tasting better tonight and I really didn’t do anything differently that I can identify. I wonder whether it’s that I’m drinking it back to back with Tropical Green, and by comparison the pineapple flavor in this one is stronger? The bitterness is less too, even with a bit longer steeping time. Possibly it’s because I picked up a bit more pineapple in the spoon than the last go around. In any case, bumping it up a few points.

My dessert this evening: the fourth in a series of flavored green tea samples from The NecessiTeas.

In the package, it has a blended tropical fruit aroma that is somewhat reminiscent of the smell/taste of 5 Lush gum (which I happen to like a lot). There’s pineapple, but also something that could be mango and something else that could be tangerine. It’s sweet, but not very strong.

When steeped, the aroma becomes diffuse and ephemeral, and that repeats in the flavor. The tropical flavors are there as well as the tea flavor, which by the way isn’t bitter at all even when steeped for 90 seconds (though my water temperature was a little lower this time), but both the tea and the tropical flavors are a bit too thin for my taste. It’s not a bad tea, it’s just not robust enough for me.

I have been starting my day with Tazo Earl Grey since I have a lot of bags of it left (not the full leaf sachets, which I plowed through already, but the other kind). The taste isn’t all bad, though it’s strong on the bergamot. But something about it can give me a tummy ache at times. I’m guessing it is the acidity of the citrus, mixed with the black tea. My other Earl Grey experiences are limited to bagged tea by Numi, Twinings and Bigelow, all of which were satisfactory enough to make me want to try loose Earl Grey. This is my first foray into that, though I have some other sample sets on order.

Let me just say that the difference between any of those I have tried and Samovar’s Earl Lavender is, to put it mildly, astonishing. In fact, I was tempted to start this entire note out with “so this is what a really really GOOD Earl Grey tastes like?” but I didn’t because I don’t have other loose leaf experience for comparison.

First, there’s the way it smells. I’m getting a brown sugary smell, which is delicious, mixed with a gentle lavender, and just a tiny bit of citrus. Then there’s the way it feels. Thick and silky, and it coats your mouth in a pleasing way. Then there’s the way it tastes. Here’s where the resemblance to other Earl Greys comes in most directly. It definitely has a flavor in the same ballpark as those; you’d recognize it if you drank it blindfolded. But there is so much more to it. A smooth black tea base that isn’t distracting and doesn’t overpower, nor is it overpowered by, the other flavors. A lavender floral scent/taste that takes the edge off the citrus, and a citrus that is present but not perfumy or oily.

This is my second Samovar sample, and I am rapidly reaching the conclusion that theirs are exceptionally well-blended teas. But that isn’t news to most of you here. :-)

This was one of the other samples I got with the earliest green tea. I’d wanted to try a version of this ever since I read about it, as I found the descriptions in books of how it smells and tastes fascinating.

I’m hesitant to rate it yet because I have some other Lapsang samples and this is my first experience of one. But it’s pretty awesome stuff.

The dry leaves give off a whiff of charcoal when the package opens. They’re very, very dark — a dark chocolate color, almost black. The liquor is a deep, brandy-like color that makes you want to put on a smoking jacket and light up a cigar.

The aroma is deep and woody and rich. It’s like cooking on a campfire: smoky, piney, almost bacony. The taste is very much like the aroma. There is a smoky, spicy sweetness to it that makes you want to wrap yourself in a blanket in front of a fireplace in a ski lodge somewhere, staring into the flames and becoming hypnotized by them while you sip on this.

I think I’m joining the smoky fan club.

Had some of a sample of this for dessert tonight, and am pleased to report a continuation of the upward trend in the flavored greens by The NecessiTeas. This one ticks up far enough to merit being out of orange-face land, though at this point an order for more is not in the offing.

The dry leaves have a definite orange smell from the orange peel, though sourer than that of a Creamsicle, and with something of a synthetic aspect as well which must be the “natural flavors.” I’m guessing there was a boost to the orange in those flavors. Interestingly, the brewed tea’s aroma is very Creamsicle-like, so perhaps the flavor also contained some vanilla. In any case, it’s creamy and pleasant. It reminds me of the way baby aspirin smells and tastes, but then, so do Creamsicles. So in that respect, it’s pretty true to its name.

There is only the very slightest bitterness to the taste, an improvement over both of my previous tastings (Caramel Dipped Apple and Pineapple Upside Down Cake). Possibly this is because, through sheer Pavlovian response, I went straight to the 1 minute steep and didn’t bother trying to go longer. I don’t know what sort of green tea was used for the backdrop for these, but it appears to my untrained eye to be the same in all of them and I’m nothing if not good at avoiding mistakes I’ve made several times. Eventually, I learn.

The orange is not very intense, but it has… what’s this? Sweetness! (Eureka! This is what I’m looking for in a dessert tea if I can’t have the real thing.) The sweetness gets sweeter in the minutes after sipping until the finish disappears. And there’s some creaminess as well, though it’s not very intense either.

So it does live up to its name, and though I realize hitting the drinker over the head with a sledgehammer is not a desireable quality in most teas, I would have liked this one to have at least poked me a bit harder.

For the record, it’s not asparagus I’m tasting… I had asparagus for dinner tonight and drank a cup of this right afterward. Maybe it’s bok choy?

Trying this sample tonight for dessert.

All ingredients present and accounted for in the aroma of the dry leaves. The brewed tea has a definite pineapple/custard aroma to it.

Unfortunately, the tea suffers from the same tendency toward bitter that spoiled the Caramel Dipped Apple. Shortened steeping time seems to avoid most of the bitterness, and the brown sugar helps on the first steep. 45 seconds is about all it can take without the tannins starting to take over, and that’s about 20 seconds too short for the flavors to fully emerge. But at least it isn’t necessary to absorb or mask the bitterness with mint.

Despite the bitter tendency, I thought this was generally much better tasting than the apple. The pineapple and rum flavors are definitely there, with the rum taking a back seat as it should. There is nothing funky about any of these ingredients (there really was something about the caramel that didn’t sit well with my stomach).

I won’t buy this based on the experience of the sample, but I won’t shrink from finishing it and trying to think of ways to improve it along the way.