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This is it – the best, the ultimate tea for tea party day. We make it every week now because it is the favorite. Rich, smooth, full, caramel-y flavor. WE LOVE THE MONKEY! Thank you, JacquelineM, for replenishing my tin! Hopefully Harney will get some more and then there will be a one pound bag on the way to my house!

This was the second tea on today’s tea party menu. The vanilla was especially appealing today – it almost smelled as rich as Vanilla Comoro! It paired wonderfully with our cream puffs and cookies! We took this one with no milk or sugar, but if you like a sweet dessert tea it takes sugar well. Our youngest taster likes it with a touch of milk.

Tea party day! Today we had Belgian Cream Puffs and Pirouettes, Ginger Lemon Cremes, and Rich tea biscuits with four teas. The first one was Emperor’s Red and it was delicious! It has a rich, full, cocoa-y aroma and wonderful body with no astringency. It goes with EVERYTHING – savory, sweet, or just a cuppa. It tastes great sans additions or with milk and sugar. (We take it sans!) We keep track of the teas we try and special desserts in a little book. Our tea party guest said, “We’ve had this one before. It needs to have a star beside it in the book!” This is one tea you should always have on hand.

Thank you thank you thank you to JacquelineM for this tea! We made this today for “tiny tea time” and when I announced what was in the grown-ups’ teapot the mom cooed, “Oooo, we’ve had that one before!” I drank it sans additions and every drop was wonderful! I had my daughter save the leaves so we can resteep and have some more.

I had a cup of this earlier today and thought it was a little bland. I added sugar to make it more interesting. A couple of hours later, the fresh buttermilk bread came out and I buttered a slice and added Smucker’s Red Plum Jam and had another cup without additions. This time the tea tasted richer and the little smokey edge came out to play. It is amazing what a food pairing does to a tea! We like to combine any good flavored tea with cheese cubes as it seems to make the tea so much sweeter.

A big pot to go with grilled cheese and chips for lunch! Youngest daughter cuddled her refilled cup after the meal and said, “I don’t know what I would do without tea.” Must have been good!

It is raining HARD this lazy Sunday. Already went to early service and everyone came home starving (LOL! Starving at 10:30 am and I had breakfast before we left!) so we made a quick “rat lunch” – JacquelineM understands that is grilled cheese sandwich and tea! I made a single cup of this to test before Wednesday tea party. It is quite good and I took it sans additions. I was only brewing a single cup and I didn’t check to see how many ounces my cup held – it is one I don’t usually use – so I think I made this a little on the weak side. Still, it was good and met my parameters: not bitter, not too astringent, not screaming ASSAM! at me. I imagine that brewed properly and perhaps with the addition of milk and sugar, this is going to be a cup good enough to elicit a happy sigh from everyone!

Sandy couldn’t stand it and ordered tea while she was in NZ and had it shipped to Texas, from whence she brought it HERE to my house in ole’ NC! Today we made our trek up to A Southern Season in Chapel Hill to stock up on a few teas and things. She brought a tin of this for me to try and to tote in my JoeMo XL. (Seriously, order this puppy from Teafrog and get their Chocolate and Cream tea while you are at it! You really should since you are paying shipping anyway!)

Smokey! Smokey smokey smokey! But also sweet! I like lapsang teas okay, I will drink them if offered, but if you are a fan you will LOVE this one. I think I detect a fruity note in the tea, and the smoke is strong without feeling like you are breathing in a whole campfire. Sandy resteeped and still had plenty of smoke!

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You can never go wrong serving Paris! Good with or without sugar, good with food and good when you need to sip and feel spoiled!

This tea made its tea party debut today! My guest said it is a keeper, and it will be one of her favorites. It is mild but flavorful, smooth, and goes well with food or is very nice by itself. We took it sans additions.

Youngest daughter takes all her tea with milk and sugar and said she strongly prefers Hao Ya A to this one, but then she is an Irish Breakfast drinker! She likes somewhat gutsy teas.

For a tea to drink “as is” that has a bit of finesse, this one is a good choice. Hurray though, it is a rare tea with limited production and supplies run out. When that happens you just have to wait until next year’s harvest!

Sandy is just back from NZ, and had never tried this tea. We wanted a little tea time out in the lovely spring weather after Panera and I thought it would be perfect. I hadn’t had it in a while myself, and it was delightful! After drinking cup after cup of Keemun Mao Feng today this tea was a big change, but a very nice shake-up to the menu! And Sandy really seemed to like it!

I served this at today’s young people (plus two adults) tea party. We had a few extra today – five kids in all! And that is not counting mine as they were otherwise engaged. Everyone LOVED this tea! It is smooth and sweet, with all the attributes you expect from a keemun but more genteel. I love the strength of Hao Ya A, but when you want something milder yet still interesting and flavorful, this is a great tea.

Sandy’s back! And the first tea we shared after her long trek to New Zealand and back was Vanilla Jasmine sent to me by JacquelineM! It arrived just a few hours before Sandy did. Since she didn’t get to try it with me the first time J sent me some she was eager to taste it. It didn’t disappoint! We shared fresh buttermilk bread and ginger nut cookies from McVities out of doors in the warm windy day, watching the thunderstorm blow in from the safety of the bistro tables. Here’s to tea friendships, present ones and virtual ones!

I am trying to find some green teas to like because I almost exclusively drink black tea and I think drinking green will make me feel somehow more noble! Since I am not a fan of green teas the flavoring is going to be key. This one is so aromatic it is palpable when you open the tin. Lovely! And the steeped tea was very drinkable for me. I thought I was tasting oranges but the description says lemon. Shows how much I know! Maybe the three flowers blended in had an effect! And on that note….this tea is BEAUTIFUL! If you are having a group over for tea, put this in a nice glass container with a tight lid and keep it out as part of the decoration because these petals are bright and colorful and cheering!

The dry leaves have an AMAZING aroma! There is a very high note that reminds me of mint, for some reason, but I do not claim to be experienced or good at discerning flavors! It smells rich, rich, rich.

The tea is lighter in color and heft than Hao Ya A and has a nice sweetness. It does not have the body or rich mouth-feel of Golden Monkey, but is quite good. I may be way off base in this comparison but the taste reminds me a bit of Teavana’s Golden Monkey. (Teavana’s GM has the aroma of Harney’s Golden Monkey but lacks the rich, honey-and- caramel flavor of it. )

The cocoa notes are there, but are not as pronounced as those in Harney’s Hao Ya A or in Premium Steap’s Emperor’s Red. This is a very nice tea. My guest loved it, youngest daughter says she still prefers Hao Ya A but thought it was very good.

JacquelineM, I will send a sample of this your way when I get to Southern Season to pick up Wild Forest Oolong!

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Today someone was coming to my home who had told me she is a noncommital coffee drinker – just the grocery store stuff and just to get going in the morning – and she did not drink tea at all.

I asked my daughters to help me choose a tea that is pretty unanimously liked even by non-tea drinkers. We chose Paris. We chose well! We offered for her to stay to tea and she accepted. We have another convert….She didn’t even sweeten it, but said it was perfect just as it was.

For some reason this tea and I did not get along today! Perhaps it was because it was in the presence of such masterful teas as Golden Monkey and Hao Ya A. This is made DAILY at my house by one of my daughters, but I almost never drink it. I have seen it referred to as a premium tea in a review on a certain website that sells everything under the sun, but it isn’t premium in the way that Harnye’s Golden Monkey is premium.

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Our most dearly loved tea party tea – caramel, honey, smooth, rich, LOVE!

A very good Ceylon! The leaves are HUGE and I do mean huge. There is a nice honey aroma and full flavor to this extremely smooth tea. This was actually made by accident today and became a fourth tea for the tea party when my youngest grabbed the wrong container. That was fine – we drank all the tea we made and then had to make an extra pot of Keemun Hao Ya A because we sat and talked for so long!

This keemun has the classic keemun flavor you would expect – cocoa and a little smoke. But it tastes like a resteeping of leaves you had already enjoyed! A while back we tasted this one side by side with the Hao Ya A from Harney and Sons, and this is weak and pale by comparison. If you want full, powerful Hao Ya A flavor, get Harney. If cocoa notes and light smoke are a little much for you, this one should do nicely. My youngest daughter loves this tea and our tea party guest liked it very much as well.