Nik

This is the NYT crossword puzzle of teas. What I mean by that is that everything is there, right in front of me, but I just don’t get it. =)

They make it sound so grand, don’t they? Let’s see how my experience compares to the expectations created by the description:

“Mesmerizing, silver-tipped leaves…” – Absolutely. I never (okay, almost never) notice the quality/attributes of the leaves I’m steeping. I’m generally as oblivious of them as I am of a film’s score and soundtrack while I’m watching it: that is to say, completely. But these actually warranted a second look. They seem delicate, a bit like very fine yarn.

“…with a nectary amber liquor.” – I would say honey more than amber, but okay.

“A supple bouquet of orange blossoms…” – Um…what? [looks under a leaf] Where’s that hiding, then?
“…and chestnuts…” – Eh? You’re having a laugh, surely.
“…gentle hints of dates…” – Well, maybe. I did occasionally detect an underlying sweetness that could, if one were feeling quite generous, be attributed to dates. Maybe.
“…musky cedar…” – Finally! Finally something I can sort of detect. A sort of smoky, roasty kind of thing. Woodsy kind of thing. Not in a rooibos way, but like in a forest kind of way. In a go-chop-some-wood-for-the-fireplace kind of way. It’s not overpowering, but it’s definitely there.

So, did I dislike it? No, no, not at all. The flavour isn’t bad, but after my BLAMINYOFACE introduction to lapsang souchong, I’m learning that that smoky roasty thing in a tea doesn’t really do it for me, especially if it’s the star of the show. Golden Moon’s description of this makes it sound like it’s not really meant to be the star of the show, but that’s how it worked out for me. What worries me is how many folks said that this description is spot-on. That means that my tea palate is even less developed than I’d hoped it’d be by now. In any case, I like this well enough to drink the rest of it, but not well enough get more of it, or even re-steep this sample.

Tea amount: 1 sample packet
Water amount: 16oz./~475mL
Additives: After a few unadulterated sips, ~1 level tbsp Demerara sugar.
Caffeine: Seems to me to be pretty high. I’ve not drunk much of the tea from my mug, but am already exhibiting some of the symptoms of too much caffeine (my tolerance for it is extremely low).
Dry mouth factor: 6/10. It’s not very bad, but it’s a little bit more than middle of the road.

This is great stuff! There’s a freshness and authenticity to the fragrance. When I first opened the packet, all I could smell was coconut. “Where’s the tea?,” I thought. And this was odd, because if you look at the dry tea, all you see is leaves—it’s not like it’s a pile of coconut flakes or anything. After a few breaths, I could smell the fragrance of the tea itself start to creep in. What was interesting about the fragrance was how it changed when I steeped the tea: suddenly, the coconut disappeared and all I could smell was tea. Like I did with the dry leaves, I gave it a few moments and slowly the coconut began to creep in and mix with the tea. I was kind of fascinated by these aromatic acrobatics.

I’ve never had coconut cream pie. I’ve also never had any of the teas that attempt to recreate that flavour. But when I took a sip of this blend, I immediately thought of some sort of creamy, coconut treat. The tea has…substance to it, as if I’d added milk to it. As I was with the fragrance, I was fascinated by the tea itself. It’s really something, isn’t it, that we can combine a tea blend with water and end up with a light amber liquid that tastes…creamy! I don’t mean to make this sound like a science experiment, I just can’t get over this creaminess-without-cream effect.

Okay, so texture and consistency aside, this blend tastes great. It’s flavourful and balanced. It’s light in spite of the smooth, creamy consistency. I found myself sipping this one slowly to make the brew last longer, a clear indication that I need to add this to my shopping list. What I’d like to do, in the future, is try some different preparation methods: first, I’d like to try it iced; second, I’d like to blend it with a chocolatey tea—I love Mounds candy bars; and third, I’d like to make it kind of like chai, with (soy) milk instead of water.

Tea amount: 1 sample packet (I didn’t measure it out, sorry.)
Water amount: 16oz./~475mL
Additives: ~1 level tbsp Demerara sugar

Green tea and 100%-natural-cherry-Juicy-Juice sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g…

Sometimes, I love being wrong. The “naturally & artificially flavoured” label on some of my other TCB&TL teas kind of turned me off, so I was a bit sceptical of this blend from the get-go. On top of that was the further concern, again based on prior experience, that the cherry fragrance and flavour would be very chemical in nature, or like cough syrup.

It turns out that I needn’t have worried. The tea is naturally flavoured. The fragrance of the dry leaves is two parts cherry Juicy Juice and one part green tea. The fragrance of the steeping tea is much more balanced, with the traditional “greenness” of green tea coming through clearly.

The flavour can best be described as “luscious.” It tastes, accurately, like a blend of cherry juice and green tea. Not maraschino cherries, not cherry cough syrup, just cherry juice. It’s a surprisingly lovely combination of flavours. As nice as it is brewed hot, though, I feel like it would be even nicer brewed cold. I’ll have to remember to put aside some of the bags so I can try this tea iced.

Tea amount: 2 bags
Water amount: 16oz./~475mL
Additives: ~1 level tbsp Demerara sugar

For a bagged tea, this isn’t half bad. Presumably, it’s easier to get things “right” when it’s a straight-up tea, unflavoured and not a blend. This is your run of the mill rooibos: pleasant enough, but certainly nothing to write home about. I love rooibos in all its woodsy glory (maybe I was Elven in a previous life—my ears seem point enough for it), and I wanted something simple and caffeine-free, so I’m happy. (I’d have been happier had I not burnt my tongue, but hey, that’s not the tea’s fault. Clumsy Smurf, me.)

Tea amount: 2 bags
Water amount: 16oz./~475mL
Additives: ~1tbsp Demerara sugar

Let’s just call this one “Eau de Clove.” I steeped the sample (in its entirety) in water, and clove is all I could smell and taste. The taste didn’t linger like I wanted it to, either, and the dry mouth factor is on the high side. So ya, not a fan.

That said, I’m still tempted to put this on my shopping list and order it in a small size, because I feel like steeping it normally didn’t do it justice. I don’t have the patience to make proper chai, but I feel like if I did, it would have tasted much better and I would have rated it better. I am tempted to give it another chance.

Tea amount: Golden Moon sample size, one packet.
Water amount: 16oz./~475mL
Additives: 2 level tbsp. demerara sugar.

Back when I used to be able to tolerate caffeine, I used to like coffee (I never got into decaf, dunno why). I never liked the bitterness of coffee, though, just its flavour, so I’d always add a ton of sugar to make it palatable (I can just feel the coffee purists cringing). What I especially loved doing was going to the supermarket and buying these tiny sampler packets of flavoured coffee, much as I now love buying sampler packs of tea. One of my favourite flavoured coffees used to be amaretto coffee. Today, I have found this same coffee in caffeine-free, tea form.

Wait, what? Yep, that’s what I said. If I hadn’t opened the packet and steeped the tea myself, if I’d only inhaled the fragrance and tasted the brew, I would’ve sworn that I was drinking the same amaretto coffee I used to love so much. This rooibos blend smells and tastes exactly like it, and it’s lovely.

This blend should just be called Amaretto Coffea (see what I did there?). It has a bunch of other ingredients that I’m sure somehow work together to give the tea a more full-bodied flavour, but I couldn’t tell you whether it’d make any difference at all if they were absent. It tastes nothing whatsoever like tiramisu, but if you like the idea of amaretto coffee, you’ll nevertheless enjoy this blend.

Does ginseng have a fragrance? I do not know. This CB&TL tea’s dry leaves have a pretty subtle fragrance. They have that fresh, clean, green tea smell, but much of green tea’s usually vegetal aroma is missing, perhaps because of the lemon.

I haven’t had the greatest luck with bagged teas, lately. It seems like no matter how long I steep it, it still ends up tasting pretty weak. This tea is no exception, and I used two bags for my 16oz. mug. The flavour is actually really pleasant, and I would have rated it better if only there were more of it.

In spite of how long I steeped the bags (I meant to do 5-6 minutes, but forgot and left it for about 12), there was no bitterness, which was nice. But the dry mouth factor is middle of the road, a little bit more than my comfort level.

This is one of those teas that I won’t mind finishing, but that I won’t be buying again.

Just a quick note on second-steeping this tea. On the second steep, it’s very cinnamon-y (blech). It’s unfortunate that I don’t have a cinnamon-loving housemate who could enjoy the second steep. I’m going to have to remember this and stick to just the one steep from now on.

Oh, gosh. Steepster tells me that I last logged this tea almost two years ago. How can that be? Honestly, this rooibos chai is like that tattered, reliable, security bankie that’s always there for you. I’ve had quite a bit of mediocriTEA (c’mon, I had to) of late and allergies have been kicking my butt, leaving me hacking like a cat to scratch my throat. All in all, things have been just that side of miserable.

I wanted a caffeine-free, flavoured tea, preferably something with ginger in it. I’ve been making my way through the Golden Moon sampler set, and the few samples I have left are caffeinated to varying degrees and none has ginger in it. For the first time in ages, then, I looked into my stash to see what else I have, and happily discovered a pouch of this tea.

Teavana don’t, in general, blow my mind with their teas, but sometimes they come up with some really great blends. One such blend is their rooibos chai. The dry leaves smell heavenly: rooibos, ginger and other spices, and, um…okay, this is a bit strange, but…a touch of Tiger Balm. I’m not really sure where that comes from, but I swear, I get a whiff of it every time I inhale. The fragrance of the steeped tea is all that, minus the Tiger Balm, which magically disappears.

Mmmm… Every sip of this tea is just what the doctor ordered. The ginger soothes the throat without burning, the rooibos calms the nerves, and delivers warmth to every part of one’s being. If you don’t like rooibos, stay away; but if you do, and you like chai, you should love this. Both rooibos and chai can be tasted and experienced separately, but together. Each retains its individual profile but complements the other perfectly.

Golden Moon’s White Ginger tea is right splat in the middle of the road. Really, all it needs is some oomph to be a lovely, gingery, white tea. Sadly, it is oomphless. It smells like white tea, with a very slightly sweet note on the end that made me think of candied ginger. It tastes like white tea, with a very slightly gingery prickle in the throat as you swallow. If you like ginger, this tea will leave you far short of satisfied. You may be able to give it a bit of oomph by grating some ginger into your infuser, but with so many ginger teas out there, I’m not sure it’s worth it.

I actually tasted this tea yesterday, but I still don’t really function very well on 11th September, so I wasn’t up to writing a tasting note.

There are only a few samples left from my Golden Moon sampler set. I’m very much a “save the best for last” kind of person, and the idea of white tea infused with melon was so enticing that I immediately put it aside so it could be one of the last ones I tasted.

Imagine my disappointment, then, when I cut open the packet, inhaled, and crinkled my nose in displeasure. The dry leaves smell like stale bread. I persisted, and after a few breaths I could discern a vaguely melon-y aroma. But when I reset my sense of smell and went back to the tea a couple of moments later, there it was again: stale bread. Unpleasant.

As off-putting as the tea’s aroma was, I couldn’t just pour it out without tasting it. And who knows, sometimes the taste is a surprise, y’know? Sadly, the tea tasted like a wilting flower. Other tasters have mentioned alcohol, overly ripe melon, a sort of fermented smell, but the one thing I took away from both the smell and taste of this tea is, “spoilt.” The smell of stale bread and the taste of a wilting flower’s sickly sweet smell. Blech.

As with the aroma, continuing to sip for a while improved the experience ever so slightly, but putting the mug down for a while and coming back to it after a few moments pushed the reset button so that I had to endure the whole stale bread, wilting flower thing all over again. That’s just too much work to try and enjoy a nice, hot cup of tea.

Underwhelmed. Mehness. The flavour of this tea does not live up to the promise made by its fragrance. It smells really nice, but the flavour is a bit bland, a bit weak. The fragrance is mostly that of green tea: fresh-smelling, a bit vegetal. There are also some floral undertones here. Given its name (and given that I read only the name, and not the ingredients), I thought I’d get more orchid (I love floral teas), but that’s not the case. There is only the most subtle of floral hints in the fragrance, and even these are mostly absent from the flavour.

I like less subtlety in my tea, so found this a mediocre offering. Next, please.

I steeped this sweetened sampler a second time, adding more sugar, steeping it for hours (like, 12 or something), and finally adding ice. I’ve never made iced tea with loose leaves before, so I don’t know if I did this the “right” way, but it worked. It’s excellent as iced tea: a little mango-y, a little peachy. I didn’t get even a hint of the floral things that are on the list of ingredients, like rose and such; it’s just a really refreshing, sweet, tropical iced tea.

This tea is definitely better iced than hot.

I love that my sample of this blend was sweetened. I sweeten my tea, anyway, so this saved me a step. I get a bit nervous whenever I see a long list of ingredients—I worry that I’ll end up tasting nothing.

The dry tea smells like candy! I’m not sure what kind of candy, but candy. Some kind of hard candy, like. It’s a very sweet fragrance, and has citrus notes, but it’s more like a punch. Not fruit punch, but the tropical punch that has papayas and mangos and things.

The tea tastes like a Jolly Rancher. Not of any flavour that I’ve had before, mind you, but it tastes how I imagine a tropical punch Jolly Rancher would taste. =) I prefer spicy, nutty, chocolatey notes in my tea, or floral ones. I’m not really a fan of fruity teas, so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

As nice as this first taste was, I’m going to see if I can get one more steep out of the sample. I think this tea would be really lovely iced. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get the full flavour out of a second steep, especially iced, but I’ll give it a go.

Oh, so this is pu-erh. I just realised that I haven’t had it before, and that I probably should’ve tried this before drinking Golden Moon’s Pu-erh Chai¹. After tasting this, I have a much better understanding of all the different flavours swirling around in that pu-erh chai.

I didn’t know what to expect here, but the packet says “earthy.” From the dry leaves what I got is a fragrance that I’d describe as more fruity than earthy. The tea itself is a different story: I definitely got earthy from the first whiff, but upon exhaling and inhaling again, my first thought was, “sandalwood.” Sandalwood! I am mad about sandalwood. I have incense. I have soap. I have talcum powder. And I’m very, very picky about my sandalwood, too, much like I am about my rose². And what I got from this tea was the hint of some really lovely sandalwood.

These earthy, incense-y, sandalwood-y, very slightly smoky traits all carried over from the fragrance to the flavour, and the end result is really nice. If this is what pu-erh is usually like, I’m a fan. I quite like its flavour and find it second only to rooibos (my favourite since I first tried it in 2009).

¹ http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/128501

² http://steepster.com/bleepnik/posts/128096

The irksome thing about vanilla is that, like cinnamon, you give it a little bit of stage time and it wants to hog the entire spotlight. I love jasmine, but couldn’t smell it in the dry leaves, which smelled entirely of vanilla. I could smell a bit of jasmine in the steeped tea, but it was pretty subtle. The tea itself is kind of weak, and tastes like vanilla; I don’t taste any jasmine. Definitely not my thing, don’t think I’m going to get through this mug. On to the next one!

[Edit]: I removed my rating, which was 13. It’s not the tea’s fault that I don’t like vanilla. I reckon if I did, I’d like the tea better in spite of its weakness and insufficient jasmine presence. In any case, I didn’t want to pull its overall rating down with my biased score.

This is one of the most interesting teas I’ve ever tasted, so much so that I don’t really trust my score. Normally, I take a few sips, and I have a pretty good idea of what the tea is going to be like, what to expect from the rest of the mug…y’know? But this tea kept me guessing ’til the very end.

The first thing I smelled when I cut open the packet was cinnamon. Bleh, I don’t like cinnamon. But the very next time I inhaled, I hardly smelled any cinnamon at all. This time, it was cardamom. Meh, I’m not a fan of cardamom, either. But again I couldn’t write the tea off, because it changed again! This time what I got was almost fruity in nature, but more fruit punch, not the “smooth citrusy bouquet” the packet claims.

Steeped, the tea’s flavour was just as variable as its fragrance. One sip tasted all cinnamon-y, another tasted kinded of fruity, another tasted a little earthy (eh?), another a little like…rooibos (whaaa…?). It all tasted good, but more than that, it was just…interesting! The sample wasn’t nearly enough to figure out this tea. I’ve added it to the shopping list for further study.

This is kind of a middle of the road jasmine green tea. The fragrance is heavenly, and it’s one of those teas that makes me want to strap the packet to my nose. The jasmine is spot on: not subtle, not perfume-y, not overwhelming, not artificial. Really, really nice.

Given its fragrance, I was hoping for a nice, bold flavour to do it justice. That’s not the case here, though: the tea is a little on the weak side. To its credit, however, I didn’t get any bitterness or dry mouth from it.

OMNOMNOM. I really need to drink more black tea, because I really can’t tell the difference between them. I swear, every time I drink a new black tea, I think, “Yes! THIS is it! THIS is what I mean when I think of black tea! The fragrance, the flavour, this, this, this!”

Until the next cup of a different black tea. [Sigh.]

So ya. This. THIS smells just like the chai Mum made every day, even without the milk and sugar. THIS tastes just like that tea, even without the milk and the cardamom and ginger. More accurately, it tastes just like the black tea base of that tea, before the milk and the cardamom and the ginger were added.

At least, I think it does. Until the next cup of black tea I drink. I obviously cannot be trusted.

It’s yummy, though. And it’s comforting. I needed something “safe” today, as I’ve been a bit too adventurous of late and just wasn’t up to evaluating a new flavour. I didn’t get any bitterness or dry mouth, which is always nice. It’s not as, I dunno, flavourful? bold? oomphy? as some other black teas I’ve recently tried, for which I docked it a few points. But it’s very nice.

Bonus: Just like every time I eat a clementine, I pranced around the kitchen singing, “Oh, m’darlin’, O m’darlin’, O m’daaaarlin’ Darjeeling, I will steep you, I will sip you, o m’darlin’, Darjeeling” ♬ while this was steeping. (Note that the clementine variant is "I will peel you, I will eat you, o m’darlin’, clementine. ♬)

I made this tea for a little experiment inspired by the “offbeat uses for tea” thread¹. Before I used it for that purpose, though, I tried it, both unsweetened and sweetened.

I’ve read that our olfactory sense is the one most strongly tied to memory. There’s a hookah joint in NYC called Sultana², a wonderful place where I’ve spent many an hour sipping iced hibiscus tea and chatting with friends. This herbal “tea” smells just like that place. It’s quite nice.

If you generally like “tropical” concoctions, things with pineapple and coconut and things of that nature, you will probably like this. While I love (non-alcoholic) piña coladas, I’m not a big fan of that mish-mash of flavours that falls under the (mini) umbrella of “tropical.” As such, this isn’t really my thing. The tin says there’s rose in here, and hibiscus, but I didn’t get any floral fragrance or flavour. There’s also orange peel in here, but nothing citrusy stands out. Finally, there’s no actual tea in here, which I rather like in my…tea. =] All that said, it does have that very typical tropical vibe to it, and a nice enough flavour.

¹ http://steepster.com/discuss/3374-lets-find-some-offbeat-new-uses-for-tea#forum_post_51847

² http://yelp.com/biz/sultana-new-york

My nose acknowledges four classes of rose: the flower, the perfume, the essence (as in rose water), and the soap/lotion. We use a lot of rose essence/rose water in our cooking in India, so I’m most familiar with the variety of tastes created by adding that to a beverage or dish. As well, when I was little I used to munch on rose petals. I like rose. A lot.

I was very happy with the fragrance of the dry leaves. Of the four recognised classes, this tea fell squarely in the “flower” one: the fragrance was fresh, pure, not artificial. Not even remotely subtle, and really lovely. The wet leaves and the steeped tea didn’t smell as strongly like a fresh flower, which was good, because it let the black tea come through a little more.

The flavour is where things just went all pear-shaped. The flavour, my friends, is neither essence nor flower, but lotion. Lotion! It’s wrong. So, so, wrong. To make matters worse, my first sip of the unsweetened tea hit the back of my throat with a distinct bitterness, which immediately shattered my resolve to wean myself off sugar/sweeteners in my tea. Straightaway, I added some sugar.

So now I’m drinking non-bitter rose lotion. Because I like rose so much, I’m reluctant to dump the tea, so it’s sitting here, and every so often I forget how disappointed I am and reach for another sip or two. What I’m finding is that as it sits (it’s just sitting, not really cooling, thanks to my super duper mug), the flavour is transitioning from lotion to flower, more like what I expected when I first cut open the packet.

In the end, I’m glad that I didn’t pour the tea down the drain. I still feel that there is a slightly lotion-y aftertaste, but to be fair, it is possible that this is mostly psychological. I’ll be okay getting through this mug, but unfortunately this isn’t a tea I’ll be stocking in the future. That said, I’d now really like to find a bold, rose tea that I would like to keep stocked. I tried a white rose that I really liked, but it was subtle. I’d like something more like this, with a nice, bold flavour, but with a rose infusion that’s more to my liking. I’ll keep trying, I’m sure I’ll find something. =)

I love licorice. But I’m pretty sceptical of licorice in tea, because it tends to coat my tongue in a really unpleasant, icky way. Pre-steep, these dry leaves smell like licorice and tea, instead of just licorice. In fact, the licorice was pretty subtle. It came out more post-steep, but still wasn’t really strong.

If you’re kind of on the fence about licorice, you might like this one. The tea has a pretty balanced flavour, and it does a respectable job of not coating your tongue in that icky way. I think I would’ve liked it more with a touch of sugar, but I’m trying to wean myself off sugar/sweeteners (sadpanda), so I left it out. To its credit, I can actually drink this one without sugar; normally, I can’t tolerate more than a few sips of unsweetened tea.

I love jasmine, and this tea smells wonderful, so I had high hopes. By wonderful I mean that the jasmine is not subtle. I like bold, full flavours and this really smells like jasmine. Additionally, it’s a very pure fragrance, not like perfume.

But in the end, it doesn’t measure up to jasmine greens I’ve had in the past. With a recommended steep for four minutes at water “just below the boiling point,” I figured I’d be perfectly safe with 175°, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. There was some bitterness, right from the start, that only increased as the tea cooled. As well, the dry mouth factor here is pretty high.

That said, I’ve still got the empty packet next to me so I can sniff it every once in a while. It really does smell lovely. =)

Double honey pear honey honey. I’ve only ever had one pear tea before, and I hated it, so I was really kind of reluctant to try this one. In the end, I’m a bit torn about it, and not for the reasons I expected.

The dry leaves smell really strongly of pear. It’s a heady, fruity, very slightly floral (honey?) fragrance. Just lovely, lovely stuff. At this point, I was still really hesitant, but also a bit hopeful: surely something that smells soooo good couldn’t taste bad, right? The tea smells a lot more like honey and a lot less like pear. Given my prior experience, this was actually encouraging to me, alleviating some of my anxiety.

The first (unsweetened) sip was okay. The honey and pear were there (honey honey pear honey), but so were some bitterness and astringency, of which I’m not a fan. I added my sugar and settled in to enjoy my mug.

Happiness: this tea has replaced my awful pear tea experience. Sadness: Too much honey, not enough pear. This was what surprised me—I actually wanted more pear. Happiness: It’s a pretty pleasant tea, one that I would put in the dessert category. Sadness: the bitterness, while not present throughout, randomly pops up now and again; it’s jarring and mars an otherwise nice experience. Further sadness: this tea’s dry mouth factor is higher than I anticipated. Do not like.

The great thing that came out of this is that I am now willing and looking forward to trying more pear-flavoured teas.