Bonnie

First review from a generous sample that David included with my Verdant Tea order.

This is my 100th review Woo Hoo and a big thank you for all encouragement and comments to a newcomer to the tea community especially to David at Verdant for personal notes and samples and Angel at Teavivre for samples both companies being highly regarded!*

I’ve only ever tasted really good Jasmine tea which is fortunate so I was looking forward to this Yunnan White. The timing on my steep was 3 minutes which produced a lovely blush pale golden tea. Some Jasmine’s knock you down with floral scent but not this one. It’s more refined and gentle…a peach, jasmine, paperwhite floral with a hint of pine finish, if you can imagine such a thing. There is a creaminess and spice tingle on the tongue. We’ll see on a further pour what develops. Very delicious.

Second steep Oh My this is a bit fizzy on my tongue when hot and still lovely and creamy floral but I got distracted and put my cup down. The tea cooled. Oh well, it’s probably ok, I thought. OK? it was GREAT cool! No longer fizzy but just short of buttery and definately SILKY SMOOTH oh yes it is! Sometimes we all know how tea cools and goes all bitter, but this stayed lovely. I didn’t steep more than 3 minutes so that is important also. Quality tea has to be respected for potency… zillion proof tea needs restraint compaired to fluff and dust. I’ve been drinking so much tea that I’m going to get wicked and slice a 3 inch California strawberry and plunk it in a tall glass with the remains of the second cooled steep and a few ice cubes. Be right back…….pause…..ummmm ummmm that’s good!

Thank you to Melanie for this delightful Sample!
I really enjoy Russian Tea and this is a good one. Sometimes Russian tea can be floral and very sweet and sometimes quite smoky. There are different times Russian tea is served traditionally. Either sitting on the Samovar waiting for a pour all day..a hot pot to ward off the cold in Winter… and then another option for dessert is a floral tea often served with chocolates or a TB. of Jam in the cup to eat along with sipping. So delicious. I steeped and was ready to pour. What to do? This is a slightly smoky and creamy tea with just enough tannin to be perky. There is Blood Orange peel in the mix which did not seem to be there at all in the flavor. I wanted caffeine to ward off a migraine so black tea in the morning was a good call. Then I went further…I added some sugar in a small trial pour and liked it with the creaminess…ah…nice. OK I gave up completely and went to the Frig and got my Bonne Maman Cherry Preserves ( I’m telling the brand because it’s available almost anywhere but Sour Cherry is more traditional) and added a big tablespoon in a full cup of tea. Oh boy this is elegantly! Try it if you have the nerve, I Dare you! GOOD! The smoke still cuts through the Jam and the flavor is not too cherry nor too sweet. Just enough! (Strawberry Jam is ok too) Trying this you can participate in the tradition of another culture and enjoy this sweet dessert tea treat.. only 50 calories! So, this tea with or without adding anything is quite nice.
I would keep this on hand as a basic in my cupboard. My steep time was 4 minutes and I was able to get a good second steep.

First review. Thank you to Teavivre and Angel for this sample that is beautifully packaged with care.

What a beautiful Spring day in the Rockies! The rest of North America seems to be having weather problems but not here..it just split around the mountains and bypassed us. No rain, tornados, snow or wind. So, I washed windows and then made tea! These mini Toucha’s are so cute…wrapped in white paper with red lettering (I don’t have any idea what it says…) . Read the directions and because I like stronger Pu-erh went with 2 minute steep after a quick rinse. I poured a bit in my glass double wall cup and took a whiff. Cinnamon! Oh no, something must have been left lingering in the cup! I quickly got another glass cup. Again, cinnamon! How could that be? I never smelled cinnamon or any spice in my straight, unflavored Pu-erh before! I filled up my glass with the coffee brown liquid and took a nice big swig…rolling it around and swooshing it like a fine aged wine. Hum…a bit of a chickory bitterness but not a tea leaf type bitterness, slight earth, on the heavy side and mysterious. Leather. Believe me…do not steep this longer than 2 minutes. I would even stop at 1 minute. This is potent stuff! I sweetened it a bit. Added milk. Neither changed the character at all so not necessary. I’m puzzeled and don’t know if I like this first pour that much.

Second steep 2 minutes. Wow what a grand difference. This is the best! Mildly smoky and astringent. The blues are gone as though someone opened a window and let the bats out. This is still slightly earthy in a good Pu-erh way with a hint of brown sugar. It is light enough for Spring or Summer. The color is a caramel brown. I added sweetening which was good and then played with ice which was also fantastic. Cream not so much. This is light and delicato. Need to respect the complexity at this stage so better sans milk.

*My Hints…1st steep keep it short…1 minute. 2nd steep… 2 minutes and if you add sugar forget the milk… but iced is good too ( nice warm weather Pu-erh).

Thank you to Amanda for this lovely sample!
Three of my grandkids came by for a short visit while mom took four others to appointments and one was off on her own (18 and drives). Eight kids…2 foster, 3 adopted, 3 bio. So I made tea and popcorn. Lion and Lamb Lapsang Souchong is a favorite with one and good with popcorn. Bear Trap is a winner for the 9 year old watching cartoons, but the 16 year old composer and I drank Marco Polo and discussed the scent and flavor.

This is a splendid tea. At first, the golden liquid tasted creamy, almost vanilla but not quite and had a floral lilly quality without being any type of flower one could put one’s finger on. I asked my granddaughter what she thought…she was amazed at the flavors and complexity. We added a little sweetening and some cream. “I taste some citrus do you?” Was it orange…no. I thought about it. “How about Honeydew melon?”…“Yes…I can taste it in my nose”, she laughed. “And a little earth…I mean dry dirt.” Well I didn’t get any of that…but she was certain for herself. At any rate this is one delicious tea. Really good and worth having on hand always. I’ve got to get some Marco Polo soon!

Their mom arrived (my daughter). “I’m taking the bus and coming back tomorrow grandma.”, she said. “Me too.”, said my grandson (not happening…9 years old on a bus ah no way). So what is this tale all about? Why do I recount this tasting this way? It’s because tea drinking for me and for millions of people is community. Tea is to be shared and mainly within the family. Makes my old heart glad.

*Second steeping proves excellent. If I were blindfolded I would almost say someone switched in some oolong…is that what I am tasting? That elusive floral creamy butteriness?

First Review. I like smoky tea and this morning I was in the mood for that fire in the fireplace, cabin in the woods and bacon on the grill taste that a good Lapsang Souchong can give ( especially during Lent when the Eastern Orthodox world, moi,does not eat any meat or fish at all)…yeh bacon! Well…the fact that this has dried big puffy Jasmine flowers and small dry pieces of Orange rind was interesting. What would those additions do to the tasty tea? I set the steep at 4 minutes (3 was suggested). My first pour and sip was smooth, lighter than expected and smoky salty in a corn-on-the-cob sort of way. You could not taste floral or orange. Curious. You don’t need sugar with this tea but of course I added some just to see what would develop. A smidge of sweet produced the flavor of the brown (but not black/burnt) part of grilled marshmallow. Really good. This is my favorite Lapsang blend. You can drink a whole pot without feeling like you’ve been fighting a forest fire. Love that! I drank a pot and then had a second somewhat weaker steeping (should have let it set longer).

Thank you Amanda for this Sample! I was just about to pull out the basket to stop the steep at 5 minutes when my cell rang….so I forgot and chatted another 5 minutes with my daughter about my Grandson’s story “My Wonderful Day With Grandma” where he got to break a plate at Taverna Greek Restaurant ‘OPA’ and spend the night. Soooo the tea went 10 minutes before I set it free to pour. Smells vanilla creamy…and very much like Panna Cotta with burnt sugar top. Where is that rhubarb? I know rhubarb is not just tart and can be cooked down to a warm and fat flavor, it really is a vegitable officially, almost in a vegital way but I could hardly detect it even as I enhaled deeply from the wet rooibos mix. It is there alright so barely that you have to know that it is not sweet or tart but more like a tomato is a fruit if that makes sense . As things go…if you like Panna Cotta this is fine and good. If you wanted Rhubarb it would be hard to find here. The fact that this is caffeine free is a plus.

First Review. VERY DIFFERENT! This is the PERFECT tea to drink when watching an old movie like Murder on the Orient Express or an English Murder Mystery! I need to redecorate my condo in chintz and add a proper tea table and Lomonosov Teapot. Why? This is an Old World floral tea…one that takes you somewhere else…to a place in time where you first thought tea belonged before you were educated to know better. Not tea bags…not there…but in old movies where there was tea service and refinement. I’m getting carried away again being a visual thinker in my right mind (Lefty). Rose petals in tea are rarely this sweet and floral. I am reminded more of very fragrant trailing roses on an arbor in the heat of the day…so concentrated. There is safflower and a citrus finish that keeps the tea bright. I have no idea what the fruit is. Possibly sour cherry? This is a popular Russian fruit flavor in tea. I went to taste my jam and think this is it since I use it in my other Czar Nikolas ll for guests (see other notes). Very nice sweetened. Adding milk is not necessary but I tried it and it’s just ok. I steeped 5 minutes. Good dessert tea. I would serve this with chocolate (dark) or a salty cheese (opposites work well together). Oh yes this is inexpensive…8.8 oz cost me $7.99 plus shipping (amazon) same with the other Czar Nikolas ll Renaissance (exporter is in Sacramento,CA with no online ordering).

Feeling nostalgic today…remembering a time most of you were not alive as yet. San Francisco in the 1950’s. You HAD to dress up to go into town. Hat and gloves even as a little girl. Grandmother wore her mink coat or stole. She had money…we didn’t but we always were clean and pressed. Anyway, there were flower vendor stalls all along Powell Street (where the Cable Cars run) and around Union Square. The favorite flowers of mine were nosegay’s of violets and baby roses or just violets. Rows and rows of nosegays. Pick one beautiful bunch out for a small price and carry it around in your gloved hand. This tea is like that sweet smelling nosegay. My grandfather (Charlie Cameron) took me dancing at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco on my 13th Birthday which was grand indeed! He looked like Clark Gable! OK lock me up. Getting too syrupy!

First Review. I must compliment David at Verdant for great service since I was trying to order during the transition to the new website (which is fantastic) and had trouble with the payment screen not working…so he added some extra samples and shot me a nice email. You can be sure I’m coming back to such a service oriented company (great tea too!).

I followed the instructions to the letter for steeping but the tea was just too weak. I let it go 5 minutes before pouring. Next time since this is a blended Pu’er I may need to make sure there are enough pieces of actual Pu’er in the basket so the brew is stronger (note to self). The Pu’er is like chocolate colored chunks of tree bark and there are small pieces of orange peel and ginger, small tart elderberries (almost raisen taste) and galangel (spice/heat). You really smell ginger. Golden cocoa brownish orange colored liquid. Note* I did not read any reviews before I made MY notes and tasted the tea myself.
First impression…more like regular black tea than a Pu’er. No earthiness and the ginger is not as strong tasting but somewhat lighter than I expected. A nice floral orange blossom bouquet but no elderberry flavor or scent at all. Where is it? Hidden in a cloak of ginger? There is heat at the tip of the tongue from galangal that is nice…not too hot. Children can drink this and not have too much spice. I added some sugar which brought the richness of the spice out to a lovely fullness. As the tea cooled a bit I could smell a slight smoky earthy Pu’er note that the sneaky ginger had hidden with it’s strength when heated. I went back to my glass teapot and drank some of the cooled tea which was very nice and much less gingery. This tea will be soothing when stressed or not feeling quite well. I need to try this again.
*Second steep…really good…still ginger and spice and enough body with no earth or fish whatever. What I notice though is that long after I’m done the flavor lingers. I have this wonderful refreshing taste in my mouth that is so good that I want to go back and brew some more…(I’m getting a bit sloshy though).

First review and a huge thank you to TEAVIVRE and ANGEL for this beautiful sample! (sample is hardly correct…it is generous and wrapped in a way that honors the tea inside)
I made sure that my glass pot, glass mug, infuser…everything was sterile so that no sneeky flavor from past tea tastings would interfer with this one. This tasting is special. I love Pu-erh! The little Toucha is cute (I know cute is tacky) with the little rosebud on top of the small dome of aged Pu-erh. I poured the water over the tea and waited….watching the dome disolve…1,2.5 minutes (tasting along the way). Pulled the basket out and smelled the leaves…small and almost black like wet potting soil earthy. The scent is like sweet straw and a bit spicy. The liquid pour looks like light molasses in color. First sip is slightly sweet, not too earthy with a slight caramel cinnamon finish. I’m a sweet lover so I added a tad of sweetening…and it brought up the caramel flavor. Delicious and mello. Now a bit of creme…um…buttery caramel Pu-erh with a bit of earthiness and still good color and body. No fishiness and I did not rinse the Toucha. The rose did not have an effect for me. Maybe it was in the background and gave the spice or sweetness.
*Second steeping 2.5 minutes reveals a less caramel taste but still a beautifully mild earthy flavor and round tone perfect for adding what you want for a latte. I made an iced version just to see how it would taste…thinking of the 72 weather outside. This was wonderful iced! Bravo! No bitterness at all! Ice cubes, sweetening and milk or whatever you use…ice cream…and a Puerh smoothie that you can still taste as what it is! Fantastic! Purely as straight pour…or as you wish..tea is such luxury. I found that my first tasting this morning took my appitite away which was a nice bonus since I could lose a few.

Thanks to Amanda for this sweet sample! I had my first Lapsang Souchong at my local tea house (Happy Lucky’s) last month and really loved it. When Amanda and I arranged our swap and I saw this Smoky Chocolate I was excited to try it. You either love or hate the smoky tea’s it appears to me, and I’m a lover. I read the other reviews and agree that this is lacking on the chocolate taste. The smoke is not too powerful at all which would be a relief to those who are timid about trying a straight Lapsang Souchong. Adding some sweetening does improve the tea and brings up the chocolate a bit so that in my opinion the aftertaste is almost like a chocolate Necco wafer candy. Malty, chalky. Don’t brew too long or you’ll have a bitter brew. 3-4 minutes max. I did not add milk.

Thank you to Melanie for this ample sample! This is a nice evening Rooibos created it appears by ESP Emporium for Valentines Day. It is a long steep (8-10 minutes) producing a medium cognac liquor that smells like chocolate almond biscotti but tastes slightly sweet and not almondy at all. The full 10 munute steep and a bit of sugar brings all the color and flavor to fullness. More rose color from..uh…roses and rhubarb (can’t taste rhubarb so it must be adding warm roundness instead of acid) and the slightest hint of floral. Rooibos is there in the dry finish. Since Rooibos can sit and cook…getting better and better throughout the day, I think that having a fine tasting one around for one of those busy project days when you just can’t watch a pot is fantastic. This would be a nice addition. Not complicated but comforting. Sweet and desserty, not too chocolate or floral and not needing sugar or milk but good with them also. There are natural and artificial flavors and soy and rice in the mix but used well.

Thank-you to Melanie for this sample. I just came back from an outing at the local Museum. Venetian Glass by Dale Chihuly for those of you who know him. Fantastic! I have always loved the way light plays on glass (a couple of you live by Orient & Fume in Chico,CA and a few in Seattle where Dale is from). Anyway, afterwards my daughter Annalisa and I went to a Turkish shop for pastry and tea/coffee. She had pomegranite tea and I had Turkish coffee with cardamom. Nice small cup of heavy but good caffeine and semolina coconut honey cake. So good! I was not in the mood for more caffeine at home so decided to try an herbal tea. This Pomi-berry sounded interesting. The dry mix looked like a fluff of fine grass and white dust with some dry apple chunks and a very few pieces of what turns out to be pomegranite. I steeped the herbal tea 3 minutes creating a fragrent blush rose liquor. The flavor is somewhat odd. I could not place it at first. Camphor? No. Ah…now I have it…Lavender. How wierd. Apples, Chamomile, Pomegranite, Lemongrass and Lavender. A bit too odd for me. Not gross but odd. Maybe a roque fairy would like this or a real die-hard lavender lover but I just can’t put this together and say yum… I am glad to try it though!

First Review. Medium light chocolate puerh mix with cocoa hulls. The dry scent is almost a sweet pipe tobacco slightly cocoa. The steep is 1tsp per 8oz. for 5min. resulting in a mild, slightly earthy cocoa brew that is best enhanced with sweetening and cream as a latte for dessert (unless you are a true espresso drinker and drink puerh straight). In such a case I would even suggest a tiny twist of lemon or orange peel. There are many more elegant and refined puerhs for sure out there however, not everyone enjoys the stronger flavor that comes with them. Lighter or flavored puerhs like this one allow more people to drink without fearing strange fishy or super earthy tones.

Uh I like this bagged tea. Don’t ask why or anything but I do. It is a nice throw it in the cup when you don’t want to work at it vanilla honey tea that is warm and yum. So there. AND it comes from down the road right here in Colorado…ha!

First review.

I was sitting at the bar at Happy Lucky’s and Andy slipped me a shot of this tea. My life passed before my eyes in a moment…(maybe longer) and every tea thing I knew about unflavored tea CHANGED (hear the drumbeat) right then! I had NO idea that you could taste Bahddah (butter) and popcorn and a bit of floral with all it’s sweetness in a tea. No idea that leaves smelling and looking like fresh spinach cooked in butter could produce tea that is so remarkable. Who knew? I bought 1 ounce of precious tea but find that you can resteep many times without the tea getting weak. I have to be careful not to steep too long or the tea gets overly vegital tasting.
This is a wonderful addition to the tea cupboard and opened me to trying Oolongs and other unflavored Tea!

Second tasting…the leaves dried while I was busy doing other things and here in Colorado it’s in the 70’s and the air is quite dry all the time. I’m so surprised at how large the leaves are! Really big! I have one of those safe plastic large 20oz dishwasher safe insulated cups that my silicon steeper just fits in perfectly…has a lid and I used for multiple steepings…easy to transfer leaves from pot to this method and also portable. Anyway…a 2 minute steep was plenty long for a supurb brew. Oh this is lightly sweet and buttery good. Slight orchid…very very slight….not nutty like nuts but like brown rice. Maybe a reason why people may like this is that it’s like rosotto… that buttery, nutty rice flavor. Well… today this is what it tastes like to me.

A fantastic Oolong. I am so greatful that my local tea people have tastings or I would never have known this kind of tea existed. What a pleasure!

Tasting note from my 7 year old grandson Micah. The tea leaves smell like chicken and smoke. The tea tastes good and not like the wet tea leaves. It tastes like a cookie…like the caramel candy you gave me today grandma.
Note from Grandma: I think this is pretty spot on! Micah knows how to clean and devein shrimp, prep veggies and likes my butter garlic with breadcrumbs brussel sprouts! We went to a Greek Taverna last night and he got to break a plate “OPA”!

Thanks to Ian for this generous sample. I took a pain pill for my tooth extraction so that I can truly enjoy myself!!! OK. First the story and then the review. Some of you know I moved from Silicon Valley to Colorado. Well growing up in Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) it used to be the Prune Capitol of the World. Yes, total agriculture…apricots, vineyards, etc. UNTIL…well you know what…HP, Apple and everything else. I ended up living in the last remaining agricultural pocket which grows Mushrooms. Here is where the Puerh comes in. That pocket is the town of Morgan Hill and gets a bit stinky (the Coastal fog mixes with the smell and creates stink fog…) from Mushrooms but the Mushrooms are really really good. This 1999 Puerh reminds me of the earthy raw Crimini Mushrooms before you dust them off (actually the dirt is sterile so you never have to worry). If you smell them and take a bite as is…well this is what the Puerh flavor is like. Mulch dirt and Crimini Mushrooms raw. The taste is not fishy but quite nice. Rich like a light broth. My preference is to make a latte with Puerhs which is what I ended up doing. To my delight, the earthiness was not buried. I think this is a good Puerh. (This sounds stupid but true the next town over from Morgan Hill is Gilroy…home of the Gilroy Garlic Festival…so if you can imagine garlic fog…yes…garlic FOG! tasty!).

First Review and thank you to Teavivre and Angel for this fine sample (ample sample)!
What a spectacularly beautiful tea! I used a double glass cup so that I could see the color of this tea and WOW! The tone is golden amber lit by firelight. I didn’t read the reviews on this tea so that I could form my own thoughts on it. Caramel was my first opinion..very light..with a little buttery pie crust taste(I used to bake pie for contests so I know crust!). There is a smidge of vegital but not a green note…more like a yellow wax bean or raw sweet potato when you cut it (not a yam). I never would have sipped this even a year ago and snapped my fingers and announced…“Ah now this is a good Chinese black tea!” For all I knew black tea would be …eh…dark…and bitter…and in a bag! ergh! This is fit for a Queen…and I suppose that sans an abusive ex-husband…I’ve become a Queen! I quite like my new TEA life and I quite like this tea for sure! 3min steep did it for me!

First review. Thank you again Teavivre for the beautifully packaged sample. This was the second tea that I shared with my granddaughter Megan today after watching Amadeus. I didn’t let her have a smell of the wet tea leaves…just the pour which was a steep of 3 minutes. She could not believe the flavor! “This is incredible…what is this”! I laughed and explained and asked what she tasted. It’s floral, buttery, popcorn. Then I had her smell the beautiful green wet tea leaves. “Spinach grandma! How could that smell make such a different tasting tea”? And that’s part of the magic isn’t it. The chameleon character of some tea…smells like one thing tastes like something else…huh we all know what that’s like don’t we. And we love that surprise too. This gem of a high quality A+ tea is so smooth a luscous. The flavor so well balanced that no one nuance outshines another. I found myself looking at the bottom of my cup like an addict ready to dip my finger in to grab for the last drop. Fortunately I can resteep many times without denigration. This is a keeper tea!

First review. My grandaughter Megan (16 years old) is on Spring break and came over to watch Amadeus on my big screen tv. We’re buddies…she’s a composer and has a concert choral piece coming up (previously she’s had orchestral pieces). Anyway…I made us this great pu erh and she flipped for it. Such a whoop of “Wow grandma what is this stuff”! I was delighted! The rich chocolatey creamy flavor with a little strawberry but not too much. The earthiness of the pu erh is subtle and not fishy. So nice. We had a second steep and she asked for some loose tea in a bag to take to school next week. She was so blown over with what flavor good tea can deliver.
*A few days later I bought Megan a portable 12 oz. steeper… double walled glass sipper with a retractable stainless basket and gave her some of this tea to take to school which made her very happy indeed!

Another tea I have not had in awhile. I shared this yesterday with my grandaughter Schey (18) while showing her Steepster and how all you lovely people review tea! She loved Santa’s Secret…the little candy canes, the minty flavor. I forgot what I was doing and let it steep about 12 minutes!!! It did not get bitter!!!! Wowzer! Unbelievable! This is one delicious minty welcome to Christmas any time of the year tea. I still love it and it was fun to share with my sweet Schey. I’ve got 6 grandkids to share tea with.

Had not tasted this in awhile. So refreshing to have this wonderful berry blend. I’m supposed to have a more room temp tea with my oral surgery…ugh…so having some tepid tea’s sounded unappetizing. This on a rather warm Winter day did sound good. Even cool and sweetened it has the character of the liquor that is left in the bowl of blackberries lightly sugered for dessert. Imagine the fresh flavor when you pick up the bowl when noone is looking and slurp it down. That’s how fresh this tea tastes and how spot on the berry flavor is. I really like this tea. Can’t wait for summer to create some recipes with Bear Trap!

First review. Thank you BTVSGal for the sample (I’ve ordered some from DavidsTea). The aroma is cream brulee with a hint of rum…not much rum…a whisper. Man-oh-man good! And I did the unthinkable…you know you do it…I’m not the only one who does things that you’re not supposed to do when you are a “tea person” in good standing with the “tea” community…but, I confess I used…ITALIAN SWEET CREAM creamer in the tea. OK I said it. Artificial creamer! And, it tasted GOOD! like real cream brulee! Good grief! Maybe I’m just still sick. I slept most of the day because I had a tooth pulled and I was carrying my tea tray…kicked the coffee table and broke my toes. I so needed dessert! This was so good I’ll do it again. But I admit that plain or doctored up this tea is really good.

First review. I’ve learned my lesson with Pu erh’s and did a very quick rinse when I smelled the tell-tale fishy smell on the dry fine bark-like minced tea. Glad I did too…because even though the smell was faintly there the taste was not present on a 3 minute steep. As I do with Pu erh, I took a sip without anything added which was just dull and then added cream and sugar. Mocha and nice but still too weak for me. Let it go another minute and a half…ah…better…dark and rich like coffee and oh my word! You know that fishy taste…well it did present itself for a split second and then it morphed into a tea leaf flavor like it’s supposed to do. Leafy tea with some acid and no heavy vegital flavor and mocha as a bonus. A Pu erh hat trick! No flavor added or needed. I think people who gag on Pu erh could handle this and it might be the right introduction. Do have as a latte and add cookies or a bagel!