Cinoi

I am sorry about this – I have made this confusing. I couldn’t believe this was not on here, and then AFTER I submitted the tea entry, I realized why it was not in here…“Chamomile” is spelled differently (from everywhere else I have ever seen it) as “Camomile” There is already an entry.

I do not know how to delete this Tea Entry…Sorry again.

See my actual tasting note under the correctly entered tea – Pure Camomile.

Backlogging Yesterday.

I usually save this tea as my dessert tea because I like it with half and half – I think that the half and half adds something; a creamy, smooth, almost savory taste blended well with this sweet nutty tea. However, I ignored my usual standards yesterday and had this first thing in the morning!

No real updates about it, nothing overwhelmingly new.

Backlogging Wednesday

Inspired by reviews read early in the morning, I decided to do my blasphemous cold-brew for this Milk Oolong. The sample pack contains two individual servings like the others, so if it goes awry, I can try again later. The scent of the dried tea is very light, a slight creaminess, a hint of fruit – strawberry maybe, and a toasty oolong aroma.

As I said, blasphemous: full serving of tea, no additives, ¼ cup hot water, rest cold water, infusion time 3 hours before I got to it. The brew is similar in aroma. The taste is creamy and slightly nutty with a fruity and sweet end-note.

This was all in my travel mug, so I actually got the chance to brew up another cup using these leaves. I was surprised that after such a long infusion this morning, I could STILL get flavor out of these leaves. All hot water this time, again, no additives, infusion 5 minutes. This time, I drank the tea hot, it still have the nutty and creamy flavor and the strawberry finishing note, but the sweetness had subsided. So as the tea was cooler and infused longer it got sweeter – NOT more bitter, very nice.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable tea, the next purchase I make from thepuriTea will have to include more of this…

Backlogging from Saturday.

Saturday was a rough day, the in-laws were in town, so much cleaning and preparation had to be done. While it was in progress, disaster struck, early in the morning when I was putting away dishes and accidently smashed my favorite Coconut Beehouse Teapot. I’d probably move on, get another replica but there would be a 10 minute period there where I would just be inconsolable. I had to get to the nearest Teavana ASAP to get a replacement.

The nearest locale is relatively new, and unfamiliar with me and my tea addiction, trying to upsell and sample me everything in the store, I quickly located the nearest and most uninterested Teavana worker, told her exactly what I needed – the teapot on the tip-top shelf and a cup of tea. I chose Utopian Jewel, I wanted oolong and fruit and something to celebrate my success at finding my teapot and to calm the nerves from the adventure this morning.

Unfortunately, this was not quite what I remembered. I asked for it iced and slightly sweetened with the Rock sugar. The tea is light, though unfamiliar, it is more tart and bitter than I remembered; maybe the “slightly sweetened” is different from what I get at my other Teavanas. Oh well. The fruit: raspberries, strawberries and apples, will of course be a bit tart with this, probably why Teavana suggests blending it with another, mild and sweeter tea, which I refused. However, the large raisins and the malty aroma would suggest that slightly sweet, should be sweet enough. Again, oh well. I have no regrets about the tea, you would expect that fruit power house to be tart, especially when you read the description (just now) and find out there is also carrot and beet.

Now, I wonder how this would be blended with another tea, maybe a white or green tea, something a little floral and crisp and clean…I will have to finish more of my stash before I find out.

As I sit at my desk for a few minutes pondering the next part of my day, Pandora Radio – which always plays what I want to hear – blasts “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” by CCR – why yes, I have, as it is pouring now, as it was for my entire commute and will probably continue to do so all day…good thing I had some of this tea to keep me going.

There were surprisingly few leaves in my sample, you do not need a lot of tea when making Jasmine tea, but I tend to over do it for some reason. As I said, the sample had fewer than I would normally use, so I infused longer. Hot, 6 minutes, no additives. The aroma is faint, slightly sweet, jasmine in lukewarm weather, it smells fabulous. The flavor is so light and delicate it is perfect. As I said, I usually aim for stronger and more Jasmine flavor when brewing my Jasmine tea, but this really hit the spot and brightened my otherwise drab day.

Backlogging from yesterday.

Yesterday, I decided to crack into my sample set from thepuriTea. I have to say, that I ordered this one last week when they had the sampler set with the pot and mug. The samples come in little cardboard pouches that contain two individual servings of the tea, so you can try it at least twice. I added on quite a few more samples and accessories and the savings was astronomical (insert sales pitch here)…onto the tea…

The dried tea is fragrant, oh man, is it fragrant, it smells very strongly of passion fruit – a sweet, almost sickening, slightly floral, very fruity and intensely tropical with a very natural honey/nectar smell. I do not think I have ever smelled a passion fruit that smells this fragrant, but it is not overpowering, it smells delicious. The tea smells so sweet I decide to not add anything to it, no real shock there, but I also cut my infusion time for black tea – this one I brewed hot for three minutes (no additives as I said).

The fresh brew mimics the aroma of the dried leaves. This liquor is shockingly dark, I know it is a black tea, but this is apparently a strong black tea, and strong at an abbreviated brew time. The tea continues to taste how it smells, sweet and rich, with no additives. I do not remember too many fruit flavored black teas in my many reviews, but this one stands out and will continue to do so. I plan to use the second half of my sample as an iced tea, but I also have the rest of the flavored black tea collection from thepuriTea, I will let you know how those go.

In case you have not noticed, most of my recent infusions have been ones I am doing in a travel mug on my ridiculously long drive to work – which means my tea is infusing for way longer than necessary and being drank while the leaves are still submerged in the cup. As one of my first entries (on a Dragonwell – I think Teavana’s) explained, this is how I usually drank green tea, over-infused so as to get every ounce of tea flavor out of a single infusion. Today is no exception.

I really want to finish the Golden Moon sampler. I have but a few samples left – I chose this one because I really needed to relax today and this usually does the trick. The little tiny pearls are perfectly curled and rolled into little balls, none of them are broken or damaged, no torn or flailing leaves, very nice. The aroma off of the un-infused tea is jasmine and green tea, so far so good.

Added the sample pack to my travel mug, filled ¾ with hot water and the rest with cold water (I do this so that the tea is not brewing so hot because it is going to infuse for so long – this is not correct practice, I know this, but I do not want to scorch it up front and have a wasted cup of tea while on the road.) The pearls took about ten minutes to completely unfurl into long green leaves with a light honey colored liquor, the fragrance is strong Jasmine. The flavor initially is green with some Jasmine. After a bit longer on the infusion, the tea shifts in flavor to be less vegetal green and more Jasmine. By the end of the cup, it is mostly Jasmine, no real other flavor playing any role here.

Overall, I like this tea, you cannot have it every day, but that is true of most people and most Jasmine teas. The floral aroma and smell is just too powdery and overwhelming to enjoy every day. When I need to relax and have something special, I could definitely see me reaching for a cup of this, it was very good, but too strong for every day.

I will not lie, this has little to no green tea taste – it is very sweet, there is definite melon and citrus flavor, it tastes like more of a juice than a tea, but I do find myself ordering one every time I go there.

Something about iced tea, I just like it to be sweeter, and the fact that it is fruity really is a strong selling point for me. Very little green tea flavor, but very good.

Yay – Tuesday! That means I head down to the little deli by work that carries my new favorite bottled tea…

Drank cold, it is sweet oolong tea with wonderful raspberry flavor.

Happy Tuesday! Actually took some care to brew this one right today – 1 scoop tea, no additives, hot water, infuse 7 minutes. The tea is clean, crisp, refreshing, rejuvenating even, yet has an interestingly heavy mouthfeel. I feel good, but I am feeling better with each and every sip. A hint of vegetal flavor, a sweet almost minty after taste.

So I just brewed up some of this to make up for my poor experience this morning. Unfortunately, I got pulled into a meeting and it over-infused by like 20 minutes. sigh I will drink it, though now it is a bit too bitter. Added some sugar, downed it and onto the second (much shorter) infusion.

This time, I will add my sugar and milk and it should be perfect.

Found a tin of this tea this morning, and all I could think is “Where did this come from?” Duh, Adagio, but seriously, I do not remember ordering this at all. Anyway, since it looks mostly full, I supposed I never had it and should give it a shot. My theory is that when I brew my tea on the drive to work, I should always brew an oolong, green or white because they are more forgiving than say a black or a tisane. This of course also based on the ingredients in the blend. This tea is vanilla and oolong, so should be able to hold up to my hour long brew while commuting.

The smell of the leaves is overwhelmingly plain. No vanilla, no oolong, pretty much nothing. This concerned me a bit because as I said, I planned on way over-steeping this, so I added some rock sugar for safety and used below boiling water so that it did no scorch. Filled my travel mug with one heaping scoop of tea and 1/4 tsp of the rock sugar, added hot water and left for work. My first sip was around 7 minutes (so that I could get an accurate taste for this review). At this stage, the liquor is very pale, typical of oolong, there is a tiny hint of vanilla and oolong, but neither is a predominant or strong flavor, they both appear to be lost: hints of flavor hidden away in a background, calling faintly for your attention, but never quite getting it. I thought maybe I just needed some more time, so continued the infusion while driving, about 40 minutes. The liquor is now very dark, this is probably from the vanilla; the tea is still light in flavor and aroma.

The smell reminds me a little of oolong, but not really, something is lost in this, the vanilla kills the flavor I am used to and looking for. This is disappointing. There is vanilla flavor, but little to no oolong. Strangely, this is still a bit bitter with the sugar. I say strange because I very rarely find oolong to be bitter, it is also rare that I think vanilla is bitter, weird. Did I ruin it with my killer infusion? Maybe, but based on my first impressions, this was not what I was looking for anyway.

Oh well, I will finish the mug, because I prefer to start my day with oolong, it helps me get to that first coffee break, but it is looking more and more like that first break will be coming sooner rather than later. This is not undrinkable, just not what I was looking for this morning.

All Work and No Tea Makes Cinoi Very Annoyed.

Currently rectifying the above issue with this tea. It is towards the end of the tin. I have no idea how old this tea is at this point, but I know that I still love it, it is still fresh in the tin and I am glad I could turn to this in my time of need right now.

This tea is my new obsession – a few of the restaurants and delis by my job carry it and I buy a bottle whenever I see it. I do not normally purchase pre-made iced teas, it kind of goes against my nature – you lose some art and simplicity when buying a bottle, not to mention cost of one simple bottle and of course that I do not like to put damn-near-anything in my tea.

The tea is sweeter than I would usually drink, using pure organic cane sugar, so at least it is a sugar I approve of. The tea is like many bottled iced teas, but it has a uniqueness, a real oolong flavor with a smack of raspberry. The mouthfeel is crisp and clean, raspberry up front followed by the cool, refreshing, crisp and clean flavor of oolong. Absolutely wonderful. I highly recommend that if you happen to see this, or one of the other flavors from New Leaf to try it, you will not be disappointed!

I do not want to write a full review here, from my previous posts on the tea, you should know how I feel about it, but I wanted to add a very interesting note to it.

I brewed a full 16 ounces of this wonderful tea this morning at 5:45am Eastern. Drove to work taking a few sips at best, then proceeded to be swamped at work until about now (I am still swamped, I am on lunch break) but now, at 1:48pm Eastern, this tea STILL tastes as good as it did at 6am, the only difference is that the tea is now cold. The tea is still light, slightly sweet and delicious and taking this kind of abuse from me and still being delicious means I HAVE to update my rating.

Previous rating: 74

Had this today and I absolutely loved it, definitely my new favorite pu-erh.

This is a green tea pu-erh cake flavored like sticky rice. The little nest is very green with a remarkable lack of odor, until it gets hit with hot water. Once the hot water hit the cake and released a hit of sweet sticky rice and tiny natural outdoorsy smell, not at all like regular pu-erh, but clean in a way that makes you almost consider not rinsing before drinking, but the directions say to rinse for 30 seconds, so I obliged.

So 30 second rinse in hot water, then 30 second infusion, hot, no additives. The tea smells just how it tastes, like sweet, starchy, sticky rice mixed with a very sweet green tea. Similar to Genmaicha, but I do like this one a lot more. There is no earthy flavor or smell, this tea is the most mild pu-erh I have ever had (in cake form – as in the Chocolate Pu-Erh I rave about is actually more mild of a pu-erh, but I digress). You really still get the mouth-feel and richness of a pu-erh, but the lack of the fishy, outdoors odor and flavor really makes this one of the greatest pu-erhs I have ever had.

That being said, I believe this is my first green pu-erh cake and I should expand my horizons and not be so terrified of pu-erh, but I will definitely be buying more of these from Chicago Tea Garden…

Backlogging.

I actually drank this tea all week and it took me most of the week to get the words just right about it. I used up the entire sample over the course of five infusions. So bear with me while I revisit my notes and describe each one.

To start, the leaves smell of faint oolong and a tiny bit of grape flavor. The grape is very difficult to detect, but I love grape and can find and look for it in a lot of things… The leaves are small, dark, curled very tightly, with the faint aroma.

The first infusion was five minutes, hot, no additives. The tea is sweet and malty, a delicious oolong with the slight wine taste finishing off the brew. I mustered two more infusions (5 minutes and 7 minutes respectively) with very similarly delicious results. This was day one.

Day two I added some sugar, hot infusion, five minutes. This was still good, but the natural sweetness of the tea itself and the added sweetness from the sugar made this infusion almost too sweet. Still good, but could be less sweet.

Day three, I put my tea in a travel mug and let it infuse with hot water, no additives the entire 45 minute car ride to work, taking little sips when there were stops along the route. The tea is much stronger now, not a gentle, definitely still oolong, but more malt then sweet when brewed this way. The wine aftertaste is completely gone. As an aesthetic note, this long of an infusion allowed the leaves to completely unfurl into long thick green oolong leaves…

Day four, attempting the 45 minute infusion again, but this time with 1/2 teaspoon of rock sugar. The sweetness is back, but I feel like it is kind of cheating, the natural sweetness is gone and overrun by malt, but the sugar brings some underlying flavor to life. Still no wine aftertaste.

Day five, my last bit of the tea, I decided to go back to basics and enjoy what it actually was, hot, no additives, five minute brew. After having experimented with the other ways I thought I could enjoy the tea, I now know, this was superior. An even balance of sweet and malty oolong, the slight hint of grape, with a crisp and clean flavor. Very well balanced, very delicious.

Enjoy!

As I said, I am running dangerously low on my Strawberry Matcha and my Mandarin Matcha – going to have to reorder soon, but trying to go through my other Matcha stashes before I get to that point.

I have a decent sized bag of this, because it comes as a mix in 4 ounces. Honestly, this mix is fantastic alone, slightly sweet, nice and frothy and creamy, using just water – You almost get a shake when you make it with milk, and if you use orange juice you get an orange creamsicle matcha shake. All versions are delicious, but I am using it in my protein shake still. Since it is not straight matcha, I tend to use more.

2 scoops Vanilla Dream Protein Powder (use the included scoop)
2 scoops Matcha Latte Mix (it comes with a scoop also)
8 ounces of milk

This is very thick, yet goes down very easily. The vanilla mixes well with the Latte Mix and matcha flavors, though it seems I am missing the added boost of flavor I get from either strawberry or mandarin orange. I should look into adding a fourth ingredient for some extra hidden flavor if I continue to use this.

Enjoy!

If memory serves me correctly…this is one of the first teas I reviewed on here, just under a year ago…I still love this tea, but it got buried in the avalanche that is my cabinet and on top of my counter tops, microwave and into baskets strewn throughout my kitchen. I have since found it and not stopped drinking it.

It’s base is Earl Grey, as we have discussed, I do not like the Earl so I tend to avoid him, but the issue I have with EG is the Burgamot. I do not like it, not at all, something about it, it is sour, it is sweet, it is slightly floral, but there is no depth of levels, it is one-dimensional and I do not enjoy it. Enough complaining. This tea, though Earl Grey based has little-to-no Burgamot, it instead swings right into a malty tea from China, then a crisp English Breakfast tea followed by a deeper rich flavor from Indian tea finished with a hint of Jasmine. The four flavors, though do not seem like they would meld, actually blend and compliment each other very nicely. They infuse into one complex mouth flavor that has levels of delicious depth with natural sweetness and crisp end feel free of any black tea twang.

I infuse tea hot, 3 minutes, no additives. The left over 2 ounces I let infuse about 3 more minutes then add cold water and pop it in the fridge to be iced for later.

This tea is excellent either way!

Yesterday was an awful day – so much drama and issues with just about everything. Let’s start over today…That being said:

“Back to the grind Steepsterites, and with the extra running around and activity during the day from the new job and schedule, I have been dragging a bit. Still having tea daily, but neglecting my matchas and chais – teas I cannot easily make and take with me in the morning.

Today I started to rectify that with a protein shake:

2 scoops Vanilla Dream Whey Protein Powder
8 ounces of cold Skim Organic Milk*
1 tsp Mandarin matcha

Blend until smooth. Consume. Go to work. I will be revisiting an old favorite on my drive to work today, look for the review later in the morning!

*I note that the milk is organic not because of any fundamentals I have against normal milk, but the different pasteurizing process makes a creamier milk, so even at 0% (or negligible) milk fat it still tastes, feels and foams like a higher-fat content milk. I have heard it compared to whole milk, I do not agree with that, but definitely 2%."

The orange and cream flavor from this is incredible, I still love the strawberry (more in this protein shake than the mandarin) but alas, it is running dangerously low…It appears I can still order it, so maybe that is in order today…

No notes yet.

Back to the grind Steepsterites, and with the extra running around and activity during the day from the new job and schedule, I have been dragging a bit. Still having tea daily, but neglecting my matchas and chais – teas I cannot easily make and take with me in the morning.

Today I started to rectify that with a protein shake:

2 scoops Vanilla Dream Whey Protein Powder
8 ounces of cold Skim Organic Milk*
1 tsp Strawberry matcha

Blend until smooth. Consume. Go to work. I will be revisiting an old favorite on my drive to work today, look for the review later in the morning!

*I note that the milk is organic not because of any fundamentals I have against normal milk, but the different pasteurizing process makes a creamier milk, so even at 0% (or negligible) milk fat it still tastes, feels and foams like a higher-fat content milk. I have heard it compared to whole milk, I do not agree with that, but definitely 2%.

So early and so far already a long day…Opened up my tea basket when I got in the office and sifted through to see what I would enjoy. These samples still need to be had, so TeaFrog was a given, but I felt like chocolate so it sounded good.

The leaves are dark and curly, with some larger splinters, presumably cocoa and chocolate chips! Brewed up a pot of this, three minutes, hot, no additives. The liquor is a dark red color.

Once again, Tea Frog came through, they know just the right balance between actual chocolate and cocoa to make a slightly sweetened, smooth, creamy tea that is not to harsh in flavor or bitterness.

Delicious.

As I have mentioned before, I try to finish up many other teas before cracking into new ones, and I regret now that I waited so long to open this tea! It was extremely hot and humid yesterday (and it continues today) and I brewed up a large iced pitcher of this tea.

The dried tea mix is a blend of large coconut flakes, chunks which must be pineapple and honeybush splinters. The aroma is mostly pineapple with a hint of coconut.

Three heaping scoops of tea in the bottom of my pitcher, about 4 ounces hot water, 1/2 tsp German Rock Sugar, infused 7 minutes, added ice cubes (to shock the tea and stop brewing) fill pitcher with cold water, wait a minute or so until all chilled and enjoy.

The liquor is very dark – for some reason this was shocking to me…most likely because the smell is SOOO pina colada and I anticipated the yellow-white icy blends by the pool. The flavor is pineapple and coconut, as a pina colada should be, the honeybush was an interesting and wonderful base for this, it is naturally sweet but not overpowering, it works very well with the other flavors in the tea. The coconut and pineapple are both represented in large pieces amongst the tea. The brew, is creamy, as good coconut and pineapple blends come together in their citrusy and cream notes to make the perfect pina colada.

I have to say this tea was and is delicious, I am glad there is more for when I get home. Also, in true 52 teas fashion, I cannot wait to try this tea in a variety of ways: hot no additives, hot with additives, maybe more additives in a cold brew, and a smoothie/shake brew.