ESP Emporium

Thanks Dinosara for this lovely tea that you sent a while back. I really like it! It’s a nice option to have around if you want bergamot at night. This one is sweet lemon with a hint of bergamot and a nice green tea. Very balanced! The water was very cooled and the steep was very short, so that may have helped.

Sipdown! This was the rogue sample from momo that found its way into my box of samples from Lynne-tea. Therefore, I finished it.

I was going to say that sadly, I didn’t really taste too much with this one… but it looks like I felt the same the first time I tried it as well. Ah well. Perhaps it’s a case of flavour lost during transport, or something. It does sound like a delicious flavour combo otherwise…

This tea is just weird. It tells you it’s like butter cookies but then cumin, peppercorns, and coriander are in the ingredients….those aren’t really cookie ingredients? So I am kind of scared of even drinking this.

It smells terrible. It smells like butter and spice. That’s fine in food, In tea, I don’t know. Yeah really the actual ingredients say Indian food, the description is just way off. So is the name. Truffle would imply either there’s chocolate or there’s mushrooms.

No. I don’t even want to drink this. I took a couple sips and just no. Whatever it is doesn’t work. It makes me feel sick to just smell it because of the various spices, they don’t mesh, and so it just smells like a poorly stored spice rack where they all hit you at once, and don’t smell great together.

This rooibos smelled delicious in leaf form – not medicinal at all, with bright orange notes that seemed very fresh! The look of the loose tea was, as is usual with ESP Emporium teas, disappointing when compared to the picture. There were fewer oranges than pictured, and the ones that were there were 2-3 times the size of the pictured ones… the size makes it difficult to scoop, and unless you break them into smaller bits yourself, its unlikely that you’ll get an orange piece in each cup. Can’t complain about the carrots, though – they were numerous and seemed well dispersed among the bagged leaves.

The taste is okay, for a rooibos. A little overly sweet, even at one Stevia packet per liter, but the floral rooibos flavor is pretty muted. The orange tastes pretty artifical, but its not a deal breaker for me. I’m not sure what the carrots add outside of making the spent tea leaves look like they’ve been sprinkled with cheddar shreds, but they’re certainly not a detriment. This is one of the better rooibos teas I’ve had.

When I first opened the bag and smelled the loose leaf, I was disappointed – that harsh, red cough syrup smell was very strong. It smelled much better when the boiling water hit, with a strong and sweet vanilla.

Sadly, the brewed tea tasted only of cough syrup. I could taste the rose and raspberry, so it was strange. Is all red cough syrup rose raspberry flavored? Oh well. It wasn’t sickening to choke down, and I’ll finish the 50g package, but I hope to remember not to buy again.

In personal news, the garden is coming up beautifully, for what I’ve been able to start up. The daylillies and rosebushes are blooming, the snap peas and chard are green and healthy, and its only a matter of time before I can start up the rest of the plants!

A nice tea, tasting mostly of peach. A slightly bitter (black-tea) aftertaste, maybe I steeped it a titch too long. But some other aftertaste, too, that I can’t put my finger on – a little tart, maybe the hint of tangerine.

I followed the package instructions, which say 1 HEAPING tsp per 6 oz (versus 1 level tsp, as written above) — and that’s a big difference — so maybe I made it a bit too strong.

Anyhow, I found it was good, but not a favourite.
(Thanks, Starfevre!)

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This is a refreshing iced tea. It has a predominantly lemon flavor with something tartly melon mixed in and the aftertaste of a nice sencha. There are no off or artificial flavors. It is not bitter or astringent at all. It is actually pretty sweet tasting, but does not have a very lingering aftertaste. This is good.

I brewed it for 3 minutes using 185 °F water and then chilled overnight in the refrigerator.

Still the best iced tea I’ve ever had… only needs a little bit of sweetener to shine. The flavor doesn’t come off as overly artificial, even though it obviously is.

I still wish the loose tea looked more like it does in the picture – the photo is beautiful, and filled with currants, but its almost like soup commercial – they put all of the currants from the whole 4oz bag in the picture to make it look better.

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Time for another break and I have worked up a well deserved thirst for watermelon so I used the last of this tea to make a pitcher of iced tea. It still tastes like sweet watermelon nectar but the apple is stronger than it was for the hot version. I think I prefer it as an iced tea the best, it’s so juicy and sweet. Perfect. :)

I’m sad to see the end of this tea :(

What an odd little tea! There’s nothing in this that says pumpkin to me – not the ingredients or the smell of the dry leaves. It actually kind of smells like fruity bubblegum to me. Ackkk, this tastes like stale fruit. There is a strange aftertaste that is dry feeling, ew. I’m mostly just tasting that stale, musty fruit flavor. This tea has a whole lot going on, but sadly none of it is pumpkin! I tried adding milk and sweetener, and I still don’t want to drink it. I can’t believe they call this pumpkin cream – I can’t find any pumpkin in this cup at all! Oh well, thanks KittyLovesTea for the sample!!

-Dry blend has red and brown rooibos with chunks of dried fruit and yellow petals.
-Dry blend smells like rooibos and fruity bubblegum. Tea liquor aroma is of sweet fruit.
-Tea liquor is a clear deep orange brown color.
-Very stale fruit flavor with an almost spicy finish. Odd dry feeling and artificial aftertaste.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Poor tea. Strange fruity flavor. No pumpkin taste at all.

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When I got into my bag of tea I noticed that all the starfruit slices are sticky! Uh oh!!! I’ve never had that happen to tea!

With that said, I should really drink this tea down! This cup wasn’t too bad – I added a bit more extra leaf than normal. The fruityness was improved, but the white base is still unappealing. So disappointing!

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I’ve noticed with both white teas I’ve purchased from ESP Emp. that the bai mu dan base is kinda stale and flat. It’s not like the juicy, delicate, lush, and slightly floral like other white tea blends I’ve had with other online tea sellers. Or I’m just spoiled.

The fruit combination was nice and sweetener helps pull out the pear flavor. Pear is nice in tea! I need to find more pear blends!

Full review and pics on my blog, the oolong owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/organic-mango-pear-deluxe-from-esp-emporium-tea-review/

Tea #21 from the ’Here’s Hoping’ teabox.

I have really mixed feelings about this one. On one hand I was excited because I liked this even with the rooibos base. On the other hand I found the flavor of the tea lacking. I mean with a name like Strawberry/Lemon/Basil I’m expecting flavor/flavor/FLAVOR. Ya know? Everything here seemed muted which left me disappointed. That’s not to say that the flavor was bad. It has a nice sweet flavor from the strawberry, a bit of pop from the lemon, and little hints of basil coming out every now and then. The combination of the three together should have been amazing, but it was just middle of the road.

I might try this one again at some point but not any time soon.

Works pretty well as a flavored black tea, really. Tasty.

Solid but unremarkable genmaicha.

Today is one of those days with a very long to do list but no energy to get anything done. Sigh. I have come down with some sort of bug that I am going to blame NJ transit for, I always get sick whenever I am on those trains. My #1 task for the day is prepping swap packages which are long overdue but I’m feeling like perhaps that is not the best idea when I’m ill. Can tea carry germs? I’m thinking of getting the bf to measure out samples for me if worse comes to worse!

Anyway, the tea! This is one of the blends I got with the $70 voucher, which cost a mere $35 and included free shipping. I have only tried one of their blends before (which of course I forgot to log!) and though they have middling reviews how was I supposed to pass up an opportunity to save that much money?! Compulsive tea spending much?

I’ll admit that I bought this because of the name, plus it’s a variation of my beloved Earl Grey that I have never tried. I really was not prepared for it to be so good! The number one thing they should mention that is nowhere on the ingredients list is that this is clearly and Earl Grey Creme. Yes, a green EGC! I’ve tried black and white EGSc but this marks my first green. There is a very strong cream/vanilla note that is so deliciously cozy, but unlike its black cousin (err black tea cousin) it’s light rather than heavy.

The rhubarb is subtle, adding a bit of tang that blends well with the bergamot. Then there’s a soft, barely-there floral aspect from the rose. Like a little rose kiss at the end of the sip! This is a pretty fantastic EG and it might even make it into my EG staples.

I want to like this. I want to like this so much. momo who sent this to me in trade seems to, as does the other reviewer and yet while I do kind of like this in some ways, other ways I really do not.

If I sip this slowly, lukewarm, this tea isn’t too bad. Taken one sip at a time, just at the tip of my tongue tasting it before I swallow, this tea is pretty nice. Very peachy and a bit of strawberry.

On the other hand, when my tea gets this cold, I tend to drink it much faster than that, because I need the use of my hands and can’t be holding a tea mug for a long time at a time so I gulp it, and that’s where it gets not so good. When I drink this fast, there is such an artificial aftertaste left behind that I just shudder. It’s completely a turn off. I don’t like it at all. Of course, this tells me that I should just sip it slowly to drink it, but I’m much more impatient than that. I’ll sip a little and gulp a little and it takes me about an hour to get through a mug of tea even with the gulping so just sipping would take all day and I don’t have time for that. There’s other teas to drink. So I’ll give this a middle of the road rating and see if it catches my fancy to drink again some time or if I’ll give it away. I’m so conflicted.

I used the directions on the package to brew this one. It ended up being a VERY dark brown color, almost like I was drinking black coffee. The flavors were VERY STRONG IN YOUR FACE and lacked any nuances. I will try with less time if I make this again. I do enjoy a hearty English Breakfast but this is not for me.

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