Harney & Sons

The scent from the 2013 Meijiawu is deep and strong. Roasted vegetal tastes combine with a sweet and nutty aftertaste to make for a deeply satisfying and lasting Lung Ching flavor. This delicious green tea is more reasonably priced than last year.
-RA

A new 2013 crop of this tea arrived in the shop this week! The thin leaves are a brighter green than years past, and have a lovely fresh aroma. The post-brew leaves are less uniform than last year’s crop, but have the same amazing citrus scent. The flavor is at first light, but quickly blossoms into a lush and bright citrus. This tantalizing flavor tingles and endures, fading into a darker, softer vegetal after taste.
An excellent tea.
-RA

Since I’m up at my parents, I brought along all the sample sachets I got when I last ordered from Harney.

This wasn’t bad, I just don’t think English breakfast is anywhere close to my top choices for a black blend. It ended up being steeped a bit longer tan I wanted so I had it with milk, which generally lately I have felt pretty meh about.

It wasn’t as hearty as I would like, because of that, but otherwise it would have been too strong/bordering on bitter. Blah! Well, it’s just yet another thing where it’s like if it was around, I’d drink it, but I wouldn’t actively seek it out.

cold brewed this to see how it fare and it is equally yummy as a cold brew! With a little sweetener the mango flavour pops without losing the black tea base. Overall a good time as far as a black mango tea goes! thanks fiddling!

A black based cranberry tea with almond…sounds delicious. Making this my last pot of tea before bed.

I can note a sweet and fruity scent from the blend whilst raw but it’s somewhat artificial.

There is a definite nuttiness in the aroma once it’s steeped with a hint of cocoa. Flavour is sweet and slightly tart with a medium thickness overall. It also tastes a little cocoa like too. The more I drink the richer it becomes and less fruity.

I think it was a nice pot of tea but not sure it would be something I would like to frequent.

I almost forgot I had this tea this morning. It was somewhat interrupted as we had a mini dissertation crisis this morning (all I can say is, thank god the boyfriend and I are not defending at the same time), but fortunately I still got to drink it while it was warm.

I used to love this tea; early in my tea career it was one of my faves. Now I am not so much a fan of the chocolate flavoring, and I am becoming pickier about my nutty teas. A lot of them just taste off to me for some reason now. I drank this one with milk and sugar this morning, and it was pretty tasty. It’s also pretty old at this point, and I think that Harney’s teas do tend to fade in flavor faster than some other flavored ones I have. Fortunately I have less of this one than I thought, so I should be able to work through it quickly.

Incurable sweet-tooth is ringing again. Thank goodness for dessert tea. Thank goodness for Maria sending this to me from so far away, haha!

This time, I’d already known how much I like this, so in my need to hoard it I think I did an underleaf. Despite sufficient steep times (4min and 8min), it was a little on the weaker side. Although I prefer the somewhat thicker, deeper, sweeter profile of the previous stronger brew, this lighter version is also delicious. I can appreciate more of the nutty hazelnut flavor, and the present tea base underneath the cocoa. It fills less – not as satisfying, but then leaving more room for more tea, which is good since I’m right in the middle of my tea day! The finish, which in comparison was a bit too sugary at times last time, is a little more mild now. …Of course, I’m a sweet-tooth, so I’m not exactly complaining about a sugary tea, but I’m not a particular fan of simple sweetness, either, so I’m content either way.

What I am is a definite fan of this tea, though! I will have to pick up more of this eventually, clearly skimping on leaf as I am already… Notes for the future: brew towards the strong profile, with thicker teaware, and keep hot. Try adding sugar, milk, etc: it will probably become downright thick with sweet decadence.

I love love love this tea, it’s one of my very favorites. It is delicious straight either hot or iced or, as I often get it from the coffee shop, as a tea “latte”. Today was an iced tea latte sort of day.

This needs to go straight to the top of my shopping list as this should really be one of my cupboard staples.

I really enjoyed this tea! The use of tea flowers is such an innovative idea, and it wasn’t too perfumed. I also enjoyed the use of a Ceylon tea. I tasted notes of wintergreen and other things. Maybe Amba is high-grown? Delicious!

When Harney and Sons describe it as light, they mean light! I actually doubled the infusing time, as well as the normal amount of tea I use, and still struggled to get any flavor.

I would say the tea has gone stale a little, except that I can see it was packaged on Feb 15th.

Backlog:

A really good blend that has just the right level of smokiness for me. I don’t generally like a heavy smoky tone … I have come around to enjoying an occasional Lapsang Souchong now and then but I don’t really consider them a favorite, and I find that I prefer it when I find a tea like this one, that utilizes Lapsang Souchong as part of a blend so that the smokiness is subdued.

This is flavorful and satisfying … a nice cup for first thing in the morning. Brightly flavored with nice caramel undertones and that lovely wisp of smoke.

I split a tin of this with a co-worker on my latest Harney order.

Our first shared pot smacked me in the face with… cinnamon?? I took a guess that I had forgotten to take the infuser home to scrub clean after the last pot of chai that we brewed up. We rinse with near-boiling water at work, but especially after chais I like to take it home and really scrub at it, let it stand in bleach water, etc. to really get those spices out. So I steeped a single cup with my own infuser and no cinnamon. But this time around I noticed a buttery, oolong-like quality to the feel of the broth. Wowser, that’s impressive.

And honestly, the faint buttery cinnamon wasn’t that unwelcome. Might have to do some novice tea blending and see what I can come up with. :)

Oh, Sungma, how I’ve missed you. I may regret splitting that tin.

Woke up slowly today over a cup of this. Beautiful.

thank you fiddling for this sample! I am a fan of mangos so i am always interested in trying out mango teas. There’s a bit of floral-ness to this tea which had me a bit wary but the mango taste of this one far outpowers the subtle floral notes. As this cools it becomes even more deliciously mango-y. I think this might warrant a try at a cold brew just to see how it fares. Or maybe this is hot brew, cool down worthy lol either way, thank you fiddling!

Fiddling was kind enough to send this my way, along with a load of other Harney & Sons samples. Thank you!

This is a backlog from two days ago- I oversteeped this tea twice, but it didn’t bite me for it. It had a pleasant nutty sweet flavour that is a nice alternative to the more common peach black blends. I added milk to the last cup and that was good too.

At one point this was the only darjeeling I liked. Now I’m not even sure I like this one anymore. What’s going on, tastebuds? I’m all for learning to like things I didn’t before, but I don’t appreciate losing my taste for things (except maybe really crappy flavored tea. I’m ok with losing my taste for that). But darjeeling is a large hunk of the tea world, and lately my tastebuds are saying no to any and all varieties of it.

So yeah, today this one is unexpectedly bitter. I do think this would make a killer iced tea, so I guess I will take this home for that purpose.

I am finally less scared of decaf tea thanks to H&S vanilla camoro! I have always hated the aftertaste of decaf coffee and figured it would transfer into tea too. Caffeine did not used to bother me and many nights it doesn’t, unless I work the next day…guess I get my mind going and caffeine makes it harder to turn off.
The vanilla aroma is fantastic! The vanilla is so creamy and smooth but dark. I have tasted something else flavored just like this vanilla but its evading me what it is. The tea base is nice too, surpassed all my expectations of decaf black tea. I am glad I ordered a whole tin.

Still bugging me that I can’t remember what this vanilla reminds me of….

Tried it with goat’s milk!

Don’t do that.

No notes yet.

Delicious however the beautiful tin box says brews a 12 oz. cup of tea I like my tea strong and use 1 bag for an 8 oz. cup

No notes yet.

I’ve been so lazy today. I have a long list of things to do, and instead I’ve been reading all day and playing with the foster kittens. To be fair, my ebook loan is about to expire and I’m rushing to finish it before it dissapears off of my ipad, so I kind of have to read all day! Plus I got all of my homework done for the week on Monday night, so I can afford to relax a little. :)

This one smells really light, like fresh green tea with just a hint of sweet pineapple. It has a fruity flavor with a grassy finish. There’s a light, fresh pineapple aftertaste that becomes a little more pronounced with some sugar added. I actually like this one a little more than I thought I would. Even though the flavor is a little mild, it does taste like sweet pineapple and green tea, but without that overwhelming grassy/vegetal flavor that is not my favorite. I think that this is actually a green tea that I would drink regularly.

Our little foster kittens had a vet appointment yesterday, and we scheduled their spay/neuter surgeries, which means we probably will only have them until the end of June/beginning of July. This is our first time fostering, and everyone always says that you get so attached, but I didn’t quite realize just how attached I would get. Especially with the little runt! She has an eye injury that means she will have a cloudy eye the rest of her life and she has a huge hernia on her belly (they will fix that during her spay) and she is just so little and I love her. All of the destruction and chaos that these 4 tiny kittens have brought to our house has been totally worth it. I think if we can just get through seeing these adopted out and getting a new litter to foster right away we will be ok as foster parents. I don’t want to be a foster failure the first time, but I could totally adopt all 4 of these kittens! I think our whole house will be depressed when they leave. Our cats and dogs are all obsessed with them and love all over them throughout the day too. I hope that with all of the socialization, bathing, nail trimming, etc. they will find their forever homes and be the perfect little house cats!

-Dry blend has long flat green tea leaves.
-Dry leaves smell like fresh green tea with a hint of pineapple. Tea liquor aroma is faintly of sweet pineapple.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium yellow green color.
-Fruity flavor with a grassy finish. Light fresh pineapple aftertaste.
-Best with sweetener.
-Very good tea. Light and perfect pineapple flavor. Green tea isn’t too grassy.

Tea of the morning here. I like my morning teas to be kind of strong and hefty! You definitely need some soymilk (or regular milk) with this to temper it a bit. I added some rock sugar too although it doesn’t really need it.

I’d rather be at home making art than working today — what else is new?!

LIVE TASTING TIME. Or umm… live noting? I DON’T EVEN KNOW.
Okay. So. This is the last tea that I have from the 4 samples that Harney gave me from my last order. The packaging for the sample packs are quite cute. This is pink aaand yeah. I was scared to try this tea at first because I wasn’t the biggest fan of rooibos, and at the time, I’ve never had chai. Now that I’ve had some rooibos teas and now that I know that I actually really like chai, I’m not as scared to try this tea! But I did read some reviews on their site and it tasted like medicine. Ummm yeah. Don’t know what to expect from this tea.
Opening the sachet aaand it smells like a spicy rooibos blend. Just what I was expecting. It kinda smells like it would have some refreshing undertones? I don’t even know. It’s like a dark burgundy in colour.
Steeping time! Oh gosh I don’t even know what temp to do this for. Okay, I’m just doing it in slightly less than boiling water. WHOA IT GOT DARK REALLY QUICKLY. It was an amber colour at first, then I bobbed the sachet up and down and now it’s like… darker.
Tasting and it smells okay? I don’t really know what to expect from it. Oh. I don’t know if I like it. Like the first two sips were decent, but now I have to finish the whole mug? This is a very bad sign. Like it was good at first! But I don’t think that rooibos and chai works well together. Well, this blend doesn’t really work. Oh whoa this is weird. Even though I know this sachet will probably steep another 2 or 3 times, I think I’ll just try to finish this mugful and then I’m done.