Murchie's Tea & Coffee

I was pleasantly struck by this tea. It has a strong “black” roasted flavor, but I don’t find it unpleasantly harsh or bitter. I feel that roasted can be overdone and don’t like when it falls into the category of burnt-tasting, but this tea has it just right.
It is a tad bit sweet and still good cold. I think it would be easy to add too much sweetener, but milk might be an appealing addition.

From the Great Canadian Traveling Teabox. I tend to visit Murchie’s whenever I’m in Vancouver but I didn’t want to pass up the chance to try one of their teas that I hadn’t drank before. Lychee fruit has quite a distinct scent – to me it’s sweet fruitiness mixed with perfume-like floral notes and that’s very much what I get from this tea, particularly as it cooled off. The nice, solid black tea base makes it a decent cuppa, but I’ll be honest when I say I’m not a huge fan of lychee-flavoured anything in general. So ultimately my verdict is that if you like the fruit then this is the tea for you – if not, then you might want to skip it.

Backlog:

This blend was just “ok” to me. It was alright. Not something I’d want to return to and drink again, but if it were something that was offered to me, I wouldn’t refuse it. Although I might ask if there were something else available. Nor is it something I would recommend to others.

A soft smoky note, hints of grass, flinty. The one thing that set me off with this was the jasmine, because it tasted off. It tasted contrived. It didn’t belong there. I normally love jasmine, but here it just didn’t work.

I didn’t hate it, but not something I’d be hunting down to try again.

I picked up this tea in the gift shop at Craigdarroch Castle in Victoria, BC – Murchie’s, also a Victoria company, often makes special blends for local attractions and institutions like this. Like most of Murchie’s black teas it’s much better with milk than without. The tea base is one of middling strength and the flavours, though reasonably subtle go well with it.

PS if you’re ever visiting Victoria Craigdarroch Castle is a great tourist attraction to visit. Here’s a link to their website – http://thecastle.ca/

I went to sunterra (local grocery store) after my dentist appointment and they have Murchies tea!! I have been meaning to try some of their teas since a recommendation from the people we bought our house from, so I picked up 10 teabags of this one since it said it’s a milder tea. The dry sachet smells like a combo of green jasmine with black tea lol, generic black tea but not bad quality.

I steeped at 195 degrees for 3 mins, and it could be a tad cooler, I’ll try 185 next time to take off the slight edge. The tea is also fairly strong for an evening tea lol it might be more appropriate in the morning.

As for the flavor, this is a decent tea for a more basic bagged variety. It has a nice honeyed flavor with a softness from the jasmine. As it cools the jasmine comes out more along with some mouth drying astringency. Not bad, but I’d prefer it a bit mellower. The black tea is stable and good too.

Overall, a decent random sachet pick. I will experiment with brewing temps and steeping time to find the sweet spot, but I shouldn’t have a problem finishing this one up. The bf might even like this one! Happy I tried it :)

I would concur with other reviews advising a weaker brew on this one. Reasonably prepared, it’s a solid middle-of-the-road “tea.” One that if I was served it unlabeled at a restaurant, I’d be quite satisfied with but probably wouldn’t bother tracking down the source of. I wouldn’t have placed the green in it offhand, but with careful focus, I can pick out notes similar to those of the base green used in e.g. jasmine and other mild green blends.

The more I drink this tea, the more I taste the lychee flavor. Maybe it’s because I’m expecting it now? Regardless, this is becoming a staple for me, especially at work. It can steep for quite a while without getting bitter, which is really helpful when I forget about it when I get distracted by work. Lightly floral and fruity, a bit sweet as well.

Picked this one up on my way home a while ago. Initial smell and taste is just black tea, kinda disappointed. Cooled a bit (but still hot) I started to pick up very subtle hints of lychee. Very light, almost floral taste and not fruity at all. Quite like this so I’m leaving it at work for regular drinking :)

Bog standard black tea, a touch of green added. Tastes faintly of jasmine, but the bergamot is undetectable. Not pleased with this one, which is a shame. The concept is thrilling, but the execution lacking.

This was from the first round of the HH teabox and also a sipdown! I’d like to focus on sipdowns this week or next-cup-sipdowns. It’s so difficult though because I like holding on to those last teaspoons of teas to savor later.

Steep #1 // 20 min after boiling // 3 min
This is supposed to be a black and green tea. I didn’t see too many green tea leaves. I waited 20 minutes after boiling to steep it anyway. This is very tasty – it doesn’t really taste like green tea but the black tea tastes like sweet cherries. It’s pretty good! It isn’t the most brisk tea (a “library” tea should probably be pretty strong for focus) but it does have a bite to it.

Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 min
Since I didn’t see any green leaves in the dry blend, I used just boiled water. I didn’t want to wait! But as I was pouring, I did noticed some green leaves that had unfurled! It didn’t ruin the tea anyway. I still can’t taste the green tea. I think the cherry flavor of the black tea might balance any astringency from the green. This one is unique!

Not bad. Not great, but not bad.

I preferred the Black Currant that Steam had at one point. Much more curranty. This one is a bit lacking in currant flavour, although the tea portion is pretty decent, especially for a tea in a bag!

Had my two travel mugs of this today. It’s still yummy. Sweet, chocolate and coffee. Good for a morning shift on a Sunday, opening on my own for the first time at the new job. :)

Made this again today, but more because I was in a hurry and just grabbed the bag and a disposable bag from DAVIDs to steep in when I got to work.

Still tasty, see my original note for more details.

Like a coffee dessert! The coffee is most definitely the most prominent aspect of this tea, but the chocolate does come out. I sorta wonder how this would be, iced hong kong style with sweetened condensed milk?

This was just my first time having it, though I had two travel mugs worth of it, and I liked it.

Finishing the last teabag in the box right now. I must admit…I’m a tad upset this one is gone. This coming from someone that isn’t a huge fan of straight teas, so that’s got to say something. I’m almost tempted to purchase this one; that might be my first “grown up purchase” to celebrate being offered a job on salary. One day. Maybe. Ugh…

I like the almost-sweetness that this one has. I would really like to try it iced with some lemon, so I’ll put that on my “list of things to try if I ever get more of it”. I think it would probably be really good.

Goodbye, tea. It was nice drinking you…

I received 3 bags of this tea as an “overflow tea” from my friend Sandra. She received a boxed set of 3 types of tea as a gift, tried them all, and liked this one the least. And since it’s apparently well-known that I like tea it ended up wandering my way. I tried 2 bags before reviewing the tea because I was surprised with the first one.

This blend is a plain green-black blend. I figured there would be some sort of “flavour” added in, but nope. Just plain black tea mixed with plain green tea. When I found that out I instantly assumed: “yuck”. I’m not a fan of straight black teas. I find them boring, they make my tummy feel yucky, and they leave a wacky after-taste. I’m just not a fan. I think the green tea in this balanced out the astringency of the black tea because I (shockingly) actually liked this. After looking at the website I don’t like it enough to actually buy it, but I like it. A bit floral-ish, a bit smoky, a bit yum. I will definitely enjoy the last bag, and at the same time be sad when the last bag is gone. If you like green-black blends, you’ll likely like this tea. If you like straight teas, this one’s a pretty good one (saying a lot that I actually like it!).

Verdict: wouldn’t buy only because it’s pretty darn expensive for a plain black-green blend, and I like others much more that are cheaper than this one.

Brewed this up earlier today, and it smelled identical to a black currant. Amazing! Just had a sip though, hours after making it, and there’s a bizarre white coating on the sides, with what looks like oil drops suspended in the mix. It looks… sickly, so I’m dumping it, although the one gulp I did have was delicious – this would be fantastic iced. JustJames, I really hope I remembered to send you some of this.

Thank you OMGsrsly for sharing this with me!

Of course I see this “treat as a green” after I brew it up! Heh. Silly me. It’s still tasty at 200F instead of OMGsrsly’s recommended 185F, it’s just much more tasty when still hot. Cold, it’s an unremarkable black. Hot? A honeyed, deep, very rich, almost coffee-like brew.

Thank you OMGsrsly for sharing this, and so many other Murchie’s blends with me!

I knew I’d have to do some sleuthing when this tea, which OMGsrlsy shared with me, came up with zero entries in the Steepster database. A bit of Googling and reading over Murchie’s site discovered that this tea, Royal Roads University, was initially called Hatley Castle, named so after the castle that sits on the university grounds (and is now a gift shop). All of this is wildly fascinating to me as a horrible historian yet avid BC-wide traveller, as many of the names associated with this tea are intimately familiar to me – and I even applied to a Masters program at Royal Roads a few years back (and am SO glad now that I chose to do other things instead).

Anyway, on to the tea! :) I overleafed slightly (two bags for a 12 oz. cup) however it seems to be quite lovely nonetheless. Rich, dark, almost coffee-ish, brisk, and honeyed. Surprising to me that this is a black-green blend!

Thanks OMGsrlsy for sharing this; I’ve now updated the tea listing to reflect the ‘old’ name.

A honeyed black? That’s about all I’m getting from this, other than maybe a weird aftertaste as it cools… something almost soapy? Can’t quite put my finger on it. Liked it better piping hot than as it cools, although it’s in the Timolino, so it’ll be warm for a while still. ;)

Thank you OMGsrlsy for sharing! I’d had this on a mental list to-try for a bit now, and am so glad I was able to.

I’m drinking the teabag version of this blend (many of Murchie’s black tea blends are available in both bagged and loose leaf form). I steeped it for three minutes which seems to work well given that I’m taking it plain. It could probably be drunk with milk as well though. The tea has a distinctly tannic flavour but it avoids being too astringent or bitter. In flavour I’d say that it’s mostly like a Ceylon with a hint of Darjeeling, but there’s undertone of Yunnan black tea notes as well – it comes across as a slightly leathery, almost tobacco-like flavour (the crappy Yunnans will taste like cigarettes – thankfully this one does not). In terms of strength it fall somewhere towards the middle of the road – it has body but it’s light enough that it doesn’t need milk to be drinkable.

My area has been experiencing a sudden cold snap after a long stretch of warmer winter weather. This is the tea I’ve turned to at night, when I want to warm up as I finish up my evening and prepare for bed. It is ‘cozy’ and it has an overall ‘caramel’ taste, which takes the ‘medicinal’ edge off of the rooibos.
If you like rooibos and a calming taste, then I recommend this!