Nature's Tea Leaf

Backlog:

Thank you TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this tea! It’s really a beautifully crafted tea – the leaves scrolled up in little rings. So lovely! It’s fun to watch them brew too!

Delightfully vegetative with notes of fruit, overall, I’m finding the flavor to be mellow yet invigorating. A really lovely cuppa.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/03/16/daughter-rings-green-tea-from-natures-tea-leaf/

This is a much needed cup of peace. I love white tea and this is a good one. Sweet, creamy, wonderfully fresh flavor.

The doctor at the disability exam was very nice and kept asking questions to bring things to my mind so he could write it down. After I answered his first question he said, well that pretty well explains it all. Then he added he would do what he could to fight the bureaucracy (his word not mine this time). We were three fourths of the way home when they called and said they just noticed I was supposed to have a pulmonology exam. I had to turn around and go back. Long day. I hurt all over now and am worn out. I am fully convinced the decision makers at the state level will deny my claim. Our state has one of the worst records in the nation. I will get it when it goes to the federal level but that may take a very long time and only the lawyer will make money off it.

The cup has really cooled off and is lightly peppery now. So good.

Having this again today… it’s a little bit better than I remember it but what I’m hoping is the flavoring will fade over time and I’ll just be left with a nice loose leaf puerh. It isn’t terrible but it doesn’t taste much like raspberry anything.

Why haven’t I been drinking any puerh lately? I have no idea…. I miss it!

Here where I live the weather gets really hot and sticky and buggy pretty early in the summer. Spring is really the best season for me! But today was beautiful! The sun was shining yet the slightly cool breeze kept the temperature just about perfect. It was enough to make me pine for a nice pot of black tea after I went out to tend the chickens.

This is a sipdown of my sample from Nature’s Tea Leaf. I have to thank them for their generosity as their samples are large and leave you plenty of leaf for experimentation. A number of their teas are on my list to order as soon as I get my cupboard down a bit. I am still at about 175 and my small bags and samples are not included in that, so I am trying not to order anything right now. When I do, their Dragon Pearl green tea (non-jasmine) and their Fujian Black tea will be some of the first teas I order.

This is a wonderful example of Yunnan Golden Bud tea. It is sweet and has the nice sweet potato flavor, is smooth enough not to need milk or sugar, and resteeps well.

On a side note, has anyone heard from Bonnie? She hasn’t posted here or on her blog for over a month.

Another tea from Michelle’s swap we did just before Christmas. Wow was that lovely Steepsterite generous, I still haven’t made it through her collection! Seriously, I’m never doing 2 swaps at once again, its given me too many things to try and I’m not sure I’ll ever get through it all! Yep, exaggeration of course…

Anywho, the lovely other half did my tea pickings for today, and he suggested this one. I’ve just brewed it up in my Timolino at work, and even though this is meant to be an iced tea, its quite tasty. I can detect each of the spices included (the ginger, rosemary and lemon), as well as a hint of the white base. Its a very easy to drink tea hot, and is going perfectly with our cool yet sunny day.

If you have some of this in your cupboard try it warm, its quite tasty.

Last night I had a beer that was called “golden monkey,” which made me want a golden monkey tea this morning. Unfortunately, I have not a lick of golden monkey in my stash, so a somewhat generic “Fujian congou” will have to do.

This is a solid Fujian black tea, and could possibly be a good everyday tea (if you’re into having the same tea every day; I am not). It’s very malty and grainy, slightly honeyed, with a touch of raisin to it and a hint of cocoa. Very pleasant and a nice morning tea.

Sipdown, 164. Cold brew.

The cold brew of this unfortunately did not taste like much. I did use a little less leaf than normal because I’ve been having green teas “oversteep” when cold brewing, but this still turned a deep yellow so I’m not sure it was the leaf amount. As it warmed up a bit it tasted more like grass, and finally at the end I got a hit of bergamot. It was perfectly drinkable merely because it was very inoffensive, but still, it wasn’t very tasty anyway.

I went to Nature’s Tea Leaf just now and saw a few reviews that look like they were taken from Steepster people – I hope they put the reviews there themselves and they weren’t taken from the site (it’s happened before with other companies).

Anyway this is a really nice yunnan! I bought a lot of flavored pu-erhs from Nature’s tea Leaf which I was not totally crazy about but this is really good. It does have a rich, honey type of taste mixed with some woodiness and a bit of pepper. That does sound strange but it’s so good. Smooth and mellow too. This is one of the only few yunnans I have in my tea collection and I have no idea why. I will definitely enjoy finishing off the rest of the tin.

I would order from Nature’s Tea Leaf again, they have a range of interesting looking teas in their line including some herbals.

I got a sample of this a while ago from Lazey, but just found it in one of my tea boxes recently. Thanks!

Also I went through my cupboard and discovered two teas in there that shouldn’t have been there, thus I am down to 164. Woohoo!

So this fits into my recent trend of disliking most flavored green teas, particularly sencha bases. Especially when I sipped it hot, it was too peppery and savory, with a strong grassiness as well. As it has cooled down it’s mellowed, and the bergamot is coming out more as well. Definitely better cool than hot, and probably better still cold, which is probably what I will do with the rest of my sample.

Finally, a tea that has just about enough chocolate flavour! ;-)

I could smell the chocolate and vanilla a little more than I could taste it, and I, too, found a kind of bitter aftertaste, and also something a little odd about the chocolate, maybe. But still, it was a nice flavoured tea.

I’m still finding my way with black teas, and I’m not familiar wtih Yunnan, so maybe it had to do with the flavour of Yunnan. I liked the chocolate curls, and I didn’t mind the murkiness they made in the tea.

I steeped this at 195F for 2.75 minutes, and added sugar and skim milk.

TTB-A sample, another with only one cup left.

I was briefly confused when I looked up the listing for this tea and seeing “berry” in the title, thinking it meant it was berry flavored, but no. I guess it is supposed to be a reference to the look of a whole globe amaranth flower, but at this point they are all broken into many tiny flower buds. I’ve had globe amaranth in flowering teas before but never by itself.

I think this tea may have been the unfortunate victim of sitting next to too many smelly flavored teas for too long. It kind of has that aroma that a box of flavored teas in ziplocs has when you open it, kind of a mishmash of all flavors at once. Many flavored teas are strong enough on their own to stand up to that, but this tea did not really. I mean, it’s still a pretty tasty white tea because its lightly sweet, but other than that I couldn’t pick out a flavor. I mean, there is maybe some chocolate in there? Haha. Oh well, I put it out of its misery. :)

I’m so sorry I have taken so long with the Traveling Tea Box…I’m almost thru it and ready to send it along! Last week I was ‘missing’ because I was super busy and in and out of the Chiro’s office! Eeeek! But…I am back and trying to catch up!

Nature’s Tea Leaf has some herbals that are coated with tangy hibiscus/rosehips/fruit ingredients and some straight-up herbals or fruity flavors that are all across the board. I’m glad they have so many offerings but some are hit and miss for me.

This one is alright…not on my faves list but ok. It has that tangy Rosehip/Roselle Flavor going on along side the Orange-Citrus. Those ingredients alone pack-a-punch but there are some green tea flavors as well as some herbally notes that popping thru too!

It’s a bit tart for me but is ok iced…so I am rating with the tarty factor in mind as well as the cold brewed idea, too!

Wow, I’m impressed with this cup and how it brews…perfect cup every time! The lemon is a bit pronounced, but I was very satisfied with this tea. Perfect before bed in my opinion…but I’m not sure if I’m the biggest fan of chamomile or not yet!

Ever have one of those weeks where you feel like you’ve been tied with a bungee to the back of an emotional roller coaster car and drug up and down the tracks?

Yeah.

Then you know what a blessing a full, deep night’s sleep can be. So for a change, a full-strength, industrial grade morning cuppa wasn’t necessary. Instead, opted for something with a little “refresh” in its personality. This is; a little astringent (makes me keep licking my lips) and the apple-peel bitterness that makes this tea distinct.

Anybody try this sweetened? I keep forgetting.

I’m having some gaiwan runs with this tea while I can tomatoes.
Seems a little early to can them, but my grocery store had some really nice romas for 4 lbs for $1 so I bought a lot of them to make 3 quart jars worth – I should of got more, but I only have 3 jars! Everything went really smoothly and easier than I remember canning to be. Though, I enjoy using my gaiwan when I’m doing work in the kitchen, maybe the tea made it more relaxing?

This tea is much better running through a gaiwan! It came out sweeter! However, 4th steeping suddenly got too astringent!

Backlog:

I really liked this tea. I loved the curls of chocolate in the dry leaf. Oh, sure, I realize that cacao nibs are better at flavoring the tea, and that chocolate chips (or chocolate curls like in this tea) tend to cloud up the tea a bit, but, I don’t care because it’s chocolate and chocolate makes me happy.

The chocolate and mint seemed to bring out different notes in the white peony leaves that I found very intriguing. Less vegetative, more earthy. I thought the earthy notes worked well with the chocolate as well as the herbaceous notes of the mint.

Very good! Here is my full-length review of it: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/02/14/chocolate-mint-whisper-white-tea-from-natures-tea-leaf/

First attempt at making iced tea in a long long while. Somewhat haphazard even though I have an iced tea pitcher now.

Made with the hot brew method, hot water to steep and then cooled off in the fridge for a while (well, days really because my fridge inexplicably stopped making ice) and then drunk with ice. I added about a tsp of sugar and I expect I should have added more. If nothing else, this experience has taught me that I prefer my cold beverages to be sweet.

This tea that I’m drinking is not so sweet. The flavour doesn’t really hit me until I’ve stopped drinking and then it’s a very lemon tea. I should probably get up and put more sugar into it, but I am surrounded by and covered in cats at the moment so I don’t want to get up, so I guess I’ll suffer through this. I have a couple of more glasses of tea in the pitcher so I’ll experiment with more sugar later, and probably an un-lemon black tea.

A front passed through over night. By the looks of it on radar it probably hit most of you in the US from the plains to the east coast. The temperatures dropped back to early March levels along with a lot of rain. My head is about to explode today. Aaaack!

I needed something comforting with enough heft behind it to overcome the pounding. Excellent choice. Grain and malt, honey and cocoa, throw in some molasses for good measure, and you have this tea. This is an amazing black tea that is staple worthy.

No notes yet.

I decided to cold steep this Iron Buddha Oolong.

A few hours in, I sampled the cold steep and it taste kinda seaweedy. I got distracted with weight lifting and crocheting stuff. Could hours later, I’m finally having this cold steep. IBO has this strong veg bite to it while going towards a slight bitter taste. I’m getting a lemongrass taste which is really refreshing. Actually, this kind of tastes like the skin of a roasted green pepper!

hmmm, I think I like this cold steeped more, but maybe I’ll go lighter on the leaves next time.

Last of my packet. Sad to see it go. For Steepies who need a boot-in-the-backside morning tea, this one should go in your permanent library. Cocoa-y, stout, can’t ruin it, even when you’re down to the last of the sample and don’t have quite a whole teaspoon to make a full cup and you close your eyes and grab the first unflavored black tea you can find to round it out (Ahmad Hampton Breakfast) and it’s still wonderful…yeah, I’m awake. Maybe.

Additional notes: I’m having a couple steeps of this one, as Dinosara was nice enough to send me a couple teaspoons! This isn’t quite as magical as the first cup I tried, sadly. I wish I remembered how to steep it exactly the same. It is still very delicious and I think my favorite chocolate tea. I’ll definitely stock up at naturestealeaf.com when I run out!

I had high hopes for this one. I have been off dairy for a while and perhaps that is why I was baffled when I tried this and wasn’t as impressed.

It’s sweet, yes, but its kind of reminiscent of stevia and sort of turning my stomach. eeeeek!

not rating.

No notes yet.