Ovation Teas

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Recent Tasting Notes

96

Additional notes: oh man, I can’t believe I am STILL the only person who wrote a tasting note for this now non-existing tea. Today’s cup was especially good so I guess this tasting note will just be steeping parameters for future me:
1 &3/4 teaspoons waiting for the boiled water to cool for 10-20 minutes and steep for 4-5 minutes.

I was especially tired today but just the deliciousness of this tea woke me up! It couldn’t have been the caffeine because it was instant! It’s a good thing I have a ton of this one though because I could probably drink it every day. (And I’m also still not sure this is different from Ovation’s Assam blend I have.) I’ll put some in tea boxes though for others to try! Oh how I wish I knew how good Ovation was before they went out of business!

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96

It’s sad I’m the first one to write a tasting note for this one. (I think Alphakitty might have a note on the way since I bought some from her— thanks! But I hope we aren’t the only two to try this lovely tea from Ovation.) This one is amazing, as I knew it would be. It has such a smooth, complex, deep flavor. One sip reminded me of a plum with some of the sugar taken out. It reminds me a lot of the assam I also got from Ovation.. I’ll have to try them both again. The perfect black tea!

Alphakitty

This really is fantastic! I’m a bit Yunnan-obsessed at the moment so I am waiting to log this one until I do a side-by-side comparison with a few others to see which is my favorite.

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26

I have tried this tea twice now, and it just doesn’t work for me. The tea taste both overly sweet and highly astringent. Not a good combination. The second time I had this I ended up with an awful stomach ache. I can’t say that it was from the tea alone, but I know the tea didn’t help.

I can’t see myself drinking this again. If anyone wants it let me know. Otherwise I’ll post it on the swap board later this week.

TeaEqualsBliss

I’d try it – if you had some left :)

Veronica

Sending you a pm.

yssah

have you tried blending it with something else you wanted to sweeten up?

tea-sipper

Yeah, this has been the least impressive of the Ovation teas I’ve tried so far. But the others have been amazing!

Veronica

yssah – If it was just too sweet I’d try it, but the high astringent factor is a killer. This is just one of those teas I will never love. That’s ok though since there’s plenty more that I do. :)

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93

This was the one tea I bought from Alphakitty that I was a bit worried I wouldn’t like (thanks, alphakitty!) BUT it is delicious!! Fresh mint teas are the best! This one reminds me of Zentealife’s Chocolate mint rooibos that I absolutely love, but this has a black tea base. I don’t think this batch had peppermint pieces, but that is fine with me. The other ingredients are great. There are some cocoa nibs and raspberry pieces in there. I really only tasted raspberry on the first couple of sips, then it gets a bit fainter. The chocolate gets a bit overpowered by the mint but this tea tastes like a mintier thin mint cookie. So this will be my go-to mint teas for morning and the Zen will be my go-to mint tea at night (rooibos). I’m very impressed with this one. I haven’t not been impressed with the many Ovation teas I’ve tried, which just makes it sadder that they are done.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 5 min, 0 sec
Alphakitty

Oh yay, glad you love it! This is a really strongly flavored blend but it’s so tasty.

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89

This one came from a swap with Lariel!

This one smells so good. Dry, the blueberry scent sticks out a little more. Once brewed, the black base, bergamot, and cornflowers are more detectable. Luckily, the blueberry is still there, and not overshadowed by the earl grey notes.

Taste: Yum! I love me some earl grey and I love me some blueberries, and this tea delivers on both. All the basic aspects of an earl grey are present; the earthy black tea, the bergamot, the citrus notes. And the blueberry shines through very nicely. Not overpowering, but almost naturally blending with the other aspects. It isn’t artificial in the least. I love this! Too bad Ovation is no more. =(

Thanks, Lariel, for letting me try some of this before it was gone forever. Happy to have tried it.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 2 min, 30 sec

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80

Additional notes: Old tea check – This one still tastes as it once did…except it now tastes like Paris (Paris, this and another Ovation are all stored in thin baggies in one of those metallic Teavivre pouches). Now I know how easy it is to make other teas taste like other teas. Not too many of my teas are stored like this though. This one was never that great to begin with – not much caramel, even with plenty of caramel bits and no vanilla either. (Another tea in another metallic pouch turned into an Earl Grey because of similar storing but I’ve tried to keep the Earls in one pouch, the black teas in one pouch, etc.) Even if I store the Paris with the Tower of London, I’m sure they taste very similar now. I’ll have to be aware of this in the future, not store them like this and drink them faster. I thought in the metallic pouches they would be preserved from the air, but I guess now the flavors are melding together in the enclosed space. Now I have no idea how to store so many samples!

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80

thanks again, Starfevre for the trade! Another Ovation tea I get to try. What I love with this one is that the steep color is actually caramel colored! After a four minute steep, I don’t find much caramel flavor, though I did see three caramel pieces in the infuser. There is a lot of caramel pieces, at least in the amount of tea in the bag I have. Maybe I should have added sugar for more of a caramel flavor? The black tea itself has a very deep and unique flavor, that I haven’t tasted before. I like it!

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73

Got this in a trade from Tea Sipper and I thought I might try something I’m likely to really like after my wonderful tea experience this morning with 52teas.

From the other tasting notes on this tea, which I really should have read before I brewed it, I could have avoided the bitterness I’m tasting if I had brewed it for less time. The liquid was awfully dark after 3 minutes. 2 minutes would have been better. I have some more to experiment with though.

I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a fig in my life so I’m not sure how to pin down a ‘fig’ flavour. There is a sweetness in this tea, beyond the sweetener I added, that I assume is the brown sugar, but it might be partly the fig too. It definitely doesn’t taste like plain black tea though. Although the black base is really strong and that comes through clearly, must be the assam, that always seems like such a BOLD tea whenever I drink it. I’m not sure I like it as a base for flavoured teas.

Overall I do like this tea, just am somewhat confused by it.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec
Stephanie

I love figs! You really must try some. They are wonderful fresh or dried :)

Dustin

Figs with warm gorgonzola cheese is the best! I’m hungry just thinking about it!
I have some of this tea waiting for me at home. Curious to try it!

Sil

remind me.. i have a fig tea that i can toss in our swap.

tea-sipper

Not even Fig Newton cookies? That’s the closest thing to figs I’ve tried!

Starfevre

Raspberry Newtons, yes. I didn’t like the Fig ones.

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84

Tea #24 from the ‘Here’s Hoping’ teabox.

Mmmm, this is some tasty tea. It’s dark and malty, but not at all astringent. As the tea cools the fruity flavors become more noticeable. There’s apricot and something else… not cherry, but some other stone fruit. About halfway through the cup I added some milk. The addition seemed to meld all the flavors together. Nice! This is a tea I would like to have again.

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77

It smells nice dry. The flavour is a little brown sugar, and kinda like maple. I mostly taste the black tea. It was good with my fig oatmeal.

Preparation
Boiling 2 min, 45 sec

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79

Since I started a new Stargate SG-1 DVD, I needed some tea. I like having tea with my shows.

This tea smells like tootsie rolls (more so dry). Not sure why. The flavour is sorta generally sweet, with a little caramel. Nothing in it makes me think of praline. I might have to try with vanilla or vanilla next.

Preparation
Boiling 2 min, 30 sec
Lariel of Lórien

Er, I mean almond. It would be good with almond.

Miss Starfish

Oooh, SG-1! I miss that show :(

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96

My first tea from the ’Here’s Hoping’ Teabox. It’s a very good choice, if I do say so myself!

The bergamot is not overly strong, but it allows the raspberry to be the star of the show. I like that the raspberry is a fruity flavor rather than a candy one. So the taste is mostly of raspberry with the bergamot being a lovely end note. It’s absolutely delicious! The black tea base is strong, which I also like. I wish more EGs were paired with a strong tea base!

I’ll definitely resteep this tea later today. I wish I had known how good this was before Ovation went out of business. C’est la vie.

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97

A big thanks to Dustin for sending some of these my way because they are DELICIOUS. If only Ovation had a really great sale BEFORE they went out of business, I would have known how nice their teas were. The taste here is so smooth, so delicate and super sweet. It kind of reminds me of a milk oolong. With most jasmine teas, I can’t find the flavor, but the jasmine here is definitely noticeable and lingering! I’m not sure if it was because I hadn’t had tea all day, but I was guzzling this down. The second cup is slightly less sweet than it was before, but it has more jasmine.

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78

Thanks Yssah for this one. I’m agreeing with the other people that recently got teas from the huge liquidation sale from Ovation. I feel like this needs to sit awhile so the flavors can really get into the tea since right now all I am really tasting is the assam and a hint of fig. The assam is good but I just want more fig and I am not getting much from it right now. Think I will give it a week or two and try it again.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

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96

Ashmanra’s sipdown challenge – April 2023 Tea #2 – April 5 – National Caramel Day

oo goodie – three caramel teas today!  This one is one of my most ancient, yet dwindling down now.  It has always been a nice, unique flavor profile on a deep black tea.  But I always forget it isn’t usually caramel tasting.  Or isn’t anymore.  But the praline is still there.

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96

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge Tuesday, June 29th: National Waffle Iron Day Tea #1

additional notes:  This one fits for waffle day, right?  I wanted to go with a ‘maple’ blend, for maple syrup, but this was calling to me instead.  It’s still very tasty.  Dark, with chocolate, nuttiness, and I’m not sure, the caramel spheres have probably disintegrated by now…

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96

Additional notes: Old tea quality check! This one is still GOOD. A teaspoon and a half is almost too much as it makes it into something like a decadent cup of coffee that I could actually tolerate. (No coffee for me thanks.) It must be the nice pouch I stored this in that it’s still tasty.

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96

Additional notes: This one tasted a bit like mint this time. ARGH. Because I have my stronger smelling teas stored together, and even though this one was double baggied and some minty teas were also double baggied (separately), the mint still contaminated this one. Lesson learned. Four bags! And also, I think if the teas are contaminating or even has any scent from the closed bag, it’s a good indication I should be drinking those faster than better stored teas.

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96

Thanks yssah for buying these teas for so many of us Steepsters! This blend sounded divine. Caramel, cocoa, hazelnuts! This blend really has a very unique flavor. Just the black tea alone I’m thinking has a very strong flavor. I’m not sure if it’s because it was just blended or if the hazelnut flavor is making the black tea itself seem stronger. It had a very deep, dark flavor! I saw a couple pieces of caramel hidden in my infuser, covered in black tea. They added a sweetness along with the cocoa nibs giving it another element to its deep flavor. I may have sipped this too late though. I don’t usually have black teas late anymore, but I couldn’t stop yawning. It kind of made me a bit dancey (and I am never dancey) or it could have been the No Doubt show I was watching on TV. Gwen can make anyone dancey! But it was probably a combination of both. I really like this blend and it’s another one I’m happy I was able to try! I’m looking forward to many more cups of this, and apparently the flavor will get better as it settles. I’m hoping I won’t miss Ovation too much after they went out of business and I try many more of their blends.

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70

I’m a little bit disappointed in this tea. Maybe my expectations were too high, given what I thought of the other teas in my order, but I thought this one would be better than it is.

Let me start off with the fact that this is a very pretty tea with a lot going on in the dry leaf with the big what look like freeze dried raspberries and the peppermint pieces. The taste is mostly black tea and mint with the barest taste of chocolate in the sip and I didn’t pick up much raspberry at all save a bit of sweetness in the aftertaste. I really wish those flavours were stronger. Perhaps after the bag has time to sit a little. I’ve heard that Ovation teas need to meld a little to get the best flavour. I’m rating this tea based on today’s pot but I’m open to changing it later, maybe in a few months.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec
tea-sipper

You won’t be disappointed in Zen’s Chocolate Mint I’ll be sending you soon! :D

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78
drank Pear Black Tea by Ovation Teas
772 tasting notes

First to log this one I guess. Well I got a pound of this in Ovation’s going out of business sale so this is likely the first of many tasting notes.

The dry tea is very interesting to look at, with large chunks of dried pear in it. The pear flavour is actually more subtle than I expected, given that. I wish it were a bit stronger but it is nice all the same. It is definitely pear though. Not my perfect pear tea yet but perhaps as the tea sits and melds for a while it will be better. I did just get it after all and I have heard that this is the case with many Ovation teas. Maybe a longer steep time next time too.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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60

I think I’m done with this tea. I don’t know what it is, but blech. I tried it without any milk this time and the bergamot is soooo strong and bitter. I just can’t deal. So yeah, I have a lot and I’d like to get rid of it. January will see it on the Get Rid Of It thread, I think.

Dustin

I found that to be the case with this one too. I was hoping it would mellow with age or I’d get the hang of brewing it, but no. :(

Starfevre

Well, it’s been months and it definitely hasn’t. If anything I like it less. Oh well, can’t like everything. I just wish I didn’t have so very much of it.

Dustin

Oh no, did you buy a pound of it too?! I have also had a difficult time with the chocolate orange of theirs. I know other folks who have really enjoyed it tho. I was happy with their vanilla chai.
Time to take a bath in tea and use the rest of the pound in one go?

Starfevre

I loved the Caramel Vanilla, but the rest…not so much.

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60

I definitely did something wrong to this. It’s almost tasteless. I can smell and barely taste the bergamot as well as some sort of generic black tea flavour but everything else is lost. Too little tea? (It is old) or possibly too short a steeping time? Too much milk? Too little sugar? Hard to say. I have one more cup to try to get this right today then I am moving on to something else.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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60

Had another pot of this tonight. I’m really finding that I like it better at room temperature better than I do hot. It’s more raspberry and less bergamot at that temperature and that’s the way I prefer it. I’ve really been moving away from earl grey over the last few months, perhaps my tastes are changing but I’m really not liking it as much as I used to. This is still a pretty tasty tea though.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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