Perennial Tea Room

Strong smell and flavor (from the marsala wine). Next time I should try steeping it for a shorter time. Not sure if I like it.

Excellent Rooibos tea! This tea is smooth and sweet with caramel flavors. Personally, I don’t think it taste like coffee, but is an excellent choice for a sweet dessert type tea. Steep time doesn’t seem to matter

This is winter in a cup! The bold peppermint is mellowed by the sweet vanilla; all evened out by a great black tea. A great cup to keep you warm while you stroll through the snow… (Also, I tried uploading a picture of the tea, but it wasn’t working. To see a picture, the Perennial Tea Room has a nice website.)

Mmmmm, mild pear notes with a hint of cinnamon combined with a smooth black tea. A very nice cup on this cold winter evening…..

Great chai, well rounded taste and delicious with cream or without. I love it with a splash of honey.

Backlog 9/10

See previous notes!

Another major backlog!

I got this one from LiberTEAS! This is a really nice, traditional breakfast blend. I’ve only had one cup from the generous amount sent to me by LiberTEAS and I had it black, but I can say almost positively that this one would be equally as nice with milk and sugar. It has a nice, smooth, bold taste. There’s definitely some Assam in there, which gives it a nice bold and somewhat malty taste, but it is smooth too. Overall a very nice breakfast blend!

My cousin gave me this tea after exclaiming it was too “Bergamont-y” for her (it is double Bergamont. The amount of Bergamont is just right for me and I like how the tea doesn’t have too much of a floral taste to it (too floral = soapy for me).

Though the tea is a solid in flavor, I feel as though the flavor flies out of the tea quite fast and for me to get a richer tasting tea, I have to leave the tea in longer but that ends up with a very watery tea at the second steeping. I wouldn’t even attempt steeping it for a third time.

I’ve never been to Seattle, but after having a cup of this before work (thanks to LiberTEAS) I felt like I was there. It was just the boost I needed to get my day started on a Monday. It tasted a bit malty which is becoming a new favorite flavor in morning teas for me. This tea was also VERY smooth and bold. I could have easily had another cup, but I had to head off to work. I really need to make an order when I’m out. This really needs to be a staple in my tea cabinet!

Backlog:

This morning, my hubby and I left EARLY (5:00 am) to take our soon to be son-in-law to Olympia. I brewed the last that I had of this tea to take with me on the journey. Still just as rich and full-flavored as I remember. I really enjoyed it while it lasted.

An excellent chai. There are exciting notes of spice as well as hints of fruit in this blend. The black tea is strong and delicious. The spices are well-blended, and add warmth and a pleasant sweetness to the cup. The fruit tones are vague but add a delicious dimension of flavor to the cup. A very well-rounded cup of chai!

This is really good. One of the best Chai teas that I’ve had. I love the spices. Very warming!

YUM! I am currently drinking it as a non-latte and am contemplating adding a splash of chocolate creme…….

Today I don’t have the luxury of being able to crawl back into bed after I get my youngest off to school because my oldest finishes her final hour at Cosmetology school today, and I’m heading up there to watch the event.

So, I need something to help me shake that desire to go back to bed! This is what I grabbed. It is a good wake-me-up blend. Strong and hefty, but, also incredibly smooth. I really like this one. A good tea to represent the Pacific Northwest!

Strong and Stout. It has a very rich and toothsome quality. Bake-y and malty. Delicious!

Steep Information:
Amount: 2 heaping tsp
Water: 500ml filtered water 212°F
Tool: Breville One-Touch Tea Maker BTM800XL
Steep Time: 2 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: light slightly vegetal black
Steeped Tea Smell: delicate citrus, floral, black
Flavor: sweet, toasty black tea
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: astringent, toasty
Liquor: translucent orange-brown

Too delicate for a morning tea, but simply delicious for sipping. It has this light, sweet quality to it that is refreshing and relaxing. I am very glad I was able to pick this tea up.

I am surprised by how little the leaves unfurled during the steep.

Images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/11/perennial-tea-room-loose-leaf-black-tea.html

I got a small .5 oz bag of this tea at Northwest Tea Festival. Opening the bag up, my nose filled with a warm chocolatey aroma. After steeping, the smell of the spice in the tea really came out. First sip – I was really surprised that the chocolate flavor came across so light. While it smells strong, it’s much more like a hint of chocolate – it almost felt like a bait and switch until I took a couple more sips and the flavors combined more. The sharpness of the spices combined with the chocolate and the flavor of the rooibos was like a flavor explosion – it almost suggested the aftertaste of a warmer cocktail. I really want to buy more of this and a bottle of Bailey’s, I think they’d go really well together!

Oh!, I said, after I poured the water on the leaves, and was sniffing the cup on the way back to my desk. Flowers!

What kind of flowers, you ask? A legitimate question, without an adequate answer from me. I can still get the smell of them as I sit here waiting for the cup to cool…but it’s definitely floral. Like standing in a florist’s, and outside they’ve just freshly cut the grass.

As it cools some, that scent is darkening down to something more patently Darjeeling in aroma — a bit floral, a bit honey, a bit grapes on a vine.

The taste is much more pronounced in the honey department than the smell, which makes me happy. I am a big fan of honey (though I never really add it to my tea, unless I’m making chai…because milk and honey are made to go together, of course).

This is quite nice. I’m used to the Darjeelings I’ve tried leaning toward being thin and grapeskin-tart when they’re still very hot, and mellowing and filling out as they cool; this tea is currently just on the comfortable-to-drink side of hot, and it’s mostly honey-sweet, smooth, a bit savory — probably from the full mouthfeel. I keep sipping and looking for new flavors, but it’s remaining pretty consistent, nothing new from one sip to the next. This is alright, though, because each sip is pretty pleasant, surprisingly cozy for a Darjeeling. There’s a very subtle hint of the tartness at the very back of my tongue the longer I sip, but it’s not showing up for the main event.

I don’t drink a slew of Darjeelings, but of those I’ve had, this one is pretty tasty!

I’ll get around to noting steep 2 in a little bit.

(Holy cow, my rating system is a mess. It really needs some janitorial work!)

Another rather mediocre English Breakfast tea; no real depth to the flavor. Adding milk and sugar made it even blander. (And what was with the recommended there-minute steep time?) Perhaps if it had been steeped longer, it would have had more flavor.

Rather mediocre tea; no strong flavor; tasted a bit dusty. Okay orange aroma, but no real depth to the taste. Slightly unpleasantly bitter without milk and sugar.

I liked the taste of this one very marginally more than the Cooling Mint Tulsi; there were complexities there I couldn’t identify, but as with the Cooling Mint Tulsi, it was an interesting blend that I’d never had the likes of before. Herbal, in an herb garden-type of way.

This was one of the more interesting teas (in a good way) I’ve ever had. Listed as a tisane, it smelled more like an aromatic herb (and the plant from which it comes belongs to the same family as basil and rosemary).It smelled really fragrant, like an herb garden. It wasn’t very sweet, but had a nicely rounded subtle sweetness to it, likely the result of whatever mints were added. I couldn’t taste any strong mint, but there did seem (to me) to be some subtle peppermint and spearmint. Very interesting and quite nice!