silk road tea

I finally managed to eat food today ($$$ bacon my brother got me, an egg, and sauteed greens, yum!) and to top off that delicious meal I decided to have an earl grey.

This one is, as always, fantastic. Just having it with a little soy creamer today.

Pay attention to their steeping instructions. 1/2 tsp per 7 oz (or so, this time), 4 mins. It’s actually pretty good, even though my water was WAY too cool. I do prefer making it in 16oz quantities, but I’m trying to only have 8oz cups of tea today, so I get to have more varieties before I start sloshing!

The last time I had this tea I ignored the Silk Road brewing instructions, thinking that they underleaf drastically.

Not true.

1 tsp in 16oz of water, and this tea is perfect. I added 1/4 tsp sugar and some soy creamer, just to make it a richer cup. I’ve done 1 hour + of yoga and a 20 minute body weight workout. I’m tired and need the pick-me-up!

This is such a nice Earl Grey. Really. I love this one. Not too floral, the vanilla adds some extra flavour without being in your face like the vanilla syrup added to a London Fog (Which seems recent. The first few times I had a London Fog there was no sweetener added.). It doesn’t need milk or sugar, I just like to add them for extra comfort. If you want more vanilla, use vanilla almond milk. :) I even love the black base on this. It’s starting to hint at astringency at a 4 minute, boiling water steep, but I think even 5 minutes would be fine if you wanted a stronger tea.

Yum. Definitely a tea I will try to keep stocked in my cupboard.

This was a more pleasant experience—preparing and drinking—then I had expected. I had heard all sorts of things about pu-erh and was rather intimidated when I received as a Christmas gift this cake of pressed tea inside a dried mandarin orange. I had never tasted pu-erh before, let alone prepared it, and expected it would be difficult just getting the tea out. It turned out to be easy. I sliced into the peel with a knife, and it turned out inside is just…tea—which I could pick out with my fingers.

I usually use an infuser—a rather roomy tea ball essentially but instructions I’d read said to make this loose in a pot. So that’s what I did. Also as instructed, I poured off the first steeping of 30 seconds (some sites say as little as 15 seconds for this step.) Some sites also say the next steeping should be only 30 seconds, but I went with the guide that suggested 3 minutes.

I expected something much darker, since I’m told pu-erh is the “real” black tea. (What we call “black” the Chinese call “red.”) But this is described as a green tea. Pu-erh is supposed to come in two varieties: ripened (shou) and raw (sheng) types. The Silk Road Tea site doesn’t specify which this is, but I assume since it’s green it’s the “raw” type?

My aunt and I quite liked it. I’ve heard all sorts of things about pu-erh. That it has for instance a “fishy” taste—which didn’t sound appealing. To me this one tasted like a really nice green tea, but without the grassy taste that puts me off. It’s somewhat oolong-ish to me. A bit of a woodsy note, and I think I can detect a bit of that mandarin orange, but so subtle is it I’m not sure it’s not my imagination. My aunt thought it a bit “flowery” but “very nice.” All in all a much more enjoyable tea than I expected.

(The second steeping at 3 minutes, 30 seconds was rather bitter.)

Having only gotten into fine loose leaf teas this year, I’ve avoided buying flavored teas while I’ve gotten acquainted, especially since I often share this with my aunt, and she prefers her tea unflavored. This tea was given me as a Christmas gift. It’s basically Earl Grey with vanilla. The Silk Road site says it’s a blend of Ceylon, Indian and China black teas with bergamot and vanilla. Maybe that’s why this tastes like dessert to me. A rich indulgence—I can really taste the vanilla and it really compliments this blend. I imagine this would partner well with milk, but I really don’t want to in any way hide the flavor. A real pleasure.

A vanilla flavoured earl grey. The flavours are delicate enough that it’s delicious without sweetener, just a touch of unsweetened milk substitute

I’ve had Moroccan Tea before—and I’ve also had its base tea, Gunpowder China Green. I don’t care for Gunpowder tea—it’s too…flinty in taste for me. In general, I don’t care for unflavored Green tea at all—too vegetal, at least those I’ve tried. I do like Moroccan tea with its mix of gunpowder tea and spearmint. This one is a nice blend, with the mint very much there but not unduly dominant. It’s impossible at several months remove to really compare this with the other cup of this tea I had from Alice’s Tea Cup. Then though my impression was that while I wouldn’t turn down a cup, it wouldn’t be a tea I’d buy again. I find I like Moroccan tea more this time. I just had a second steeping and it was a lovely treat while recovering from a cold.

The tin calls for 1 tsp per two cups of water “just before the boil” and steeping for 3 to 5 minutes. That just didn’t sound right to me, so poking around the net I decided to steep with water at around 176F—and I added about twice as much tea as called for. Despite that, this had the problem I’ve had with most white teas. It’s barely there. This is why I prefer (the more affordable) White Peony over the celebrated Silver Needle. As far as I’m concerned there is such a thing as too subtle. I think I can detect the muscatel taste of darjeeling here, but the taste is so faint I wonder if it’s my imagination. This isn’t as wimpy as Silver Needle or Snowbud, but I definitely prefer my tea stronger. It did strangely improve on a second steeping, with the flavor a bit more pronounced.

Listed on the tin as ingredients are lemongrass, peppermint leaves—and seaweed. Given that last I didn’t think I’d like this at all. I haven’t liked the taste of seaweed when I’ve tried it, and the entire reason I haven’t liked the unflavored green teas I’ve had is because of a vegetal or seaweed like taste to them. However they blended this though, they did a wonderful job. Looking at the mix in the tin the lemongrass definitely predominates, and that citrusy/gingery taste is what’s most obvious in the brew, but the kick of peppermint is certainly there too. I can’t really detect the seaweed, though no doubt it makes its contribution. It’s light, soothing. I really liked this!

(Or rather I really loved the first steeping. I resteeped it for about 9 minutes and didn’t like the result at all—dumped half of it undrunk. On that second steeping I could really smell—and taste—the seaweed and it wasn’t to the good. Less of a minty taste and far more bitter, even with increasing the sweetener. Guess that this is a one-steeping tea.)

mint, lemongrass… lovely. i can barely detect the seaweed in the smell of the steeped tea, and just a little bit more in the flavour, but it works well overall.
a nice herbal! refreshing on winter evenings :)