Silk Road

Sipdown! Thanks Sil!

Interesting to try this tea, but I didn’t guess I’d be a big fan, and I was right. It’s bold and brisk (as would be expected from a tea intended for an antarctic expedition), and although my mug of it is not astringent, I prefer a bit of a smoother, mellower body. Taste-wise, I’m getting a mouthful of malt, and maybe a hint of chocolate, so it’s actually a profile I find reasonable, it’s just a little too bold and plain. Probably good with milk, though :)

Sipdown!

This tea is tasty enough, but feels quite expensive for what you get. Especially if you don’t steep “Silk Road style” (1 tsp per 16 oz…).

So while I’ve really enjoyed it, and I might pick up another sample in the future, I probably wouldn’t get a 40-cup tin (It’s $16. Even though there are lots of local berries in this, that’s a lot.).

This definitely tastes like a Silk Road tea, which isn’t all bad. I really like the berry flavours in this, but feel that perhaps the quantity of rosehips is a little much.

I’m drinking this with milk. I can totally taste the thimbleberries (YES! My favourite!) which is super cool.

I’m glad I just got a sample of this one. A larger amount would have been overkill.

(I’m totally not steeping this the way they recommend. IDK, somehow I think the flavours are more rounded at a lower temp with more tea.)

This is a really delicious tea! It’s a nice, light black tea with a very delicate peach and champagne taste to it. It is a very refined and quintessentially summer tea! I could definitely see this being enjoyed iced, too, on a patio in the hot Summer afternoon. I love how mild the peach is, and the body itself is nothing too robust. Very likely the most refreshing black I’ve had before.

ANother from omgsrsly i was trying to get to 75 this weekend to start the year off at my goal for last year but then SOMEONE (variatea) decided i needed a few more teas…soooo i’m still aiming for 75 by end of day tomorrow but i certainly got put far away from it again. trying tog et that done AND go through all my YS teas again.

This tea? strangely not for me. I’m not sure if its all the other berry teas that i’ve had over the past week but this one fell flat for me. the base wasn’t cooperating with me and then the flavours where just sort of there. ah well, can’t win them all! thank you though omgsrsly! always appreciate the share!

SSTTB #2…I’m having deja vu with this one…it tastes exactly like the Big Red Robe I had recently from Teavivre. Is this a Big Red Robe? It has to be. It is the same level of toasty-ness and body and everything, though the leaves were a bit longer than the Teavivre ones I had (also from the box). This tea was comforting today, as the toasty warmth seemed to keep the rainy bone chilling away. Either that, or me being under a blanket with my laptop watching youtube videos. Maybe all of the above.

That said, it is a little plain tasting, though I did get a whiff of chocolate from the dry leaf that was promising, but that is not very present in the steeped leaf. It;s an ok tea, but I feel like there is something missing. I keep thinking I am drinking a houjicha green, and not an oolong. I think, ultimately, I prefer more mineral or stone fruit dark oolong teas, or leaf hoppers, than this roasted one.

It’s a good tea, but not my fave. As I have Silk Road in town, I have the option to repurchase more in the future if I change my mind on it.

tea from omgsrsly i was a little worried as this one brewed up because it had a really floral scent to it. however, the actual tea is much more mellow and almost, dare i say it, boring? There’s a freshness and a sweetness here that is really nice…and there’s none of that dreaded oolong taste that i don’t like…but it’s just kinda…boring. lol not sure how else to describe it..maybe it’s just a little light in it’s tastes? Still a good cup, and as far as green oolongs go this is really nice…just…subdued. :)

I’m a sceptic when it comes to a food product curing the common cold however, I have to say, if I have a cold coming on and I drink this tea, my symptoms go away. And it tastes awesome!

A Spearmint tea that hits the right notes without being overpowering. Sadly I can no longer find this tea on the Silk Road tea website, I will follow up to see if it is no longer available or just renamed. If you can find it, it will be well worth your time.

Bear with me sent this one my way and i’m pretty sure his words were “you won’t like it” haha Funnily enough, i actually liked this one more than the cardamon black hat i also had. Not enough to hold on to it and be a greedy guts, but i did enjoy my cup with breakfast this morning :) thanks Bear with me!

I actually quite enjoyed this at lunch today. “Red berries” flavour plus some floral from the lavender, and a black tea that surprisingly did not go bitter on me, even though it was in the travel mug with no milk or sugar.

Not something I’d get again, but a nice enough tea to have around!

Had this morning (way off this morning) with some milk. Delicious berries, with an herbal undertone. I really like it, and think it’d be great iced or with a touch of honey as well.

:)

Getting my teas organized means sipping down on little bits of things and finishing samples.

This one is an oldie from CrowKettle and again I’m enjoying it tonight with some honey.

Lemon-ginger tea, pretty much. I can’t really tell there’s green tea in here, except for the fact that I brewed it at a low temperature. I do like it, and would consider getting another sample tin of it in the future.

Ohh, ginger and lemon tea. Yay!

I did NOT steep this the Silk Road way… Instead, 2 tsp tea for my 16 oz cup, plus some honey for extra goodness while I’m sick.

I can’t really taste it, but when I stick my face in the cup I can smell the ginger and lemongrass. :)

Thank you, CrowKettle! I appreciate you including this in your package.

I quite like it. Not much green tea, mostly just ginger and lemony goodness. I added a bit of honey for extra comfort.

I did steep this the Silk Road way. 1 tsp leaves to 16 oz water. So YMMV, etc.

This may be one of my favorites. I love both mint and lavender in my teas, so both together is great! The lemongrass is barely noticeable. The peppermint is what I really taste, especially right after the first sip. It leaves a minty taste in my mouth, which is wonderful!

GCTTB3

Sipdown!

I kept the very last of this tea for myself when it came around in the GCCTB3. The nice thing is that it was such a small amount of leaf – just under 2 tsp – that’s the perfect candidate for a quick and easy sipdown.

I’m glad I got to try a little for free, as this tea smells OK but tastes unusual. I’ve noticed sometimes a “curly” roasted flavour in some green teas that I don’t like, and this tea exhibits that characteristic. There’s the scent of the cherry, but underneath it is something more tart that I’m not too fond of. I’m just wondering if it’s the sensation of tartness itself I’m responding to, though, as another tea that made me feel this way was rhubarb-flavoured, which is another tart plant.

Anyways, hooray for easy sipdowns!

(This one turned into quite the monster post, so if you just want to read the bit about the tea jump down to “begin tea log”)

First post in forever I know… It’s been a busy couple of months; coordinating weekend sessions, upgrades and new projects at work, the usual medical fun… Oh and let’s not forget the best one of all, a “surprise” special assessment (for those of you don’t both live in Canada and in a condo/strata location; a special assessment can be levied when there is work that needs to be done to the common property (roofing, siding, pavement, etc) whose cost is greater than that budgeted in the maintenance/reserve fund. Extra costs are then levied through the use of a special assessment to the strata owners (in this case myself and my partner) to cover the extra expenses. Fun times… Not).

On the plus side we just got back from a 12 day vacation (planned just over a year a go now, so we’ve been looking forward to it for a while :D) and we had a blast! Did 5 days out in Portland, OR and then another 7 on Vancouver Island. Which, incidentally, is what prompted this post; as while we were in downtown Victoria we stopped by Silk Road Teas. (great place! I highly recommend anyone passing though the area to take a look at it!)

While there I couldn’t help myself and picked up a few “mini-tins” of teas to try. One being this one. I had my first Lychee tea experience a few months back, it wasn’t bad but I had been hoping for something less “in your face” than the one that I tried. So with hesitant hope I took a quick sniff of the sample for this tea and decided yep I’m gonna give it a shot!

begin tea log
The best part about this tea for me is that it contains just two “simple” ingredients: Chinese black tea, and lychee extract… That’s it, no artificial flavors or anything, so right off the bat I had great expectations. The scent of the tea helped to back up those expectations; sweet and fruity with just a slight floral note, the lychee was pleasantly there but not overwhelmingly so. In fact I got some good hits from the black tea, which let the dark, rich malty notes counter balance the bright super sweet ones of the lychee.

Once steeped the liquor was dark caramel brown in color and clear. The scent remained subtle but still presented some lovely lychee aromatics, sweet and almost floral but like in the dry scent, not overly so; and unlike the previous lychee tea that I tried not it was not perfume like or cloying. The darker notes from the black tea nicely complemented the lychee notes.

The flavor in this is quite interesting, the sweet bright notes from the lychee really work well with the malty notes from the Chinese black tea. There’s no bitterness or astringency and the flavor is well balanced. The finish of the sip is where the lychee really shines through but it doesn’t hang heavily at all. The mouthfeel is warm, rich and creamy, it almost coats my mouth.

I have to say that I really, really like this tea; sweet and fruity, yet dark and malty at the same time, it just really speaks to me. I definitely consider this to be an indulgent tea, for those times when I’m looking for something special.

Got new meds from a doctor at the local youth clinic yesterday, and unlike the ones the walk-in clinic gave me a week and a half prior, these ones don’t make everything taste like rusty metal, so I can actually ENJOY my tea!

Sadly, I taste absolutely zero peach in this. It’s a sweet, lightly floral black. Nothing to really write home about.

I’ll finish what I have, but it won’t be a restock. I prefer the Royal Abkhazi and Victoria 150 Anniversary blends better when I want sweet and floral.

Weekend Sipdown #5

This one was utterly delightful today. It’s not been a warm day, for summer, but the juicy, fresh scent and flavour of peach contributed some much-needed sunshine all by itself! Peach teas are usually hit and miss for me, particularly when the peach flavouring is artificial tasting and very strong. No worries here — it’s like drinking peach juice! The slightly citrussy base ceylon is perfect here, creating a fruity, satisfying cup! Very enjoyable.

A sample from ashleyelizabeth, and another delicious tea from Silk Road. The dry leaf smells deliciously peachy, and this translates well into the flavour. I gave 1.25tsp of leaf anout 3.5 minutes in boiling water. The result is a medium brown liquor, and I added a splash of milk.

The peach here is obviously the main attraction, and it tastes remarkably true to life. Sweet, mellow, juicy, fuzzy — it’s as close to eating an actual peach as I imagine it’s possible to get in a hot drink! The ceylon base provides the ideal background — it has a slight natural citrussyness of its own, and isn’t at all overpowering. It just provides a pleasant, smooth base upon which the peach flavour can float happily. A perfect summer tea.