Single Origin Teas

Backlog:

Although not technically a Darjeeling, it bears several striking resemblances to a Darjeeling. It still has that crisp, light flavor that Darjeeling is known for, and that sweet, wine-like quality.

Less muscatel than is typically found in a Darjeeling, though. A hint of lemon toward the finish.

Notes of rose! These surprised me. A sweet, autumnal taste that resembles maple.

A really, really good tea. I think that this was my favorite that I tried from Single Origin Teas thus far.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/10/28/jun-chiyabari-second-flush-nepal-black-tea-single-origin-teas/

I don’t know if it is ceylons or if it is just this one but there’s something… soapy about it! Nice bitterness, a hint of fruitiness and then something mildly detergent-y. And no, my mug was cleaned up nicely last night, so that’s not it.

Sipping some more… It is really enjoyable though! I wish I could put my finger on this one, mild off note. I should definitely try some more ceylons to see if they are all like that. Well, at least one more!

And I changed my username to Kat_Maria as I noticed there’s already one Kat on Steepster :) I don’t want to cause confusion :)

Backlog:

An exceptional black tea. I’ve tried a few Vietnamese black teas, this one might be my favorite thus far.

It tastes rich, warm and welcoming. A strong tea – it would hold up to the additions of milk and honey well if you like to add those to your tea. Me, I don’t usually, so I found this to be perfectly lovely on it’s own.

A sweet, honey-esque undertone with notes of earth and leather. Hints of a fruity sweetness too, like dried fruit – raisins. I also note a cinnamon-like taste here too.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/10/15/vietnam-black-tea-op1-from-single-origin-teas/

sample sipdown! (134) Thanks again nicole

I feel bad that this is the first review of the tea because it is NOT the tea for me. Something about the blend of flavours in this one left me with a mouthful of floral, fruity no thanks heh. It’s a bit sad because i love passionfruit and thought this one would be one that i’d really like…sadly no. However, i’m glad i tried it since i likely would have purchased this one to try when i order from this company. so yay! thanks as always nicole

sample sipdown! Another one from nicole I quite like this one. It’s bold, slightly malty and has a good flavour to it. I may have check out SOT later on when i’m back to buying tea!

sipdown! but i apparently didn’t add this to the cupboard so it doesn’t really count haha. Another tea from nicole I’m learning to apprecaite dajeelings a little more. I still won’t pick one up over a good black or puerh per say, but i for sure like them more than i used to. This one has a touch of stringency to it but in a way that reminds me of some green teas that i’ve had. It’s got lots of fruity notes to it…similar to peach but not quite. Overall an enjoyable cup! Thanks again Nicole!

sample sipdown! (137) I’m hoping to get my cupboard down to 130 this weekend at the least but i’m not sure that’s doable. While i’m stuck at home working, i’m also just exahusted and easily distracted.

This tea was sent my way from nicole and is helping to confirm my suspicions that ceylon teas are not my favourite. I don’t hate them but they’re that sort of “i guess this will do” sort of tea. This tea has an astringent edge to it. It’s not bitter and doesn’t feel oversteeped but it’s a tea that would probably be better off with some milk and sugar…and i rarely do that. Still not a bad cup, just nothing to knock my socks up. Happy to be trying this company though! :) Thanks Nicole!

I’ve never tried any Ginseng Oolong before and it looked interesting, like little green rocks and ginseng is supposed to give a person energy right so I requested this one to sample from Single Origin Teas. Thanks Single Origin Teas for the free samples but this tea doesn’t agree with me. There was enough to make a few cups to try but I just cannot get into it. It’s the – licorice – for sure, and sadly I’ve never liked it much but didn’t think it’d be strong as it is. I think if you like that taste, it’d be a good tasting tea for you because the oolong smell and taste is nice as well.

So this one one of the free samples I got when the company was offering them. I’m just getting to them now, but at least I’m getting to them. Lol.

The leaves are beautiful. Twisty with silvery fuzz on them, but easy to measure out with a normal tsp.
Honestly, if I were to go by smell alone I’d have dumped this tea without trying it. The smell was very musky and reminded me of the smell that hits me when I go into the Australia house at the Zoo. Bleh. Thankfully I don’t get that same taste when I drink it. It’s kinda fruity, with just a hint of musk (though more woodsy musk and not animal musk). It’s pretty astringent to me, especially as it cools.

Glad I gave this a try, but as with many other darjeelings I’ve tried, this one isn’t my cup of tea.

FAVORITE TEA EVER!!!!!!!!!!

Synopsis of my long post: The tea gods love me. You must try this lightly sweet nutty wonderful tea. Full tasting notes come at the end of the post.

Back in 2010 I spend a semester at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and found this amazing tea shop Anteaques. There I had this wonderful chestnut tea. When I came back stateside I searched for a comparable tea. And searched, and searched, then searched some more. Some of the chestnut/nut teas were truly awful – undrinkable- others were ok. I admit I might have been overly hard on these nut teas, but I was on a mission.
Several months ago I was on a Ceylon fix – I’d just finished my last Ceylon – and I purchased some truly delicious teas from Single Origin Teas. Recently I decided to revist their site and that’s when the stars aligned and the tea gods smiled on me. Right there on the home page: Candied Chestnut tea.
I was all like “Be still my beating heart, you’ve been disappointed before”, but given the high quality of the teas I already purchased from Single Origin Teas I had to give it a try. When I smelled the leaves I knew I had found my chestnut tea at last. I swear this is the same tea. This tea makes me happy – the aroma, the taste, the warmth – Keats should have written an ode to this tea. The best part is that the tea lives up to my memory of it. I was starting to think that I had idealized this tea so much that should I drink it again I would be disappointed. Not so. It’s my tea “dream come true”.

Tasting note time:

As I’ve said before with Single Origin Teas what you see is what you get when it comes to the leaves. The dried leaves smell sweet. The first sent to hit your nose is sugary vanilla then comes the sent of chestnut with a barely there hint of fruit from the leaves.
Once brewed the predominant aroma is sweet chestnut with a touch of vanilla and the slightest fruity/floral hint.
Everything about this tea is light, but in a good way. The chestnut flavor is present throughout with a background note of vanilla. It’s sweetest when it’s in your mouth. As you swallow the phantom fruity/floral quality appears again. As the tea cools the fruity note becomes slightly more present.

My birthday weekend has passed and it was pretty mediocre event wise but I got some excellent presents. A nice shiny new pound of dice from Ben and a nice shiny monetary gift from my dear grandparents (which I used to order a Minecraft hoodie I have been lusting after for quite a while.) A bit of good news has occurred, I feel inspired again and not only designed some neat perler bead creations, I made a Minecraft Cat 3-D statue too! Go me!

Enough about being inspired to do crafty things, it is time for tea! Today’s tea is another awesome selection from Single Origin Tea, Yunnan Imperial Black. As you can most likely tell from the name, this tea comes from the famed tea growing region of Yunnan, China, a region known for amazing Pu Erhs and even more amazing Black teas (no offense Pu Erhs.) The aroma of this tea is muscatel and sweetly oaky with a tiny hint of cedar and earthiness. It reminds me of oak wine casks with a tiny drop of chocolate and a strongly woody after thought.

Time for a nice steeping! The aroma is much earthier and oakier with the muscatel notes being milder. It is very smooth and sweet and has a touch of loam, like the forest floor after rain. The aroma of the liquid is honey sweet and slightly like sweet grapes, mildly earthy and woodsy as a last whiff. The aroma is still very smooth and sweet, it makes my nose tingle.

The taste is sublime, this is one of the smoothest Black teas I have ever had, bravo! Sweet and earthy with a wonderfully gently mouthfeel. There is a tiny amount of an astringent feeling in the back of the throat after you swallow giving the tea an almost citrus like taste. The aftertaste is oaky and reminds me of the oak cask again. As the tea cools it becomes more woodsy and astringent, the taste also becomes sweeter like honey with a mild chocolate aftertaste. It leaves a pleasant mouth tingling sensation when you drink it cool. This tea is very delicious and is wonderful after a heavy meal or first thing in the morning, adding sugar or cream does not accentuate the flavors at all and really takes away from this tea, so I do not recommend it, enjoy this beauty in its natural form.

For blog and photos (Include the cat statue :P): http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2013/11/single-origin-tea-yunnan-imperial-black.html

I cold brewed a tablespoon of this tea in my water bottle. I meant to leave it in for 2-3 hours, but I accidentally took a nap and woke up six hours later… Oops? As a result, the tea was very bitter. I was drinking it alongside food, so I could take it, but I don’t think I could have had it on its own with that level of bitterness. Bitterness aside, I still wasn’t a fan of the cold brew. It was metallic and vegetal and basically just not my cup of tea. I can’t remember how this one tasted hot, so I will probably look up my older tasting notes if Steepster cooperates with me to decide how to use up the last of this tea.

I was experimenting with fruit infused teas again, so I put about a tablespoon of this tea with orange slices in my water bottle and cold brewed it. I think that this tea was a little too delicate because the orange really overpowered the green tea. However, I could definitely tell that there was something more than just orange-flavored water there. I probably won’t use this tea with other fruits, but on its own and with lots of leaf, it can make a good cold brew.

Cold brewed a couple teaspoons in my water bottle for 6 hours in my fridge. I’m glad I kept my eye on the time this time around because I feel that keeping it in longer would have ended up with bitter tea. The tea was grassy, but also sweet. And it had a very clean, refreshing feel as a cold brew. As the weather continues to warm up, I’ll likely finish off the rest of this tea via cold brewing.

For dinner, I ate at a BBQ place and had sweet tea (made in house!) with my meal. While that was lovely, the combo of delicious but greasy food and sugary tea made me crave a palate cleanser when I got home. This green tea is very clean tasting with no bitterness. It does seem a little weak though, so I’ll add more leaf than usual the next time around.

A lovely green tea to start off my morning! This tea is sweet at first followed by some grassier notes. I have to say, though, that I felt like this was on the edge of being bitter (but wasn’t). Also, by the second steep, I felt like the flavors were already fading. I think I probably under-leafed, though, so I can try again with more leaves next time.

I was surprised to discover that I hadn’t already rated this lovely Ceylon so here it goes:

In my book, this is the archetype of a high quality Ceylon.

You get what you see: the hand rolled leaves you see in the image are exactly what you get, once steeped they unfurl and give off that wonderful earthy-Ceylon smell. None of that menthol aroma on these tea leaves.

This tea has both earthy and floral notes, and its a lovely amber color. As the tea cools the earthiness becomes more predominant. When piping hot – my favorite way to drink tea – the steam an floral aroma mix and its not so bad to be awake in the early morning. The smooth floral flavor has an elusive hint of fruit that I just cant put my finger on.

This also makes a delicious iced tea with or without lemon.

Additional notes: Sipdown! I’ll miss this one, as it is a great assam. The flavor is fantastic even though this one is already an old tea. I remember all the Single Origin teas I tried were exceptional. It looks like they carry most of the teas they used to, so I like their consistency. I really need to order from them at some point!

Also, the Here’s Hoping teabox is having trouble finding some participants this round. If you’re in the US and at all interested, please sign up! https://steepster.com/discuss/18700-signups-open-now-heres-hoping-traveling-tea-box-round-eight

Thanks again for the samples! This is the final tea I’m trying from Single Origin Teas and all of them have been buy-worthy! I steeped one heaping teaspoon for three minutes. I may have let the water cool too long – but it was still hot while I sipped it for the first sip.. so not very cooled! This has a very distinct grassy and hay-like flavor. Maybe I’ve been drinking too many chocolatey teas lately, so the grassy notes in this one are more noticeable! A bit malty and it has a bit of a bite to it. The flavor is not dark or light… a nice middle ground. The second cup was ruined – five minutes just after boiling and the cup was oaky. My fault!

Today was a lovely tea day! I received my small order from Butiki and some teas I bought that I’ve been dying to try from QueenOfTarts! I REALLY need to work on some sipdowns. sigh.

My tasting notes about this one seem to be all over the place and this one is no different. Today, it reminds me a lot of a breakfast tea with some astringency, which is appropriate for this morning.

Looking back at my previous tasting notes, I have had such bad luck with this tea! Today the water at school was only lukewarm so the tea tasted pretty weak and plain. I also noticed for the first time that it had white tips, interesting. Anyway, I thankfully have enough for another steep, so I will hopefully finally properly enjoy this!