Tea Licious

Found this in my stash this evening. I came via Tea Equals Bliss a while back. My first honeybush and a very pleasant cup. Lightly lemon with orange coming in at mid sip. Smooth. Not rough like a rooibos. I like this.

Additional notes: sipdown! I really like this one. The green tea is so silky and smooth and maybe a bit creamy.. but it really fits well with the fruity flavors. So fresh! (Even if this sample was a few months away from being two years old, it still tastes the same as it did originally.) One of my favorite green teas (though there hasn’t been many I’ve tried. I’ll miss this sample… I wonder if Tea Licious would like to send me more samples?? I don’t think Tea Licious has enough tasting notes for their teas. hmm

Additional notes: Sipdown! Yes, it’s a sample. Yes, I’m counting it anyway. This is a couple years old now, but it’s still VERY good. I like that this tea proved that teas are NOT too old after a couple years… at least this one. Some reassurance! I think I appreciate it more that I did before. Tealiciousllc.com says to steep it 3-4 minutes at 205 degrees, but that seems like a bit much for my new knowledge of oolongs. So I did a little experiment and tried it at 30 seconds, took the infuser out and tried a few sips. The flavor was already there. Then I put the infuser back in for another 30 seconds, and the flavor was even deeper. I infused for another 30 seconds and decided to leave the infuser out with this steep, since it almost tasted like a milk oolong.I’m not sure how that is possible… unless maybe this is the sort of oolong that many milk oolongs are based from. The flavor is light, a bit floral and sweet. (So it technically totaled around a minute half.)

Second steep: There were a bunch of oolong crumbs (it was the bottom of thepouch) in the bottom of the cup that were making the first cup bitter, so I poured those out for this cup. Steeped for two and a half minutes. Delicious! More of a peachy and floral flavor!

Third steep: Hotter and 3-4 minutes. This was even stronger and still delicious. I think this has many more good steeps in it. This cup did have a slight drying affect on my mouth though.

It is impossible to ruin this tea, and each second it steeps will give it a completely different flavor. On my new oolong flavor rating scale, this one is a three (1=lightest flavor 5=strongest flavor). It’s interesting how the more tea you drink, the more you know about them.

This is really a delightful Assam – rich and full-bodied! It has a slight maltiness to it but what I notice more is a fruity, almost wine-like tone to this tea. Very enjoyable, there is some astringency to this, but I find that it plays well to the fruit notes that the tea possesses. It has a very pleasing character, overall, and no sign of bitterness (although as with every Assam I wouldn’t recommend oversteeping it)

This is a sample I got from Liberteas a while back and it got buried in my sample stash! I decided to brew up the whole thing tonight in a big pot.

The bad news is that I was painting at the time and got held up pulling the leaves. The good news is that it didn’t make this tea get bitter. The raspberry and acai are more of a fruity tartness so I wonder if the oversleeping strengthened the Sencha enough to mask the flavors, but it isn’t bad, just probably not as fruity as it would have been had I paid attention to the steeping a little better.

The liquor is bright gold and the Sencha has a nice strong presence.

Thank you, Liberteas, for letting me try this one!

Had some more of this today — still very good!

There are a few companies called Tea Licious after a search, but I found the site again: http://www.tealiciousllc.com/

I wanted to make a few more notes since this is the last cup of my sample.

First cup: The black flavor is less strong than I remember it. It could be due to how old the tea is OR because it took me a while to decide what tea I wanted, so the water cooled! The color is a nice amber. The flavor is full but sweet. It’s kind of like an assam. I still couldn’t tell that it’s an oolong, if I didn’t know it already.

Second cup: I poured boiling water and let it steep a while and the second cup is the same as the first. Not much of an oolong flavor! It doesn’t really change flavor with the number of steeps like other oolongs would! It’s still good though.

My oolong flavor rating where one would be a light & floral flavor and five would be the strongest flavor, this one is a five.

I’m just happy to actually remove something from my cupboard for once! :D

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this tea.

It smells marvelous – very bright and berry-licious! I agree with TeaEqualsBliss, this does smell more raspberry than acai.

This is sweeter than I expected it to be – with Acai and Raspberry – but this has the sweeter side of raspberry and it is really quite enjoyable. Sweet and deliciously berry. It is good hot, but, this is another one that would be grand iced.

Hmmm… the flavor is pretty artificial tasting. I cold brewed a glass of this for about 24 hours and the flavor is quite intense, but it tastes unreal. It’s like cheap bubblegum berries. The oolong base is woodsy and refreshing. It balances the syrupy sweetness of the fruit flavor. I’m not sure I know what yuzu tastes like so I can’t comment on that. I think kids might like this. I think the only kid I see regularly is my husband. Let’s see what he thinks of this… :)

Thanks again to TeaEqualsBliss for a sample of this! I just got a box of goodies from her so you’ll be seeing lots of teas from her for a while. Of course, I need to catch up with the gajillion other samples I have. ack!

Backlog:

Thanks to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me a bit of this tea.

It’s really good. Huckleberries are indigenous to this area, so I see a lot of different huckleberry products at the “made in Oregon” or “made in Washington” type shops, but this is my first time trying a huckleberry tea. It’s quite refreshing – the berry flavor is a little sweet and a little tart.

A ripe huckleberry tastes a little sweeter than a blueberry, but with that distinct tartness that you get from a blueberry that is especially noticeable in the aftertaste. It’s tasty, very berry-ish, and tastes good hot or iced, but I think I prefer it iced.

Thanks to LiberTeas I was able to try this one!

Continuing on with my TASTE IT NO MATTER WHAT Game from yesterday…

I will be drinking all new-to-me teas today!

It has a hard jasmine aroma. The flavor on the tongue is a slight florally-bitter type jasmine. It doesn’t leave a funky aftertaste and I am grateful for that!

With a name like this – all I can think of is King Kong roaming an island plucking tea leaves!

This is alright…not too shabby!

This one turned out to be really good. The hibiscus is only barely there, providing just enough texture to the cup without becoming too syrupy, and just a little color to the cup without adding any of that hibiscus-y tartness. Tea Licious did hibiscus RIGHT with this blend.

I’m enjoying this. Citrus-y without being tart or pucker-y, with a lovely honey-like sweetness from the honeybush. Very pleasant.

An absolutely wonderful Gyokuro! Very sweet with lovely fruit notes, a nice vegetal quality that I’d describe as sweet and lusciously broth-y. Truly a delight to sip.

No notes yet.

Rosey tea number two, and this one is a sipdown. I’ve had this sample for a while and this is the last of it, though I think it may have to be a reorder. A lot of flavored oolongs are made on a formosa base, which isn’t one I care for a lot on it’s own, so I love that this one is a nice green one. Don’t know what type, but it is pretty tasty. I also love the combo of rose, lemongrass and ginger. It’s not really a combo I would have thought up, but it is fantastic. Not to mention great for the stomach after a lunch of greasy pizza.

The aroma is nice on this one altho based on smell alone I would have to call it RASPBERRY Acai Sencha as I can smell way more Raspberry than Acai.

The The Sencha Base is very good. The Raspberry and Acai Flavors are about medium strength – definitely NOT overdone. I think the strength of them work really well here. I can taste a little more Acai than Raspberry so it all evens out in the end :)

Pom, Berry, Woodsy, and Oolong sum this one up! It’s flavor is pretty intense. As it cools for a few moments at room temp it helps the flavor along. It’s juicy and woodsy. It does NOT have a funky after taste. I like this just fine :)

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me a bit of this tea.

This is a very pleasant Yunnan, a bit on the mellow side as far as Yunnan teas go, but, no less enjoyable. It has a smoother flavor, not quite as peppery but there is a mild spicy undertone to it. A very pleasant malty tone to it too, along with a fruit-y wine-like flavor that melds nicely with the earthy notes. Sweet and delicious.

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this tea. This is a really unusual Assam – it has a wine-like note in it that I found quite startling at first … it made me do a double check with the label to make sure I was tasting an Assam. I did not expect a strong wine-like character to this. It’s quite delightful though!

There are also the characteristics you’d expect from an Assam: malty and a deep, baked bread kind of taste with a sweet, caramel undertone, but, the wine-ish kind of fruit flavor gives the cup a sort of lightness … it’s not quite as heavy or harsh as some Assam teas might be. It is remarkably smooth and has a nice, wine-like finish that lingers into the aftertaste… it tastes like black currants! YUM!

My song that would go with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXt56MB-3vc

A very nice jasmine. Delicate jasmine notes, the green tea is really light and crisp. Overall, the cup is sweet and pleasant.

SIPDOWN…see other notes :) Good morning cuppa!

After digging deep into one of my LARGE Tea Storage Boxes I randomly chose this one…

It’s also a SIPDOWN.

It’s very nice…White Tea, Tangerine, and a bit of breadiness to it :)

Lovely flavored Passionfruit Oolong – buttery-smooth oolong with juicy-mouthwatering passionfruit! YAY!

This is really lovely…juicy and fruity with OUT Hibiscus LOVE that about it! It’s a very nicely flavored Oolong! YUM!