The Tea Spot

I am on kind of a milk oolong kick lately… too bad I have so few of them in my cupboard! :P I better watch out, because that kind of thing could lead to a tea order (which I don’t need to do!)

This one is quite tasty today. A smooth creamy milk oolong base with a hit of coconut over the top. A fresh green fruitiness as well, and no drying astringency in the mouthfeel. It’s neither my perfect milk oolong nor my perfect coconut oolong, but it’s a decent combination substitute.

The first time I had this tea I was sick with a stuffed up nose but I just couldn’t wait to try it. It wasn’t that long ago, but I still don’t remember it very clearly, so I’m excited to try it again now. I’ve been craving a creamy oolong lately, so hopefully this will fill that.

Now that I can properly smell it… the steeped tea smells coconutty in a fruity way. There is a creamy buttery note, as well as a toasted nutty note as well. It’s got a little bit of a popcorny—scratch that, kettle corny—aroma to it as well. Flavor wise it’s pretty tasty, and I stick by my original note that this is pretty fruity, with a creamy, smooth coconut background that lingers. I think this time it’s creamier than before (I have to make myself wait until these cool down a fair bit so I get the most out of them), and the mouthfeel is smooth and lovely. Overall this is really very delicious, but I’m not sure quite where it fits into my hypothetical standard panel cupboard. It lies somewhere between Golden Moon’s Coconut Pouchong and ATR’s Milk Oolong, but those are two teas that I totally adore, and I’m not sure I need one that fits in between them. Still, I will enjoy this sample for now especially since I have neither of the above mentioned teas in stock and I said I wouldn’t buy any tea in the next couple of months!

When I saw this tea on the site I new I had to try it. Getting a sample of this was really the catalyst for the order. The anticipation was also the reason I wanted Golden Moon’s Coconut Pouchong and/or a milk oolong the other day. And even though my tasting conditions aren’t optimal with a slightly stuffy nose (but still with my sense of smell!), I can’t wait to try it.

The dry tea smells oh so sweet and coconutty, and it’s hard to tell where the creamy coconut ends and the creamy milk oolong begins. There are long strands of coconut mixed in with dark green rolled oolong leaves. After steeping the tea smells more like the slightly fruity, creamy smell of a milk oolong. The coconut is there, but kind of melding with the creamy scent.

The taste is fruitier than I expected; it’s slightly peachy with a background of vegetal oolong. It’s nutty and a bit creamy, but not as creamy as I might have expected. Also I think I should drop the steep time to 2 minutes. It’s definitely very tasty, and I think I’m missing some of the subtleties due to my sickness. I’m going to hold off rating it until I can do a proper tasting, but it’s looking good so far.

Another ancient tea bites the dust. This one I finished off by cold brewing and it was actually really great. This is a great blend of florals, and the jasmine and rose play off each other well. Maybe one day it will make it’s way back into my cupboard. :)

Now here’s an older floral tea that hasn’t lost it’s punch. I do admit that I probably oversteeped this… apparently I didn’t hit “start” on my timer and only removed the basket when I started wondering why it had seemed longer than 3 minutes. But! It’s none the worse for the wear, fortunately!

At this point, it’s actually even slightly sweet, somewhat of a marshmallowyness from the white tea, I would guess. This worked out well. Rose and jasmine (though the jasmine is perhaps less dominant than the rose at this point), two of my faves! At least it seems like all of my older teas are ones that I love. :)

Here’s how you know you have too much tea: I bought 2 oz of this tea about a year and a half ago in a sale at the Tea Spot, and when I pulled it out this morning I realized that the bag has never been opened. Yup, still heat-sealed closed.

Fortunately being sealed preserved it. I brewed this a bit hotter than I have in the past, more like I’ve been brewing white teas lately with Teavivre’s instructions. There is this western sense that white teas need to be babied, have to be brewed really cool, but that’s really not true. It’s kind of like the false notion that white teas are low caffeine and relaxing, when to many people white tea makes them wired! I certainly feel energized by a cup of white tea. I like how when they are brewed hotter they get more robust, more bready, and sometimes even a kind of cocoa-y note comes out.

This one reacted similarly. The rose and jasmine play well together here and are lovely, if you love florals. The white tea definitely had notes of hay and grains and yeasty bread. I must make an effort to drink this one more often (obviously).

Uuugh, I hate days when I feel like I’m running around so much that there’s no time for tea. And that is exactly what today is, and what I expect the next week and a half will be like until I leave for China. I am finally taking a minute (or three) to brew myself some of this tea that will hopefully ease my stress and calm my mind. I’m definitely enjoying this one/ It’s sweet and floral but the florals are very well balanced with the tea. It is particularly white tea-ish, and definitely very relaxing.

I think I used a bit more leaf this time than I did last time… the leaves are so long and twisted that it’s one of those really hard to portion teas, and then add in huge rose buds that take up almost the entire perfect teaspoon. In any case, this time it’s still floral but also a little hayish in a very pleasant way. I think the rose/jasmine mix is a little more balanced this time, with both contributing fairly equally. There is something about this tea that is soothing and relaxing. It’s definitely getting reordered in my groupon order from the Tea Spot.

Ah, rose and jasmine. This tea really reminds me of another tea I’ve had before, but I can’t figure out what. I think most of the jasmine and rose teas I’ve had have also had other things in them, and none of them have been green and/or white teas. Oh well, one thing’s for sure… this is really tasty. I’m always a little hesitant about white teas because I haven’t had too much success with them before, plus this tea was made up of long, twisted leaves combined with big rosebuds, which made portioning it out with a teaspoon difficult. The directions called for 2-4 minutes of steep time, so I went in the middle.

Even with all this uncertainty, it turned out awesome. Rose is really the main flavor here, but the jasmine is no slouch. I do think that rose is naturally a bit more forward of a flavor than jasmine, so it seems the strongest. They combine together very well, though, along with a nice fresh, green background. It’s a very floral tea, and it’s a very successful one. I might just have to keep this one around!

This did turn out nicely when cold-steeped. The mango and passion flavors were much more juicy and tasty than in the hot steep, and it all melded better. I only have a smidgen of this tea left, which I will probably toss in a combination cold steep at some point.

Man, it seems like forever ago that I ordered these Tea Spot samples. It was in fact not too long before I went out of town and I didn’t get a chance to try all of them before I left. This was one of them that was still sealed; I’m always on the lookout for good mango and/or passion flavored black teas, and this happens to be a mango & passion black.

The dry leaf has that sweet, tart, candy-ish mango and passion fruit aroma that so often accompanies these teas. It really reminds me of a mango hi-chew, if you are familiar with those candies. Steeped, that sweetness in the aroma disappears and it’s all tart, tart, tart. I had high hopes for this one, but I’m afraid it just doesn’t live up in the taste. It lacks the roundness and depth of the acutal fruits, and there’s a weird mustiness in the aftertaste on some sips. The black tea is at least not bitter, but that’s about all I can say about it. I think the fruit flavors come out more as it cools, so I definitely plan on cold steeping the rest of this sample.

I definitely had my doubts about this one; it was a free sample with an order, and for the past few months I haven’t really been digging the taste of rooibos. The smell isn’t anything special, either, so I figured this would be just like Adagio’s barely-flavored rooibos sample pack. But… it’s good! It’s really good! The rooibos flavor is for the most part covered up by a really surprising creaminess. I was pretty shocked with the first sip, since it tastes just like someone added a lot of creamer. The almond is there, too, but much more subtly.

This is a nice pick if you, like me, want to love rooibos but aren’t a fan of it without flavoring.

Ah, my first cup of tea in about three weeks. WHAT?! Three weeks?! I know, it has to be some kind of record. Recovery from surgery has been long and miserable. It’s been difficult to taste certain foods and flavors. I didn’t want to waste good tea if I couldn’t taste anything! I decided that I was at a good point to try tea again. This coconut milky oolong was a great choice. It’s fruity, flavorful and comforting. I’m not getting much of a creamy or buttery note, but it’s still yummy. Welcome back, tea. I’m so happy to be drinking you again!

Chocolate tea is still weird to me, but I still like this one, even though it’s a flavored-black-puerh mutt.

I decided instead of having it hot, I’d experiment. I made it the same way I made the Thai Chai earlier — using 4.5 tsp of leaf in half a cup of boiling water, then adding sweetener, milk, and half a glass of ice. Even with the milk and ice, it remains strong. The chocolate is enhanced by the milk, making the tea creamier and calming the black tea’s bitterness. There is a hint of vanilla there as well, and I’m not sure if I mentioned that in my initial review. But it’s not as smooth as a milk chocolate, I’d say. More like baker’s chocolate, or dark chocolate. Strong on the cocoa. Anyway, it’s interesting iced. I might do it again when I’m craving chocolate.

EDIT: Came back to mention that if you choose to prepare it the way I did, expect a pretty strong caffeine buzz!

I got this tea for Christmas and after reading the reviews, it piqued my interest the most of the three. I was a little put off by the idea of puerh flavored by anything other than flowers, but then I read the ingredients. Apparently this is mostly plain black tea, then some puerh added.

It brews up very dark, and carries a decent kick of caffeine. The cocoa flavor is mild, similar to the way the milk tastes after a bowl of Cocoa Crispies. There’s also a little bit of a vanilla’s sweetness. I can’t taste the puerh very much, but it’s there. This might be a good place to start for people with really westernized tastes. (Speaking from experience.)

I brought this tea home yesterday so that I could work it into my pre-work tea rotation and focus on a sipdown; it’s quite old. I do love this tea, but I don’t think I will end up restocking it because it is true that I have discovered so many teas that naturally taste like chocolate that I don’t really need a tea that is flavored with chocolate, no matter how good the base is.

So I made a cup this morning and it was odd. Kind of flavorless, but also bitter. Really the best when you are look for a tea, no? I was worried it might be my water since my after-work green teas have been a little lackluster since I changed the filter on our tap, though my morning Dammann teas have been delicious as always. So I brought this tea back in and am having it now.

I think age has killed this one. Same brewing parameters as I always have done, but it is defintiely a hint bitter (possibly helped by tea crumbles in the bottom of the bag?). It’s also not a sweet and complex as it should be. I do think it tastes a little better here than this morning, but that could just be a difference of drinking it while doing and eating stuff vs. drinking it on it’s own.

Nevertheless, I had a serving or two left but I tossed it. It’s definitely faded from its previous glory, and it’s not really worth drinking the rest of it.

Hmmm, I think the flavor on this one is finally fading. I’ve had it for forever, so I suppose it’s not surprising. Trying to drink down older teas is the name of my game these days, and all of my Tea Spot teas are high on that list.

I wish there was an option between 0.6oz and 3oz on the Tea Spot’s site for this tea. I would get more, but probably not 3oz of it at a time because I (obviously) just don’t drink it that fast. Ah well, I have a lot of straight black teas that have nearly as strong chocolate notes to them, so I will just drink those instead when I am done with this one, even though I do love this one a lot.

Wow I have been bad about logging teas lately. I blame my recent knitting obsession. I drank this one yesterday afternoon.

Another old favorite, and thankfully one that is still full of flavor and body. I remember how much I love this tea. It seems like it’s a lovely unflavored black tea with natural chocolate notes, but it’s actually a lovely (high quality) black tea, possibly with some natural chocolate notes, but with added chocolate as well. Still my favorite flavored chocolate tea!

I am feeling a little less pressured by my stash lately, and I don’t feel the need to totally concentrate on sipdowns like I have been. This morning I was kinda sorta in the mood for an unflavored black tea, or at least a non-fruity black. Most of my teas are in boxes for an eventual move into a real office, so I poked through the boxes a bit and came out with this one. Yeah, it’s not unflavored, but it’s got a high enough quality base that it doesn’t matter.

Many, I forgot just how delicious this tea is. So much rich, creamy chocolate… it’s the only chocolate tea I’ve ever been really satisfied with. A lot of teas hint at chocolate, or are somewhat chocolatey, but this is just chocolate. Mmm. I’ve probably said this a million times about this tea, but the base really makes it. There’s just no excuse for a poor tea base!

I just walked around outside for maybe five minutes without a hat on and now my entire head feels frozen. Ugh. I need some tea.

I wanted something that I knew would be delicious, wasn’t feeling the fruity just now, and I remembered this one this morning when thinking about chocolate-rose blends. Mm, so chocolatey and amazing. And my head is thawing, too.

On a side note, I think I’m going to have to bring a filter in here for the water. Something about it is not qutie right. it doesn’t taste bad out of the faucet, so I figured it would be ok, but all of my teas are flat and not as flavorful as I remember. The water seems pretty hard/minerally here, so maybe that’s it.

Later in the day of unpacking I found my stash of black teas. Yay! I still hadn’t found my teaspoon so I guesstimated the amount of tea on this cup too, but with much better success. This was a delicious, lovely, chocolatey cup. Love this tea!

This tea came up in the comments on another tea by The Tea Spot, which of course made me crave it this morning. I was glancing through the tasting notes on this tea and someone mentioned a chocolate rose tea, and suddenly I wanted my fabulous chocolatey tea to be rosey as well. I had already portioned out my leaf but hadn’t poured my water, so I was considering just removing a small amount of the leaf and replacing it with a little rose black tea from my rapidly dwindling stash of that sort of tea, but I didn’t want to taint the high quality base on this with a lesser black tea. Then I remembered my rose buds from China… a package of potent, magenta buds I picked up at a tea shop in Beijing, and used to add rose flavor to oolongs and such while I was there. I dropped in a generous helping of buds and steeped as usual.

The steeped tea smells deliciously chocolatey as usual, with a hint of rose. That’s how the flavor plays out as well; I could have used some more rose, but I think the buds were a little overwhelmed by a black tea. What’s there is lovely, though… it is rose in an earthy, rough, whole-plant way, not a frilly perfumy way, and it works really well with the chocolate.