The Tea Zone & Camellia Lounge

I did not expect to run into this tea on a chance outing to a tea lounge – killing time. I came back the next day to fetch it, and promptly brewed it up that night. My gaaaaaaaaah! What a splendid white tea! It had some of the strengths imparted by regular Kenyan purple tea, but in its raw form it was more akin to Ceylon whites in character. That and it lasted a whopping six infusions non gongfu style. So glad my tea karma is this good.

A full write-up on how I came across this tea can be found here: http://lazyliteratus.teatra.de/2012/09/10/solomons-purple-white-seal-of-approval/

This was a sample from Sandy. Thanks!

So tonight we discovered some thing new when I got the cup of yellow death. I brewed this up in the Ingenuitea and never realized I may need to swirl the tea around before I split it into our cups. Dylan got the cup of lemony goodness and I got pledge death. I kept saying, “it tastes, like pledge, Sandy likes this?!” He would say, “no it doesn’t this is lemon candy.” No I beg to differ! Dylan then tasted my cup and we stumbled upon the reason for the make fair cup. So, I took the two cups and dumped them into each back and forth. Now I have a slightly stronger cup of lemon candy goodness. I’ve been making our samples this way for a while. It makes me wonder if this has been the reason for all of the discrepancies.

So, strangely… Missy made two cups of this, one for me, one for her. From the exact same sample bag from Sandy. And they taste very, very different.

Mine is fantastic. It’s got the perfect lemon drop flavor (there’s some stevia added). It’s tart and refreshing, absolutely delicious.

Missy’s, on the other hand, has this weird bitterness. The lemon flavor (the ‘citral’ molecule), is harsher, more prevalent, and really not as enjoyable.

I’m not sure how it happened, but it did. She brewed it in the ingenuitea, and hers is the ‘first’ portion to come out, mine was the second. She just mixed them together and we both now have fairly pleasant cups.

Not saying I’d every really want to drink lemon myrtle straight. But now I kind of want a cup of straight lemongrass to compare.

I really like honeybush because it reminds me of squaw tea, especially iced. It’s rooibos zesty little cousin with the hints of some thing like pepper or maybe sage. It ends sweetly enough, I totally understand the name. It’s also got a heavier mouth feel to it than rooibos does, making the honey association a bit stronger. Pretty good but I have vanilla honeybush! Vanilla makes every thing better….

This was a strong competitor for Upton’s rooibos vanilla. It only made second place because I like vanilla bean better than I like a french vanilla taste. This one really reminds me of french vanilla flavoring. Maybe it’s just that Upton’s feels a little more solid in the vanilla department where this one feels fluffy. The rooibos is a bit stronger with heavier tobacco flavor and not as sweet as Upton’s. I’m glad I got to try it out. Now I have a better idea of what I really like.
Thanks for picking up this one Sandy!

This is an entirely pleasant cup of tea.

I shared this with Missy and Dylan after that very pleasant trip to Portland a couple weeks ago.

Unlike Missy, I don’t notice the bergamot at all in this. It just tastes like a pleasant, lightly fruity black tea. It’s closer to the Soderblandning from Tea Center of Stockholm for me without the interesting denseness.

I’ll try this iced next, but can say, as it cooled off, I noticed the fruity notes more.

This was a very generous sample from Sandy. If I recall correctly she thought it would be great iced. I made a pitcher of it for icing and a pot. Honestly with a name like this I didn’t want to wait for it to be chilled.

This is an interesting interpretation of earl grey. Hot, bergamot and vanilla are much stronger with just hints of fruit in the back ground. Iced the fruit really takes the show and the bergamot and vanilla are just support. The tea base is smooth with a coppery aftertaste and just a hint of malt.