Townshend's Tea Company

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Rainy day here in pdx, surprise surprise, and the early morning is catching up with me. But the kids are asleep (for now) so it’s time for my local chai. I love Townshend’s Tea. They have a great shop/cafe here in portland. Right across from my favorite fabric shop, which is next to the best vegetarian taco cart in town. The trifecta. The rain sucks here, but we have our perks!

FYI — I make my masala chais with my Breville Tea Maker and I let the tea steep in the boiling water for about 10 minutes. Then I use my breville milk cafe (that I bought just for making chais and other tea lattes) to get the milk nice and frothy and then pour them both into my mug with some honey. Yum.

This. More of it. Every day, dammit.

This is a great Oolong…This strong and fragrant tea is a must drink for Oolong lovers. It provided me with an introduction to the higher oxidized end of quality Oolong. I personally like to steep this tea many times in order to get the full extent of the flavours available in this leave. This tea has a very strong smell that I can only describe as being ‘dank’ and ‘roasted’. Friends of mine who don’t drink Oolong often seem to like this tea over less oxidized ones because it is so full of flavour and distinct.

The flavour changes as I steep it. The first two steeps contain flavours that are rich and earthy. I personally like the third steep the most because of the chocolaty flavours that can be detected. The flavour seem to coat the inside of the mouth and is a great tea to drink with food.

Revisiting this tea today … it tastes a bit more malty today than I remember it from my first tasting. It is sweet and creamy from the vanilla, and while I am not having it latte today, I suspect this would be incredibly decadent as a latte.

As it is, though, it tastes smooth and pleasant, with a brisk sort of flavor. Medium bodied, a good afternoon tea.

The scent of mango filled my room as this pot brewed. My first sip was floral, with definite mango flavors. A second sip gives a mellow tea upon hitting the tongue, followed by fruity flavors and the promising mango after taste. It’s not in your face mango like the dry tea can come off as, but pleasant. A very invigorating tea.

I’m not a tea aficionado, so don’t know any proper verbiage, but this tea is delicious! I drink tea everyday and all different types, but this one is by far my favorite. It is smooth and sweet with a wonderful aroma!

Yummy!

Townshend’s Tea appears to be remodeling their website, because when I went there I could not find this tea … and the website looked quite different from what I remember. I hope that the missing few teas is only a temporary thing, because I don’t see my favorite Pear and Pomegranate tea on there yet.

But this tea is quite nice too. The vanilla is strong. A good tea to represent Mt. Hood which is usually covered in snow, one of our most picturesque views in this area is looking toward Mt. Hood. Some days it appears to be floating.

A nice, pleasant tea. I might like the black tea base to be a little more rounded, perhaps a blend instead of one tea type (I suspect this is a Ceylon because it’s not particularly bold. It’s delicious, but just not as sturdy as some other teas that could have been selected for a base). But it is still quite a nice afternoon tea, and I suspect it also makes a heck of a latte.

Brewed up a very pale yellow green, smells of yummy roasted coconut and oolong, with a faint overtone of dustiness (not sure where I’m getting that from, but I’m super sensitive to the smell of dust, so it may just be me?)

First infusion:
Fore flavors: Vegetable, slightly nutty and sweet. In the aftertaste the roasted coconut comes out. The oolong is delicious and isn’t bitter at all (an issue I had with Spice and Tea Exchange’s coconut oolong). That dust thing I mentioned initially isn’t coming out at all in the taste, which is excellent.

I’m going to try more infusions of the tea, and will update this with those :)

Wow! OK… so as I was pouring this from my teapot to my mug, I could swear I was smelling cinnamon and sugar donuts! YES … donuts. That is what this smells like fresh from the teapot.

And it does have elements to it that give it a sort of cake-y, donut-ish flavor. It is cinnamon-y and sweet, and the chicory gives it a deep, roasted flavor and together with the honeybush it creates a savory, freshly baked cake kind of taste. It’s very satisfying … my sweet tooth approves!

I recently placed an order with Townshend’s Tea which just arrived yesterday, and this is actually the tea that made me want to place that order. That is unusual only because I don’t think that there’s ever been a time when a Lapsang Souchong tea is what made me want to place an order. I’m just not a fan – typically – of Lapsang Souchong as I don’t like that heavily smoked flavor.

But it was the UNSMOKED that captured my attention, as you probably can guess.

And I LOVE this tea. I love that I can taste the complexity of this tea grown in the same region of the smoked Lapsang Souchong, but without the heavy smoking process to alter the flavors. There are some smoky tones to this, but they are considerably lighter than that heavy pine-smoked flavor and aroma of most Lapsang Souchong teas. This tea has delicious fruit tones – almost plum-like, sweet and luscious! Some floral tones too! It doesn’t have that same caramel-y note in a smoked Lapsang Souchong, but the sweetness from the fruit tones is so pleasant that I don’t find myself wishing this had that caramel note.

I love this. LOVE this!

This is one of my favorite teas right now.. Brews up into a lovely bright green. Smells of delicious ripe strawberries, though the strawberry flavor itself is mellow and I find most of it to be in the aftertaste. Just a very pleasant tea.

So enjoying a cup right now. I brewed it in my ingenuiTEA. The color is so pure. I wanted to note that today it is hitting my palate with a sweet note and when swallowing I am hit with the earthy flavor behind it. Its kind of neat how complex the profile is and that the flavor has so much depth.

Sweetest and super mellow chamomile mint blend I have ever had. I drink it almost every night. It is beautiful, with honey notes and doesn’t get bitter if left too long. One of the best things I received in an exchange.

I couldn’t find the Townshend’s tea Company description but this was a lovely tea. A robust green and a lot of great flavor.

I was not a fan. I love rooibos, and it’s hints on vanilla. But it was completely masked my the flowery and fruity notes. I swear, hibiscus ruins every tea.

I recently bought some tea from Townshend’s as a gift, and decided I wanted to get a little something for myself at the same time. This is a blend I hadn’t yet tried so I wanted to check it out.

Because it is a blend with both green and black teas, I opted to brew it using a lower temperature. This resulted in a rather light brew that is somewhat similar to a dark Oolong (which seems to be a trend for today).

I can still taste qualities from each of the teas here, though: the Yunnan has a hint of pepper to it, and a really nice undertone of sweetness. The Assam is rich and malty, although not nearly as rich as it would have been with a higher brew temp. The green tea doesn’t really have a strong flavor, but, it does add a light, sweet hint of flavor and a vague note of flower to the cup.

I’m liking it.

Wooow yuuumm. Thanks Erin for this deliciousness.

Of course, I am an Earl Grey fan, but this creme- earl grey is quite unique. The dry smell reminded me a lot of chocolate, and the creme taste in the brewed tea was like brown butter.. sweet and dark and caramel along with my good ol Earl. Good times.

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One of my Portland tea purchases, this is the first one I’ve tried now that I’m home.

Townshend’s Tea Company describes this tea as having a smokey, earthy taste. When a tea is described as smokey, I think of Lapsang Souchong. This in no way resembled a Lapsong Souchong. I tasted nothing smokey about it…

And that’s probably a good thing. As someone who doesn’t seek out smokey flavored teas, I find this (non-smokey) tea very drinkable. It’s hard to describe: it tastes like other teas I’ve had in nice Chinese restaurants. It’s subtle. It goes really well with food. It’s delicious!

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Yum! The vanilla is very strong all around—before and after brewing. It smells a lot like a really plump vanilla bean. The black tea is a perfect match for the vanilla flavor. The description says that the black tea is from Sri Lanka, so I assume it’s a Ceylon. I’m used to Assam black teas, and I enjoyed this one thoroughly with a sprinkle of sugar and a dash of milk. It was even tasty on the second brew. I’m looking forward to trying it iced.

Wow. This really stays on the back of my tongue. Slightly citrus, with a creamy finish. It’s a beautiful thing to wake up to!

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