Upton Tea Imports

Craving pu-erh again. It doesn’t even taste that wonderful. I dunno what the deal is.

This tea is very tasty! It has a lovely floral level, fresh juicy white tea base and a tasty sweet fruity finish. If you love floral whites, this is a must try! I very much enjoyed it!

However, the only thing I didn’t like about this tea was I couldn’t ID the fruity as pomegranate, tastes maybe more like a hibiscus, without any tart. The fruityness does go well with the floral and white tea base though.

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/pomegranate-magnolia-white-tea-from-upton-tea-imports-tea-review/
Lots of pictures of my pomegranate tree in bloom!

Ordered this sample the last time I placed an order with Upton Tea. The leaves are olive green, very long and slender (needle like, duh).

The tea liquor steeps up to be a very pale yellow. There isn’t much of an aroma coming from this. Flavor wise, it’s slightly floral with very light vegetal notes of corn. This is a very gentle and light tea but I generally prefer my greens to have a little more heft. Probably not something I would bother to keep in my personal stash. Still, it’s an elegant and relaxing cuppa on this lovely spring day. If you like yellow teas you might want to give this one a shot.

Upton’s notes say the tea has a pine needle flavor but I don’t think I would have picked that out if I hadn’t read their description. I thought I detected a bit of smoke somewhere in the finish.

sipdown! (276) as I’m pretty sure this is a tea my friend would love. Thank you Kittenna for sharing this one with me. This is a tea that tastes like peach. it’s not a bad tea…there’s no astringency or bitterness and it’s pretty smooth. But it’s not a tea i love, or need in my cupboard. It’s a fairly average tea with not a whole lot going on. there are better black peach teas out there that i’d pick before reaching for this one.

I had Della Terra’s The Perfect Pear this morning, and am trying this tea tonight, so it’s just been a pear day. I actually really like pears. My grandmother had a little scraggly pear tree in her yard, and it would grow the smallest, knobbiest pears on it every year, but they were good.

I’m not sure if I’ve had green rooibos before. I feel like I have in some tea, but I can’t remember which one. I’m not a huge fan of red rooibos, so many I will like it’s greener twin a little more. The dry leaves smell like rooibos with a hint of pear. As soon as I poured the boiling water into my little teapot I could smell the sweet aroma of pear. The tea is a clear, dark yellow orange color. The flavor is initially of rooibos, with a fresh pear finish. The little pear flavor that is present is very fresh, like eating an actual pear. There is a slight green rooibos aftertaste, which is less medicinal than a red rooibos but is still noticeable. Adding sweetener brings out more of the sweet pear flavor and covers up some of the rooibos notes. I added a little milk after the sweetener and it smoothed all of the flavors over, leaving just a lot of the juicy pear taste. It also brought out a litlte creaminess, which I couldn’t find at all before adding the milk.

Overall, this is a nice tea, but one I probably wouldn’t purchase. The pear flavor is perfect, but there is a little too much rooibos taste for me, and almost no creaminess. I think that pear is a difficult flavor to bring out in tea, but this one comes very close if you don’t mind rooibos. Thanks to Mercuryhime for sending me a sample of this one!

-Dry blend has small pieces of green rooibos and large pieces of sunflower petals.
-Dry leaves smell like rooibos with a hint of pear. Tea liquor aroma is strongly of sweet pear.
-Tea liquor is a clear dark yellow orange color.
-Rooibos flavor with a fresh pear finish. Green rooibos aftertaste.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Fair tea. True pear flavor, but rooibos taste is strong. LIttle creaminess.

Sipdown!
This is yet another sample sent to me from Sil :D
A tasty blend of black tea, a little cocoa, & spices, most notably Cardamom.

Another Sil’s Samplebox Sipdown.
This is a very nice lightly roasty oolong. There is an undercurrent of fruitiness, a tongue tingle, & although it’s not a true Wuyi, it does have some of the rockiness to it.
Thanks again, Sil!

i’m watching teen wolf. the entire season in one day basically. watching that much tv in one day is something akin to eating nothing but cake for a day. but i watched it in a half ass way at least, and fondled my teas the rest of the day. multitasking!

also

i should probably buy some more decaf blacks cuz this is a nice option. bye bye rooibos. whatevs.

Still relatively light, smooth, and creamy, a with slight sweetness, when brewed a little stronger, but with a bit more tangy bergamot flavor. Almost no dryness or harshness. The profile is great with light vanilla pastries!

This is surely an EG I’d like to revisit on my Earl Grey quests. Thank you again for it, KiwiDelight!

Tea of the morning here, 2/4 of Upton’s assam sampler.

I don’t have a lot of experience with CTC’s aside from knowing they are produced in a different way than orthodox teas so here’s a short primer for the curious: http://t-buds.com/orthodox-vs-ctc-teas-body-vs-flavor/

I steeped this for 3 minutes but might try it for 2 next time. It is definitely a strong assam, bold and malty with a bit of a winey aftertaste and some bitterness too. Definitely a lot better with milk and sugar and very eye opening. Meh, maybe I’m a tea snob but I much prefer the traditional assam leaf.

I have read this is primarily what they use to make chai with in India but traditionally chai is made with a lot of milk.

Funny, I didn’t get any astringency from this cup, even with a 4.5 minute brew time with near boiling water. Instead, like El Monstro, I found this to be a fruity yunnan with medium body, a nice change from the very rich yunnans I’ve been drinking lately.

SIPDOWN! i recall nothing about this tea, except that i’m not not in love with it. at least i had the chance to try it and with upton’s samples it was cheap and there was lots to it!

Thank you very much for this morning cup of Earl Grey, KiwiDelight!

And what a great cup it was! The bergamot flavor was the primary component, but not overwhelming at all; it was very pleasant, and mildly sweet. I’ve had much bolder, harsher Earl Greys than this, so I’m quite surprised this wasn’t more assertive given the description. It’s actually particularly soft and creamy… so, so smooth. Whatever Upton is doing here, it would be amazing as an EGCreme.

The first and second steep taste very similar, although the second steep has less of that creamy texture, and the bergamot flavor is darker.

(It’s only predictable that my first-ever tea from an exchange is an Earl Grey. Haha. An EG for all milestones…)

Iced tea time again! Although my head’s still pretty messed up, I can kind of taste things again. I can’t tell that it’s somewhat hot outside. Feels so good to me because inside, I’m cold and it’s 74 in here…hahaha.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had this one though it feels like I went through at least 1 1/2 oz of it last year. This is definitely going to be my staple iced tea though. I have 3 pitchers and I’m ready to make iced tea out of them all summer long.

I’ve had my Takeya pitcher since last year and I realize it’s quite difficult to make sure all the tea actually infuses. When I took the infuser tube thing out, the tea up top was bone dry. Anyone have a preferred method for preventing that? I was thinking of just dunking it in the water I put in the pitcher before attaching it to the lid. I really wish I had one like the one DavidsTea is selling where the filter goes down much further into the pitcher :(

Anyway! This is like my ideal straight black iced tea blend. And it’s so cheap! Not even $6 for 125g. It does get a bit plain, I really should just try sweetening it a tad. But honestly I don’t know if I can taste things still, I kind of gave up and have only eaten bread today. Still tastes like Darjeeling and Ceylon to me though so that’s good.

Mostly it’s just thirst quenching, you know. Just refreshing. If the sound of cars didn’t make my head spin, I’d sit on the patio with the pitcher and enjoy being warm.

This is nice tea, but nothing special. It definitely does not live up to the delightful Upton Mao Feng Imperial though seems similar to their Jade Pekoe. It has a mild honeyed flavor, but not much smoke or deeper flavor. The leaves seem to be broken into small pieces, which I didn’t expect. I don’t catch any spice or fruit really. It is just a plain jane non-offensive tea that I probably wouldn’t have even pegged as Keemun had it not been listed on the package as that. It is not bitter, astringent or mineraly which speaks well, but probably best looked at as a bargain tea.

Upton excels at unflavored black tea and black tea blends. Not so much, based on my experience, with flavored teas. The cherry in this one is a Coke-syrupy cherry. Drinkable if you’re light on leaf and steep time. Still haven’t iced it down, but I think that’s when this one would be best.

What about you? Is there a flavored Upton tea that’s actually tasty?

Another sample from Upton Tea Imports. There aren’t too many decaf teas I like but I figured I would try this one out. It definitely smells and tastes like vanilla, but the flavor is a bit thin and wine-y. I think the decaf process removes a lot of flavor from the tea, which is too bad. I added some soymilk to this and it was okay. Will probably finish off the sample I have with some sugar but won’t buy a large size.

I prefer the Vanilla Comoro from Harney and Sons for a vanilla decaf black tea.

I wanted to try a West Java tea so I got a sample of this with my last order.

Wow, to me this tea is nothing like the description that Upton gives it. Sweetness? Delicate flavor? Where?? I got a dark orange cup that was extremely tannic to the point where I could not drink it plain. I am not fond of overly tannic astringent teas so I had to dump some soymilk in here, as well as sugar in order to make it palatable. I plan to finish the cup I have but the rest of this sample is going in the dustbin, bleah. I hope my stomach does not revolt.

Cup of the late morning. I’m trying to finish off last year’s darjeeling samples before I start digging into the new ones I got from Upton (may not be possible).

After steeping I pulled the brew basket out of the cup and am amazed at how green the leaves still are. I really think ff darjeelings are in a class of their own.

It’s been a while since I tried this last. The light yellowish cup is very aromatic and reminds me a lot of flowers. I still don’t get evergreen from this but there’s a slight nuttiness and a lovely fruit essence in my opinion. This is sure a tasty cup of tea! See previous notes for last year’s impressions if interested…

Another tea from this morning. A tasty cup though likely not a re-order. I do like the chocolate notes, though they’re nowhere near as present as laoshan black. they blend nicely with the malty tones in the tea. over all not a bad cup

1/4 of the Upton tea Assam sampler I got yesterday in the mail. Because I really need MORE tea, right?

Anyway I love drinking assams in the morning which is why I went for this sampler. Normally I would put soymilk and sugar in an assam right away but I wanted to at least try a sip of this plain first.

I like it plain which is a good sign, it’s very smooth, malty and has a touch of chocolate. I only steeped mine for 3 minutes and I noticed a lot of the other tasters went for 4 minutes, still I like it at 3. It’s good with a splash of soymilk and at this point doesn’t need sugar in my opinion, although you could certainly add some.

There is a slight tobacco or something in the finish although nothing bothersome. I am enjoying it, a good basic assam.

Another of my morning teas that i’ve been too busy to log. It appears that this is the second time i’ve done that so this may jsut be one of those teas that is a good average every day tea that doesn’t sneak up on you but isn’t bad either. I’ve got more of this in my sample – have i mentioned lately how crazy awesome upton samples are in terms of size and value?!?!? so i’ll try one more time at least. Mostly i recall this being a little malty, but not overly so and not bitter or anything. so yay!

For a anniversary gift, My mother gifted me with some lovely Moroccan Tea Glasses.
They are turquoise and gold and just plain gorgeous.
So, thought I, how can I possibly use these glasses for anything else without first using them as they were originally intended…for tea! (translation: Yah! an excuse to buy tea!)
So, I ordered this from Upton. A proper big tin of it too.
We are real glad I did too.
Because it is over in my gypsy wagon (a camper where we have been living and will be living most of this summer) and after a long morning in a hot field (yes, its hot here already, reaching above 90 degrees) this tea cold-brewed has absolutely hit the spot.
I have also enjoyed it hot.
Hubby even loves this tea, he will be out in the field, and stare up at the sun and say “can’t wait to get back to the camper and have a large, cold glass of that minty tea”
I might have to place another order of it soon, we are flying through the big tin much faster than I expected.
I miss you all! Since living over in a camper most of the time without wifi or anything, I can not write to you all.
But, I am thinking of you each time I have a cuppa.
I bought a little kettle and tea cups from a thrift store and I have a little tea chest over there in the camper.
My hubby makes fun of me.
He says that most people might bring some tea bags, but no, I have teapots and a tea chest of loose tea.
I tell him just because we are living in a camper does not give me the excuse for missing out on a proper cuppa.

Bumping up the rating on this one a little as it was nearly as bitter as the first time i had it. pretty sure i just over steeped it the first time. A decent assam but given all the others i have, I don’t think i’ll restock this once its finished. Not a bad tea but nothing special that warrants a permanent spot in the cupboard.