Zen Tara Tea

A very nice Darjeeling with a very distinct Muscatel note. Sweet and wine-like. Somewhat astringent, slightly dry, reminding me of a sweet, dry wine.

Very enjoyable.

Again not sure who I got this one from.

This steeped up rather dark for a white tea.
It has a light honey dew taste and a strong earthy taste, which pretty well takes over.
There was some bitterness which may have been a result of a slight over steeping. Darn finicky white tea.

No notes yet.

I just finished a bag of Ginger & Tumeric. A bit of a lingering sweetness on the finish, but I did enjoy this tea for its stomach soothing properties.

This is another hojicha/houjicha that will likely need to grow on me to really appreciate it. If found it to have a bit of a woodsy flavor and a lightness of body. It also has a vague, floral aftertaste that I can’t really place- almost like a subtle osmanthus.

I went to bed early last night, so I cold brewed my daily tea in kind of a rush. In fact, I had zero idea what the ingredients were in this (aside from that it was a green tea) when I made it. But when I tried it this afternoon (after an overly long 16 hour steep, I took a nap and forgot about it!) the flavors popped right away. I love when you can guess exactly what’s in a tea without having to know it—I can be pretty good with floral and fruity tastes, but honestly some citruses I find impossible to place.

The lemon is most prominent, bright and perhaps a bit more sour than in other blends I’ve had, like it was steeped with an actual lemon slice. The passion fruit is a soft, exotic taste that really tones down and also compliments the lemon, and the chrysanthemum adds a lovely floral edge that I don’t think is overpowering at all. Citrusy, fruity, floral is a common combo, but I think this is a really unique take on it and so tasty!

No notes yet.

I wasn’t was wowed with this one as I thought I would be. It still is enjoyable though (very good iced too).

Backlog:

This is a tea that really benefits from a few minutes to cool slightly. When it’s piping hot, it comes off tasting weird. But, after a few minutes (give it at least 2 minutes, and a little more if you have the patience), the flavors develop nicely. Put it for a chill in the refrigerator, and you have a mighty fine iced tea! YUM!

Wow, this is one of the better coconut teas I have had in a while. It reminds me of the black tea in my coconut cream chai from Tealish, but I love this – straight up.

The coconut flavour is strong and made very creamy from the vanilla. I would drink this as a dessert tea, but as it is, I’m loving it as a morning tea too. But hey, I’ll take coconut all day every day.

Thank you LiberTEAS for the sample! You know what I like n_-

Yum! I was inspired to order this in honor of the Year of the Dragon, I think mostly because it’s different than most Year of the Dragon Teas because it’s not a Dragon Well. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Dragon Well, but, I’ve already plenty of Dragon Well in my cupboard thanks to another Year of the Dragon tea (Andrews & Dunham), so I probably wouldn’t have ordered this if it had just been a Dragon Well.

And I’m really glad I did order it, because it is so yummy. The flavors of lemon and passion fruit are two that I wouldn’t normally think of putting together, but they work together very well. The lemon is tart and tangy, and the passion fruit gives a sweetness to the cup to soften the lemon a little. The chrysanthemum gives just a hint of floral note to the cup, just something a little different. Everything really works together very nicely.

I needed something to really inspire me to get my butt cleaning the apartment this morning, so I dug through my sample box from Anne from Liberteas and this is what I settled on. The leaves smell so good! I love coconut so I was especially excited about this one. Love watching the little coconut pieces floating during infusion!

The tea brewed smells equally as delicious. I’m finding that I really enjoy a nice cup of black tea to start the day. I’m enjoying this one because it tastes strong to me. I’m not getting too much coconut flavor, but it’s definitely in there. A nice balance. I generally don’t add anything to my tea but out of curiosity I added a bit of sugar halfway through the cup and really enjoyed the second half.

I just may have to get my hands on some more of this stuff…

I’m the first here to review this? Really?

OK, well, this is a tea company that I’ve wanted to try for a while, but I didn’t know which teas to order … I finally settled on this and their new Fortune Dragon Green Tea – as well as a box of their tea infused truffles (come on, you knew I couldn’t resist those!)

This was a very good choice. The flavor is so creamy and coconut-y. The vanilla tastes very natural. It is sweet and creamy but I’m not finding it to be too sweet. I like that the base is a Nilgiri tea rather than the standard Ceylon. It gives it a bold richness. Overall, a very pleasant tea.

I can’t recall if this is the exact brand of Chunmee I drink, the lady who works at the tea store forgot to write down the brand name, but I’m willing to put money on this one. If not, Chunmee is Chunmee.

Basically, it’s such a green tea it almost makes me want to laugh. I don’t mean that in the fact it’s ‘more’ green, grassy or anything. It’s just a green tea. I could not expect more or less out of such a tea, so there’s not much worth noting. It’s my everyday green tea, and it’s extraordinarily cheap, at least the brand I’m drinking.

The only thing noticeable is that it’s slightly acidic, which gives it a bit of a more astringent bite as it hits your tongue. I like it.

Ahhh, I remember drinking this in my cottage in Northern Latvia with excommunicated Roman Catholic Pope. It was a delightful supplement to our conversation about how plaid is the perfect balance between smart wear and cute wear!

This is such a wonderful, mellow black tea. It’s mild enough that it doesn’t really have a tannic edge, and the first steep the best almost perfumed black tea smell. Second steep doesn’t smell as heavenly, but is still wonderful to sip.

By far the most predominant feature I picked up in this blend is the unmistakable scent of fermenting apples. Honeydew appears for an instant but then the flavor flattens out. The addition of honey took down the fermented fruit smell but still didn’t leave me with much to recommend it.

Thanks to Geoffrey for a sample of this tea!

In comparison to Rishi’s Yunnan Golden Buds (hereafter RYGB), these leaves are smaller and darker (less pure gold). I think that is because this isn’t a pure bud tea. The liquor is also much darker than RYGB (this is more like a dark brownish-red, whereas RYGB is a light red with a disctinctive gold ring around the edge of the cup).

There was no bitterness or astringency, and had a definite presence of honey sweetness, and cinnamon or some other spice. The aroma and overall flavor are not as strong as RYGB, so I am rating it slightly lower. However, this is still a delicious Yunnan Gold.

I really like this tea. Really, really liked it. It was great steaming hot, it was great when it cooled off, and it’s delicious over ice. I added a little sugar once, just in case, but the extra sweetness didn’t help. It’s perfect on its own.

That’s the end of this sample packet – I found that it was an interesting alternative to the usual nutty-tasting Chinese green teas. Despite its sour flavour I have noticed that it gets a bit sweeter as the tea cools off a bit, so it does have some redeeming qualities which was I why I didn’t completely slag this tea. ;)

I’m glad I cut back the steeping time a bit because I like this cup better than the last one. It’s still grassy in flavour but not as overwhelmingly as it was before and the sourness isn’t as pronounced either. The sweetness is a bit clearer, and I actually can taste a bit of fruitiness that could be interpreted as the plum flavour people talk about with this type of tea.

The name ‘Chunmee’ always makes me laugh – I mean precious eyebrows? I consider my eyebrows to be a lot of things but ‘precious’ generally isn’t one of them. The dry tea does sort of bear a resemblance I guess – the leaves are twisted into short little curves, though to me it’s still a bit of a stretch.

The tea brews up fairly dark for a green tea, turning the water a sort of dark-golden colour. Right away I can taste the sourness in the description, it’s not exactly gack-worthy but it takes some getting used to. In my head it’s not so much like sour plums as it’s comparable to a crisp, dry, white wine like a sauvignon blanc. The body of the tea is rather grassy and the aftertaste has a touch of sweet that I wish was a bit stronger.

The resteep (@ 3:30 min) is much mellower, but it still has a hint of that dry, grass-like sourness. The sweetness at the end is a bit stronger however – possibly because the other flavour elements aren’t drowning it out.

All in all I’d say that this isn’t my cup of tea (pun not intended…okay maybe a little) although I think that might be down to personal tastes rather than this being a crappy tea – I haven’t really tried enough chunmees to form an option of how this particular tea holds up to others of the same kind.

On their site, Zen Tara calls this Pu-erh & Blood Orange Blend, but the package they sent me says “Organic Red Tiger Tea” so I put that in the title too.

Open the package and it smells like fresh citrus fruit, mostly orange. Yum!

The liquor never gets as dark as other pu-erhs do, and really all I can taste is the oranges and grapefruit. Mostly the oranges. I get a little spice in there, maybe the licorice, but not much, just an accent. It kind of reminds me of those orange spice kind of teas, except juicier and just much better. Also with those orange spice teas, it’s usually a black tea that it is blended with (I’m thinking Constant Comment here-side note-Constant Comment was the first tea I ever had with sugar in it, a patient’s sister made it for me, and really it was pretty good.), but the pu-erh is so subtle in this, you almost can’t tell it’s there. The mellowness and earthiness of the pu-erh goes soooo well with the citrus. Seriously, this tastes and smells like fresh oranges squeezed into your cup of pu-erh, without the pulp and that sometimes acrid smell from the pith. I’m talking good fresh oranges. It’s very fresh tasting.

Oh my gosh, I love this one. Quite excellent.

I love the medley of white tea, fragrant jasmine and sweet honeydew. Steep for about 2-3 mins and you’ll be rewarded with a tea reminiscent of spring time. Great to chase away the winter blues.