Zen Tea

Hopefully this will not be the last review I ever get to write for a Zen tea? Please don’t deprive me of my favorites forever, Zen! This is a decent enough no-caff option. Blueberry, apples, hibiscus, rosehips. There are little leaves that look like blackberry leaves that aren’t listed in the ingredients list, so that is questionable. Possibly using 1 3/4 teaspoons is the problem, but this one is mostly hibiscus which I don’t love. Definite blueberry flavor, but that takes a backseat to the hibiscus/rosehips. I don’t get the ‘cream’ flavor from the name, especially with the hibiscus involved, but there is a slight sweetness. I would LOVE this blend if there wasn’t hibiscus included.
Steep #1 // 1 3/4 teaspoons for a full mug// few minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep

I’m looking at Zen’s website to post this review and it looks like they took MANY teas off the sold out list? Maybe it’s a mistake though. So it’s worth another look if you were thinking of buying some teas.

Here’s Hoping TTB

So nice! Smooth, creamy coconut goodness.

Mainly posting this to see what is happening with steepster…. I liked this more than I previously thought! Maybe the flavors are melding with age. I even like how rich the rooibos is.

Another from Zen… a no caffeine option FULL of flavor! Rooibos, almonds, calendula petals and plenty of flavor. It tastes like marzipan (almonds, cherry) with under notes of maybe not the most genuine of vanilla flavors, but it isn’t the worst vanilla flavor I’ve sipped either. The rooibos is a great quality and adds lovely flavor as well to that deep red cup. I always think that calendula petals add sweetness too… I wish I could try a brew of ONLY calendula petals to try out my theory. A tasty second steep too. This is a great blend I haven’t seen much of anywhere else. I love the elements that fit together for this one!
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug//few minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 minute steep

Zentealife.com is having a clearance on their teas! Use code ‘CLEARANCE’ for 50%-80% off the teas. I guess they won’t be selling teas for a while and are focusing on their teaware. Many teas are sold out but some of my faves are still available. I recc Sweet Tropical Island, Chocolate Mint & Phoenix Pearls but almost everything is delicious!

Here’s Hoping TTB

Mmm, so good! After 3 minutes, the tea was a deep coffee brown and I was thinking I’d over-steeped and would need to add milk to offset the bitterness. But not so. This was a cup of smooth, full-bodied, malty deliciousness! I’ve been so impressed with most of the samples I’ve tried from Zen Tea. Definitely going to have to place an order one of these days!

I wouldn’t call this a very chocolatey chai but it DOES have an interesting flavor to it. There is a relatively nice spiciness to it, a nice balance in flavor of the spices and the black tea has a nice depth to it while not being too astringent. The brew color is an amber brown. The base black tea here seems slightly deeper than Zen’s vanilla chai or coconut chai. I don’t see too many cocoa elements in the blend and didn’t see any of the mini meringues in my two teaspoons. Maybe it’s just my sample. The second steep has even more of a full flavor. I MUST use the suggested two teaspoons though… maybe even more. I like this one. I’m sipping a couple more chai blends before the temp hits 75 this week!
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoon for a full mug// 10 minutes after boiling // 4 minute steep
Steep #2 // 10 minutes after boiling // 6+ minute steep

Zentealife.com is having a clearance on their teas! Use code ‘CLEARANCE’ for 50%-80% off the teas. I guess they won’t be selling teas for a while and are focusing on their teaware. This is sad because I like many of their blends.

GCTTB

So this is one of the teas that had just one teaspoon left so I pulled it from the box and honestly I am very glad I did. This is a lovely black tea. Sweet and bready with notes of caramel and perhaps even the slightest bit of smoke.

So smooth, from start to finish. Chocolate, bread, malt. Exactly what I needed today.

Yesterday was another clearing, shuffling, sorting kind of day. I am attempting to make space in what is/was my office for an army cot so that I can see whether I will be woken and kept awake by my neighbours—on both sides, omg—in that space as well.

As is, I am woken btwn 3 and 4 by some sort of electro-magnetic current and kept awake from then until whenever, usual 7 am, just in time for the condo construction to start.

I’ve tried going to bed at 7 and 8 and 9 pm to be able to get some rest, but nope. On one side, the neighbours trail past my bedroom with gangs of friends and family and tenants, each with buzzing, pinging cellphones, roaming currents, whatever, and two big scary barking dogs. These people all work shifts, so there is always action in the night and early morning. They also seem to have an overwhelming number of big screens on through the night which somehow affect my brain and its ability to shutdown/stay in shutdown mode. When they turn them on, especially in the night, it is like a massive electrical surge in my space (though we are not connected).

On the other side, it’s a young family with two kids and their extended family and friends. They all seem to have an exercise addiction—elliptical, wii, various workouts on old wooden floors with programs connecting devices and ear buds and whatever else through Bluetooth and/or wifi. The husband comes home at 3 or 5 am and he and his partner yell at each other in the quiet night. Not often with the fighting, but whatever. Maybe coming home at 3 or 5 is usual though. Then, of course, early waking and more exercise, of one kind or another. These people don’t seem to sleep in the night either.

Ugh.

Ok, maybe this is more a life review than a tea review.

Back to the point, every time I shuffle things around at home, I shuffle around my tea order/disorder. New forgotten ones come into focus.

And here we are.

This one is so lovely. I am grateful that it is deliciously here to soothe, motivate, and uplift me.

Onward!

Delighted to have come across this happy standard. Beautiful.

Seems that I am reaching for straight up teas these days.

Zen Tea Life, come back. We miss you.

I keep tripping over the box of teas I put aside when I doled them out for Sil. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s been a month, but the opportunity for revisiting them all sooner rather than later presented itself, so here we are.

I love this tea. I often carry it with me throughout the day. It’s a tea that when I don’t want to make tea decisions of what to drink never fails to please me: slightly chocolatey, slightly caramel, slightly sweet, malty and yet smooth, a not in your face kind of Chinese black—I was under the impression that this one that I have is from Yunnan, but their website claims the new one in stock is from Hunan— with each steep bringing different nuance. My favourite steep is the second and the third. The trick, I think, with this tea is to steep it with cooler water to bring out the scented notes. I don’t find it to be too finicky. Nonetheless, sometimes I get better results on different days.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of this personally, but I think it’s a decent enough hong cha. There’s a lot of maltiness and cocoa to the flavor, along with perhaps a touch of fruit. Towards the middle/end of the session, I started to pick up a bit of a caramel note as well. When I say I wasn’t a big fan of this tea, it doesn’t mean I don’t like it, just that it’s not really to my preference. It reminded me a bit of a “Golden Monkey” tea. I imagine that avid fans of dianhong would really appreciate this tea.

GCTTB Round 6

God bless you, Tea Sommelier education!

Tonight I’m drinking/eating the best meal I’ve had literally all of 2017 – and I mean to be fair it’s only been twenty eight days but still…

So, I planned this whole thing out as I was going through the tea box for this first time; I saw a traditional black Darjeeling and I remembered the tea/cheese pairing exercise we did as part of the course. I’ve casually practiced this since doing it, but I haven’t really made a big thing out of it yet nor have I revisited cheese pairings with Darjeeling so I figured why not do both! After all, I did receive a Brie baker for Christmas that I hadn’t gotten to try out yet.

So to break it down, my tea was obviously this one but the meal I had was a baked brie topped with red pepper jelly (which was cooked along with the brie) spread over the most heavenly cranberry hazlenut crackers. I know that sounds like a lot of flavours going on but it was thought out, and all came together really wonderfully. The high fat content and butteryness of the brie eliminate the astringency in the mouthfeel of the Darjeeling which can sometimes be unpleasant, and at the same time the butter acts as a flavour carrier. This leaves the beautiful muscatel notes which Darjeeling is so prized for which are drawn out and exaggerated by the sweetness of the cranberry in the crackers.

So like I said, well thought out/planned out – and just orgasmic as well. I was literally moaning with nearly every bite. My only regret is that I didn’t have someone to share it with that would have properly appreciated it.

https://scontent.fyzd1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16406516_10209458626836529_1517805753311558582_n.jpg?oh=9f2c8ee233b7d1d05860ab274a72a453&oe=5902631B

There’s a crappy quality picture of it in its full glory for you all to be jealous of – and of course it wouldn’t be complete without a song pairing for auditory stimulation as well so here was my selection:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDxhugRKZ8g&index=3&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ

And oh what a night it was!

GCTTB Round 6

Thanks to whomever added this one to the tea box! I currently stock a white Darjeeling from Avongrove which I’ve been enjoying, so I was curious to try out a black Darjeeling to see how they compared. I mean, I knew there would be differences because of the tea type but there were qualities I was curious about to see if they’d carry over.

What I can say is that as far as Darjeeling goes, I found this one to be rather smooth with only the slightest bit of characteristic Darjeeling astringency/bite. That’s kind of in line with what I’ve noticed from my white Avongrove Darjeeling; it’s rather gentle and mild overall. Otherwise, this was really floral which was lovely and then it had a bit of soft malt and just a hint of that traditional muscatel quality in the finish as it was cooling down. I definitely didn’t read the muscat while it was still really hot though.

Pleasant, easy to drink and if nothing else always a good learning experience.

I found this overly roasty and smokey/tobacco last time I tried it plain, so I decided to finish off my cup by making a soy milk latte. It is very good that way.

Distinctly charcoal toasted, slightly sweet with pleasantly toasty grain notes. The smell/taste of the brew reminds me of chewing tobacco and marijuana smoke. Notes of minerals/dust are joined with roasted grains, tea tannins, and a heavy mouthfeel. The sweetness really comes in during the second and third steeps where the charcoal notes outweigh the sweet toastyness. Normally the toasted flavour brings the sweetness, but in this case I feel like the base tea would have produced some sweetness regardless of how it was preserved/processed. This is a very high quality oolong and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys charcoal roasted oolongs. It is quite complex and is best enjoyed through multiple steeps.

Unfortunately I’m not a fan of charcoal roasted oolongs because there is that touch of char/smoke I find unpleasant. That isn’t the tea’s fault, though, so I’m going to rate it with that in mind.

Cocoa, Malt, Plums, Smoke, Vanilla, and Muscatel are all pretty good descriptors, though I would add “Leather” to the mix. Malt, Leather, Smoke, and Cocoa are the best adjectives in my opinion. I am loving the brewed leaf smell, though it reminds me of the blends its often mixed with like English Breakfast and some rose blends. It is also very smooth and has a solid amount of natural sweetness, but dry bitter-sweetness like cocoa.

Evol, you might gasp, but I decided to power steep the entire sample Gong Fu. It actually turned out really nice with super short steeps. Cocoa almost every time. First was 14 due to timing of pouring, and the second 5, 7, 8, 10 and then stop. I actually liked this tea more cooled down closer to 170 F instead of 180 F since I caught more of the nuances with that temperature. The last steep was more malt than anything else with the fading cocoa and leather.

I feel a little buzzed and weighty after this one. A little bit of pressure on my skull…I am mildly tea drunk or too frickin’ drunk of caffeine lol. I did randomly look up that this has a higher concentration of geraniol, an alcohol in the essential oil of roses among other plants. That is what makes me think this is a bit rosy. I don’t know if it is contributing to the mild delirium.

As much as I as I enjoyed the smoke and the cocoa, I am not sure I would drink this often. I pretty much have the same opinion about Keemums in that they are good teas if I am in the mood for mega malt and if it’s good quality. This one comes to that mark for me ’cause of cocoa and leather, but it might not for others. I liked the body a little bit more than the Nepal, but the honey note in the Nepal off sets its dryness. Again, thank you so much Evol! Now, for some water!

This is a black tea, but is extremely smooth. Lots of tannins, but I steeped about 2.5 minutes in 350 mL 95*C water and it was perfect. No hint of bitterness or being overly tannic as stronger black teas can be. Not that I would describe this as a strong tea, more of a medium intensity. Very classic black tea flavor, fully oxidized and full of flavor.

GCTTB (round 6) entry

I’ve come to the conclusion I really like peach flavoured things. I also really like ginger and black tea. This is one of my favourite flavour combos of all time.

Brewed 500 mL hot water (just under boiling) for 5 minutes and it was plenty strong. Lots of sweet peach, but not overpoweringly artificial. Some spicy ginger, lots of black tea flavour.

Finally a sipdown. This was my first experience with bamboo leaf, and I’m not inclined to try some more blends that use it. The problem with such a light tea is that you get so much in your sample that it isn’t really just a sample any more. My sample was only 15g I think …this did about 15 pots of tea. Anyway, I didn’t want to get rid of it, it is a lovely tea and all. I’m a bit bored with the flavour right now, but I’m sure I’ll be back.

Overall, very fruity with lots of mellow (not acidic) flavours of lemongrass, bamboo leaf, some sort of berry? (it isn’t generic berry flavour, but I can’t pinpoint which distinct berry it is), goji, and tropical fruits (papaya, pineapple, banana).