Suzi

Very basic jasmine tea. It’s like the ‘default’ version. The jasmine tea you get served in Chinese restaurants. It’s light and floral, fragrant and flavorful, but the brew doesn’t blow me away with awesome.

Of course, maybe the only reason I’m thinking of Chinese restaurants is because I’m using a metal teapot today that I found in the back of a cupboard at work.

This is one of those teas that I like and drink frequently, but never get around to talking about. It’s like drinking this relaxes me to the point that I just don’t want to be bothered with forming sentences and figuring out how to write about it.

Momo Oolong Super Grade is a very fresh-off-the-tree sort of peach, light and refreshing. The oolong gives this a slightly floral flavor. It’s just the sort of thing to drink on a dull afternoon; it tastes good whether hot or iced.

Doesn’t work so hot for multiple steeps. The second brew is noticeably weaker than the first, and the third is basically colored water.

Pretty fragrance, weak flavor.

It smells very fresh and clean. Green grass and pineapple…that’s what the scent makes me think about.
But when I drink the tea…I don’t really taste anything. Maybe a vague sort of citrus note.

The real selling point for this blend, besides the smell, is the colorful flower petals that make the tea leaves colorful. But the effect of all that gets completely lost when you use a teabag, as I did.

Well, at least this smelled nice!

The tea looks like little rolled-up balls of oolong leaf, with the occasional rosebud mixed in. When I sniffed it in the store, I couldn’t detect the rose but my boyfriend claimed it was dead-on, so I bought it. ($12.99 for 2 oz seemed pretty pricey, but the owner of MV Tea Village was so sweet that I wanted to get something.) The owner emphasized that the teas he carries come from higher altitudes, away from the pollution. So that’s cool.

The brew is light and refreshing. To my delight, it smells like a freshly-cut pink rose. The taste is also quite rose-y, but a little green, too. Drinking this makes me feel like a fairy princess sipping flower nectar or something equally girly.

Fantastic.

Adagio’s White Peach was #2 favorite from that company, after their WONDERFUL Blueberry black tea. However, I think it’s been bumped down by the Gemini blend. Mixing in White Monkey and White Peony tones the fruitiness down without weakening the flavor…does that make sense? It becomes more subtle and sophisticated, i think, instead of screaming “I am a peachy piece of peachiness!” to your tongue.

I don’t usually pay much attention to astrological signs, but this tea blend suits me so wonderfully (yes, I am a Gemini) that I might have to start reading horoscopes every morning :-p

I’m a little disappointed with Adagio’s Blackberry Tea.

For starters, the blackberry flavor is really light. I could hardly taste it when the tea was hot; as it cooled the flavor became more noticeable but it never became the focal point of the beverage. It remained a subtle hint of blackberry in the background of a standard black tea. On the plus side, it was definitely blackberry – not raspberry or strawberry.

The tea was also pretty sensitive. I over-steeped it by a minute, a minute and a half max but that was too long. It was quite bitter.

I am glad I bought the tea, because I think it’ll be good for experimenting. It may yet make a decent iced tea, since the flavor seems to come out more at a cooler temperature.

I associate muscat flavoring with gummi candy. Don’t know why. Wait – yes I do. I used to eat tons of Japanese candy as a kid, and their grape flavor isn’t that weird syrup nastiness found in American candy, but the muscat flavor. That must be the source of the association.

So this is very sweet. Almost cloyingly so. But the black tea tempers it well and prevents the brew from being overwhelming. Like other people have commented, sometimes it can make you think of bubblegum. Definitely has an artificial ring to it.

To me, this is an incredibly relaxing tea. I was first introduced to it – as were most of its fans, I think – at one of Aveda’s retail stores. You walk in, and the first thing the sales associate does is offer you a cup of this tisane. At the time, I was very unfamiliar with herbal teas, so the sweetness of this really surprised me. I mean, I could recognize the peppermint “tingle” but the other herbs were completely new to me at the time.

This is a great blend for relaxing. The licorice stands out as the dominant flavor, but it is pretty well blended into a sweet, refreshing brew. Not sweet like sugar, but a more natural form of sweetness. Very smooth, very nice.

This is interesting. Good sleepy-time tea. The chamomile is definitely the dominate note, and makes for a mellow brew. But then the ginger comes sidling up to you and makes your tongue tingle, but just as you become aware of its spiciness it’s neutralized by the light sweetness of apple.

So I looked on the SBS Teas website and couldn’t find this tea, and my (admittedly half-assed) attempts to locate a description didn’t turn anything up. Oh well. I mean, the name’s fairly self-explanatory, right? Strawberries and Kiwis. Fairly fruity, I should think.

The dry leaves smell strongly of strawberry.

You know how some teas age better than others? It seems that way in my experience; the tin of jasmine tea I bought in Chinatown tasted the same as the day I bought it when sampled several years later, but my favorite Valentine’s blend from Adagio often loses much of its flavor over the course of a year. This ‘Strawberry Kiwi Tropicana’ falls into the latter category; as I drink it hot and fresh I can’t taste anything remotely kiwi. Heck, I can barely taste the strawberry.

As it cools the fruity flavor becomes a little stronger. It’s strawberry, but a tarter, greener berry. It’s like those orange strawberries that just aren’t ripe yet but pickers hide them at the bottom of your box.

It doesn’t taste bad, it’s just pretty meh. I think that’s simply because the flavor’s never strong. I’d rank this at a ‘weak teabag’ level.

For what it’s worth, the image/ingredients list of this tea mentions that there will be dried peach pieces in the tea, and in my bag of it not a peach bit appears.

This was a very vegetable-like peach tea. By this, I guess I mean that while there is a note that would definitely be peachish, it’s not a sweet tea. It reminds me more of an extremely mild asparagus or broccoli, with a bit of peach juice dribbled on the side.

I haven’t tasted a peach tea like this before, so in a way it’s nice. ‘Peach Oolong’ from SBS Teas doesn’t taste like the syrupy sweet tea you get pre-bottled from the major beverage companies (‘enhanced’ with mountains of high fructose corn syrup) or the lighter, fresher flavor found in Adagio’s blends. Trying new flavors is good, right? But it’s not what I was looking for, either. So I feel somewhat disappointed by that.

I received a teabag of this stuff in a traveling tea box (not the one currently circulating Steepster) and it fills me with dread. As a kid, I never liked bitter melon, and the idea that someone would grind one up and use it for a tisane grosses me out. But, since childhood I have learned to enjoy broccoli and to tolerate squash, so perhaps this won’t be as bad as I fear.

(Note: Supposedly this stuff will help maintain healthy blood sugar levels. Not that mine are abnormal in any way, but I thought I’d mention it. I only have the one teabag so I wouldn’t be able to monitor long term effects, anyway.)

Smells kinda like roasted rice. Hmmm. Unexpected.

Tastes kinda like genmai-cha, but without the green tea. So toasty rice. I can taste the ghost of the melon I so dreaded as a kid, but the dehydration process seems to have tamed it. It’s not nearly as gross as I expected.

That said, it’s not pleasant or tasty, either. It leaves an almost…dusty? aftertaste after I swallow. This isn’t something you drink for the taste, but for the health benefits. But to be honest, if I was worried about my blood sugar I’d find a tastier way to fix it!

This is a very interesting blend of tea. (Tisane to you herbal-free purists.) Every sip seems to reveal a new flavor. My first sip, when the tea is piping hot, is very creamy. The strong almond flavor makes me think of marzipan. It feels very smooth on the tongue.

As the tea cools, the hibiscus in the blend (nearly invisible at the beginning) grows in strength. It’s as if it floats to the surface, for it remains a top note, the tangy tip of the flavor iceberg. The middle notes are chocolate, that lovely almond, and the hint of something fruity. Perhaps the apple or the pear?

Now that the tea is cold, the blood orange’s citrus tang rises to the surface with the ever stronger hibiscus presence. Interesting.

“The base teas are Assam and Keemun; the addition of Chinese Lychee tea…and small amounts of Lapsang offer a hint of smokiness.”

HINT of smokiness my @$$! (I felt bad cussing in my review.)
My quest for lychee once again goes awry. This blend sounded like it had the potential to be very interesting, with the fruitiness of lychee and the other black teas to mitigate the terrifying Lapsang Souchong, but unfortunately the smoky flavor dominates the cup.

This will be jumping into that traveling tea box whenever it finally makes its way to me, for sure!

I drank this last night at PF Chang’s. Normally I don’t bother to log the teas I drink in restaurants, but this oolong was so good that it deserved an honorable mention. I didn’t think to ask for the brand while at the restaurant, but thanks to the magic of Google I was able to track it down.

Revolution Tea uses pyramid-shaped bags for their teas, and the Dragon Eye Oolong is packed full of fruity goodness. I was really impressed with it; normally you can tell right away if a tea is bagged or loose just based on the strength of the flavor, but I had to open up the teapot and confirm visually because it tasted so good.

It was a balanced tea that was quite peachy, with a bit of tartness that I attribute to the apricot. Compared to many peach teas I’ve had, which tend to be super-sweet with an aftertaste of orange rind (several American brands) or cloying, Dragon Eye Oolong had a more adult flavor. More subdued. More smoky?

Anyway, quite good. I plan to buy this one soon.

So I’ve never actually drank an English Breakfast before. Hmm. Well, I suppose I did when I was in London a few years ago and had tea every morning in the hotel dining room. That was certainly breakfast tea, and it was certainly an English breakfast, but was it officially an English breakfast tea on the label? I mean, if you’re in England wouldn’t they just call it breakfast tea anyway?

But I got this teabag in a giftbox of assorted flavors, so I’m trying it out. It’s nice. Kinda generic. Assam is the generic black upon which most flavored teas are built upon, right? I’m so ignorant about the various black tea…

I do tend to like flavored teas above regular black teas, so this tastes very uninteresting and plain to me. If I had honey or sugar I’d mix it in, but I’m at work and I’ve got nothing.

Meh. That’s all I’ve got to say.

A spicy, peppery brew, but slightly sweet. It makes me think of root beer blended with cinnamon, which ain’t much of a surprise since one of the ingredients is sarsaparilla root. It’s not bad. In fact, I suspect my boyfriend would enjoy it quite a bit as he’s a huge root beer fan. There’s also a strong licorice note.

It’s a bagged tea. A bagged tisane, I should say, since there aren’t any tea leaves here.

I’ve got a persistent cough at the moment, so if this could just pull out whatever toxins are causing the cough, that would be just swell!

I received a little package this morning from auraTeas this morning with six little tea samples in it. The first one I picked out to try – the tea that had sparked my interest in the company – was the Formosa Natural Wuhe Honey Black Tea.

This has the smoothest mouthfeel of any tea I’ve ever tasted. It’s amazing – it almost feels silky! There is sweet honey, but it isn’t cloying at all. It’s very delicate, and blends wholly with the black tea. There isn’t a hint of bitterness!

I feel very peaceful and blissed out as I drink this. It’s just so…balanced. I’m definitely going to have to order more – my sample’s already all used up!

So this is hardly an epic, awesome tea (Dynasty teas simply aren’t ever going to appear with such words attached to them) but I just LOVE the name. Chinese Restaurant tea.

Many of the Chinese restaurants around here will serve jasmine tea or oolong tea with your meal…not wishing to take any chances, Dynasty blends a mix of oolong and jasmine with a bit of green tea tossed in for their teabags, and I would swear to you that at least half the restaurants around here (the ones on the cheaper end of the scale) use the Dynasty blend. This leaves me wondering which came first. Did the Dynasty brand base their ‘Chinese Restaurant’ flavor on what Chinese restaurants are serving, or are all these Chinese restaurants serving Dynasty’s tea because the name implies it’s exactly what they should be serving? Chicken or egg?

Anyway, I like it. This is the flavor of tea I was exposed to when I was a child. I grew up on it. It’s a good, strong tea that cuts the grease and tastes great with most kinds of food, so it makes me happy.

Oh, this smells funky as the teabag soaks. Like fish. That’s really a nasty smell for my first cup of the day. I hope it doesn’t taste like fish or I will have one seriously unhappy mouth.

The tea itself isn’t that bad…definitely tastes like dirt but with an almost sweet note. But ugh, that smell! Every time I lift the cup to my lips I am grossed out by it. I’m gonna go dump this out.

(I can’t remember if I’ve had Puerh tea before, but this Stash teabag is NASTY and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone!)

This is my knockout tea for night-time. When I can’t sleep, I just brew a pot up and by the time I’ve finished my first mug I’m groggy and off to bed.

It’s got a strong herbal flavor; I can really taste the mint and the citrusy lemon but beyond that the flavors all blend together. (That and I’ve never tasted most of the ingredients individually so I couldn’t tell you what they taste like, anyway.)

It’s called ‘Psychic’ because this tisane is supposed to open your mind to higher knowledge, or something, but it’s not an effect I’ve noticed. It gives me very lucid, vivid dreams though. That’s pretty cool.

This was the free tea with Lupicia’s December 2009 newsletter. I’ve had it before – it’s one of their annual Christmas blends – and a tin of the decaffeinated Carol currently sits in my tea cupboard. But here I am, thirsty at work, so I might as well use this Carol teabag for a refreshing drink!

The strawberry flavor is pretty strong. Lupicia teas tend to be very fruity and heavily perfumed; Carol is no exception. When brewed I don’t really taste much vanilla, but the strawberry is rather creamy and I assume that’s the influence of the vanilla? Maybe?

I’m debating whether I want to buy a tin of the loose tea because the tin is so cute. Is that a silly reason to buy tea?

Every few weeks I’ll spot this in my tea cupboard and think, “That was rather expensive, I’d better give it a go and see if I can prepare it better this time.”

It never works. It’s always a bitter tea, no matter how carefully I watch the clock and fuss with the temperature. I tried following the instructions suggested by johnquix, two minutes @ 175 degree, and still bitter. Ugh. I really ought to swap this one away.

Last night my boyfriend’s aunt put a box of this tea in my Christmas stocking. I was so touched that she actually remembered that I like tea :-p Maybe she just asked my boyfriend behind my back, but it was still a great choice!

So I don’t have a refined tongue that can tell the difference between one sencha or another, but this is definitely the best I’ve had in a tea bag form. The flavor is strong with only a single minute’s steep, which is fantastic. It’s green and vegetal, with that fabulous roasted grass flavor. (Well, that’s the best way I can think to describe green tea to other people :-p ) I imagine drinking this tea with milk and I think it’d taste like green tea ice cream. If I had some milk, I’d try that out right now.

It’s really neat to see how the tea leaves expanded in the pyramid bag. When it was dry, the little leaves barely filled a third of the bag’s space. Now, after soaking for a minute, they’re pushing against the walls of the bag on all sides. There’s a lot of little fannings, but there’s some nice big leaves too. Pyramid bags are so cool – you can see all the action clearly!

I mean, loose leaves should always be the way to go, but for convenience it’s hard to argue with a teabag, and this World Market store brand ain’t half bad.