Suzi

Thank you LiberTEAS for sending me a sample of Tropical Explosion.

The coconut and pineapple are the strongest notes. They balance well with the white tea, creating a blend that isn’t very sweet, but still decidedly fruity. There’s a bit of a mint effect from the tea, that refreshed/clean/slightly tingling feeling? I wonder what causes that. (At first I thought I was crazy, but it looks like JaneFan tasted it too.)

I don’t usually go for a lot of tropical fruit flavors, so this isn’t a blend I would have picked out myself. I’m so glad I got a chance to try it, and just might have to order more in the future!

My previous Earl Grey experience is limited to cheap tea bags, which I never enjoyed, so I always assumed I wouldn’t like this. But I’ve had a sample from Lupicia around for ages now, and I thought now was the time to try it.

Lots and lots of bergamot. I never thought of Earl Grey as a fruity tea before, but Lupicia’s blend is heavy on the citrus note. The tea is very smooth and refreshing, especially iced.

This was on sale at Mitsuwa this week, so I bought a big ol’ bottle of it. I had not tried it before.
It’s the best pre-bottled jasmine tea I’ve ever had! The floral flavor is really strong, but the tea remains very light and refreshing. Really awesome iced.

((As a comparison, the other prepackaged jasmine tea I usually drink is Adagio’s. It’s pretty good too, but if I compare it side-by-side with Ito En’s I can taste a slight bitterness in Adagio’s tea, which I believe is the preservative they add to their “pure” tea. ))

This is so refreshing. I really like how strong and vibrant the flavor is. Most pear teas I have tend to be kinda weak or lack the tartness of a true pear, but it’s all here :) The pomegranate’s pretty light. I could sorta taste it, but only as an afterthought compared to the pear.

This is a very pleasant summertime tea. Thank you, LiberTEAS, for sending the sample to me! I’ve got to see if I can get some more :)

For a cheap bagged tea, this is not bad. I mean, don’t get me wrong. It’s not great. The peach flavor is very strong, dominating the drink. The taste of the green tea, meanwhile, is pretty much not there. But this is drinkable. It doesn’t need any sweeteners or additives, since it’s already quite syrupy.

The tea looks like little sticks. Not at all like other green teas I’ve had. Lupicia calls this a houjicha, but it doesn’t look anything like Adagio’s houjicha (my only other exposure) so I’m not sure what to expect.

The flavor reminds me of dry roasted grain. Like puffed wheat cereal that hasn’t been sweetened. Not at all like other green teas. It is mildly sweet, actually.

Lupicia’s website recommends blending this with milk for a tea latte, and I could see the flavors complementing each other well. It also makes me think my flavor comparison to cereal is not completely off-base; we eat milk with cereal, right?

Slightly bitter aftertaste, probably because I used water that was hotter than necessary to brew the tea. We don’t have a controlled water heater at work; it just comes out off the dispenser ‘hot’ and you deal with it. I tossed a couple of small ice cubes in to lower the temp. a tad, but I don’t think I did enough.

Adagio sent me a free sample tin of Birthday tea when I made a purchase last month (my birthday is May 22nd) and it was a complete surprise. I opened up the tea and was amused by the rainbow-colored sprinkles nestled amongst the black leaves. It is described on Adagio’s website as a blend of “vanilla, cream and a hint of caramel”; if it tasted anything like cake or frosting, I would be hooked.

It took me a few weeks to get around to trying it, but I have to say I’m disappointed. It doesn’t taste like vanilla frosting. It doesn’t taste like sweet, sugary cake. It has the slightest hint of vanilla…and that’s it. It’s practically a plain black tea. If steeped over 5 minutes, it goes bitter really fast.

The lack of flavor makes me wonder if I got an old batch or something. I mean, it just doesn’t taste all that sweet to me! But hey, it’s not like I paid for it. It’s definitely a better birthday present than socks or granny underwear. ;-D

Today I made Lupicia’s Caramael Matcha au Lait mix like this:
1. Two teaspoons of matcha powder in the cup
2. Cup half-filled with hot water
3. Whisk stir whisk stir.
4. Fill the rest of the cup with 2% milk (because i don’t like drinking hot hot tea, the cold milk cooled the drink to the perfect temperature)
5. Whisk stir whisk stir.
6. GULP GULP YUM YUM.

It was pretty good. Kinda creamy. I can’t say that I get a strong sense of ‘caramel’ from the drink. Just green tea, with perhaps a hint of burnt sugar. Maybe I put too much milk in, and it was drowned out? But that doesn’t seem right, since the tea was pretty thick. shrug

Ah, Rose Green Oolong.
You make me feel like a princess!

The tea is so strongly scented that the smell of rose petals fills the entire kitchen. It’s lovely. Perfect for springtime. It kinda makes me think I should be wearing something pink, or sparkly, or at the very least a floral 1950s housewife dress.

Anyway. Definitely one of the nicer teas I own. Light, refreshing, delicate, rosy. I really don’t know what else to say about it, and besides, I have to go do something girly now like give myself a pedicure while wearing an avacado face mask.

Ciao.

I’ve had a couple of unsuccessful attempts preparing this with milk. Lupicia’s instructions are simple: put matcha in cup, put milk in cup, stir, heat, and stir some more. Every time, it’s left the tea rather clumpy and it separates pretty quickly from the milk. Bleah.

So I tried it with just hot water today. It worked out…decently. Something about the milk really brings the flavor of the strawberries out. When I drank the tea as prepared today, it was green and slightly bitter up until I swallowed, after which there was a hint of a strawberry aftertaste. That was a little disappointing, because it is a LOT easier to prepare with hot water.

Maybe I’ll try mixing the tea with water and the blending milk in? I don’t know. I haven’t given up on Strawberry Matcha au Lait, but it definitely isn’t working yet.

I’ve ordered this before, and I know I wasn’t crazy about it, but I can’t remember why…

As I drink the tea, it’s light. Has a very nutty note to it.
Whoa. WHOA. That is a funky aftertaste going on. It makes me think of…barley or something. It’s kinda nasty, actually. The taste makes me wish I had some honey to sweeten the brew, maybe it would help. But all I have is sugar grains, and I don’t think they’d dissolve in cold tea. Guess I could try it, though.

My tongue’s not particularly sophisticated, so I couldn’t tell you what specific sort of Oolong tea this is. The aroma has a slightly floral note to it, like jasmine. On the tongue it is a little astringent. Oolong is a very difficult tea to pre-brew and package, I think. The flavor is complex and something always seems missing from the final bottled beverage. This is not as great as a freshly-brewed cup of tea, but it is good. It is very light and I feel refreshed as I sit here, drinking it. It’d probably be even nicer with some ice.

We’ve been remodeling our kitchen, and most of my tea things are packed up, so I’ve been relying on tea bags and pre-bottled drinks to get me through the renovation period. (Oh, the horror!) The pyramid-shaped Lupicia bagged teas have been some of the best for flavor.

Napa Blanc’s a great summer tea with a bright, strong aroma. The muscat grape is very sweet, but the addition of a slight floral note (jasmine according to the company’s description) tempers it nicely.

The Napa Blanc flavor is one of limited edition ‘California’ flavors, available only at Lupicia’s stores in Santa Clara and San Francisco. I’m not clear on whether these are available for a limited time only, or the limitation is only on the locations where Napa Blanc can be purchased.

I tried this at the Lupicia store in San Jose. They prepared it with soybean milk.

More of a savory flavor, on the salty side. Made me think of green tea ice cream, but instead of creamy it was salty. Slightly bitter, too. Nice but I’m not sure I’d want to drink multiple cups of the stuff.

Ended up buying the strawberry matcha au lait instead.

This is Lupicia’s April 2010 ‘Tea of the Month’, so I got a free teabag with their newsletter. It uses very small shavings in the teabag; the leaves are nearly dust and leak out of the teabag. That’s rather annoying.

This is a salty tea. I drink it and instead of my thirst being quenched, I feel like drinking more. I wonder if I prepared this wrong? Three minutes, hot-but-not-boiling water…

Salty and grassy. A little bitter. Meh.

(Also, hi everybody! I haven’t been here for a while now…stupid school takes over EVERYTHING.)

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.