Jack

The person I’m staying with during my visit to San Francisco had this tea in her cupboard. The peppermint and herbs give it a unique aroma, and at first sip, interesting is the first word that comes to mind. It leaves you with just a trace of licorice on the insides of your teeth, and the sweetness lingers. For a long time.

In Shanti’s review, she said it tasted like “liquid herbs” and I think that’s the perfect description. I’ve had a similar experience with a rooibos/rosemary-blended tea and in both cases, the sweet finish is nice at first, but by the end of the cup gets cloying. To the point where I can’t finish the entire cup.

It’s definitely worth a try, but in the end, I personally wouldn’t go out of my way to pick up a bottle of this (it comes in a medicinal brown bottle) for my cupboard.

This is my first Traveling Tea Box tea! And it’s very nice. The floral and fruitiness remind me of the TWG 380 tea I have, except not as overwhelming (a good thing). It’s slightly tart, and goes great with a sweet dessert. It’s perfect with French macarons—those sugary things that look like miniature hamburgers colored in food dye. This isn’t a tea I’d drink every day, but it’s phenomenal if you can find the right moment for it.

I knew there was a reason this smelled familiar in the store. This is a Rishi Golden Yunnan, which is one of my favorite Golden Yunnans. The leaves have almost a fruit-like smell and it’s a bold black tea that I’d recommend to coffee addicts.

For those unacquainted, the world-famous Zingerman’s is a deli/restaurant/mail-order business in Ann Arbor, MI. You can read more about them in the NY Times: http://bit.ly/6z3j68

I regret only going there once when I was in school at Michigan, but had a chance to stop in again over the weekend (I’m trying to make the most of my last week in Michigan before heading back to New York). It was fortunate, since I haven’t seen Rishi on store shelves (albeit this was dressed in Zingerman’s own playful packaging) anywhere in Southeast Michigan despite the fact that we’re just across the lake from Wisconsin.

So. Yay Zingerman’s!

I gave this another try after Takgoti’s temp/time/cooling suggestions and she’s right! You do get caramel! I tried this at 200 and 180-degrees as well. If the water’s too hot you lose it and if it’s too cold it there, kind of, but it tastes like wet newspaper.

There’s still something off about this keemun to me and if I really wanted caramel tones, there are other teas I’d go to before this one. Maybe just I’m just not a fan of the smoky/burnt sugar taste that others have mentioned. Still, I’m bumping my rating for Jackee up a few ticks.

Happy last-day-of-2009! It took me a couple pots to realize that this actually tastes closer to a keemun than what I’m used to from other golden monkeys. As such, it becomes a late-morning/early-afternoon tea for me. The liquid is bright reddish-orange and I can smell hints of cocoa. It’s really smooth too—I find myself wanting to lick the front of my teeth every time I take a sip.

Upton is 2 for 2 so far and quickly winning me over.

It snowed here in Michigan this week—just an inch or two, which is a light dusting by midwest standards and by no means a “snowpocalypse.” I shoveled the driveway this morning and it was the first time in weeks I’ve been out in the cold for more than a couple minutes (sans automobile).

Anyway, let’s get on with the tea!

This was in my first order from Upton. The other tea that came in the box was a wuyi golden monkey, which I’ll get to reviewing in the near future, but this golden tip yunnan has taken over my mornings and early afternoons. One reason is it still holds up after 3 or 4 steepings, so I just keep refilling.

The liquid is a rich brown and the taste is sweet. You can tell it’s going to be sweet just by giving the bag a whiff. I don’t get the spicy/pepperiness in the description on the site, but there is an amazing caramel (or maybe toffee… I need to get some caramels and toffees from the store to compare) finish. This really comes through at around the second infusion, and it’s so pronounced that I almost can’t believe this is an unflavored tea.

I’m leaving for a cruise (with family to the Bahamas!) tomorrow morning and considering smuggling some of this aboard in case I suffer from withdrawal. Anyone have tea-related cruise experiences?

No notes yet.

I’m usually never in the mood to drink gunpowder. In the tin, it smells a little like animal dung and in the cup it tastes like tobacco. Maybe I’m doing something wrong, or maybe I just haven’t found the right occasion for it yet. Any suggestions?

Digging into the back of my real-life cupboard again. I got this last year from Whole Foods. It’s a rooibos chai that comes in a tin of 36 round teabags. It’s okay for me. A little weak, maybe because of the shelf-wear or maybe I just need to try two teabags per cup.

First a disclaimer: I generally hate ginger. Okay, maybe ‘hate’ is too strong a word. It’s more of an intense dislike for anything more than a hint of ginger. In Japanese restaurants I don’t touch the pickled ginger that comes with the sushi. A weird couple exceptions I’ll make are for ginger candies and ginger tea (especially homemade ginger tisane, in which I boil the crap out of the fresh ginger, until it gets super-spicy). I hate cilantro too, but that’s a different story.

Anyway. I like this tea. The ginger’s not too strong, and I do get a little bit of the peach flavor coming through. I rinsed the leaves for about 15-20 seconds to wash out some of the caffeine. Looking forward to trying this iced.

I need to lay off the after-dinner caffeine. This rooibos has been in a zip-lock bag in my real-life cupboard for a solid 7 or 8 months now, and the flavor and aroma are starting to mellow out. I’d normally add some chamomile (if I had any) and a drop or two of honey but I’m drinking it straight this time.

Steeped in my travel mug from Teas Etc. due to the fact that all my other tea-brewing vessels are in the dishwasher :)

I usually go for Chinese black teas in the morning (unless it’s chai) but out of the A&D Series Two showdown, I think I’d give the title belt to Thomas. I wish this had a little bit more natural sweetness, though I could see it as something that holds up well with a little milk and sugar.

I plowed right through my 3 oz. tin of this. It’s consistently been my morning tea maybe 85% of the days in the past couple months. It has all the characteristics of a solid morning black tea for me: not too light, not too strong either (though there are days when I can’t handle caffeine in the mornings), with just the right amount of natural sweetness. In fact, I think Adagio should change the name of this to ‘Goldilocks’, because it’s juuuust right. It’s definitely something I could see myself drinking every morning for quite some time (though in the interest of coming up with new things to write, I’m going to find another morning black and go with that for a while). In the end, I’m bumping my rating up a few points from when I first logged it, mainly because of its eminent dependability and drinkability.

On a side note, the Adagio 3oz. tins themselves are great! The stickers peel off easily and you rinse them out and reuse them without much hassle.

This tea’s definitely interesting. I don’t really know how to describe it yet. Kind of mellow, a little bit sweet, but that’s all I’ve been able to come up with so far. Rishi recommends using twice as many leaves for the same amount of water than you normally would, and also steeping it for 8 minutes. I need to try some other times to see what the difference is. Until then, verdict’s still out on this one…

My friend Daniel has a theory about anything food-related: if the presentation and harmony of the colors looks appealing, it usually ends up tasting good too. I think this tea fits in very well with his theory.

The leaves, after you remove them from the pot, look beautiful. Bright green mint leaves on a bed of dark pu-erh, with a few smaller light brown pieces of spice and a couple twigs sprinkled on top. Kind of like someone took an oak tree and smushed it into the strainer.

Taste-wise it’s pretty mindblowing. The flavors are distinct too. First you taste the pu-erh and think “hmmm, maybe this needs to be sweeter”, then the vanilla comes in, says “hey guys, what’d I miss?” before the mint sneaks up from behind and leaves you with that fresh, just-brushed-my-teeth feeling.

Which usually means it’s time to take another sip.

I picked up a tin of this when I put in my Steepster Select indie sampler order. This is only the second Gyokuro I’ve ever had, so I don’t have much within the category to compare it to. That said, the smell of both dry and wet leaves is intoxicating, right up there with freshly-harvested Dragonwell. I used the lowest setting on my UtiliTEA kettle to make it, but I see a lot of tinkering with temps and steep times to do.

The literal translation of “xue ya” is “snow buds”, and (someone correct me if I’m wrong) it’s usually a moniker for white tea. Here it’s describing a first-flush green. The smell while the leaves are steeping reminds me a little bit of crab, though I don’t get any of that after I take the leaves out. 2 1/2 minutes at 180 degrees this time around, but I have a feeling it’ll take a bit more trial and error to bring out the awesome.

No notes yet.

I’m drinking this from a cafe in Birmingham, MI called “Java the Hutt.” As you can tell by the name, they mostly do coffee, and all the tea they have is in bagged form. I haven’t yet met a mind-blowing sencha, but I haven’t met one I didn’t like either.

Mmm, this is great after dinner too. I’m already dreading the day that I run out.

Also, we rolled out a few minor bugfixes and updates to Steepster this evening. The most noticeable thing is that the “recent activity” items that used to be on the side in your dashboard are now rolled into the main column. Let us know what you think!

It took me a while to get the right time and serving size for this, but I think I got it. I need this strong, especially on a cold, rainy morning like today’s. 3 balls for a single cup, 5 minutes in boiling water. Resteeping once or twice will keep me going until lunch.

Way heavy on the cinnamon, but pretty decent as far as iced chai lattes go (not that I’ve had any others besides Starbucks). I’m detecting a little bit of mint too.

As the leaves are steeping, the aroma reminds me of fresh, steamed corn on the cob. I’m getting a little bit of chestnut as well, and taste-wise, the touch of lightly-sweet flowers is just plain awesome.

I always seem to confuse Yuzu with something else. For some reason I used to think it was a type of herb, when it’s really citrus (grapefruit-like)! After one whiff of these dried leaves though, I will never make the same mistake again. The tea itself is rolled Tie Guan Yin (Iron Goddess Oolong). Steeped for 4 minutes. A nice after-lunch tea.