JoonSusanna

This sample very generously provided to me by Teavivre.

This tea smells and tastes like a weak black tea (I’m not familiar with white teas so I’m using the knowledge base I have). There is a roasted, vaguely honeyed undertone that I’m picking up on (the black tea part) but there is also a grassy note that exists alongside it. Together I guess that does equal the hay-ish taste others were getting.

This tea is very smooth and light, with no astringency. The brew does seem a little thin, but I may have been too stingy on the leaf used because I’ve never measured out leaves that fluffy before and likely miscalculated as a result of it. I will change that for next time and see if that improves the mouthfeel any.

This tea is quiet and understated; the kind of tea you’d want to be able to focus on while you’re drinking so you don’t miss any of the flavors.

I steeped these leaves for a second time (a day later) in 500 ml. water in my Breville.

The second steeping tasted much the same as the first; that green/ summery/floral scent wafting from the cup and tasting exactly like it. By the time I got to the second cup it had gotten cold (I’m a slow tea drinker) but that brought out the buttery flavor more and was pleasant in its own way.

Oh, and the expansion of the leaves was incredible! For those of you who have the Breville, the dry leaves literally went from covering just the bottom of the infuser basket to filling it up entirely when I went to discard them. (I should have taken a picture, is what I realize now. Grr.)

My overall impression of this is that it was a lighter tea – more of a summers’ night beverage than a winter one, and closer to green teas than black. I think I may prefer the heavier TGY just because I like heavier, intense flavors as a rule, but that said, I did have two steepings of this – and I’m usually not a multiple steeps kind of girl….

Another generous sample provided by Teavivre

I like black teas and green teas, so you would think oolongs would be up my alley. I honestly still can’t answer whether they are or not because I have been hesitant to take the plunge and order enough to compare them.

That said, I have had TGY before, though it was a while ago. When I sipped this, I suddenly remembered that other tea and could compare their differences, even with that big gap in time. This one was decidedly more floral in taste (both were equally floral in smell) but the other TGY had more of a slick buttery feel on the tongue. This one was very light, and alternated between being vegetal and floral with small hints of that oily/buttery flavor on the swallow, though it didn’t coat my tongue like the previous TGY.

This was great with no additives; I finished my first cup quickly and am contemplating a second, which is atypcial for me – usually I prefer one large cup and am done.

Steeped 2 of the 4 sample sized packets in 500 ml. water at the below parameters in my Breville.

On this rainy cold Monday morning directly following the long weekend, I dragged myself out of bed and decided the reward for being an upstanding, productive citizen would be this tea.

This is becoming the tea to drink when I need reinforcements, so to speak – I’ve noticed it calms me when I’m stressed out or when things are just not going as planned. It is pure magic, or at least it will be during winter months.

Chilled the second cup made from last night and had with a midday snack today.

I love the juicy sweet flavor of the pineapple in this – it is very refreshing and would be absolutely amazing served iced during our long hot summers here.

Upping the rating, as I knew I would. This is fabulous.

(This very generous sample was provided courtesy of Angel Chen at Teavivre. Thank you so much, Angel!)

It was actually kind of hard to put this tisane (7 tsp.-ish of it for 2 cups water) into the steeping basket of my Breville because it smelled and looked so tasty (kind of like trail mix) that I wanted to eat it rather than wait for it to be infused.

When this brews up, it is easily the bright red color of fruit punch. The scent of the steeped tea is heavy on the pineapple to me – it manages to smell both sweet and tart together. The first taste of it is very true to smell – I get the sweetness of pineapple at first and that leads into a very tart hibiscus that dominates the rest of the sip. It is so juicy! At first I thought it was too tart – but even thinking that, I managed to go through about half the mug unsweetened.

I did finally add a little bit of sweetener to it (much less than I normally add to that amount of tea) and the result was a perfectly balanced juicy beverage that, while good hot, will be absolutely amazing iced. The second of the two cups I made hot is currently cooling off to be tried iced to affirm this, and when it does I will likely bump this up a few more points.

Having this for breakfast (as usual) with some leftover homemade pecan pie. Thankfully this is a tea bold enough to withstand that massive amount of sugar.

It is such a good thing we only have this holiday once a year…

This worked very well in settling my stomach after a ridiculously huge dinner. Mint is never my favorite, but it works when I need something relaxing.

Regardless, I’m pretty sure I won’t need to eat again until NEXT Thanksgiving.

So today was Thanksgiving, and my boyfriend and I handled the logistics of the meal for my mom’s family, which is like 20+ people. No small feat, and it was exhausting.

I had been planning to serve this iced for the meal, and in my perfect world everyone would have been clamoring for some and exclaiming over the nuances of cranberry and how well they complimented all the flavors of the dinner….

But I am a realist, and I know most of my family likes soda or beer or wine and so planned just to make enough for me, and my boyfriend, and my mom. It ended up being about a half gallon and we went through it all during dinner, which was perfect. The flavors worked GREAT – so much so that both my mom and boyfriend commented on it.

So, to summarize…this was a Thanksgiving WIN! I suppose I’ll have to make some more to enjoy with all the leftovers…which is fine by me!

Backlogging a cup of this from last night – paired nicely with some chips and hummus for a light dinner. This really is a wonderful green to go with a savory meal. Someone once used ‘brothy’ as a descriptor for a green tea, maybe even this one, but regardless of where I’ve heard it before, I think this tea qualifies.

I will definitely be ordering this one when my sample runs out – it’s a wonderful green!

Second of my samples generously provided to me by Teavivire – I am loving them so far!

I’ve had a bad experience with Yunnan’s in the past due to the fact that I found the one I tried (from Upton) to be quite smoky. I just don’t like the smoke, guys. In anything. Ever. It was suggested (by Tabby, I think) that maybe I need to just lower the temperature to reduce/avoid smokiness (despite Upton’s label saying to brew at boiling). I’d already passed the Upton tea on to someone else at that point, but when Angel at Teavivre offered this one I eagerly accepted.

Sure enough, the suggested brewing temperatures on this tea were about 20 degrees lower than my previous one. The leaves in the sample were beautiful – gnarled and golden and huge. The dry leaves were malty smelling – I picked up on a hint of sweetness, cocoa or caramel-ish but only very lightly so. I didn’t pick up on any smokiness in the scent, so I was very hopeful as I scooped about 3 heaping tsp. into my Breville.

Once steeped the liquor was that rich, mahogany dark brown I associate with black teas. No smoke in the steeped smell, either! Instead just an assam like maltiness. On the first sip the first thing I really picked up on was the full-bodied texture of the tea – it has a fabulously smooth mouthfeel. The malty scent carried over into the taste, where it blends with the taste of dark chocolate. I’m loving this without sweetener, but I could see it being strong enough to handle milk and sugar if that’s how you like your black teas.

What a wonderful morning tea – I am so glad to know that Yunnans are a tea that I can and do enjoy very much!

First off, thank you so much to Angel Chen from Teavivre who provided me with these very generous samples! I am excited to try each one of them!

The mailman brought this box of samples to my door about 30 minutes ago – on a rainy, damp night where I was just beginning to think about what tea I wanted for after dinner. I have been reading everyone’s reviews of these teas and anticipating them all so it was really hard picking a first to sample! Ultimately I went with this one because I’ve been wanting a green tea lately and I’m pretty well versed in Japanese greens, but Chinese greens I’m a lot less familiar with.

So, to start: after opening the packaging the first thing I saw were the bright green, flat leaves. The scent of them dry reminded me very strongly of sencha – spinachy and savory. I brewed about 3 heaping tsp. of leaf to 500 ml. water in my Breville, at the below parameters, and the resulting liquor was almost colorless it was such a light green.

I was initially worried I hadn’t steeped long enough because of the color, but as soon as I poured and inhaled the smell, I knew it was going to be amazing. Think of the smell of freshly steamed spinach or nori, and that is what emanated from my cup. The taste was spinachy too, just like a sencha, but unlike sencha there was a roasted note that was attached to the vegetal flavor throughout the sip.

Overall this tea seems quite versatile, and would go well with a savory meal or as I’m enjoying it now, with no additives as an after dinner winding down drink. It is a great example of a ‘pure’ green. I definitely am impressed, and will be putting it on my shopping list.

Backlogging a cup from a few days ago – I introduced it to my mom who loved it.

School has slowed down for the week (hooray!) if not the semester (boo!) so I think I will be enjoying the temporary respite with a lot of tea. I have two sets of samples coming in so I’ve got to make room!

So I really really really like coconut. And I really like the way that Frank uses coconut in his blends (i.e. coconut cheesecake honeybush). I also really like black teas – so I’m glad I got around to trying this, because I just KNEW it was going to be good.

I was not wrong; 2 heaping tsp. for 500 ml. at below parameters, and sweetened with sugar made a most awesome warm beverage for this super cold morning. I was able to drink some of it hot and some after it cooled off, and both times I got a very creamy coconut. With the cooled down version I got some pie crust in the flavor as well, which took it up to perfection as far as I’m concerned.

I am so glad that I got this – and I’m sooooooo glad it’s a permanent blend!

So this tea has taken over my tasting notes. :)

Served on this cold night with fresh chocolate chip cookies. Boyfriend thinks this tea is too sweet (and a little too spicy for him) so opted for his favorite, a spearmint tisane, instead. The psychologist in me did not miss the fact that our teas of choice fit our personalities rather well (me=high strung and intense, him=chill and mellow). Both drinks went well the cookies, though, so that’s all that matters!

It’s not quite as good tonight, because I left a sachet out for a couple of days (thereby exposing it to everything it shouldn’t be exposed to…tsk!). But luckily it was the only bag I left out of the tin – we’ll just call it an ‘experiment’ and leave it there.

Turns out it isn’t as sweet when you do that – still good, just not as good as normal. Lesson learned!

3 tsp., 500 ml. water, in the Breville.

It’s been a rainy, cloudy day today and I’m studying for the slew of finals that will be coming my way in the next few weeks. I needed something to perk me up, and I wanted something sweet and desserty, so I went for the cookie in a black tea option this afternoon.

This one has been finicky with it’s parameters, mostly because the tea gets astringent as it cools. I’ve got it in a thermos to try and avoid that this time around, and I’ve also got some sugar in it to really bring out the cookie flavor.

So far, so good – the aroma is like cookies hot out of the oven, and the taste is pleasantly cinnamon and almond, with the black tea flavor sneaking in at the end of the sip. If I manage to avoid the astringence toward the end of this cup, I’m thinking I’ll stick with these parameters for the last few cups I’ve got left.

Made about three cups of this iced in my normal way to test how it would be cold.

The scent of the tea after it’s been chilled is wonderfully berry and orangey. Sweetened the way I normally do sweet tea the cranberry really pops and is quite juicy, just like it acted when I added it to the hot version.

However, that off smell I noticed in the dry and steeped leaf the first time has gotten into the taste, somehow, and is no longer in the smell, strangely. It’s kind of musty or something – whatever it is, it really doesn’t play nicely with the taste of the tea and fruity flavor, so I’m glad this was a test run. I’m going to adjust the steeping parameter down by 30 seconds or so and see if that fixes it.

Aside from that off flavor it does taste really nice iced, just as I suspected it would, so that’s good!

So, I had that sample a few days ago and I have not been able to get it out of my head. And that was just the bagged version. While I wanted to get the looseleaf, 4 oz. is just too much for me to have during our very short fall and winter season (I doubt I’d want this in the spring and summer, good as it is), plus Barnes and Noble had the sachets, so…impulsivity won out and I just got 30 or so sachets to see how fast I’ll get through them.

Flavor wise I do think this is stronger than the tea bag, but that’s only because one sachet is supposed to go into 12 as opposed to 8 oz. of water, and I used the same volume of water in both cups. I personally like the stronger cup.

Seriously, how does this not have sugar in it? This cup manages to be even sweeter than my first, and I thought the first was pretty sweet. I’m not complaining at all, I’m just amazed at how that sweetness is managed.

This is definitely going to be a favorite all winter long.

1 tbsp. of leaf to 16 oz. water. Milk and sugar added.

The smell of this was VERY coffee-like tonight, more so than I remember. But it has been awhile, so that could explain why. I tasted a small amount plain before I put in milk and sugar, and I really got the cocoa/mocha taste. I also got the slightly woodsy taste of mate at the end of the sip…I’m not sure that I really like that flavor, but the chocolate flavor makes this palatable. Also, a 5 minute steeping time seemed to play up the Assam more and diminish the mate taste as well – a definite plus that I’ll have to remember when I use up the rest of this.

It won’t be a rebuy (I’m trying to extricate myself from Teavana as much as possible) but I’ll definitely use the 3 or 4 servings I have left to keep me awake for my last few exams as a nursing student!

Another weekend morning with East Frisian, milk and sugar for me, black for the boyfriend, homemade biscuits on the side. All weekends should be like this.

As always good for breakfast with milk and sugar. Excellent with popovers (or any breakfast food, really). This has earned a spot in my staple teas.

Today was a great day for tea!

I received a sachet of this to sample with the Cranberry Autumn and it smelled so good that I had to have it tonight. Good thing I don’t have a sensitivity to black tea, as I’ve just had two cups of it back to back!

I LOVE this. How is it sweet when there’s no sugar?! It’s just a hint, granted, but it is enough. The spice is ALL cinnamon but I love cinnamon so that’s okay. It is very warming, which is perfect for tonight, and it smells pretty much like Big Red gum (yum!).

I may need to get my hands on more of this….

So, my master plan for this tea was to brew up a gallon iced and sweetened in the same way I normally make my iced tea. and serve it with Thanksgiving dinner. It’s why I decided to take the leap and buy 4 oz. (well, that and I had a gift card to Amazon, so that made it pretty cheap).

But of course when I got it in today, and it was 50 degrees outside, iced was not going to be the first way I tried this. Boyfriend (hater of flavored teas that he is) actually sniffed the dry leaf and asked for some, which surprised me because I actually would not have wanted to try this based on the dry leaf smell. It had hints of orange and cranberry and black tea, yes, but there was something off about it; and the steeped tea retained that ‘off’ odor.

The flavor is pretty much what I hoped it would be, though; black tea with hints of cranberry that get a little more tart as it cools. I didn’t get so much of the orange, but I think that the tart/bitterness could be from rind pieces I saw floating in the mix. Unadulterated it was a good balance of tea and fruit, so I added some sugar (since I will be sweetening it a little bit) to see what happens when I do.

Straight up, this turns into black tea and cranberry juice! The tartness is still there, but it’s a good tart – the tart you feel when you’ve had cranberry juice or cranberry sauce. A realistic tart, I guess is what I should say. I could almost see why people assumed there was hibiscus in it, but it definitely is just the cranberry behaving like a cranberry.

So, to sum: I think the only thing I wasn’t fond of where this was concerned was the smell. And in iced tea scent tends to be weaker so I’m thinking my original idea of a Thanksgiving iced tea was pretty freaking genius. I can’t believe it’s only 2 weeks away!