Spencer

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Yesterday’s drinking of this tea was performed at a tea shop, where I reinfused the same leaves five times in a two cup pot (gong fu style…or an attempt at such with the amount of leaves I was given). Right before leaving the shop, I took a three cup to-go cup and dumped the leaves into it, filling it with hot water and letting it steep. When I got home, I put the cup into the refrigerator, and this morning I have a nice cup of chilled tea that is quite tasty. Cheers!

The flavor is incredibly floral, even from the very beginning. In some ways, it is reminiscent of a very floral Ti Kwan Yin. For a roasted oolong, the roast flavor is not too heavy. Smooth drinking and infinitely sippable. 30 second infusions. Very resteepable.

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Resteepability: 7/10

Tasty, will review later.

Second pot of the morning!

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Sadly the last bag of this that I have. A good end to a long day.

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Preparing to try out this herbal blend, the first thing that I notice in the smell of the dry leaves is “Hmmm, hibiscus.” After boiling some water, I steep one pyramid infuser in a cup of water for five minutes to prepare to taste the “nectar”! The steeping brew still smells a lot like hibiscus, but the raspberry and orange peel smells are noticeable as well.

The first sip of this herbal tisane is a massively juicy explosion of flavor. Tea Forte’s website had listed the ingredients as “rosehip, hibiscus, apple pieces, blackberry leaves, raspberries, orange peels, flavoring” and there is so much going on in the taste that I believe it has all those things and more. Thankfully, since this blend is called “Raspberry Nectar,” raspberry is one of the dominant flavors. The sweetness of the apple does come out quite nicely, albeit subtly. This would be a decent desert drink, especially if one is looking for something low in caffeine. On my personal enjoyment scale, I rate it a 72/100.

So sweet and tasty. I took my father tea tasting for his first time, and he ended up purchasing some of this. When I visited him a couple of months later, I “borrowed” some from his cupboard for my own use.

Wow…the smell of this tea is great! It truly does smell exactly like vanilla cola. Yet this is the part where my mind catches up with my nose and hits me over the head, telling me to stop and think for a moment: Vanilla cola tea? As in…a hot liquid that tastes like vanilla cola? (I must be careful here to not call rooibos “tea,” for the sake of the tea-political correct.) While my mind is still trying to make a judgement call about whether or not it likes the idea of hot vanilla cola, my body forges ahead into the unknown to investigate and make some of this interesting mix.

It truly is a mix, according to the label. Rooibos, vanilla chips, and “natural flavors” come together in some magical manner to emulate the smell of this carbonated drink…minus the carbonation! Steeping is incredibly straightforward. 1 teaspoon per eight ounces of boiling water. I double this for my teapot and steep the blend for the recommended five minutes.

I had mentioned that the loose blend smells entirely of vanilla cola. Upon removing the infuser from my teapot, I catch my first whiff of the prepared drink…and now I get more variety to the aroma. The rooibos smell is much more prominent, the cola scent itself is there, and the vanilla laces the whole of the aromatic profile. Still charging onward with this endeavor, I pour my first cup and sit back to sip.

The taste of the brew is not as strange as I had anticipated. The rooibos comes through heavily in the flavor, causing this tea to be better described as “vanilla-flavored rooibos with light hints of cola.” The first thought that comes to my mind is “Well, this is fun.” The spiciness (meant, theoretically, to emulate the cola) adds a nice touch. Having experienced great vanilla rooibos in the past, this twist was novel and tasty.

Overall, this rooibos definitely made for an enjoyable and fun experience to try. If you like vanilla rooibos, or even rooibos in general, I highly recommend checking out The NecessiTeas Vanilla Cola. I would give it an 83/100 on my personal enjoyment scale.

It has been a long time since my last review, but I am finally back in the country and yearning to try a new tea and share my experience with all of you! For this first review, we have “Cannon Ball” by The East India Company. While I would love to tell you exactly what this tea is, I am not quite sure. Their website lists it as a green tea, and the description suggests it is a green tea, yet the label on the container specifically says “It is a lightly fermented oolong tea.”

Well….okay then! This tea basically looks like an oversized version of gunpowder green tea, thus the naming fits, cleverly. The smell of the dry leaves is faintly reminiscent of that smokiness present in gunpowder green tea. Yet the slight floral taste brings to mind…shockingly…light oolongs. This tea becomes more and more mysterious, and I grow more and more curious!

Unsure as to the water temperature, I opt to use 1 cup of water prepared for green tea (to be on the safe side), coupled with 1 teaspoon of leaves. What works for gunpowder greens and oolongs should work for this too, right?

Three minutes of steep time, says the packaging. I can do that! (My time overseas has not taken from my tea-making skills.) The resulting brew is a pale yellow-green and smells like…hmmm…very light, floral oolong. Not overly floral, as one might encounter in the tasting of a jasmine oolong. At the same time, it carries the gunpowder green tea flavor, but with a little extra, as though one took a pouchong and mixed it with a gunpowder. This is definitely different, in a pleasant way. Overall, however, the brew seems a bit weak, and perhaps a longer steep time is required.

I love the smokiness of gunpowder green tea, and the fact that such a quality carried over in a new way to this tea definitely caught my attention. While this is an interesting and decent tea, it might be better to order a small sample to try initially. I thought I would love this tea, yet I now can only see myself drinking it occasionally, not every day. On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate it a 73/100.

with computer building!

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Cold, first thing, leftover from last night.

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meh

with philosophy!

with pancakes!

Yup, good morning.