oOTeaOo

I absolutely LOVE oolongs, and I unfortunately don’t have a lot of them. My tea cupboard comprises mostly of blacks and herbals! I decided to treat myself today with this tea. I ordered 2 sample sizes of this tea a couple of months ago from Teavivre when there was a sale.

I opened the small metallic wrapper and immediately saw the bright, fresh green balls of this leaf with a stem on each one. It reminded me of cooked spinach! It smelled so delightful! It was sweet smelling and vegetal.

I recently purchased a beautiful yixing teapot set! I wanted to use it, but I felt like I should make my first cup with my husband. So another day with that! Wow I really went off topic…

Anyhow, this tea, as with most oolongs and other teas, withstood several steeps. I always watching the first steep because it is beautiful to see how the leaves “dance” in my gaiwan.

First steep: 30 seconds, 190 degrees. The brew was a light yellow color. This one smelled very vegetal, not like nori, but almost like a green. The taste was amazing! Light and airy florals dancing in my mouth. It was smooth like butter! There was a slight sweetness to it as well.

Second steep: 50 seconds. The leaves are nearly unfurled at this point. Brew was a jaundice/neon yellow! This brew was more floral and bolder than the first steep. It is sweet and juicy like a berry!

Third steep: 1 min. This steep was lighter and became more fruity! Delicious! The floral tones were fading more. There was a bit more astringency, but it still went down like butter!

Delicious tea!!

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Thank you Teavivre for this sample again! I know I had rated this before, but it has been a while since I revisited this tea. I have one more sample of this mini cake left after this. I love the small round cakes with the semi-hollow center.

Dry, it smells like nori and earthy. I rinsed it for a little less than a minute and let the cake soften and unfurl a bit. The bits that fell off were small but larger than CTC leaves. The liquid was a dark amber color. It tasted sweeter than other pu-erhs that I’ve tried… almost like berries in the background mixed with nuts and cacao bits. The earthiness isn’t that strong. One of the things I did notice in the beginning was a sort of cardboard like flavor that quickly disappeared. I will steep this again later. I brewed this in a mug, but this tea can withstand multiple steepings. I added some sugar and milk to this after, which seemed to bring out the berry flavors even more. Good tea overall.

I am 6 months now, and its a girl! I am super excited! So, I chose to try this tea today. I received a teabag sample of this in the mail with my Kusmi order. I adore the cute, smooth brown and pink wrapping. What was even more interesting was the bag that this came in! It was a cloth or cloth-like teabag! WOW! I’ve never seen anything like it. I have the large reusable teabags, which is comparable. However, this is different because its not reusable (I don’t think).

Onto the tea! Have you ever smelled the scratch and sniff chocolate stickers or pencils? This smells exactly like that! It brought back childhood memories! I could definitely smell the chocolate and a bit of spice. It wasn’t that prominent though. After steeping, the liquid was a dark brown. The spices didn’t come through as much. In fact, it tasted like a very watered down sugary cocoa with a hint of warmth and spice. I was expecting a more robust cup, but this is good for those days that you want a small chocolate kick but nothing too spicy. There was no bitterness to this cup, which I love. I added some sugar to see if anything flavors would come up. I sense something nutty. Perhaps its cacao? I can definitely taste something woody and nutty with the chocolate. Very delicious. After that, I added just a tiny bit of skim milk, and this turned into a mild hot chocolate of sorts. VERY mild and light. This isn’t something I would purchase just because it wasn’t as chocolate-y as I would like it to be. The flavors were a bit bland. Perhaps a longer steep time would have helped it out.

I drank this all up today! Yes! I am feeling accomplished! :) This was a good tea! Nice blend of spices. It was best mixed with milk and sugar, otherwise, it tasted too strong. My husband felt sick after drinking this. I think he may be sensitive to the tannins… He feels that way about a lot of black teas.

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I had this yesterday evening. This is one of my favorite blooming teas since it is flavorful and the flower was pretty and delicate. The bloom isn’t very complex, but there was a pink-red plume that sprouted from it. I steeped it 3 minutes at a time and had 3 steepings from it. Each time, the flavor was light and refreshing. The liquor was a light honey yellow color. I love the hint of sweet strawberry. There was no bitterness or astringency to it. I am glad I steeped it for 3 minutes at a time. I usually steep it all wrong. Anyhow, this is a good flowering tea.

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I finished this up too last night! I had found a bunch of rooibos samples from Adagio at my parent’s house (I think it was my sister’s) but I knew that no one would touch any tisane or tea in that house. So, I snatched it! Nice basic rooibos. A little woody but sweet. I prefer flavored or blended rooibos though.

Sad to see this one go. I stretched this little last bit as much as I could. Delicious! I had this for my morning ride to work. Didn’t need any sugar or milk. One of my favorite fruit flavored black teas.

Delicious herbal! I love the pineapple coconut flavors with the sweet and nutty warmth of honeybush. I wasn’t extremely impressed today about it, but I think its because its not warm or summery out. :) I will need to taste this when it is warm out again.

I cannot believe I acquired a TON of tea recently even though I told myself I wouldn’t! My Kusmi order came in as well as the Culinary Teas contest that I won! I was so happy and excited to open the package to find LARGE amounts of tea!! Yum!

Ok wow… I dug through my cupboard and found a TON of flowering teas! This being one of them. I was undecided between Teavana’s strawberry misaki or Dragon Tea House’s Love Game. Ultimately I chose Love Game. This is a very pretty flower. I think I brewed this too long because it was fairly astringent. However, I wanted to see the whole flower bloom and unfurl. I love watching it slowly take shape from a small 1 inch ball with tied 1/3 up to this beautiful array. There is something peaceful about it. I think I could have gotten away with 2 steeps or more since I only had a little 4 oz pot. This is a really delicate flower. It is a nice green tea with beautiful flowers!

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So I made a strawberry & blueberry smoothie today! After adding my frozen strawberries and blueberries, water, and apple sauce, I added some of this strawberry matcha! YUM! Delicious and very thirst quenching. :)

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I probably shouldn’t have drank this tea this morning. I steeped the first one for my husband and I steeped it the second time for myself. Mine was lighter in color. I had bought a 3 pack of this off Amazon and finally opened this second tin. If anyone wants to try this send me a message!

Anyhow, it was mostly rooibos with some bits of black tea and colorful pretty safflower petals. The brew was red brown. Delicious! I added some sugar, but it didn’t need it. It is a good basic tea, but I won’t drink it until after June since apparently safflower is a blood thinner >_< Why didn’t I read into that BEFORE I drank this tea. Anyhow, I didn’t consume that much of it anyway. Still, since I worry a lot, I am worried.

Wow this is an old one. I am almost finished with this. I think I can use this about two more times. I cannot believe that in my newbie tea days I ordered 1lb of this from Adagio… I cannot believe this hasn’t gotten sour or rotten or anything either! Sounds gross, but I will drink tea until it has gone bad. This is tea is still very good! It has the nice woody nutty flavor that rooibos is known for as well as the hint of vanilla cream. Good night time beverage! :)

I received a sample of this in a swap from Lady 0f Spaydes. THANK YOU! This is one of my favorite teas from Lupicia. I had purchased this sometime last year and drank it up fairly quickly. The difference is this one is loose leaf. The ones I bought from Mitsuwa were bagged. I love looking at the leaves swirling in the water. The green tea were a little flat and cut up a bit. There were some stems, pink and red rose petals, and some sugar crystals. It was beautiful to look at. The scent is amazing and peachy. I love peaches! It is also light and sweet. The brew was a very light yellow. The taste is sweeter than a peach, but not artificial. Delicious! There is mild astringency, but it felt smooth going down my throat. The peachy, fruity taste lingers in my mouth.

I even went back to Mitsuwa today and purchased another 10 tea bag bundle of this. I love the color coordinated packaging too. This one is in an aluminum colored sealed plastic bag inside a paper container! On the outside, it has a geisha on a pink sleeve. I even bought a few others such as Cookie and Strawberry & Vanilla. I am super excited to try these teas. It is so hard for me to go on a no-buy. Ah! I need to stop buying tea. I’m also waiting on my Kusmi Teas order…

This tea made me happy today! I think this is the last of my Lupicia tea bag samples. I was hoping it wasn’t flavored, and it wasn’t! This is a nice, smooth sencha. I saw the spiky dark green leaves and I was happy! The scent was like nori and fresh and light. The brew was a nice yellow-green. The taste was mellow and refreshing. There was no astringency at all, and it went down smooth! Delicious! This is a nice sencha that has a sweet aftertaste. It is fresh and green.

Backlog. I drank this yesterday. It was very exciting to open this tin of delicious smelling lichee black tea! I absolutely LOVE lichee and the scent. I only have one more helping left! Ahh! I don’t want to run out of this one.

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