New Tasting Notes

This smells like an apple-Y wood!
It tastes more apply than woodsy which I really like! The more I drink this the more I really like it! It has a nice texture and a crisp and clean taste.

Yeah! This is a goody!

YUM!!!

I just tried this one again using approx 5 grams in competition tasting set.
This time it was a rather unremarkable tea. It did not have the freshness and clarity that it did last night.
I dont know if this is due to brewing parameters or to different leaves. After all, its a blended cake.

EDIT: just did another session using about 4-5 g in competition tasting set. The flavor is mild. I am starting to distinguish the ‘menghai flavor’ after tasting about 4 of their shengs. the 7542 at this age has hints of an almost ripe fruit to it.

Bold, Brash, Brisk, Bitter. The 4 B’s.
None are in a BAD way. But I might tinker with this one a bit more – so this rating might change. And I only infused for about a minute! Just a heads-up!

I don’t taste a whole lot of banana here, but it’s still a great tea.

I had this lovely matcha this morning :D super YUM!

My house feels alarmingly cold. I’m snuggled in fleece with my big dogs. It’s our first winter in this house and I feel like we may need to better insulate it. This is my first reveiw it what feels like a long time. I used to do one almost every morning until my car broke down (the parts arrive tomorrow YAY!)
This is an almost overwhelmingly cozy tea. All I need to do is start my fireplace and then I’m doing exactly what this tea is intended for. Smooth peppermint, with a hint of creaminess, vanilla maybe?
I want to put up my tree now.

More Keemun :D This time with rose petals. The loose tea smells sweet but not particularly of roses, I can however see the occasional bright pink and yellow petal amongst the leaves.

Whilst brewed this forms an earthy brown colour that smells earthy yet sweetly floral.

The rose shines through in the first few sips and it’s rather strong and the Keemun is in the background. The rose petals are sweet and rosey, almost like Turkish Delight but a little more sour. The whole blend is floral and sweetness of the rose mixed with earthy and robust Keemun which creates a dark rose medley. It’s sweet and sour which I don’t find that often in blends.

Overall it’s nice but not something I could drink a lot of, much too sweet and earthily sour for me but it does make a nice change. If you love rose petals then you might love this tea.

This might be the most mild flavored black tea I’ve had. No overwhelming notes of anything. No real hints that stand out. This tea is very delicate with a touch of astringency and medium mount feel. All in all it’s a decent black tea that lends its self well to blending. I’m not much of a flavored tea guy, but I appreciate the medicinal benifiets of plants and have grown fond of the flavor of a few. One that comes to mind is the ginseng vitality offer from Teavana, over priced high pressure money machine that it is actually has a decen ginseng blend and it goes great with this unremarkable tea for your first thing in the morning pick me up. Not bad

Both dry and brewed the smells of the coconut, malt, and barely are at the forefront. Not sure how much chocolate flavor I’m getting from the scent at least. This kind of combine and remind of a licorice type scent, but that could just be my weird nose.
I went for a lower water temp than was suggested, mostly because that’s how I’ve done mate before, I also steeped it for a bit less. Taste wise, it’s interesting. Not sure how much mate I’m picking up, seems to be more spice type flavors. It’s sweet, but I’m having such trouble putting a descriptive phrase to the flavor because it reminds me of something, but it’s right there and I can’t figure out what it is. There is a light cocoa note, but I wouldn’t have named this Chocolate Mate, it doesn’t quite have enough chocolate in it for that. Just looked up that it had rooibos in it, didn’t realize. I think that’s the more dominant flavor, the sweet kind of woody caramel note.

Tea: 1 tsp
Water: 8 oz
Additives: none
Brewing method: My lovely forest teapot

I was not too excited to try this one because I’m not a big ginseng fan. But I do like oolong, and Teavivre was nice enough to send me the samples, so time to finally do it!

As an oolong it was really good, kind of roasted, but still vegetal. The ginseng kind of reminds me of a hybrid of some kind of sweetener and eucalyptus. It had that cooling feel but the aftertaste was this lingering, back of the throat sweetness. I didn’t really like that part.

I started drinking it far too late to get any more steeps out of it, but I plan to try it again soon. I imagine past that first steep that sweetness is more subtle as the ginseng fades, and I am pretty curious now about the oolong in here by itself too.

Yum! This one is a step up from both of my last cups! It’s a bit more powerful and crisp and clean. It doesn’t have a creamy flavor but it has a somewhat creamy or quesi-velvety texture! I think this would be a good black tea to have just about any time of day! It’s a no-muss/no-fuss type black tea. A nice medium strength!

I haven’t tried a new green tea in a while and I was ready to do so to mix things up a little. Another big thanks to Nuvola Teas for this sample! I’m taking this one for a spin in the morning, although I prefer the heartier black teas at this time of day to pounce on my partially awakened senses.

When I opened the sample packet, the aroma of the long dark green leaves was grassy and slightly earthy. I brewed the leaves at 175 degrees for three minutes.

The brewed liquid was mostly odorless. The color was a light greenish gold.

I found the flavor to be very mild but not unpleasant. There was a sweet undertone to a generally grassy green tea flavor. The taste was light, airy, and quite smooth.

I had no trouble drinking four cups of this offering. My personal preference is for the stronger-flavored black teas but that does not make this selection any less palatable.

If you enjoy smooth, sweet, and mild-flavored green teas, you will certainly like this one. So far, Nuvola seems to have a great handle on both black and green teas!

This week, I have been enjoying starting the day with a dessert tea. I enjoy this tea with a little milk and sugar. It brings a smile to my face :)

The ratings are somewhat low on this one but I didn’t find anything wrong with it.

It’s not overly powerful. It’s not overly EG. The lemon is nice, tho. Maybe it’s because it’s not too intense or because it’s an EG with additional flavor(s) in it…not sure.

But it’s really not bad!

This is a good cup of tea!! I wish I were drinking it a few years back, when I really could tell a lot about teas just from sipping. It’s not clear to me all that’s blended in it, but it’s good!

There’s definitely a bit of assam. And I love that particular flavor. This cup stands up as a strong tea. I highly recommend it.

This one intrigued me with the promise of berries, citrus, and florals, so I asked for some in my last swap with Alphakitty and she was kind enough to send me some!

To me, the leaf looked suspisciously like a black green blend, but no one has mentioned this at all, so I thought I was probably just hallucinating something. I went ahead and brewed it boiling, and most of the leaves in the infuser appear black, though I will say there are a few greenish-tinged ones that are intriguing.

Nontheless, the resulting tea isn’t bitter or scorched like a green might be when steeped at that temp, so I guess everything is ok. This tea is super duper berry-licious. It is berry to the max. I can’t really pick out a specific berry, necessarily, but it’s definitely berry. Maybe some black currant, yeah. It’s honestly perhaps a bit too much berry for me, and I would like it if the berry might step back a bit and let someone else have a bit of the spotlight. Because there are other flavors, playing in the background. A bit of bright citrus, for sure, and a hint of florals. Not really that floral, just a bit of orchid somewhere in there. Anyway, it’s a pretty tasty tea but it’s a little too in-my-face with the flavoring and I’m not quite feeling that this morning.

First cup at work for the day. The bitterness makes it a bit tangy, but I like it, it gives it an edge. It’s a rich flavor but not like nutty or chocolatey, more of a refreshing feel. I have a sample packet of this that I’ll probably finish off soon.

Sadly today’s smoothie didn’t turn out quite as aweesome as the first. There’s a delicate balance of getting the banana into the freezer before it gets too ripe..but ripe enough. lol today i have an over ripe banana which always DOMINATES the smoothie no matter what. Still tasty, but not as strawberry like as I wanted this morning.

At first sip – when really hot – just a minute after infusing – this tasted a little skunky. That taste faded, thankfully.

There are sweet, sour, and woodsy notes. Just when I’m thinking “Ceylon” it sort of tastes a little like Darjeeling.

The aftertaste is sort of woodsy, too.

Alright but not my fave, really.
Drinkable, tho!