New Tasting Notes

Nice citrus flavor and aroma. Favorite green rooibos so far.

Free sample provided by Teavivre for review

Warm sweet potatoes on a cold, rainy day-need I say more?

I’ve only had a couple of Dian Hong teas, but I have really loved them. That combined with a sky-high Steepster rating sets a high bar for this tea. Never fear, Teavivre easily clears the hurdle with this wonderful tea.

The dry leaf aroma is slightly sweet with notes of buckwheat and orange citrus-quite intoxicating. The long twisted leaves are colored golden and chocolate brown. Brewed leaf aroma is mostly the pleasant buckwheat aroma. The liquor is a rather striking golden orange.

The dominant flavor in this tea is sweet potatoes and it really doesn’t need much more than that. Sometimes I catch a notes of cinnamon and orange citrus-both of which go great with sweet potatoes. There can be very subtle malty notes as well. It’s very smooth and non-astringent. For me, I enjoy this most as a mid-morning or afternoon tea. This is a tea that I really need to have in the cupboard all the time.

First infusion-1 heaping teaspoon to about 7 ounces of water. Temp 185/2 minutes
Second infusion-185/3 minutes.

Think I will use 1.5-2 teaspoons next time, because I think that I can draw more infusions out of this terrific tea.

I need to light a fire under myself to finish the green oolongs I have before they go stale.

I’m happy to report this is still delicious! (see previous notes). I did give it a bit of a longer steep today than I normally would because it’s western style brewing.

This was a fun tea tasting! Jim Marks suggested that I find out how traditional Moroccan Mint tea is made and served. I read a number of recipes and read how they pour from up high, filling a glass and pouring it back in to mix the sugar in well, and finally pouring from high up again to make a froth on the tea. I had the girls look on a map to see where Morocco is, look at the overall climate, and find movies that were shot in or set in Morocco. (Youngest is a huge Inception fan and was pretty excited about that one!) I described the tall, narrow tea glasses they use that are decorated in beautiful colors with gold filigree.

We poured our frothy tea and drank it. WOW! It has been a long time since I have had any tea with this much sugar in it, but it is DELICIOUS! I am amazed they drink this hot all year in Morocco, but it really is good and the mint is so cooling. They probably didn’t have refrigeration as a common option until recently! I think I like it even more hot than iced, too. (I had it iced at lunch with my banana sandwich.)

The article we read said that this is served to guests as a symbol of your hospitality and is served at least twice a day in most homes. A visitor in a gathering will be asked to judge who is the best tea maker among them. Now if that doesn’t sound like a bunch of Southern ladies gathered around serving their sweet tea to guests, I don’t know what does!

Thanks for the recommendation, Jim! This was fun, and I will definitely try serving it to guests this way in the future. I guess I have to go out and buy some of those gorgeous little glasses now! :)

I really love the spearmint and Egyptian mint in this, and I was disappointed to see that most companies use peppermint. I don’t know if I would like that as well, but I will certainly give it a try.

Had this as an iced latte last week. Thanks for the DAVIDsTEA staff who gave this to me on the house, you rock!

I found it tart, but maybe there was not enough agave nectar to my taste. It wasn’t a bad thing though, you have your bitter strawberries and your sweet ones! Very refreshing. Think I will try this warm sometime.

Aroma: Peat, cedar, jasmine.

Taste: Jasmine compliments pu-erh very well, it seems. It doesn’t mask the “barnyard” taste that some complain of with pu-erhs (including myself on occasion), but it’s more like it adds an earthy complexity and depth to the flavor of jasmine. Jasmine has a very clean taste, so I think that’s part of the reason that they balance each other well.

Texture: Both smooth and astringent.

Leaves: This tea comes in an tuocha. After a couple of steepings, the leaves detach and unfurl. They are olive in color and appear to be coarsely chopped.

Evaluation: This is my favorite pu-erh. I think that the amount of jasmine scent is right on–neither overpowering nor too subtle. The bronze-colored liquor is very nice.

A review of Pure Spring Green Tea (Bilo Chun) by In Nature

Using fresh cold water, I put to boil, when it comes to a rolling boil I turn off the pan. In opening this package I notice the thin foil that it comes in, like those found in coffee tins at times. It is shiny silver and the smell of the leaves are wonderful, smelling of milk or that dew melon I tend to think of when drinking some finer green teas.

I place one heaping teaspoon of the leaves into my mug and fill this with the boiled water and left to steep for few minutes. I like how at first, the leaves are crunchy and finely curled and once having poured the water into the cup they unfurl to a lovely green color at the bottom of the cup.

Tea’s color is very light green, and with the leaves at the bottom of the cup to enliven the green’s color all the more. Nosing this tea is to think of grassiness, that fresh cut grass smell to it, a nice effect.

I sip this tea slowly since I know it is very astringent and not bitter, but it does leave the palette dryer, some coating effect on the tongue.

With the second steep infusion for two minutes, using the same tea leaves I find that the grassiness is lessened and tea is not as sharply astringent. This time it is more herbal like and something of the silkiness is coming through with this second infusion.

I remember to remove the tea leaves from the cup and drink the second infusion without the leaves since as they stay in the cup it would be bitter.

Overall, 1st steep: tea is very grassy in taste with a lively mouth-drying effect on the tongue. It is refreshing and clean.
2nd steep: tea is softer, lush even with a silkiness to it making one think of milk or the dew found in some melons.

I must say; something about this tea reminds me of the Sencha Shinrikyu Tea by the Tao of Tea sampler pack that I tried last year. They are both nice teas.

Thank you In Nature for sending me this Bilo Chun (Pure Spring Green Tea) to try. It is exceptional.

A review of Celtic Breakfast by Choice Organic Teas

I filled a small pan with freshly drawn water and let water come to a full boil. I placed one tea bag into cup, and poured the hot water over tea bag in the cup, allowing to brew for 4 minutes for the flavors to unfold to their fullest. Also to be able to breathe in the aroma as it is presented in the steam rising from the cup. I like this aspect of getting a sense of the tea’s flavor through one’s nostrils. What it conjures prior to having had a sip of the tea.

Tea’s color is a dark red with first steep, I notice later when adding more water to the cup that the color does lighten to amber’s golden dew. Still dark, but not red is all.

This is not a bouquet type tea since it is too robust and smells of malt, there is a rawness to it. It is an equal combination of Assam tea leaf with Ceylon teas from mountain estates which keeps the blend strikingly smooth.

I choose to add one teaspoon of sugar to tea with the second steep as this enhances the malt and robustness that is to be found in this cup of tea.

Overall, this tea is described as “a malty tea of strength,” and it is indeed that.

On my way home, I was thirsty so I stopped at a QT gas station for a quart of soda for $.69, horrible. But $.69 for that much fountain Coke Zero, count me in. The cups they have are so nice I can’t imagine throwing them away; it’s a nice sturdy plastic cup and blue lid, so I thought it would be perfect to reuse to make iced tea. I cold steeped 4 teaspoons of this overnight and am now enjoying it with my mall pretzel. I went to return pants for my mom and returned with lipstick, a candle, and a pretzel. Oops.

This is delicious without any additions. I thought I may need to add like a flavoring syrup for a bit of a punch, but no way. Definitely needs no sugar. It’s very refreshing, and I’m glad I got 125g of it because I can see myself going through the quart cup of this a day! I can taste both the Darjeeling and the Ceylon and they really make a great iced tea combined like this. Sometimes you just need an iced tea that isn’t flavored, and I think I found mine without really trying…of course it helped that they label it as an iced tea blend.

Megan (granddaughter almost 17) and I have been watching Tom and Jerry cartoons this morning on my Big Screen TV. Don’t-cha just love Big Mice in the morning?!
Her tea of choice was…ta da…Black Chocolate! (I like it too!) My son Aaron brought it to me from San Francisco last month as a gift.

Megan’s comments about the tea? Straight up the tea is suprisingly sweet, and with milk alone…creamy. By adding sweetening delicious with an almost marshmallow chocolate flavor.

Marshmallow?
I think what she was tasting was a bit of malt that I missed in my first go around review. This time I could taste it clearly. There was a bit of what I love in malt ball candy. ( I like that candy at the movies but they taste more waxy than I remember as a child). This is a great Black (the color is very, very dark) Chocolate flavored tea, very rich and creamy without bitterness or acidity.

Big, dense chocolate flavor like a Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Bar is what I love about this tea!

This one tastes similar to Twinings, but it is much more astringent. While it cools it gets more bitter. I can see why they stopped making this one and started making their Aged Earl Grey. And I used my last tea bag for this one.

Very mild tasting. Flavour reminds me of apples and cinnamon. The cinnamon taste itself is very mellow but definitely stands out as the primary flavour. None of the floral tastes really stand out with the rosehips coming through the most. The oat straw gives a smooth taste which is unique but not unpleasant.

I was excited to try this new tea from Teavivre. Teavivre’s products are consistently great in taste and value. The little unbrewed leaf balls, which I assume are hand-rolled, are also a fun concept.

I followed the recommendations on the package and brewed it for two minutes. There was no suggested tea amount listed so I filled my official tea spoon as I normally do with loose leaf. This came out to about four balls per eight-ounce cup. When the steeping process had completed, a brew with a rich amber color appeared.

At first sip, I could detect a little sweetness and the familiar woodsy taste that accompanies most of Teavivre’s black teas. In the beginning I was a little disappointed with the flavor power. However, the taste seemed to amplify and become more pronounced with each sip. By my sixth swig, I was really enjoying the blend and thinking that THIS is what I’ve come to love and expect from Teavivre.

I can’t say that I noticed a chocolate taste as some reviewers noted. To me, the sweetness was more like honey. Of course, you can’t go wrong with either flavor.

This tea is a great new addition to the Teavivre collection. It most likely will be on my order list the next time my Teavivre supply diminishes…soon!

(This sample was generously provide to me by Teavivre. Thank you so much Team Teavivre.)
Dry Leaf: Smokey and vegetal.
Wet Leaf: Has a warm vegetal aroma with a very slight smokey aroma
Liquor: Is a yellowish green color.
Taste: Has a smokey flavor with a vegetal taste and there is a slight bitterness that lingers in the back of your mouth in a pleasant way.
Overall Opinion: I give this tea a 88. I think this tea has a rich flavor and quite unique from other green teas. Also, I think if you are eating a flavorful food dish this would be a great tea to go with it.

I am using an actual tea cup, so it is no wonder that one glass of the Earl just wasn’t enough for me. And I have six different Earl Greys to compare to each other. So why not make this an Earl Grey day?

I still haven’t gotten rid of these tea bags, so I thought I would try it again. The liquor is very dark and the tea smells soapy. I only brewed it for four minutes and the tea is harsh. It also tastes slightly soapy.

But this is also the tea that the Earl Grey lattes are made out of, so let’s try a splash of milk with it and see how that goes. gets milk Now it kinda looks like iced coffee. The milk made it drinkable, but it isn’t really mind-boggling. I taste the bergamot now, but it still has a very harsh flavor to it. It tastes rather flat.

I could see this being a good tea to make a milk tea with. Or even to put some sugar and boba in it and make an Earl Grey bubble tea. But I still wouldn’t reach for it on my own. I might keep it around and use it to experiment with some Earl Grey baking that I want to do. I’ll have to see how it compares to Biglow Earl Grey.

My friend gave me this tea to try because she knows that I love Earl Grey. I decided to look up the steeping guide for this tea and was surprised by the low temperature to brew it with. I usually use boiling or near boiling water for my Earl Greys, but I was willing to try the lower temperature. I steeped it for four minutes.

The liquor was a nice light amber and smelled lightly of bergamot. The taste was light. Very light. I was getting a hint of spice at the end too. I think if I ever have this again I think I might try a slightly hotter temperature.

I must have used too much leaf on my first tasting occasion with this tea. I basically dumped all the loose bits out of the package and it was clearly more than I needed. Today I used a far more modest amount and while greatly softened, I think I could use even less and still have a strong, mellow cup.

One thing I’m beginning to discover with sheng is that most of the time it is less about differences in flavors and more about how directly and rapidly the tea impacts my chi.

This tea has a very long finish and a very thick mouth feel which results in sensation on the tongue which drives the movement of energy around the body (there is a significant meridian at the roof of the mouth which is activated by pressing the tongue against it — this also ensures breathing through the nose which is more efficient).

Anyone else have experience with sheng where the flavor profiles are quite divergent?

I am trying this today – my experience with Keemuns has been a bit “meh” but I’ve read so many good things about this one.

I swear the dry leaves smelled like a Merlot wine and are very slender and beautiful looking. I tried to not overdo it with the leaf here. I eyeballed it but measured out about 1 tsp for my 10 oz mug.

Success! I liked this one. The results are quite delightful!

The tea liquor is a medium reddish brown and has a lovely cocoa fragrance. I’m picking up some hints of malt and the aftertaste is surprisingly floral, almost like a second flush darjeeling (but sweeter). I am not getting much smokiness, perhaps just a touch . But it may be my tastebuds are burnt out from that Russian caravan I had a little while ago.

I might even be braver and go for a slightly longer steep next time, but it ended up being very nice the way I prepared it. No need for sugar or soymilk at all, this is a great one to sip on plain. Smooth and without much astringency. I’m glad I but the bullet and went for it! So good!

I tried this again today at Peet’s thinking I might like it better this time… I was wrong.

As anyone who follows my tea log knows I like some smoky teas but this just seems to have no subtleness at all, it’s harsh and nasty in my opinion. I imagine whatever this is blended with is just too strong for the lapsang. Eccch.

I like the Russian Country from Harney and Sons which is a lot nicer, IMO

First off, I should mention that I won this from Teavana in one of their giveaways on Twitter!

And right now I’m listening to the King’s Singers (a virtuoso group from England) singing about being trains. “Look at me, I’m a train, I’m a train, I’m a choo-choo train…” oh, it’s so great.

On to the tea! It’s definitely a strong Earl Grey. It’s much stronger than DAVIDs. That being said, it’s not bad. I certainly have to add milk and sugar to make it drinkable, since I don’t particularly like bergamot, but it’s a lot better than Teavana’s straight Earl Grey. I don’t think I’ll get it again, since Earl Greys aren’t really my thing, but it’s not something I just want to throw out.

Also My tea cupboard is getting a bit boring, but I don’t really have the money to go out and shop. Does anyone want to do a swap for a few samples? :)

Wonderfull, strong aroma, indeed similar to gardenia flowers.