New Tasting Notes

I tried this in the store on my last pass through the local mall. It’s a fairly standard tasting green tea. Mild and grassy. Nothing jumps out at me as good or bad. It’s just normal.

Thus, it’s getting a middle of the ground rating, only slightly above average (average being 50). If you like green tea, you’ll probably like this. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy some. A hot free sample in the store suits me just fine. :)

52teas 12 Days of Christmas Sampler 2011 – Day 12

A month after Christmas and I’m finally getting around to finishing off this sampler. I haven’t even logged into Steepster for two weeks! I kind of cheated on tea a bit of late. The fiancé and I bought a really nice espresso maker, so my morning tea has been subsumed by coffee. I’m sorry tea! But I’m back now!

Anyway, on to the much anticipated Milk & Cookies! (I say “much anticipated” because I saw it on their site a couple weeks back and deduced that this must be the 12th day of Christmas tea). The pouches have already sold out, so this is my one and only chance to try it.

I’d say it’s mildly disappointing without additions. It tastes like a tannic chocolate black tea. But with some added milk and sugar, BAM! I’m drinking milk and cookies! Now it could be entirely my imagination, but I think I’m detecting some notes of butter and dough. Yum! I like this tea a lot, and I’m really glad I got to try it.

This has been one excellent tea adventure! Thanks, Frank, for creating such a wonderful and fun sampler!!

I purchased this from a seller on eBay from China. Orange is one of my favourite flavours and aromas so when I saw exactly what this tea was I fell in love with the idea of it being naturally flavoured. It arrived today after weeks of waiting.

My tea examination contains some of the tangerine casing as well as the pu’erh tea.

The smell is very pleasing, you have the freshness of the pu’erh and the slight sweetness citrus smell from the tangerine.

Colour is a warm, dark reddy brown (overall colour would be medium).

Taste wise this tea is beautiful. With the fresh and light pu’erh tea taste you also have a wonderfully uplifting tangerine taste that manages to also stay light and fresh. Very easy to drink and is now one of my favourite tea purchases.

The preparation time was what I was advised from the seller and I would say that it is a decent strength and is about right for me. If you want a very strong brew then leave it in for say 2 minutes. You can also re use the tea three times but you must double the steeping time. So first steep use is 1 minute, second steep use is 2 minutes and so on.

Tea of the morning…….

And a crazy morning it was! The school bus was early (the kids missed it), and as I opened the garage door to take the kids to school, the opener went kur-put which meant the car was stuck inside. Everything was resolved, eventually, and this tea along with a breakfast of wheat toast with soft boiled eggs restored my sanity. I am definitely buying some! Thank you to ashmanra for sending me a taste! It is more than a decent cup of tea in my book!

This is WONDERFUL!

This has the perfect amount of sweet to the perfect amount of chai spices to work as a great tag-team in this flavor combo! The two conflicting flavor combos sing PAULA ABDUL’S Opposites Attract here!!! The sweet is a nice sweet – NOT overdone and the spices lovely – also NOT overdone. This is sweet, spicy, juicy, fruity, soothing, warming, A TREAT. The notes of cinnamon are like a faint fireball jawbreaker…again NOT over the top but nicely done! I REALLY LIKE THIS mostly because of the ratio of each flavor coming together in unison.

Another very much enjoyed tea, all gone! I really enjoyed this slightly tart and green apple-y incarnation of a monkey. It especially reminds me of the summer because I made so much delicious iced tea with it! We are having a strangely warm and sunny January day here on the East Coast, so I thought it appropriate to bid this one adieu as I dream of visiting gardens and having picnics.

I wanted to try and expunge some old samples this morning, but most of my samples are really contain more than one cup (so there won’t be any expunging today I don’t think). This one is like the sample that never ends! I think I still have more than one cup left after using tea for this one.

Well, it’s still a pretty tasty tea. Chocolate and coconut; now I’m wondering how this compares to Harney’s new(ish) Soho Blend, which is also chocolate and coconut. Also, as my mind is wandering while drinking this tea I am thinking about how it would taste with a pinch of almond tea in it… kind of like almond joy in a cup! That should be a way to enliven my next cup. I enjoy this tea but it’s not something I reach for; I certainly don’t crave it, hence it’s taking forever for me to get through the sample!

Another tea I get to cross off my TEA Bucket List thanks to Daisy Chubb!!!!

This reminds me of DT’s Santa’s Helper and I really like that! I think that one is a little more mintier and candy-like but this one is darned dandy, too!

It’s chocolate and mint and sweet and satisfying…might have to make some minty DT purchases soon! :) Thanks again DaisyChubb!!!!

Thanks to Indigobloom for sending me a sample of this which I am finally getting around to trying!

I still don’t know how to tell if a milk oolong has real or an artificial flavor added. From the description it would appear that this one is natural. I’ve been steeping it in the gaiwan for 60 seconds or so this morning at around 180 F. this is a very buttery tea that reminds me of freshly cooked corn. There is also a slight floral element here which is nice. It is very tasty but since I seem to be allergic to milk I always worry about these. :)

It gets a little less milky around the 3rd and 4th step so that’s where I seem to like it the most. Amazing this reminds me of POPCORN!

Received a sample of this with my recent order. I’m glad I saved it until this week.

The past three weeks have been completely overwhelming. The dog going missing, work getting wrapped around the axle, complications for Liz with school and my first disc golf tournament this past weekend on a course I’m really not strong enough to throw at par.

So this week is a bit of a calm after several storms. And this is the right tea for that calm.

One thing I love about drinking really fine tea, is that it helps you realize all the things you couldn’t put your finger on about other teas you’ve had. We sampled a lot of green teas from TeaVivre recently, and also the ones Liz brought back from Japan, and I was always looking for some magic balance of strong, green flavors, pan roast flavors and soft sweetness that none of them was really up to providing. It can be a very frustrating chase, especially when you aren’t 100% sure what it would taste like if it were what you wanted.

This tea has it all. Barely. I’m into my fourth or fifth steep and the liqueur is still very light and very delicate. But it isn’t weak. There is that soft sweetness, but it is backed up with genuine greenness and the touch of the pan.

As much fun as it is to keep trying lots of teas, I do find myself often thinking “now that I found this, that fills this role, and I don’t need anything else, I’ll just keep this stocked.”

But we all know I won’t do that. :-)

I think I’ve said this before in another Tulsi review. I hope what they say about Tulsi is true. the claims of calming I mean. All the health benefits.
This is a great herbal tea blend. The flavors blend so well. It smells nice. no after taste. Slightly sweet & fruity, but not candy
This was a sample sent to me in my order and I’m grateful to Fusion for introducing me to Tulsi
This is what I need to help me relax as I’m watching Hulu and getting ready to sleep

This is from the new tea box that just arrived from Teavivre. Thank you! I am also grateful that it was the excellent puerh they sent me that set my son and now his girlfriend on the tea drinking path. Neither of them liked tea until I gave them the Ripened Mini Tuo Cha Puerh.

When I opened the pouch, the dry leaves smelled strongly of spinach or possibly even cooked mustard greens or tender greens. Quite aromatic! The leaves are a very rich green color, thin and twisted. I was surprised when I peeked in the pot and saw how much they had unfolded. They are not as big as oolong leaves, certainly, but unfolded to impressive size considering how they looked dry.

The tea in my cup stills smells very much like spinach or mustard greens, milder now. The liquor is very pale, a light yellow that is almost clear. The taste is not mild or hidden in any way. The first grocery store green teas I tried years ago tasted like hot water. Not this cup! The liquor may be pale but the flavor is bold, the tea astringent and palate clearing. It is not bitter at all. The taste lingers.

Both steeps were two minutes. I think I would enjoy this even more going to the conservative side of their suggested steep time and stopping the first steep around one minute.

The second steep is much the same but just a wee bit milder.

Thank you, Angel Chen and Teavivre, for the opportunity to try your wonderful teas!

Oh how I wanted to love this tea. I had been looking for something that was full of apples to work as a hot cider sort of drink. There was something very artificial about this one for me. Right from the time I opened the tin something seemed a little a miss – perhaps a little like strong apples with a finish of musty cardboard. My husband and daughter really liked it and didn’t get the unpleasant artificial after taste that I did. It did smell promising but just wasn’t quite for me – this was the first time I’d ever had a David’s tea that had this strange aftertaste.

I didn’t get the “creamsicle” taste that everyone is raving about – I wish I did. I really wanted to like this tea but I just got a sour floral taste with it. I’ll try it iced next time but it just didn’t make it onto my favourites list.

It was exactly what I expected. Lovely Japanese restaurant style green tea. I loved the brown rice and popcorn and had been looking for something like this to add to my cupboard. It reminded me of when I worked in a Japanese restaurant in high school. You can never go wrong with this style of tea in the evening. My daughter loved it so much she actually at the steeped tea leaves, brown rice and popcorn – whatever floats your boat I guess.

This just might be be my ‘go to’ (so far, just quote me on this January 2012 day) Earl Grey. I mean, why bother drink a plain Earl Grey after this one? At least, for me anyway. The bergamot is not too strong and the vanilla-creme flavor stands out….but shouldn’t it? If it didn’t, then why make an earl grey Creme Vanilla tea?
It doesn’t need sugar at all…but I guess when i’m feeling it..I could make a strong brew, add some sugar and soy milk and go to town

Regretfully reaching the end of my sample. This has a lovely clean, clear, coppery taste that (I’m not going to deliberately mess it up for experimental purposes, but…) I suspect you can’t oversteep. Not a hint of bitterness potential.