Joshua Smith

Once again, thanks to Teavivre for this tea! I only used half of a packet the first time I had this tea, so this was finishing that off. Luckily, It’s been less than a week, so the tea has lost none of it’s flavor!

The first infusion was stronger than before, as I let it steep for a full five minutes. This resulted in a very dark color, but did not negatively impact the aroma or taste of the tea. The aroma was a intense, and the flavor was sweet with a hint of caramel. Clearly this tea is a cut above normal black teas, especially because I don’t need to sweeten it just to make it drinkable.

EDIT #1:
Something rather interesting happened as I reached tht end of the first cup. The tea had been a bit broken up, and there was quite a bit of tea dust at the bottom of the cup, which usually results in a very bitter taste. When I got to the bottom, the taste was initially a touch bitter, but with an aftertaste that was a bit like semi-sweet chocolate. Never had anything like that before.

EDIT #2:
After four infusions, this is what I’ve observed: The color of the tea has gone from a rather dark brwo, to an almost caramel color. The taste of the tea has become much sweeter, and the flavor is much more balanced. The sweetness mixes with the other mellower flavors very nicely, and creates a very pleasing cup of tea. Honestly, I’m rather glad that I have three more packets of this stuff.

Gotta do this quick, as I still have another exam to take, so check my other tasting note on this tea.

Thanks again to Teavivre for sending me this awesome sample!

Once again, I find myself trying a black tea. This one was actually better than the other, with an even smoother flavor. It also had the bonus of not getting bitter or astringent when I accidentally let it sit and cool for half an hour. Unfortunately, I have a busy evening ahead, and don’t have time to talk about every single cup I had, but expect a more detailed review next time (and there WILL be a next time.).

Finals started today, and I just got out of a three hour math exam. Thank god I had something to look forward to when I got back. Once again, this is a rather pleasant tea with respect to flavor and aroma, and I can personally say that it is very relaxing. The act of taking time to brew this tea was very helpful for unwinding after a stressful final…

For further notes, see my other post about this tea. Everything turned out the same, and I don’t have time for a complete review due to finals.

No notes yet.

First of all, thanks again Teavivre for sending me this sample!

This is my first lightly-oxidized Tie Guan Yin, and also my first confirmed spring picking, so I was a bit excited. The aroma of the dry leaves was a bit fruity, with hint of flowers and nuts. The first infusion was had the same aroma as the dried leaves, but the smells were a bit more muted, which allowed them to become more harmonious. The taste was a bit fruity, with a slight aftertaste of nuttiness. The second infusion was mostly the same, but a bit nuttier overall, and with the fruity flavors starting to subside a bit.

This is my second tea of the day, as very few teas that I own are “cold weather” teas. Anyway, the first infusion creates a wonderful aroma of toasted rice, with hints of grassiness and vegetation. The flavor is a mix between a sencha and the rice, but the rice is slightly stronger. The aftertaste is very much that of a sencha, but a bit more astringent than any of the straight-up senchas that I have in stock.

First of all, thanks to Teavivre for the free sample of this tea! It was another first for me, as while I have had jasmine teas, none of them had been pearls. Also, my previous jasmine teas have been from one of three sources: Stash, Yamamotoyama, or at Chinese restaurants. Needless, to say, this was a bit different.

The first infusion was very interesting, with a very pleasing jasmine aroma. It was "softer " than other jasmines I’ve had, and was much better than the Yamamotoyama jasmine that I have. The taste was also much better than the Yamamotoyama, with less astringency and bitterness. This is probably due to using a higher quality tea, as the Yamamotoyama appears to use cheap left-overs. It is also interesting to note that after the infusion, the leaves still loosely resembled pearls, which was interesting.

The second infusion was generally a bit weaker, but with a few exceptions. First, the tea tasted more flowery and sweeter. Also, an aftertaste on the tip of the tongue and the roof the the mouth became apparent. Thus aftertaste was a touch metallic and/or mineral, but still a bit flowery, and was generally very interesting, as my other jasmine teas do not exhibit such a characteristic.

I over steeped the third infusion, and there was a touch of astringency, and it wasn’t as sweet as the previous infusion. The aftertaste also strengthened and became a touch bitter. The forth infusion was rather plain, and even the scent seemed lacking by this point. The sweetness had also all but disappeared, leaving very little in the way of taste.

All in all, it’s the best jasmine tea I’ve had in a while, and was very pleasant. It also lasted a bit longer than my Yamamotoyama jasmine, which was a pleasant surprise. Anyway, I’m actually considering purchasing some of this in the future, after my other jasmine stock runs out.

Most of my experiences with black tea has been cheap bagged stuff from Stash, Lipton, or Twinings. This has resulted in a certain dislike of black teas as a category. This tea changed that.

After brewing the first infusion (and accidentally over-steeping it), I was left with a very interesting tea. The tea itself was a very dark red color, as is typical of black teas, and it had a very strong aroma that managed to smell pleasing to me despite my bias towards Oolongs and greens. MY first sip of the tea was actually amazing: Never had I ever had a black tea that was so smooth and well balanced that it didn’t require sugar to make it tolerable.

An added bonus of this tea is that it lasts a long time. I’m on my third infusion right now, and the tea is still rather dark. I expect to get around 8 infusions before it gives out. Also, the flavors of the tea mellow nicely, and this third infusion is even better than the first two infusions. I’ll edit this post later to include the late infusions.

EDIT:
Changed the rating to bring it into conformance with my new rating standard.

First of all, I have to thank Teavivre for sending me this sample. Secondly, this is my first white tea, so I was really excited to try this out.

After opening up the packages for this tea (it came in a Teavivre bag, with smaller sealed packages inside), I found a very interesting looking tea. All of the buds and some of the leaves of this tea still had some fuzz on them, which was rather quaint in my opinion. It also had a very pleasant aroma of spring wildflowers, if that makes sense.

The aroma of the first infusion was very delicate, with subtle flowery notes dominating vegetative undertones. The color of the tea was very light, so much so that it looks like the third of forth infusion of my sencha. The taste is much like the aroma: delicate. There are faint flowery tastes present, but they are very interesting. There is a faint aftertaste on your tongue and the roof of your mouth after you swallow, but it is kind of hard to describe. It actually reminds me a bit of the Wuyi yancha aftertaste…

Regardless, the tea very quickly loses its flavor, and only lasted three infusions, but that might be because I over-steeped the first infusion. Anothe thing to note is that i didi make a forth infusion, because the third had still been rather flavorful, but the forth was completely lacking in flavor, so I threw it out. Still, it was a rather excellent tea, one which I intend to keep on hand.

EDIT:
Changed rating to bring it in line with my new system of ratings :D

I started drinking this after my other tea gave out, but I don’t have time for a full review (Physics is snapping up my free time like it’s a door-buster sale on black Friday). It was just as good as last time, especially as the weather was freezing today. Again, I’m happy that I have a lot of this tea to last me until January or February.

For more details, just look at my previous tasting note.

Honestly, it’s hard to tell that this is an Oolong. This is a very light roast, an you can tell immediately just by looking at the leaves. The tightly rolled leaves are green, and smell strongly of lilac, completely lacking the usual roasted smell of Oolongs. Of course, my experience is mostly with Wuyi oolongs, that that might not be a fair comparison.

Anyway, the first infusion was interesting. The tea was very much like a green tea, with very strong vegetative notes and a flowery aftertaste. I was a bit surprised by the astringency that was present, but that disappeared after the first infusion. The aroma of the tea is something between an orchid and lilac, and is very pleasing. Later infusions become sweeter, and the flavors mellow nicely, but I only got six infusions out of the tea. Regardless, The tea did improve, peaked with the third infusion, and then mellowed until it was lightly-scented water with a bit of flavoring.

The bottom line about this tea is that it is light, flowery, and a rather pleasant tea that I look forward to enjoying again.

No notes yet.

I had a final today, so I needed a dark, highly-caffeinated tea to start my day. Once again, this is a nice dark roast, with a very Wuyi-esque flavor (but without the legendary Wuyi aftertaste, which, as always, makes me a bit disappointed.). Unfortunately, the tea felt a bit…flat today, but that might be because I am still unable to smell anything, and smell greatly affects taste. Regardless, I’m sitting here writing this at 8:45 pm, after 5 cups, and the leaves are still capable of more. The tea is starting to get a bit sweeter, but that is actually rather nice, and I’m once again glad that I have a whole lot of tea.

Too tired to do a good review (local time is 12:39 am), but the tea was great, was just as good as I remember it. Got a lot of infusions out of it, and the way the taste changed throughout the steepings was interesting and delicious. Got sweeter during the last two infusions, which was interesting and refreshing when compared to many green teas I’ve had. Hopefully I won’t be too busy tomorrow, and me review will actually be substantive.

Once again, this was a rather pleasant tea. I accidentally over steeped the first infusion, which resulted in more bitterness than usual, and it was harder to taste the grassiness, which was kind of weird as the grassiness is usually the source of bitterness in green teas. I wonder if that was because of how careful I was with respect to water temperature, or because of the inconsistent water quality in my dorm (which, for the record, was exceptional today). Regardless, the only downside to this tea is that I only got 4 infusions out of it.

I just got this in the mail today, and was eager to try it out. After five cups of Oolong, the sun set and it got cold, so I figured this would be a great way to warm up! As a side benefit, I’ve never gotten more than 4 good cups out of Genmaicha (emphasis on good).

This tea had all of the typical things: The toasted rice taste, the pleasant aroma (which was strong enough that I could actually smell it though my congestion). The only problem was, it was by no means unique. There was nothing to make this stand out, and the flavor wasn’t exactly strong. The first infusion I made was accidentally steeped for minutes, and yet, I wouldn’t consider it to be over steeped. I think that this is a good tea for a beginner, as further experimentation proved that it was remarkably forgiving with respect to steep length and temperature, but it isn’t a flavorful tea by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll probably keep some on hand until I find something better, but make no mistake, if something better appear at a reasonable price, I’ll snap it up.

Usually I start off a review of Qi Lan by commenting on the wonderful aroma. Unfortunately, I am still congested, so this is an exercise in futility. Regardless of my inability to smell anything, this was a very nice session with this tea. The lightly-roasted flavors were interesting, and were nicely complemented by the light honey flavors. One thing that was a bit odd was that the aftertaste was very muted, and the distinct mineral taste of a Wuyi Oolong was very hard to detect. The other strange thing is that I remember the tea having more complex flavors, but they are absent. I suspect that this is due to my congestion, as it is a well documented fact that smell greatly affects taste.

No notes yet.

No notes yet.

I had the flu for the first half of this week, and didn’t feel like I would be able to keep any tea I made in my stomach long enough to really enjoy it, so I had to abstain until today. I decided to start off rather light, and made some nice jasmine tea. Sadly, I am a bit congested at the moment, so the aroma is extremely muted, but this tea held a few surprises for me.

It was interesting, because the taste of the tea was sweeter and more flowery than I remember. This might be because I took the water off when bubbles where just beginning to form at the bottom of my kettle, as opposed to boiling the water and letting it sit for a while. Another interesting surprise was there was an after taste now, where a “flowery” taste lingers at the back of the throat, and gradually disappears. I’ve never experienced this before, so it was a rather interesting and relaxing experience.

when it’s all said and done, I was rather surprised by how well is turned out, especially after having to suffer through caffeine withdrawal on Tuesday and Wednesday. Also, because of how well this tea turned out, I might start drinking it more often.

No notes yet.

This tea was okay, and certainly worse than I remember, but part of the reason for that is because I have a cold right now. Regardless, this is green tea. There is nothing else to be said about it. It has no distinguishing features, no interesting flavors, and no unique aroma. It is a tea marketed to the masses, and it has a taste that, while not offensive by any stretch, is lacking.

This tea was a bit strange, but in a good way. I opened the bag, but there wasn’t much of an aroma. After brewing the tea, I still had a hard time with the aroma, but there seemed to be something a bit spicy (spicy as in smelled like a spice, not oh-my-god-my-tongue-is-on-fire spicy). Imagine my surprise when I tasted the tea, and it there was a delightful dash of cinnamon taste! It was like drinking masala chai, but not a strong, and with more refined/subtle flavors than any chai I’ve ever had. Unfortunately, I only had time for four infusions of the tea, and it was still perfectly drinkable, but the flavors had started to fade quite noticeably. I actually think that I want to get this tea in a larger quantity in the near future.