ssajami

This is DELICIOUS! Bi mu dan always tastes slightly fruity to me anyway, so it goes perfectly with the cherry flavors. It’s not overwhelmingly cherry, but gently cherry, to match the gentle white, with a hint of vanilla. I can’t find the brandy, but that’s a good thing because I don’t like brandy.

I really like this.

Having this with milk. Now it’s Creamy Pumpkin goodness! But I think that next time, if I"m planning to have milk in it, I will make it a bit stronger.

No notes yet.

Right now I’m drinking the last of my stash of this tea. I am thoroughly enjoying the tea, yet at the same time sad that there is no more.

Funnily enough, just this morning I wrote on a discussion thread about the whole limited-edition tea concept. I said that I am occasionally very sad when a tea runs out and I know I cannot get any more of it. This is one of those teas.

It’s a strange one, I will admit. Peanut butter? In tea? As a peanut butter addict, I just had to try it. As strange an idea as it may be, it really works. It’s not salty, yet I’m getting the salty sensation of peanut butter, and together with chocolate sweet, it is great.

Frank, if you read this: please, please, please make another peanut butter blend sometime soon! (preferably with chocolate in it too)

Compared to the other samples I tried, this one is less toasty, but also less sweet.
It’s like a “lite” version of the other types. Which is not to say that this tea is bad, because it is not. I am currently on my second infusion, which I am enjoying greatly.
It is, however, less impressive than the other samples. Good, but not outstanding.

I will preface this review with a fact: I am not a huge fan of camomile. I like the smell of camomile and will occasionally have a cup in the evening, when I make it for my daughter, as it’s the only tea she will drink, but I almost never reach for the camomile on my own.

I do, however, love love love rooibos.

And so, this blend was intruiging.

Camomile only seems gentle and unassuming, but in this blend it actualy managed to overpower the rooibos. I was hoping for a better balance, but I’m getting mostly camomile and only a little rooibos. It’s there, but taking a clear second place to the camomile.

I do think, however, that this tea will be good iced, or as a base for other blends. Perhaps I will try to mix this with a bit of plain rooibos, vanilla rooibos, or maybe green rooibos, to see if it mellows out the camomile a bit.

This is GOOD! It’s a little smoky, but also sweet and the two mix together wonderfully.
So far I’ve tried 3 of the 6 samples and found them to be very good.
The prices in this tea shop are reasonable and I have this suspicion that in spite of an overflowing tea cupboard, I will ultimately convince myself that I just have to have some more of these Wuyi Oolongs.

I just love the look of these Wuyi Oolong. They are so long and twisty. Beautiful leaves.
This tea is good. It didn’t wow me like the “Golden Key” sample did, but still it was a pleasant cup. A bit woodsy with a smooth sweet aftertaste.

Gentle, sweet white.
Careful with the water temp. and steep time because it can get a bit off.
But if done right, it’s a good white.

One of the advantages of being a tea-nut is that it is easy to buy me birthday presents. For my last birthday, I got a gift certificate to the local (and sadly, only) tea shop. My tea cupboard is now overflowing and I am also slowly taking over another shelf in the kitchen.

Gift certificates are awesome! It gave me an opportunity to purchase some teas that I had never felt justified to purchase before -like the really expensive ones :)
Like this tea. – 2oz of this tea cost me what I usually spend on a full lb. Ahh…but I’d been wanting to try this for while, so I got a small bag.

I guess my main expectation was that it be so very good as to justify it’s high price.

The verdict? It’s good, no doubt about it. It is gentler than the Yunnans I’ve had before and less sweet. but a solid slightly-malty cup.

But it is not THAT good, not good enough to actually pay such a high price again. I like their regular (and much lower priced) Yunnan much better.

So how to rate this. Taste-wise, it really should get a high-ish rating, but the taste-price ratio is way off, which, I think, warrants a lower rating….

Excellent!

Just had the last of my supply of this tea.

I am feeling slighly anxious now. See, there are teas that I am not too sad when I finish the tin. They are good while they last, but that’s it. Then there are those teas that I immediately make a mental note to re-order as soon as the tea-budget allows.

Then there are a different class of teas. Those that make me a bit nervous not to have any on-hand. That I sometimes order more of even before they have run out, just so that I will not be without. Funnily enough, I don’t drink them daily. Sometimes not even weekly. But I get anxious when there is none at all, and I have been known to order them even sans-budget and against my better judgement, just to have some at home.

Yeah, I am, as stated before, clinically insane :)

So what teas are on this elite list? Orange Rooibos. A hearty Assam (haven’t yet found a specific type that I prefer, so just any Assam that I can have for breakfast). A dark Oolong (Shui Xian, for example). A ripe pu-erh. Harney’s Florence. Something vanilla (black or rooibos). A roasted Mate (currently having Fusion’s Good Morning Mate). 52teas Coconut Cream Pie.

AND TeaGschwendner’s Bossa Nova Oolong.

I’m not going to give this a numerical rating because I don’t often like fruity teas, nor do I usually like green mate, and so I feel unqualified to rate.

I got this tea as part of my huge sample order at Fusion and as one of many attempts to try teas I don’t usually like. There have been surprises before, Fusion’s Blueberry Rooibos, for example, where I didn’t expect to like a tea but ended up LOVING it.

But alas, not this time. The mate and the raspberry were quite dominant, and I didn’t get much of the cocoa. If you like mate and raspberry, this tea is for you.

I’m not giving up on this yet. I will now try it iced. Hmm…can you ice mate?

Pumpkin! How can you not love pumpkin? Especialy when it smells so heavenly, of pumpkin, cinnamon and walnuts? Happily, it doesn’t end there, and it tastes as good as it smells.

Without additives, it is not very sweet, but very nutty. I imagine that it would be good with a bit of sweetener, to bring out that pumpkin pie tastes, but I like my tea unsweetened, so I left it that way. I will try it sweetened the next time I make this. For now I’m enjoying the pumpking goodness.

Well done Fusion Tea Room!

A big thank you to Jerry Ma and the China Cha Dao tea store for the samples.

My sample tasting has gotten off to an excellent start with this tea.
It’s very very good – sweet and with a sort of woodsy kind of taste going on too.
A tea with depth.

Three perfect infusions. The current, fourth, infusion is a bit weak now, but still good.
Recommended!

I think I agree with the previous reviews of this mate. The chickory overwhelms the rest of the flavors. I got a lot of chickory, a little mate and almost no caramel taste.
Overall, not a bad tea, but not what I had expected.

I am having this with milk and it’s awesome.
I have finally put my finger on what this was reminding me of.
It’s chocolate cake, all right, but the honeybush is sweet in a different way from the chocolate. It’s sort of a fruity kind of sweetness. That’s it! It reminds me of aBlack Forest chocolate cakes – chocolate with cherries in the middle.

This is delightful!

Another amazing tea from Fusion Tea Room. Each one that I have tried has unique flavors, but none fall from the high standards that I am coming to learn characterize all of Fusion’s teas. This tea, when hot, is really chocolate cake. But not just. There is the sweet honeybush base that lends it’s distinctive sweetness. Put all together, it’s a wonderful cup! When cold, it’s more honeybush than chocolate, but that’s good too, because the honeybush is delicious in itself.

Wow, by the smell (and taste) of this, Fusion Tea Room has squeezed a fresh orange right into this bag of rooibos! This tea is outstanding! For me to give such compliments to an orange rooibos is saying something. I am hard to please when it comes to orange flavored rooibos.

Orange rooiobs was the first loose leaf tea (tisane) that I had, and what made me fall in love with tea and out of love with coffee. The brand I had then was a local brand (bagged) that has since gone out of production. I have a certain memory of the wonderfulness of that tea, however I am not sure if it really was as good as I remember it, or if the novelty of the whole tea world inflated the quality of the memory.

Regardless, ever since I have been looking for an orange rooibos that can live up to that.
This does! It’s sweet and just a little tiny bit tart, and so orangey. It’s a very natural orange flavor.

I ordered many samples from Fusion, and I must say I am very impressed with their teas!

I’m not a big fan of fruity teas, except citrus flavors, so I was expecting to not like this too much. Maybe because of such a lack of expectations that this tea totally took me by surprise.

WOW, it’s wonderful! It’s juicy, and yogurty, and a tiny bit tart. It has a very rich taste.
I like this very very much!

This is the oddest tea.
I brewed it hot – it was quite unimpressive. Good enough green flavor, didn’t get much cherry. Maybe it shows how unremarkable it was, that I didn’t finish the cup, leaving it over half full and promptly forgot about it for a few hours.

I came back to the remaining tea a few hours later and decided to give it a sip.
BAM! What a transformation! It was sweet and very cherry, on a buttery green background. YUM!

I was in awe at how much the tea changed from hot to cold, so I made another cup, just to be sure. Again, hot it was mediocre, but once cooled, outstanding.

I only had a sample, and enough for those 2 cups (I will try to resteep, maybe get another), and I’m not debating whether it warrants a purchase or not, I’m not accustomed to purchasing teas just for iced.

A little light for an assam, but still a very nice tea

I think that Frank of 52teas has a gift with rooibos, just as he does with honeybush. I think rooibos might be more difficult in that it is less naturally sweet, and so needs more careful pairing.

This blend is outstanding. In fact, it is soooooo good that I made myself a second pot, just as soon as I finished the first (which didn’t take long either). But hey, it has no caffeine, so I indulged myself

I love rooibos. It is a very comforting tea for me. Sadly many blends completely overwhelm the rooibos taste, so that they end up tasting more herbal than rooibos. It’s hard for me to find good rooibos blends, and so lately I have been having more whites and blacks.

That is why this tea is amazing. The cinnamon and vanilla are subtle, but clearly tasted. The rooibos is not overly prominent, but it too is still there. A good balance, where each flavor is there, but not overwhelmed by the other flavors.

Contrary to it’s name, this tea brings up images of sunny days, warm winds and a blue ocean – and the tiny cinnamon pastries sold at the bakery by sea.

The last rooibos blend I had by 52 teas (Sheri’s blend), was gone within a week, because I was having pot after pot, day after day. Now I seriously think I will need to be ordering more of that, and more of this tea too, before it runs out. I have fallen in love with rooibos again. Happy day!

EDIT: Oooh, I finally stopped gulping it down so quickly and let a cup cool a bit, and there’s the honey too!

Second tea tasted for my morning tea bag replacement challenge.
I have been drinking this daily for two weeks (till the little pouch I purchased was finished).
This is a good, solid ceylon. Very good with milk, which I can do without all the rest of the day, but absolutely NEED in the morning.

If I had written this yesterday, I would have said that this is a serious contender for my new morning black. However after the assam I had this morning, I’m not sure that is true anymore. I like ceylons, but I LOVE assams.

So having come to that conclusion, maybe I can now narrow my options down to assams and assam blends.

Wait, on second thought, the tasting process is so much fun, and there are so many good teas, that I might actually expand my options….just….because.