AJ

Mmmm. This is my ideal dessert tea. Plain, although I keep meaning to try it with milk.

Sipping and reading Watchmen. Checked it out of my college’s library. This is one thick graphic novel.

Enjoying this in my tea Libre. Yes, definitely DON’T steep it for more than three minutes, because the jasmine just takes over. Hints of jasmine I like. It can mix well. It’s pleasant. Lots of jasmine makes me squick.

The jasmine’s still fairly strong with three minutes. Vanilla is a definite second. If it could just overpower the jasmine life would be grand, because I like lots of vanilla. The bergamot… I taste hints of it from here to there, and it mixes somewhat oddly with the jasmine. Very nicely with the vanilla! Overall though, it’s more evident in the smell.

I’m actually at school, and this is now my second steep. So my timing probably isn’t perfect… Most likely a bit over three minutes. I’ve got the school’s hot water system temperature down, though. Will have to try two minutes next time, I think… But I’m sipping the second steep while working on my co-op application (which I will follow with some needed calculus homework).

When I sipped this in the store (they had it out as a sample) it was a good, strong vanilla with just a hint of jasmine. I should ask them what their perfect brewing temperature and time was… Hmm. There is a bit of bitterness from the green tea, so I’m definitely going to consider lowering the temperature next time.

Had about a teaspoon and a half of this left, so I just threw it all into a mug and steeped it for five minutes.

There’s a nice, good Yunnan Tea smell to it. The taste is very mild, but drying on the tongue. It’s sort of a smooth bitter. I could use buttery to describe it, almost. Perhaps.

But anyways, that’s the last of that sample. Not a fan enough of Yunnan to order it. Besides, I’ve got lots of OTHER teas I would already like to buy from Life in Teacup. And many more I’d just like to grab a sample of.

Soon.

No notes yet.

That’s the last of that. I won’t be getting it again from Tea Desire, although I would like to try other company’s Monk’s Blend.

Mmm you can smell the sweet caramel. The bergamot is very mild, but there. And when I pulled my filter out, I think I might have gotten a whiff of apple.

The bergamot’s stronger in the taste, the caramel shadowing it in the background. I still get whiffs of something that could be apple in the smell, but none of it carries over to the taste. Maybe just a touch as it cools, but I could just be mistaking the taste. It’s very mellow and pleasant, though. There’s a touch of bitterness as well, but that’s it.

Mmmm blueberries. The smell’s strong in the leaves and in the cup. There were a few freeze-dried ones in the tin as well, although I don’t know if any of them actually made it to my sample packet.

I also think I’m smelling a bit of… liquorish? How odd. Although, blueberry and liquorish doesn’t seem like too bad a combination.

First sip… Still quite hot… Oooh, blueberry. Yup, I don’t think this is going to be one of those sissy barely-there flavoured teas. Still, probably shouldn’t be eating spicy pizza at the same time. Totally going to/may already be ruining my tastebuds for the experience.

Aah, but I’m getting a sweetness and the blueberries are in your nose. There’s a bit of a tang in it, from the berries I suppose.

The tea itself is very mild, which does good with the blueberries. I will have to type out a more detailed ramble when I’m not eating pizza with this.

Have you ever heard of a cream Irish breakfast? I haven’t. I even checked out our database to see if any other places had something. Nothing! How unique.

I got this as a sample at the Great Wall during my last visit. I’m pretty much a regular there now (to the point that I’ve gotten to meet The Other Regulars, and also help out with Advertisement—when Lauren, the owner, explains “tea to go” to prospecting customers, I hold up my cup and display it like a fancily-dressed Show Lady). It’s a wonderfully social area, and I’m allowed to do my homework there. If I’m not chatting.

But more on that in Place Reviews.

Tea!

Brought the steeping temperature down to threeish minutes due to the high Assam content of Irish breakfasts. The dry leaves carry a hint of sweetness in their smell, and if you put your nose right into the brewed tea, you get a good Vanilla whiff. Sipping it, it’s definitely no Irish Cream, but it’s such a wonderful hint, and it oddly works so well—it’s like a pleasant, sweet surprise for your breakfast blend. I figure milk might bring it out a bit more—I should try some with it later. Maybe a bit of sugar, because that always coaxes along vanilla cream flavours.

The Irish Breakfast itself is solid, malty but subdued by the non-Assam teas in the blend (Ceylon, I think, is in there, but I can’t guess the others).

I wasn’t paying attention when I steeped this and did five minutes in boiling water, despite the fact that it contains green tea. So there is a chance I oversteeped it.

However, my tongue is still recovering from me burning it yesterday, so if I did, I don’t know how well I’ll be able to taste it.

The leaves smelt of bergamot most strongly, and flowers more secondly.

Brewed, jasmine is coming through. First sip is floral and bergamoty, although muddled—stupid tongue. Yes… definitely a strong floral in there. I think I smell something sweeter, but that seems to be all I’m getting from the vanilla.

Got this at the Urban Tea Merchant yesterday. I pretty much swore off ever getting tinned tea there, because they’re thirty dollars while the same amount of tea in a sealed bag is half that. However! They were having a sale on all of their old tea tins (they have new ones) and Christmas teas (I thought about it, but it looks like they went the usual Christmas Spice way). Plus, you apparently get a few cents off if you bring in an O Dor tin for a refill.

For a full recount of the shenanigans that went down at the shop, one’ll have to read my updated Place review. And believe me, stuff went down. Not particularly good stuff, but I still love the shop itself.

Tea’s cooled, but with that, the taste as become mild… I’m going to go ahead and blame my tongue again. I’m really not picking up any notes of the black or green teas used. I think I’m getting an astringency from somewhere, but hm. Yes, I think it might be from the green. I’ll have to bring my steeping down a bit next time.

I had this tea to go in-shop (although the “to go” didn’t really work out very well, since I stuck around the shop until I finished it). I was very impatient and kept sipping it despite it being too hot still. This left me with a burned tongue, and a little less insight into the actual taste than I’d like.

What I DID get, however, was smoke. Delicious smoke, dark, not burnt. You could smell the fruit, faintly, but I didn’t get much of it in the taste right away (see: burning my tongue). As it cooled there was a pale fruityness. At one point, something a touch tart, perhaps. Either way, it’s going on my shopping list because I’d like to try it again. Smoke and Fruit? Sounds like a genius combination to me.

I bonded with the guy serving the tea, as we both enjoyed smoky teas. “Kindred spirits”, I think he said. We joked about how under appreciated it can be.

He had a set steep time (and temperature, I assume), but I don’t know what they were. Brewed to perfection, though.

No notes yet.

The photo taken is mine, as this tea is also not on their website.

I brewed this in the glass teapot to watch the leaves unfurl (“agony of the leaves”). I had it sitting on the windowsill so the natural light would filter through the tea. I should film it next time.

This is a dry, strong, spicy tea. The smell is strongly of honey, and there is definitely honey in the taste as well. This is a morning tea. The taste of honey is surprisingly strong. The taste is sort of like a very deep Yunnan. This province is farther east than Yunnan. But there are parallels.

The taste is smoothing out as I sip.

I have a few things to say about this tea first. Hoping it doesn’t go cold before I finish.

Firstly, this and the other one I picked up from Tea Desire yesterday, are mysteriously absent from their website. But then, their website lists a very general look, I suppose—very few single estate teas, but they’ve actually got a surprising number of them at my location. Hmm.

Because of this, I had to take the picture myself… Flash makes the leaves look very sparkly and white. But there are some green bits and tan bits and dark and gold in there. It’s actually very pretty.

Secondly, I tried looking up “Shangrilla” as I do every time I pick up a tea I assume is named after its estate. Google returned nothing, but suggested “Shangri-la”. Turns out, this isn’t a real place—it’s a fictional place from a novel, but has become synonymous with “Heaven”. There are a lot of hotels named after it. Couldn’t find any plantations, so I’m guessing it’s just an artistic name choice, and it’s a blend of Nepalese first flushes.

The smell of the dry leaves is VERY fragrant. Fruity perfumy and delicious. Steeped, the smell dissolves into a very fruity dark oolong-and-black smell. Nepal teas are supposed to be comparable to Darjeelings, and I can see why. Although this is much fruitier overall.

Fairly drying on the tongue… Getting fruits and nuts. Like a Darjeeling—very like a Darjeeling, but I think I like this better. It’s fruitier, less sharply astringent. Mellow, and VERY nice. I’m liking this one a lot and I’ve only had three, four sips—and it’s still pretty hot.

Cooler, I’m getting more of the drying and it’s settled a bit into a more classic Darjeeling. But still very enjoyable.

Had this a few times but kept forgetting to log it.

It was a present from my friend. There’s… not much information on the Winston’s Tea Company website. It smells of cinnamon and orange. Well, mostly cinnamon; the website only confirms that it contains cinnamon.

So much cinnamon.

It’s quite spicy. I’d try it with milk, but that seems kind of weird with orange. At least I’m assuming orange is the fruit I’m smelling—could actually be apple. It’s really hard to tell, I can’t pick it up much mixed with the cinnamon.

It’s certainly not an everyday tea for me. Makes me think of Christmas, though. Spice and fruit.

I found it! Down in New West, when I had to walk through a marketplace to get to an unrelated tea place. Lucky.

I’m going to go ahead and say that, because both companies are the product of Steven Smith, he must really associate greenblack blends with Christmas. Joy? And Christmast Morning? Or, another way to think of it, would be red-green blends. See what I did there?

Dry, I could definitely pick up jasmine. Steeped, it smelt like Joy, but it’s definitely darker in colour.

First sip—bitter green. Bakey oolong. No black… I think there’s a nutty keemun, and/or a darjeeling in there. Mmm… Getting a dryer black taste now.

Overall, darker and sweeter than Tazo’s Joy. I like this one much better. Damn, and I hinted to my brother that Joy would be a good Christmas present.

I would like to try Smith’s new line of teas, though. I’ve found them at Chapters, but they don’t carry much variety—about three blends. Bergamot was the only black, I believe.

Aaah, picking up a very good ceylon now. With just a touch of green bitterness.

This smells delicious. Like spiced shortbread.

It’s a very mild chai with a hint of vanilla sweetness. I think it would go very well with milk, although I didn’t add any this time around. I picked this up on my search for Stash’s Christmas Morning. I decided I might as well check a tea off my Steepster Shopping List, and this one has been on there longer than any other.

Mmm.

I decided I like how Tazo does mint, and since Stash was originally created by the same guy, I just figured.

I wanted the set—Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning—but no place seems to sell Christmas Morning, and only 1/5 seems to sell Christmas Eve (or at some point did, as the ‘out of stock’ signs tell me).

When I opened the box I got hit by a STRONG mint odour and was initially very worried. But it mellowed out when brewed, and sniffing it, it smells of a mellow mix of orange, cinnamon and nutmeg, with just a very small hint of mint.

It tastes of a mellow mint. I could have done five minutes, I think; I decided to test the centre of the steep-range the box gives. Just so I could simplify my next cup—go higher, or go lower. Mostly mint, with a bit of orange and almost some spices. It’s nice to curl up with.

No notes yet.

Sipping this, I’m really missing Simple Leaf. There were so many other teas from them I wanted to try. Mountain Malt, Black Frost… I think I repeat myself every time I drink this tea. But they shut down so suddenly; you would think they would need to sell off some of their stock first. Where did all of that tea go, I wonder?

Sipping this very hot and savouring it. I have a calculus test to take in a little under two hours. I can never bring myself to worry over these things, and sipping tea only calms me more. I hope I pass.

Dirty, dry malt, raw cocoa, this is such a wonderfully confusing tea. I’m no chocolate fan, but I can understand what people mean by ‘raw cocoa’. That dusty, astringent, dirt taste, with hints of very bitter chocolate. I’m so glad I still have a few good scoops left. This is not a tea I want to finish off. We’re still getting acquainted.

Drank this a few times, wasn’t sure if I liked it, but I think I do. It smells like a strong assam, but it’s really quite mellow in comparison to most of them. Or at least it is at three minutes steep time (although I steep most assams at two). I think there is some darjeeling hiding in this blend as well. It lives up to “Afternoon Blend”. I should be drinking this one more.

Unrelated, Damn Fine Teas has released Series 5 and 6, and I didn’t even notice. Now there’s no way I can get their Christmas blend in time (ten days to transfer money to paypal, order, at least two weeks to ship to CANADA). Damnit.

I’ve found I LOVE the idea of Christmas tea blends. I want to collect them all. Sadly, no marketplaces around here seem to want to sell the Christmas blends of the standard tea companies. I really want to try Stash’s Christmas Eve and Morning, and White Christmas. But no places sell it! And the site’s shipping to Canada is outrageous.

Had this this morning with a slice of orange in it. I’ve learned not to use concentrated citrus juices as a stand-in for the real thing. It is a bad idea. If you wish to fruit’n up your tea, add an actual slice/wedge of it. You don’t get the unbearable puckering, just a cup of deliciousness.

This tea smells delicious. Like coffee cake.

Slightly cloudy in the cup. I don’t know if I can write a competent review right now. Not really feeling up to it. But there’s a coffee bitterness flavour (not too strong, thankfully), with a touch of chocoloateness and vanilla, maybe. Mmmm. Makes me want tiramisu.

I chose this tea over their Christmas tea, which seemed to be mostly spices and orange (why is orange such a Christmas Tea Blend flavour? Has anyone else noticed this? What’s christmasy about oranges? I find apples far more christmasy). So I picked this up. They got a whole bunch of dessert teas, actually.

Also picked up a tea for a friend in the US, who’s a big friend of Murchie’s. Have to figure out how to ship packages so I can send it to her…

I figure this would be nice with milk and sweetner. Although the flavours are a bit on the faint side. Sweetner might bring them out a bit more.

I think this one is definitely on my ‘to order’ list. It’s warm and toasty and peachy, and this time around, I got a whiff of cinnamon spice in the brewed tea smell.

Twenty-five second first steep. Using this to boost my willpower to work on my geology project. Doing a project on the Grand Banks earthquake of 1929. Fun! Working on the layout for my paper right now.

Did something crazy and tried this one with milk (blasphemy! Earl grey with milk!); I wanted to see what it would do to the rose. Brewed five minutes so as to add the milk; the rose scent is VERY strong.

It sort of ruins the bergamot (to be expected), however the rose definitely makes it through, but it’s smoother. A bit of agave nectar as well, so the sweetness is from that, but there’s definitely a sort of perfumy taste—although perhaps it’s just the smell that’s interfering. There is definitely A taste that isn’t just the tea, but it’s not bitter. This’ probably the only way I could drink this.

Blech, rose.