teaplz

Oh man, is this YUM.

As you all know, I heart Golden Moon. Hard. GM pretty much jump-started my tea education with their sampler (the number one thing I can recommend to ANY tea novice). And now they’re pulling out the big guns, offering fresh and new varietals. Let me tell you, the excitement ensues!

Honey Orchid Black is a beautiful tea. When I opened the packet, I nearly squealed at how gorgeous the leaves are. These are huge. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a black tea with such full and gorgeous leaves. It’s kind of gnarled, kind of ancient-looking. Twiggy, leafy, and just full. Expensive-looking as well. This is no CTC. No these leaves look like they were carefully plucked from a tea bush with able, loving hands, and dried with the highest of care.

There’s a faintly sweet scent coming off the leaves. And when it comes time to steep this one up, I’m pacing around with excitement. Because as soon as the hot water hits the leaves, a delicious honey-like aroma floods my nostrils. It smells delicious. It smells like clean hay fields and honeyflowers.

I don’t think there’s a such thing as a honeyflower.

Maybe honeysuckle?

ANYWAY, it smells good. Great. Fabulous. And then the timer goes off and it’s time to drink!

The first thing I notice is how unusually colored this one is for a black. It looks more roasted-oolong (or an oolong on the darker end of the scale) than black. The color is a deep honey, nothing at all similar to the ambers and dark browns of a lot of black teas. I take the first sip and YES. This is what tea drinking is all about.

It tastes less heavy than I expected. This tea doesn’t assault you with its flavor. No, it’s subtle and smart. It coaxes a little smile out of you. It elicits a contented sigh. At the beginning of the sip is a delicious sweetness, honeyed deliciousness mingled with a light black tea flavor. Not at all roasty, and entirely smooth. Then there’s this floral component, a JUICY floral component, similar to the way jasmine has juiciness, but not at all the same flavor. It’s softer. Like gauze. Or gossamer wings. It’s lovely.

Then comes the delicious endnote, a whisper of sweetness that lingers and lingers and lingers.

It’s great.

I can’t wait to see how a second steep will go for this one!

Meh incarnate.

I bought this tea several months ago from Rishi, but never got around to try it. I’m not the hugest fan of blueberries, but I figured it might be a nice caffeine-free alternative on the days when I’ve had too much to drink. It’s cold and icky here in NYC, so some hot blueberry goodness seemed right up my alley.

Man, when you open this package, the blueberry, it just hits you. A wall. SO aggressive! It smells tart and sweet and full of flavor. Blueberry concentrate. Blueberry incarnate. There are bits and pieces of blueberries mixed in with the rooibos, which is always a nice touch.

So I steeped this one up, and my entire kitchen began to smell aggressively like this tea. Seriously. It still smells. It’s hours later. My parents were freaked out when they came home. “WHAT IS THAT.” “teaplz, what did you do now?” Yeah, made some tea. They thought it smelled like perfume. And you know what, there is this undercut of floral notes. But for the most part, it smells pretty fruity, with a bit of a sour edge.

The color of this tea is pretty intimidating as well. Combine the reddish rooibos brew with the purple contrast of the blueberries and you almost get this bruise-like color in a cup. It also stained around the edge of the ceramic. This is some hardcore stuff, y0. A blueberry chain gang.

So I cuddled up on my sofa to watch some Buffy and Angel this morning, and took the first hesitant sip.

And man, is this TART. And SOUR. And… hibiscus-like. Yes, I am one of those people that can taste hibiscus almost immediately. The flavor profile on the first sip is not unlike Celestial Seasoning’s Lemon Zinger (or any of their Zingers, for that matter). There isn’t much body, and it’s just… BAM. I am here! There’s really not much of a rooibos, woodsy-hippie flavor going on here.

What kept me drinking was the aftertaste. Blueberry. Blueberry muffins! That’s exactly what the aftertaste was. It lingered on the tongue, the same way blueberry bear does (which is delicious, by the way). It was alluring. The faint wisp of what this tea could have been. Rich and succulent with an almost baked-buttery edge.

But again, it was only the aftertaste. And most of drinking tea is about the entire sip, from the moment it hits your tongue, through the body of it, finishing with those final notes. Ultimately, it was most of the sip that doomed this tea for me. I just couldn’t take the sour. The aftertaste pay-out wasn’t good enough. It’s like one of those movies that you watch for two hours and only the last five minutes are worthwhile. You admire what they did with those last few seconds, but you want your money back.

So unsatisfied, I dumped about 1/3 of the cup down the sink. The horrors, I know! Maybe with a shorter steep time, or some sugar, or even some milk, this one will mellow out. But for now, the blueberry dragon has defeated the teaplz.

If you haven’t heard, there’s a mega SNOWPOCALYPSE going on in NYC. Serious snownage.

It’s the second day of snowing, and they still haven’t plowed my block. It’s a bit depressing, knowing you used vacation days to be trapped inside of your house… but it’s a pretty good excuse to drink up some chai, the old fashioned way!

takgoti sent me this forever-ago. Yes, probably a year ago. I am very behind on these samples. It’s disgusting, I know. But she packaged everything in cute little snap-close Tupperware, so it all stayed fresh!

I made this one on the stovetop, and let it sit for a good ten minutes before the pour. On the nose, this blend is really very spicy. Chewy-spicy, almost. Like spice cookies. There’s lots of cardamom and cinnamon and glove. And the heat of ginger.

This chai steeps up with all of the spice of the dry blend, and then some. The correct word here is heady. It almost threatens to be overly potpourri-like, with the heavy-handed, assertive spicing. And at first sip, it almost doesn’t work. My taste buds were overwhelmed. There’s even a slight burn to this one, a heat that develops slowly on the tongue from the pepper and ginger. It’s a bit overpowering, to say the least. Strong chai coming through!

But it goes down really smooth, and the rawr-worthy spices almost become addictive after a few sips. I was able to finish quickly a mug and a half of this without even batting an eye.

I wish that the stovetop, traditional way of making chai was faster, because the results can be really very satisfying. Especially when you’re buried in 20+ inches of snow. I think I like Golden Moon’s Kasmiri Chai better than Samovar’s – it’s more gentle than the loud blast of flavor in store for you with Samovar. But I can’t help but love this chai-beast as well, for daring to be so flavorful and punchy.

So no time for tea-time = bottled tea-time! I picked this up during lunch at work, thinking, “Hrm! Sencha-ish pickup for the middle of the day!”

I guess I should preface this review with my stance on iced tea. I’m not really a fan. Sure, I’ve drunk gallons of the pre-sweetened Nestea variety. That syrupy concoction that tastes more of manufactured sugary gloop than actual tea. And yes, on occasion, I can enjoy sweetened fountain-soda-tea. Like Lipton’s Raspberry Iced Tea from a fountain. Delicious if you can find it! But in general, iced tea makes me screw up my face in a pretty ugly grimace.

I can’t really talk much about a smell here, because I didn’t want to be seen sniffing my bottle like a nutjob at work (open-air cubicle). Besides, iced tea isn’t usually as fragrant as its hot cousin. First sip… grimace. It tastes like really cold green tea. Okay, that sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. It tasted like tea I had left out, half-drunk in a mug somewhere. Not my style.

It’s really interesting, though, in that this is an iced tea that tastes like tea. There’s no getting around it. It’s got the vegetal notes of a Japanese green throughout. A little bit more bitter than I like my greens, and the sweetness is muted through the cold. But it’s clearly green. It just tastes really plain. After a few sips in a row, I was losing the tea taste and just getting this sort of pure-water taste. Not that that’s bad, but it wasn’t a riot of nommy goodness in my mouth.

Sort of a meh.

Let me know how your tea journeys are going lately, guys! Happy holidays, Steepsterites!

I HAVE MISSED EVERYONE.

Real life has pretty much put the brakes on my tea adventures. I don’t even have time at work to sip anything, and have resorted to drinking pretty awful bagged stuff (Numi, I’m looking at your fanning-frenzied teas, and they’re not hitting any of the sweet spots).

This weekend, I finally had a bit of room to breathe, so I decided to steep up some Houjicha, a tea from Samovar that I’ve yet to try.

So, let’s get talking about the dry leaves, because there’s some interesting stuff going on here. Houjicha is a roasted green tea, so the leaves are brown and very autumnal. Think dry papery leaves that have fallen off the trees come October. The ones you loved to jump around in as a kid. You’d go out of your way to step on them on the sidewalk. CRUNCH. Yep. Houjicha.

The smell is pretty intriguing as well, because it someone had stuck this under my nose, and asked what sort of tea I was sniffing at, I’d immediately shout out, BLACK. But I’d be wrong. Houjicha smells like a black tea. Not as dark as an assam, but maybe something like an extremely tippy yunnan. Something like that. It’s definitely smelling roasted, but not really in a coffee-like way. In a nutty sort of way. It’s intriguing, but the entire smell is a bit… plain. I don’t want to throw around analogies like Liptons-like, but it was sort of on the same plane of existence as a “default” bagged tea.

So I steeped this one up at a pretty low temperature (my Samovar sample bag said 160-180, so I went down the middle), and my infusion was surprisingly light in color. Amber-lite. Like if you had taken some fall leaves and stewed them down. Maybe I’m going a bit far with this autumn motif, but HAY, on the East Coast it’s getting cold outside! And that means, DRINK MOAR TEA.

The smell, now the smell of the infusion is really, really interesting. Very roasty, and toasty, but also sort of floral? It definitely no longer smells like a Plain Jane black. There is intrigue in the cup.

Sipping it, it’s clear that there’s a green tea under the heavy robes of brown. Because seriously, this tea is sweet. Very, very sweet, in a dark nectar kind of way. Maybe buckwheat honey, but less aggressive and assertive? There’s plenty of candied nuts notes – think hazelnuts that have been roasted and rolled in sugar – and it’s anchored by this sweetness that just lingers in your mouth. The sweetness that is what makes Japanese greens oh so wonderful. And the finish is long. Very long. In between sips, that sugared note just keeps going and going.

As it cools, it gets even sweeter. Seriously tastes like roasted sugar at this point, and it’s pretty damn tasty. It’s still one of the plainer, quieter teas, but I’m sure this would make an excellent session sipper. I’m going to steep a second cup up at boiling (according to Samovar, this invigorates the tea and gives us more malty-black-tea notes), and see what happens.

But yes, I recommend this one. It’s pretty interesting. And I wouldn’t expect anything less from Samovar.

Hi everyone! just thought I’d drop in to say that I’m drinking this right now. This is the first cup of tea that I’ve had in a WHILE. I mean, I’ve been drinking tea and such, but I haven’t been logging it. I’ve tried Samovar’s Lapsang and Golden Buds, a tea from Palais des The, and a few others that I just haven’t had the time to input into my logs.

Sorry that I’ve been so absent! I miss you all!

I don’t have much time, but this one is pretty much delicious in every way. Take the smooth, succulent grassy notes of a deep-steamed sencha, then add a candied, floral sweetness explosion at the end of every sip. Refreshing without tasting fake or false or cloying. There are actual sakura blossoms in here, which let me tell you, make this tea one of the most visually pretty I’ve seen in quite some time. Herbaceous, light, the literal translation of spring in a cup.

Heart you all!

One pretty special cup of tea.

I was craving something white and delicate today, so I pulled this out of the takgoti box of wonders. The leaves are gorgeous, green, fluffy beautiful wonders. And the leaves are speckled with the cutest of teeny blossoms. I’m assuming that this is osmanthus.

A word about osmanthus. I’ve never actually tasted it before now. The leaves aren’t particularly fragrant – white teas usually aren’t, in my experience – but there is an underlying sticky sweetness pervading the smell.

A tablespoon of this into the pot, and we end up with a light-cream-yellow infusion. Now the smell… I’m getting some pineapple, mixed with honeyed hay and silver needle goodness.

The taste… is actually a bit surprising! There’s the definite silver needle base, which is a bit veggie, but very smooth and endlessly drinkable. But the main notes here are this floral-honey note. I’d definitely lean more towards floral, though. And I can’t really identify the flavor note. I guess it tastes like osmanthus! It really is a peach-y sort of pineapple-y conglomeration.

Oh, and that toasted hazelnut that Samovar mentions in their tasting notes? Totally tasting that as well. It’s an end note, but it almost tastes like the husk around the nut once it’s been toasted. That kind of woodsy roasty goodness. I can’t describe it really any other way. Although there is a pretty distinct hazelnut tone as well.

Nom nom nom! Seriously Samovar, stop it. Stop being so awesome at everything that you do.

TEA!

I have been tea-deprived. I have been so busy at work that I haven’t even had the chance to quaff my favorite beverage. Every cup I’ve made has gone cold with 3/4 left in it. It’s been that crazy. So I figured, why not curl up with some nommy Samovar from my first order from them?

Okay, these leaves are adorable. They’re oh-so-tiny, and they look like olive-green ramen noodles. I’m serious. And it’s hilarious, cause when they steep up, they turn a beautiful vibrant green, very much akin to broccoli. It’s the broccoli color. The try leaves smell… green. There’s a veggie goodness hiding out in there, and it’s pretty appealing.

This is actually the lightest-looking green tea I’ve ever seen. And the grassiest Chinese green that I’ve ever had. It smells like steamed vegetables. Like the vapors from the steam after you open the basket. The taste is awesome, though. Super umami-sweet, with lots of notes of stronger veggie goodness than usually found in a lot of Japanese greens. Slightly spinach, maybe? And a bit of salty mineral at the end? But really, it’s super-veggie-sweet. Like sucking the juice out of leaves dropped with dew.

I’m curious as to how this one will hold up to multiple infusions, because this tastes deliciously like spring. Like clean meadows and bright skies and light rain showers. And after a ridiculously insane week at work, this one is truly hitting the spot.

And it’s actually making me crave Japanese green tea now.

I drank this one a few days ago, but with work pressing in on all sides and stifling my tea drinking efforts, I haven’t had the chance to really log it until today.

So, first off, big shout out to Auggy for sharing this with me! She brought this back from a trip to the London Tea Room, so I was pretty excited to try it.

First things first – I’ve never had a Kenyan tea, but Auggy described this to me as a blend/cross between Yunnan, Darjeeling, and Assam.

The leaves here aren’t the largest, and the smell coming off of them is interestingly fruity. In a Darjeeling sort of way, but mixed with a darker tea smell. That black tea smell. Malty and earthy and full.

I steeped this one up, and boy is the cup a dark red and quite a bit murky too! The taste is… interesting. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, days later. At peak hotness, this one really tastes like an Assam. Malty and strong and bracing. Very eye-opening stuff. There’s a tiny pipsqueak peep of Darjeeling that grows and grows as this tea cools.

By mildly hot, this one tastes like a weird mix of Yunnan and Darjeeling, with the Assam only slightly echoing in the background. The Yunnan provides this sort of earth tone, while the Darjeeling brightens things up with a fruity, grape/currant type taste.

There’s so many weird things going on here, that I’m sort of flabbergasted as to how to rate this one. It almost reminds me of SerendipiTea’s Autumnal Darjeeling in the super-crazy-magic flavor changing.

I feel like such a bore right now, but I’m so tired from work lately that I’m not really focusing and the synapses aren’t quite firing the way that they used to. Also, with the shrinking amount of sleep I’ve been getting, I’m finding that tea is more likely to upset my stomach, and I haven’t been feeling well in general.

Le sigh.

Backlogging the epicness of last night with this tea.

Because Four Seasons, lemme tell ya, it’s epic.

I wanted something yummy. Something delicious. Something that has high marks, and that I could get a lot of cups out of. Enter oolong, which is quickly rising to become one of my favorite go-to teas when I want a sustained tea drinking experience.

So Four Seasons. It smells at first pretty non-descript, which I think a lot of oolongs have trouble with. It smells slightly floral, maybe juicy-ish, but mainly vegetal and not very interesting. The leaves are rolled into tiny, irregular pellets.

So I steeped this one up at first with boiling water, at 2 minutes. The smell coming off the cup was amazing. It’s one of those things that you want to breathe in, inhale, surround yourself with, become ONE WITH THAT CUP, cause yeah, it’s delicious. Buttery and full and rich. And the taste was pretty awesome, I have to say. It mainly tasted like flowers with a buttery edge. There were cocoa notes at points, savory end notes, and the hint of some sort of milk protein at the end of every sip. There’s a pretty heavy mouthfeel, which I’m enjoying immensely.

But I have to give it up to the Second Steep (3:00, boiling) which pretty much stole the flavor cake. Man. It smells just as strong, has that rich buttery color, but the taste pretty much throws this one into the OMG WANT MORE AMAZING category. Especially as this one cools. This one tastes lighter, but fuller, if that even makes any sense. The flavors are sugary sweet and overwhelmingly creamy, with milky notes that are in full force. The cooling effect only thickens the mouthfeel and brings the sugared-milk notes into prominence. The floral notes are still there, but they’re not as strong.

Steep Three (3:30, boiling) I probably should have done for longer. This one had a slightly thicker mouthfeel than #2, and was fairly similar to two, but had more of the savory topnotes that were in the first steep. I want to say this one tasted a bit “greener” than the other two.

Steep Four (4:40, boiling) had a much higher savory component, but a lighter flavor overall. There was an almost green bean taste to this one, that crispness you get when they’ve been steamed. But the flavors are pretty much muted, and the smell is a bit disappointing.

Steep Five (6:00, boiling) is where I ended. This one was even more savory than the last, the sugary tastes fading away, and oddly enough, I was getting the taste of fresh baked bread at the end of some of the sips. But this one was definitely not as flavorful as the past ones, so I dumped the leaves.

I really, really want to try this one with less-than-boiling water, as I feel it might be able to sustain those rich milk-buttery notes for a bit longer.

Also, I need to give a shout-out to the leaves because man, are they BEAUTIFUL. This is actually the first time I took leaves out of the pot to inspect and hold. They expand at such an exponential rate and unfurl so beautifully, that your entire pot is just completely stuffed with evergreen goodness. The leaves are all pretty much intact and full, and you can clearly pick out the buds with the leaves still attached. One was so big it took up half my palm (please note: I have tiny hands). But still, really, really awesome. The quality is just written all over this oolong.

So YES, SAMOVAR, YES. You have stolen my heart. Please keep it safe. Because I was in oolong heaven last night!

So this is it.

The last tea to try in the Golden Moon sampler.

Back when I started rating teas on Steepster, and when I started my loose leaf journey, one of the first things I noticed was the Golden Moon sampler. I began to sound the alarm around Steepster, probably annoying the hell out of a bunch of people in the process, but I really was pushing this thing on people. Because you know what? The sampler is a tea education in a box. It’s the perfect way to convert your friends to tea. It can show you everything that tea has to offer. Because Golden Moon is a damn fine company.

And Golden Moon is also a company that does flavored teas really, really well.

So I’m saving their award-winning baby for last, the pinnacle of their tea artisanship.

And you know what? This tea is amazing. This tea is just… man.

Okay, let’s start with the basics though, before I start babbling on about the taste. First off, when you open the packet, all you can smell is rich, delicious coconut. Toasted coconut. The inside of a Mars bar. It’s extremely distinct. You cannot mistake this for anything else other than coconut. I’m serious.

Yay for my first loose leaf pouchong! The leaves look more akin to a green than an oolong, and since pouchong falls somewhere in the gap between green and oolong, it’s understandable. They’re very full and dark and lush. So I steeped it up, and the resulting infusion was a pale lemon chiffon color. Very pretty.

Did I mention how much I love the color that oolongs steep up to? Okay, I’ll mention it now. Oolongs have such an appealing color palette.

Anyway, the infusion pretty much smells just as delicious as the dry leaves. Except now add butter. I’m serious. You can smell the buttery pouchong shining through.

Is there a first thing as love at first sip? Because I think this might be it.

Oh my. The pouchong is the first flavor that hits your tongue, smooth and ridiculously sweet and full of buttered goodness. And then the coconut comes, authentic and delicious and real. It doesn’t overpower the taste of the pouchong, but rests happily next to it, all cuddled up inside of it, until the two tastes merge so well that it creates a newer, better, wonderful taste.

I love it when flavored tea does that. When neither the tea nor the flavoring overwhelms the other, and there’s this wonderful balance that makes you just sigh with happiness when you drink it.

That sigh is this tea.

Much love for Golden Moon, and yay for all of the people that have taken this remarkable tasting journey with me! Let’s convert some more people to the Tea Box to End All Tea Boxes, and have fun drinking tea! Because if tea tastes as good as this, I’m a full-on crazy convert to this wonderful beverage.

Catching up on some Dexter, watching some tea…

It’s a pretty awesome way to start a Sunday morning.

So, I’ve been looking forward to this H&S sample since I ordered it. I’ve only had one other Yunnan (Adagio’s Yunnan Jig), and this one is supposed to be “tippy” which in the tea world signifies “better than average.” Or at least, that’s what it sounds like.

Anyway, when I opened the packet, I was a little surprised at how broken the leaves were. Yunnan Jig’s leaves are long and wiry. These were a bit more chopped up. The smell coming from them was earthy-strong, with a bit of white pepper mixed in. Other than that, the dominant aroma was black tea. Hrm.

So I steeped this sucker up, and I was pretty surprised at how dark the tea is. It’s really dark. Darker than mahogany, but not the purple-black that pu-erh has. The infusion actually has a fairly pu-erh scent to it as well. Rich earth of pu-erh, mixed with a bit of smokiness. Maybe some pipe tobacco? It’s easy to see how the teas of Yunnan are linked to pu-erh (common origin and all that).

At peak hotness, this tea is pretty malty and strong. The dominant flavors are definitely smoke and peppery, mixed with a earthiness that’s pretty interesting. Very brisk, slightly astringent, but not that complex and interesting.

As the tea cools, a sweet element begins to build that’s somewhat like dried maple, but not nearly as strong and assertive as I would have liked. It’s a tantalizing whiff, but it never builds into anything substantial.

This tea is a tease. It should be so much better, but it’s really not. It’s just fairly average. Rishi’s Golden Yunnan (of the sample I’ve tried) is loads better, with caramelized, sweet potato notes, and it’s around the same price. I like Adagio’s Yunnan Jig a lot better as well.

So yeah, a fairly serviceable tea, but it’s not going to have sparks shooting out of your eyes or anything like that.

SAMOVAR, have my babies.

Please.

This tea was a total shock. Seriously. Total shock. I can’t believe how much I’m loving this. Really, really loving this. Obsessed with the amazingness.

I’m officially a Japanese green convert. I heart Japanese greens.

I could drink this tea all day. Seriously.

I just… oh man. This tea. Awesome. Incarnate.

Okay, okay, I need to calm down, that way I can write a coherent review. Phew.

I’m just so excited because I really thought this is going to be a throwaway. I mean, I’ve had yuzu before. One of the restaurants I went to a while ago had yuzu salt for their steamed edamame. I’ve had yuzu sorbet at another Japanese restaurant. Yuzu is a pretty bright and clean-tasting citrus fruit, and it’s pretty tasty. Sure, I’ve never had it as a stand-alone thing, but I’m pretty sure of the flavor.

Anyway, this tea is quite gorgeous. The sencha here varies from a very light green to darker green, it’s a bit powdery at parts, and it’s mixed in with a whole load of tried yuzu pieces. The smell of it is mainly that grassy sencha, mixed with a slight citrus note.

I actually put a teaspoon of this into my warmed pot, and the smell coming off it was awesome. Almost completely sencha, but really buttery and warm. Mmmmm.

So anyway, I steeped this up quickly, and I loved the clear, light-neon-green liquid that emerged. The smell I’m getting off of it is rich and creamy and grass and so very Japanese green. And the taste… man. Let’s rhapsodize on the taste, because this was an experience.

The main flavor here is definitely the sencha. It’s light, but full-bodied at the same time, and bursting with flavor. It’s very grassy, but so smooth and peppered with notes of butter and creamy goodness that it’s pretty awesome. The yuzu is a bright afternote of citrus that’s very clean and refreshing and invigorating. It’s clearly distinctly yuzu, as well. Not any other citrus.

The yuzu-citrus-sweet-tart builds as you take multiple sips in a row, mixed with a green sweetness that tastes like you just ate the most wonderful field filled with dew-dropped delicious edible grass.

It’s seriously delicious.

The second steep (:20 secs, 160 degrees) was just as good, if not better than the first. I’m serious. Because now the yuzu and the sencha have sort of swapped places on the flavor totem pole, and the yuzu is more strongly highlighted. It’s almost lime-y sweet, not bracing or biting, but calm and smooth. The sencha notes are sublime here as well. It doesn’t taste tired or weak.

It just tastes like pure awesome.

takgoti, how do I love thee. Let me count the ways. You’ve introduced me to one of the best tea companies ever, Samovar. You’ve sent me amazing samples of tea, such as this yuzu sencha, which wasn’t even on my radar because it sounds so… MUNDANE. But it’s totally not. It’s a flavor festival of epic proportions. It’s grass shot through with sunshine and golden happiness.

I am on such a tea high right now. I am so giddy right now over this stuff. LOVE. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Hrm, this one is a bit confusing.

So if you’ve been keeping up with the Golden Moon sampler count on this end, we’re up to the second to last sample here. I happen to adore both honey and pear, so this one is guaranteed to be a knock-out.

Or is it?

Well, to start with the smell coming from the packet. It’s a big strong, and smells sort of musky. And rather honey-like. But a dark honey… very dark. Fermented, almost? That’d make MEAD. w00t, learn your alcohol. There’s a pear overture as well, but to me, it wasn’t that juicy and strong and succulent. And I heart pear. Hard. It’s one of my favorite fruits! Messy, drippy, ripe pears! MMMMM.

The leaves here are of a fairly standard, flavored black tea size. I don’t really see any bits or pieces of anything else other than leaf, although that could mean I’m blind, since the ingredients list pollen pieces.

So we steep this one up, and the resulting liquid’s color is somewhat akin to the color of buckwheat honey. The smell coming off of it is very similar to the dry leaf; the wet just smells like spent black tea leaves. There’s a bit of sweetness highlighted in the aroma, but it’s nothing that’s going to kick your socks off.

Okay, let’s get to the taste, because the taste is strange. In a pretty good way, but still, it’s kind of weird. The honey is definitely the dominant flavor here, but it’s a pretty floral honey component. Maybe even a little soapy? Or maybe it’s that soapy that comes from some floral-tasting things. Anyway, it’s a pretty interesting dark-sweet taste. Very dark. I’ve tasted buckwheat honey before, which is closer to a woodsy brown than a golden color, and this tastes even darker here.

The pear definitely plays second fiddle to the honey. I mean, it’s clearly there in the aftertaste, but it’s not as strong as I would have hoped. It’s an echo of pear. Like if you ate a pear about a half hour ago and the sweetness is still lingering in your mouth. That sort of thing.

Basically, it boils down to this (hurrhurr boil get it tea joke woah I’m tired right now): the tea is not an every day drinking tea. At all. It’s kind of funky, in a good way. Like a weird ethnic food you’ve never tried before, and you’re compulsively eating it, even if you’re not sure if you really like it or not. This tea is akin to that experience. I had a quizzical expression on my face the entire time while drinking it.

It’s certainly thought-provoking, but I’m not sure in which way.

In any case, this is a tea experience that I’d definitely recommend, because the weird factor is way up there. I think this is also a love it! hate it! kind of deal, where the flavors either appeal to you heavily, or you think this is one of the grossest things you’ve ever drank.

This is the lapsang of fruit teas.

Well, you all moved me to have a sip of Paris this evening.

And you know what this tea is?

Marco Polo’s little brother.

Do you know what I love about this tea? The fact that it’s a flavored tea that almost tastes like an unflavored tea. It tastes like the flavors are inherent in the leaves instead of coming from outside agents.

But anyway, let’s get to the tea itself. Paris smells amazing. If the city smelled this good, I’d probably never leave. I’m getting lots of strawberry notes, mixed with a bit of bright fresh notes, and yeah. It’s less strawberries-and-cream than Marco Polo, but it probably smells equally amazing. I’m serious. MMMM. SMELL IT. LOVE IT.

Anyway, this one steeps up a very pretty burnt amber color, and the smell coming off the cup is surprisingly not that deep. There’s mainly the smell of black tea, and… that’s about it. There’s the faintest of berry tones in the background, but if you gave this to me without me knowing if it was flavored or unflavored, I’d lean heavily towards unflavored.

So let’s move onto the taste, because there’s some damned complex things going on here, and it’s all pretty subtle. In a wonderful way.

There’s definitely a taste of black tea. I don’t know what to peg it as, but it’s probably Ceylon? A nice, high-quality one if it is. The berry taste, even though it smells like strawberry to me, is more evocative of raspberry. It washes over the tongue then bottoms out into a bean-y vanilla flavor that’s almost reminiscent of cocoa beans. And the finish? Something citrus! It’s not exactly bergamot flavored. It’s an echo of bergamot. Like someone sprayed it in the air yesterday, and you’re still catching the tiniest wiff of it in your nostrils the next day.

Overall, it’s a similar flavor profile to the famous Mariage Freres blend, but I’d give Marco the slight edge. Marco’s quite a bit more floral as well.

But I’m most surprised at how well the flavors meld together into the actual flavor of the tea itself. If you know me, you know that I love unflavored teas that evoke flavorings of their own organically. Paris is sort of like that. It tastes like an unflavored tea that’s calling up all these flavors inherently.

The tea’s cooling down now and the bergamot is coming out a bit more to the forefront, a sparkling fresh slight-tartness that complements the slight astringency very well. It’s about evenly matched with the berries at this point. And the berries are definitely more in the aroma as well. There’s a juicy sweetness as well.

Okay, this is totally nom. And I mean totally. Thank you to the always lovely takgoti for giving me a mini-mountain of this to sip and mull over and enjoy in all its wonderful glory. And thank YOU, Steepster, for getting me to drink this delicious concoction tonight!

Little bit late for Christmas, eh?

I dug into this one today after a long day of work, and this one surprised me in multiple ways. The white tea leaves are a bit more pulverized than I usually like them to be. I’ve gotten used to seeing white peony/bai mu dan style teas with big, leafy, stemmy parts. These were more ripped up than average.

I went into this one without really knowing what was in it until after I had made the cup and was sipping it. So hrm. The smell of the tea itself was mainly a white tea smell, meaning a sort of musty green smell, mixed with sweet notes hinting at almond.

And then I steeped the bugger up, and I could swear that this smelled like chocolate. The cup was unusually dark for a white tea. Goldenrod yellow, more like what some of the Chinese greens steep up to. But back to the smell. Like a cocoa powder scent. It was in the taste as well. I was thinking to myself, hrmmmm, this sort of is on the lines of a Florence, except with less cocoa and more of something else.

And then I read the description online. WHAT.

Cardamom? Vanilla? Almond? WHITE CHAMOMILE?

Okay, no. I started to sip this now more curiously. I can sort of taste the vanilla coming in at the tail end. It’s more of a bean-feeling, which might be where the cocoa is coming from, and there’s a sweet, very very slightly tart component that I can somewhat attribute to the chamomile. I’m not getting the taste of almonds at all. And as for cardamom, I’ve never really had it alone. But nothing is jumping out at me that would be the spice that tends to be the hallmark of chai.

The other flavor (beyond the flavoring, hurrhurr) is the white peony. It’s fairly decent, but lacked the depth of flavor that I’ve had in other variations of this particular tea. I’ve always enjoyed that dark-sweet taste that bai mu dan has, but this was sort of like swimming in the kiddie side of the pool. Nice to dip your toes into, but not much else.

I think that describes the tea pretty well overall, actually. Fairly enjoyable, but just not exciting. Better than average, but forgettable. And as I grow and change and learn about tea, as my tastes become more refined and honed, I start demanding excellence. There’s so much tea out there, and so little time. Why waste it drinking just okay stuff. I mean, this is better than okay. This is enjoyable, and nice and relaxing. It’s just not memorable.

Whoo! The goal is to finish off some teaness, and I figured I’d start with tea that I wasn’t too hot on, but was still nice and somewhat non-caffeinated for bedtime. And also, to finish off bits of samples that I have lying around, when I have more tea coming in. The vicious cycle continues…

Anyway, this one today was a lot lighter than I remember it. Maybe it’s because I had not enough leaf this time around? In any case, the licorice is really soft and gasp inviting, even though I don’t particularly care for its brand of flavor. The white tea here adds a nice sweetness and backdrop to the entire thing. It’s almost sort of like a caffeinated lullaby.

I can’t see myself ordering this one again, just because I’m not the biggest fan of licorice. But people who love fennel/anise/licorice root would definitely be able to get on board with this Golden Moon offering. It’s refreshingly sweet and flavorful, while having a very authentic star anise flavor.

Pretty cool indeed.

I’m here listening to This American Life (episode 401: Parent Trap: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/401/parent-trap) and packaging up tea. So why not drink some tea.

Well, I won this tea through Leafbox Tea’s Giveaway, which is pretty awesome! Got this and Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, and both of them came in today. So I figured, this one is caffeine free, I’m sleepy-ish, and it’s here… why not?

Anyway, this one smells ridiculously like root beer. Not even kidding. When I opened up the box, I could just smell it coming from the tin! The rooibos here are a lot tinier than I usually see, really finely chopped.

So I steeped up a heaping teaspoon, watched the water turn ruby-red. I should mention at this point that I’m actually not the biggest fan of root beer! I will definitely drink it if offered, but I probably won’t reach for it by myself. It’s a pretty good flavor, but it tastes a lot like bubble gum to me. I’m more of a ginger beer sort of person.

That being said, the infusion smelled exactly like root beer. And I’m happy to report, the taste is pretty awesome as well. It’s not as thick and syrupy as I thought it’d be. It’s actually a lot easier and lighter to drink than real root beer. The rooibos isn’t really a star here; the flavoring is, and that’s perfectly okay, because the flavor is deliriously authentic.

Halfway through my mug, I decided to get a little frisky/creative/adventurous and add a bit of Very Vanilla Silk and a tiny pinch of sugar to the cup. This was actually better than the plain! It was creamier and silkier, with a nice milkiness that complemented the root beer flavors. Definitely something that was very sippable and comforting.

So yay to Pete at Leafbox Tea and TheNecessiTeas for having the giveaway. Still in shock that I won! And shocked that I liked this one as much as I did, because novelty teas are sometimes not my thing. GOOD tasting novelty teas, however… I’m ALL over that.

This is one absolutely delicious white tea.

I bought a tin of this at the Coffee and Tea Festival after having a sample cup of this that was absolutely delicious. The lovely ladies at the Rishi booth suggested steeping this 5 degrees lower than what it says on the tin.

I just got back from a weekend of skiing with friends, and I wanted something warm and nice to soothe the aching muscles and to comfort me. I decided to pop this open and give it a try for some lovely home steeping. One tablespoon of these adorable leaves… So fuzzy and silver with green undertone! I let the leaves steep for a while, watching as they turned light green, and the infusion color barely changed. On the pour, this one is extremely light. Nearly colorness. Pale with a tinge of cream-yellow that is so white tea.

While the smell of the dry leaves was like sweet hay, the infusion smells distinctly buttery and sort of smooth veggie-like, mixed with that hay smell. HAY HAY HAY. Like a white tea usually smells, I guess? It’s all pretty unremarkable, even though it smells very nice…

The taste, though, is pretty rocking. This is the best silver needle I’ve had. By far, so far. It tastes just as good as it did at the Coffee and Tea Festival, except now I’m getting more nuances. It’s very smooth and ridiculously light, with a distinctly floral note. More towards jasmine than rose, but neither. There’s an almost fresh-bread taste as well. Kind of yeasty and full. There’s a slight, sort of sweet steamed edamame flavor. Not like edamame water, but just the type of sweetness that comes from those amazing beans. I’m thinking this is somewhat of a savory component? It’s really good, otherwise. The lingering sweet notes in the aftertaste are akin to a juicy peach, but without any of the flavor of a peach. I don’t even know if that makes any sense, but… you get the point.

It’s incredibly smooth and lacks astringency, which is always welcome.

Loving this little cup of wonderful! Rishi’s on the fast track to becoming one of my favorite tea companies. They’re in line with Samovar and Golden Moon right now. I can see SerendipiTea joining that family once I’ve had more of their stuff. What else is on the to-try list? American Tea Room and The Simple Leaf are the standouts.

Look around.

Now back at me, because this cup of tea is amazing.

I wanted something nice and smooth and decaf before bed last night, so I steeped up this puppy. Also known as the only tea from TeaGschwendner that I truly enjoyed.

Okay, that might be somewhat of a lie. I sorta liked the Chili-Chocolate, but it didn’t rock my socks off.

This one still smells like yummy caramel corn to me, in both the dry and the infusion. The taste is a fairly rough-around-the-edges black, with some tinges creamy caramel-ish popcorn at the end. It’s not the most authentic flavor, but caramel corn tastes kinda sugary and fake anyway.

What elevated this cup this particular time was that I did the unthinkable. I added milk. Soymilk to be exact. Very Vanilla Silk, if you’re that curious. And then I added about two pinches of sugar.

The results were pretty awesome. The briskness of the tea became very smooth and drinkable, very creamy and delicious. The sweetening I added highlighted the cream part of the tea description, and made it very soft and inviting. The drink became less of a tea drink, and more of a liquid caramel corn taste.

Pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. This elevates this one beyond the mediocre.

It got the mom stamp of approval as well.

…

How can people drink this!?

Seriously. How can you consume this beverage and enjoy it unless you hate yourself.

Or unless you have the world’s worst taste buds.

I figured, oooh, English Breakfast! Nom! And on top of it, this one is from Kenya! I haven’t had a Kenyan tea before (I have one on deck from Auggy), but yeah! Cool, let’s stick the little packet in the slot and see what happens.

Well, first off, this brews up really murky brown. Almost mahogany in color. It’s not clear at all. And the smell coming off of it smells like really strong Liptons, maybe jazzed up a little bit. It’s a fairly nice smell, and I enjoy sniffing it for a few seconds before I take the plunge.

I nearly spat it out.

This is SO BITTER. What the hell?! It just lingers and lingers and lingers. It tastes burnt and dead and awful. It makes you want to cry. I’m glad nobody was in my general vicinity when I took my first sip, or else they might have been worried. Due to the face I was making, of course. I imagine that it twisted into some mask of horror. I literally stuck my tongue out, scrunched up my nose, shook my head a few times.

Then I promptly ran to our pantry and dumped this in the sink.

No.

Just no.

I just needed to relax, you know. No stress. Just some simple, good decaf tea.

And some Zen Sonic the Hedgehog 1: http://www.viddler.com/explore/Docfuture/videos/28/

Sometimes you need to feel strong. You need to believe in yourself. The world is a scary place. Don’t stress yourself out.

We can be heroes.

Drinking tea. Like this, and just relaxing. That’s what I love about tea. It can be a very active beverage, where you’re sticking your nose in the mug, figuring out trace tasting notes, swirling the infusion on your tongue to coat it completely, breathing in to catch the nuances of the aftertaste. Or it could be one of the simplest, most comforting things in the world. Just warm and cozy wrapped up with a nice hot mug of goodness.

That’s what Vanilla Comoro was tonight. Subtly sweet, slightly brisk, light and airy vanilla that wasn’t too forced.

Mmm.

Backlogging from the weekend!

Okay, can we talk about how much my love for Rishi has shot up? Between this, Purple Bamboo, Ancient Emerald Lily, and their Silver Needle… yeah, Rishi has it going on. Their Golden Yunnan is delicious too. I think they’re joining the esteemed ranks of some of my favorite tea companies.

So, this one has been getting a lot of hype on Steepster from some of my absolute favorite posters, so I knew I needed to buy me some Yellow Buds! The only yellow tea I had previously didn’t go so well. It was that awful Yellow Peach put out by TeaGschwendner, and I wasn’t quite sure if I was going to like yellow tea after tasting that.

Well, guess what, this one is amazing. Let’s start with the dry leaves before we get into the taste, though… The leaves are really gorgeous. It looks like a silver needle, but tinged with yellow. Same shape, same fuzziness, just… different color. And the aroma that’s coming off of them is a dusty sort of honey. Like a sunset.

Anyway, I really was intimidated by the amount of leaves this bad boy requires. Half a teapot worth! I didn’t really measure out the leaf. I poured. It looked to be around 2-3 tablespoons for 8 oz., but what do I know? It’s really fluffy and hard to judge. This one steeps up to a gorgeous pale, pale cream-yellow, and the smell coming off of the cup… I let out a little whimper. That’s how delicious this one smells. It’s wonderfully fragrant of honey-butter. Seriously.

And the taste? Man. It’s actually really light and subtle, but it’s a delicious honeyed flavor. Sort of like wildflower honey. There’s a tiny note of vegetal-floralness that’s awesome. And this melts into a flavor of apples! Peeled apples! There’s something specific to the taste. I kept thinking it was baked, but it’s not. And then it hit me. Almost like those dehydrated apple snacks that I absolutely love to eat.

I’m getting this yeasty sort of taste as well. Almost like fresh out of the oven little breads. I had these breads at Calle Ocho in NYC the other day for an engagement party. They were gently spiked with cheese, but they were pillowy with a crust that gave rather easily. Minus the cheese, the aftertaste is that bread. Oh. My God.

This one is compulsively drinkable to the nth degree. I finished my cup quite quickly, enjoying the savory sweetness that accompanied each and every sip.

The second steep (3:30, 180) didn’t go as well for me. It was still very sweet and apple-lite, but I was getting a stronger vegetal note than I would have liked. I haven’t tried a third steep yet, but I probably will.

But seriously, I’m sort of late to the party and echoing everyone’s sentiments, but this tea is awesome. Thank you Rishi, for another tea well done!

My first MILK OOLONG.

Dun dun dun!

Actually, more of a wheeeee!

I am so super-caffeinated right now. Seriously. BWAHAAAA.

Anyway, I bought this at the Coffee & Tea Festival (for those that didn’t read, I did a huge write-up of the funness: http://steepster.com/teaplz/posts/29743 and yay!) from SerendipiTea on a bit discount. They were so nice at the booth! I didn’t taste this one there, but I couldn’t resist a milk oolong for $9 (special price for the festival) that wasn’t artificially flavored.

Anyway, the leaves are very pretty, green nubby things. Very rolled oolong. The smell coming off of the leaves isn’t very special. A bit green/floral maybe? But nothing super-interesting.

Anyway, the packaging didn’t have any steeping parameters, so I went by what other people have done on other milk oolongs on Steepster. I only did 1 tsp of this in 8 oz. I’ll have to try SerendipiTea’s recommendation on their website when I can… I’ve got 4 oz. of this, so there’s plenty to play around with!

Anyway, the infusion steeps up to a beautiful creamy yellow color that makes me want to eat it all up. And the smell. Homygawd can we talk about the aroma here for a second. Deliciously buttery and creamy and floral and wonderful. Seriously heavenly.

The taste… mmmmm. So light, but packed full of flavor! It’s mostly a floral flavor, very soft but assertive and inviting. Sort of light a tight hug. And then there’s this wonderful milky/creamy note that lingers on the tongue for a bit, enveloped in the floralness. It’s really smooth and nice and mmmmm. It’s definitely more floral than I thought it would be, but not in a rose-like way. More of in a general pollen-y way.

It tastes like spring in a cup, which is awesome, because I’m just about ready to see it coming. I’m sick of this snow.

My mom did not get this tea. She said it smelled like cabbage. WAT. And she said it tasted gross. Whatever, Mom. You are wrong about this.

Anyway, I’m off to make a second steep!

Annnnd the Second Steep (4:00, 190 degrees) was pretty much a success! It was definitely not as wonderful as the first cup, but…

Can I pause for a second to talk about how absolutely gorgeous the leaves are when unfurled? Beautiful. They’re some of the broadest leaves I’ve seen in any tea. SerendipiTea, I love your quality. I love that you’re local. You are awesome.

The color was a bit darker than before, with some rogue sediment on the bottom. At peak, the taste here was kind of “hai, I don’t want to be made into tea anymore.” Once it cooled down a bit, the tea got into more of a happy groove. The milkiness is still there, but it’s a bit subdued. The floral tastes are still very much in the forefront of the flavor. It still tastes pretty damn awesome, and the cup is as fragrant as the first.

YUM! Maybe I’ll do a third steep, we shall see…