Vanilla Orchid

Yay! I’m in New York! After the horrible hurricane my flight got cancelled. I was comming because I had been invited to the marathon race directors program and was super excited…. Eventually thing worked out, flights started leaving again. I finally got to New York, only to find out that the racewas cancelled the next day. I am really sorry for all the people that were affected by the hurricane, I hope that everyone is OK! But I am also really sad for all of the runners who worked really hard to be able to run the race and payed to get to NYConly to find out the race was cancelled 2 days before the race….

On a positive note, I made it into my first David’s Tea shop!!! I had to really control myself and be frugal… Or as frugal as you can possibly be when you love tea and walk into a David’s Tea Shop!!! After I finally picked out my tea, I got a free cup of this. Oh my WOW vanilla and smooth sweetness. I have never had anything like this. It is by far the most enchanting and well achieved flavored vanilla oolong I have ever had.

I didn’t get to go through the entire brewing process on my own, since it was made for me in a paper cup, but I think that I managed to pull out the little Baggie in time for it to not oversteep. The little bit of scent that made it through the opening in the lid was incredible. Pure vanilla with a hint of oolong to remind you that you aren’t drinking vanilla extract, but true delicious tea!

Each sip was increasingly smooth and the vanilla wrapped around me in the cold of the wind on NYC in November. I was in tea heaven… The vanilla was a vanilla bean ice cream sort of vanilla. The kind that promises to be sweet, smooth and provide instant smiles.

All in all my trip to NYC, while not productive, has been great fun and great for Christmas shopping. I will surely enjoy my last day here!!!

Also, I have to share this, I bought a BREVILLE ONE TOUCH!!! I did it! I gave in and bought the last one they had at William Sonoma!!! I even got 10% discount on it since it was on display! I can’t wait to go home and try it! I will take it with me carry on… Wish me luck with the trip and it getting through security! I would be devasted if it didn’t!

Full Review on SororiTea Sisters on the 27th but here are my snippits:

Vanilla Orchid from Davids Tea is in one word – delicious.

Anyone who loves vanilla and oolong – plus flavored teas should try it.

The oolong base does do its part. It seems to be a good oolong with a nice base flavor, buttery and nutty which of course work wonderfully with vanilla! Its a light oolong however, and normally I am prone to favor a darker roasted oolong but I still can’t help coming back to this tea, making more.

The aroma of quality vanilla is nearly overwhelming in the steeped cup but the flavor is a bit more subtle – but then again – it sneaks out, peeks out, and says a big “hello” long after the sip. I appreciate that about this tea. I like a tea that lingers as I go about my day, reminding me “sip some more!”

The vanilla flavor is that of a really good vanilla bean ice cream or even french vanilla, its really quite creamy and rich. Its a dessert you can have anytime.

This is my favorite oolong thus far. It’s lovely and light, and oh so delicious. The vanilla flavor goes together so nicely with the oolong. Although I got three steeps out of these leaves there was an obvious deterioration in flavor as compared with each preceding steep. That first steep though…oh my! Heaven

She’s a keeper!

So many noms! What an improvement from the bitter Vanilla Oolong; I’m so glad David’s Tea is replacing it with this creamy beauty. It’s like if Quangzhou Milk Oolong decided to frolic in a flower field that had been dosed in vanilla extract. Imagine the oolong balls running along,so carefree, so happy, slowly being covered with vanilla- creamy, milky, floral, and sweet vanilla. I’m glad I left half a pot of this sitting out over night and am gross enough to drink it. It tastes like the soft vanilla in ice cream, and I personally like it cooled or iced.

The vanilla could be overpowering first steep but that’s why oolong is jolly for a second (third, or fourth) steep. You can wash your liberated oolong after that field frolic and feel good about making it clean again(temporarily).

Ooh, I love this one. One smell and I was entranced. I SO wish I’d bought more than an ounce of this. At this rate it’ll be gone tomorrow.

Incredibly rich, pure vanilla smell comes through in the dry leaf. The orchid is predominant in the first steep, and it’s more of a vanilla-smelling oolong, but on later steeps the floral dryness backs off and there’s more of that sweet, sweet vanilla. Delicious. Definitely a new must-have.

Ok, this is possibly the most anticipated tea that I picked up! (Well, this and Cookie Dough). And ohhhhhh, it lives up to its name! Pure delicious vanilla atop a light oolong base. This is what you have when you want a truly decadent dessert. The vanilla here is more like vanilla ice cream than vanilla extract, which is fabulous (and makes it much better than I was expecting!) It also doesn’t have strange artificial notes which mar the flavouring, as some teas seem to. I’m not sure I really taste the orchid though (which is the flavour that I imagine is supposed to come from the oolong). Perhaps in later infusions it will be more prominent.

This is not as good as Banana Oolong, but it’s pretty tasty!

I guess I’m in a Oolong mood lately! This is like a delicious vanilla yogurt cake or something. Very quality flavored oolong. DT’s sent this as a sample with my last order and I’m glad I got to finally try it.

I bet this would be delicious as a latte.

Ok now we are up to date. I kept putting this aside to try later, and finally it was time.

I didn’t smell the tea in the bag at first (though I did when I got it), and was I put some in the infuser, it was the most glorious vanilla cream scent.

This is alright. It’s really light. I guess it has been awhile since I’ve had any oolong but…I can’t taste it over the vanilla. I was hoping since they named it Vanilla Orchid, I would get those lovely orchid notes from the base tea, but not so much.

It wasn’t as amazing as I was hoping though, I have saved it though for a resteep! But that is later.

1) I can’t wait until Christmas is over, and it’s not even December. We are all dead walking.

2) This tea. I can’t decide if I like it or not, to be honest. I feel like there’s nothing wrong with it, nothing to complain about, yet I don’t decisively feel as though I like it.

When I smelled the dry leaf in the store, I went right ahead and picked up the 50g bag rather than a 10g sample. It just smells that good, smooth and sweet and creamy. (Also, I really liked the mellow TOTM packaging. The last packaging I liked this much was when Southern Belle was TOTM.)

The leaves are quite large and unbroken when steeped, really something to see! A teaspoon pretty much explodes in my Tea Master.

Taste-wise, it is not overwhelmingly, artificially vanilla. There’s a creamy vanilla that rides at the back of the sip, not up front, while a floral green oolong is first and foremost. There’s a slightly sharp note to this cup that I haven’t had before, but I think that must be because I lost track of the steep time and gave it a few more minutes than usual while I was getting together some breakfast.

And maybe that’s what makes me a little unsure about it, the floral notes with the vanilla. Do I like that? Or not? Still can’t decide, but I’m still drinking it, so it can’t be bad. If I were more in love with oolongs, I’d probably adore this, but I’m still courting oolongs with some hesitation, like maybe we need to get to know each other a bit better before we move in together and split closet space.

Rarely am I that drawn to one of DavidsTea’s new flavors, but this one was intriguing to me and early reviews were positive. Vanilla flavoring on an orchid oolong, could be promising. It was actually the main tea that I wanted to get a sample of when I went to DavidsTea on Bleecker a couple of weekends ago.

I didn’t even thing about it until just now, but I do have another vanilla orchid tea that I like, but it is a black tea base. Vanilla is an orchid itself, after all, and very fresh vanilla beans can have a lovely, light floral quality.

The steeped tea smells nice, very floral and orchid-y, but also super sweet and creamy vanilla accompanying it. This is quite a lovely tea! I am really enjoying it a lot. A great balance of creamy vanilla and floral orchid oolong. I’m really quite impressed, and I could definitely see myself stocking more of this.

So, I was feeling bummed out about work stuff, and decided to make myself feel better by going on a tea shopping therapy trip to DavidsTea during my lunch break! I had a few things on a list already, so I would have bought them eventually, but I upped it to TODAY!

I started with my list, but had to kind of urge the salesperson forward. They always seem to assume you’ve never been there before and try to provide recommendations, but I just wanted what was on my list! She was nice though, and measured what I bought to the exact amount requested. I asked about the April tea of the month, Bollywood chai, and the other salesperson got interested and brought out the canister. She let me smell it, but said she couldn’t sell any yet. Poo! It smelled really spicy hot though. Not sure if I’ll like that.

So, I picked up some new teas to try: vanilla orchid oolong, quangzhou milk oolong, mulberry magic, and a little matcha. My husband requested the matcha because he likes the Jamba Juice matcha green tea blast smoothie and wants to see if he could create it at home.

On to vanilla orchid: the dry leaf smells like a delicious vanilla cake! Yum! Steeped, it tastes more floral, but the vanilla was still there. Not really a buttery oolong. I guess this is a floral one. Anyway, I enjoyed two steeps of it this afternoon. I will be enjoying the rest of the little bag, but I’ll have to see if I’ll want more at the end of it.

I hereby dub this tea ‘Vanilla Cupcake’ because that’s what it tastes like. Vanilla and oolong seems to be a popular combination and I’ve tried quite a few: DAVIDsTEA’s Vanilla Oolong (good, a bit artificial), Persimmon Tree’s Mandarin Silk (excellent but more citrus than vanilla), and The Tea Merchant’s Silk Dragon (perfection!). This, though, tops them all.

It’s just SO GOOD. Creamy and rich and so decadent with no sugar at all, I swear this tastes like a fluffy cupcake from Magnolia. Actually I think Crumbs has better cupcakes (blasphemy in NY, I know!) but Magnolia’s buttercream frosting is just like… the god of desserts. And that’s what this tea reminds me of!

But not just cupcakes. The oolong is pretty darn high quality for a blend, with some soft floral notes and a really nice butteriness. And then I think there’s something SERIOUSLY whack with my tastebuds because I swear halfway through the cup it started tasting like… chocolate. I mean, not a little, but chocolatier than the most chocolatey tea I’ve tasted. What is this wizardry?! What ever it is, I like it. Thanks ne14t for the sample!

So I am in an oolong mood! Went and bought this and the Quangzhou milk oolong, thought I’d have this tonight for dessert!

The smell is dead on vanilla yogurt. Mmm so creamy and yum! I steeped for 4 mins, and the leaves smell so odd to me! Like, green oolong, but with vanilla in there, it seems weird to me, but in a good way!

Ah, now it has cooled almost too much lol, I was busy raging about an assignment that didn’t go well..anyways, this tea is calming me down. It is a perfect blend of a green oolong with vanilla! The first taste is definitely oolong, then in the middle this creamy, dreamy vanilla taste comes out! Like hot vanilla bean ice cream! It fades to a gentle oolongy aftertaste with just a hint of the vanilla, maybe that is where the orchid is? I’m not sure, I mostly get vanilla hehe.

I might try steeping this a bit shorter next time though, just to get a bit of a lighter flavor, the green oolong taste is almost a bit at odds with the vanilla at times it seems (could also be that I let it cool down too much/used too hot of water haha). Overall, pretty good, very interesting if you ask me! I need a few more cups to give it my overall rating :) for now, it’s pretty good.

I snagged this tea to get my DavidsTea package to free shipping, I figured it was going to be “okay” as it’s just vanilla and oolong.

Totally wrong. Creamy vanilla puddling like flavor, with hint of floral and light oolong is a great combination, adding lots of interest.
Even better was I got 2 decent resteeps that held onto the creamy taste! Very surprised!

full review and photos at my blog http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/vanilla-orchid-from-davidstea-tea-review/

Not sure where I’m going wrong with this one. When I had it at the store, it was FRENCH VANILLA/VANILLA BEAN ICE CREAM IN YOUR FACE and it was creamy and delicious. After one sip, I exclaimed “WOW! I’ll take 50g!”

But no matter how I prepare it at home, I can’t get it to taste like vanilla at all. I’ve tried following the instructions on the package, I’ve tried doubling and tripling (not recommended to triple, wow that infuser nearly exploded!) the leaf. In a last ditch effort, I even tried loading it with sugar. (not that I wanted to drink it that way, just wondering if that was how they did it so I could put the issue to rest) Even that unsavory means didn’t do it. Just tasted like sugared oolong. Which isn’t a good thing. =/ Just plain oolong, thanks.

If this is what I’d tasted when I bought it, this wouldn’t be a problem. You see, normally when a flavored tea ONLY tastes like the flavor and not like tea at all, that’s usually a huge negative with me. But I bought this under the impression that it’s SUPER vanilla with the hopes that this could be a dessert busting tea, and when I want to drink tea I’ll just reach for something else in the cupboard.

But as it stands, this isn’t making a dessert buster, nor a really good tea either.

I just can’t for the life of me figure out what the girl did at the store to make it taste so different. It’s like it’s two entirely different beverages.

So I feel really disappointed. I feel like my first impression at the store was an entirely wrong impression and now I feel like I’m missing out on a tea that everyone else seems to be enjoying, which I can’t because of a misconception. Not really sure what to make of this.

I like this a lot!!! I got a sneak peak/sniff of this on Halloween by one of the lovely ladies at Uptown which is closest to my friend’s place, and I was on my way to her party, but needed a cuppa to get me through the night. Anyways, it smelled amazing! The saddest part was that there was no time from the first until now for me to get some. Finally got in tonight after work, in that last half hour before they closed downtown. I got this to go, though I almost got Alpine Punch. Mmmm, Alpine Punch….

The dry leaf smell is like vanilla ice cream, and it is creamy tasting and smelling too. I can pick up the oolong base, but I have to say, at least with this steep, it isn’t overly floral. Under the vanilla, you can taste the base, and it is good. This tea, to me, is like a milk oolong if the milk was vanilla milk.

I will see if I can re-steep my bag tomorrow, if it is still good. I worry that it oversteeped on the way home though, as it did get a bit bitter when I was home and too the bag out, but I added some sugar and hot water and it was fine. I did pick up 10g of this and a few others, so I can play around with steeping on my own time next.

But this one is a winner to me so far.

Dry Leaf Nose: Oolong tea underpins a prevalent vanilla aroma. The orchid is very much in the background.

Liquor: Light green liquor with a sweet vanilla aroma, and hints of orchid in the background.

Flavour: Quality jade oolong flavour shows a bit of carefully controlled oxidation and many rollings that have exposed much of the precious tea oil to the water. The orchid character has been drawn from the leaf and is in balance with the vanilla.

Aroma is very creamy vanilla

1st steep: creamy, vanilla with floral notes. Nice and smooth green oolong. I wasn’t expecting to like this blend this much. It caught me off guard a little bit. Very relaxing and it feels like you are indulging in a sweet treat!

2nd steep: 5minutes. Still creamy and dreamy, just slightly lighter tasting.

Tasting this new addition to my tea collection thanks to HistoryLaced! The girl has a genuine aversion to oolongs. I suspect this aversion stems from the very quality that I and many others adore about them- the nutty creamy taste that comes with a good oolong! She hates nuts, tell her there’s nuts in something and she make that little red face on the end of the tea rating scale.

My boyfriend made a whole teapot for me to sip and think over.

So far, I am on my second cup. I’m not sure if I really like it the way it is yet, I will have to sit down and play with it a bit to figure out how best to drink it. The nutty flavors of the oolong seem to be more prominent when had without sugar. I definitely taste the vanilla, but overall the flavor seems a tad bit weak, and we steeped this for the maximum time recommended. This tea will definitely take some serious re-tastes and contemplation.

On other notes, I am completely done with antibiotics and painkillers! I only have one medication left and that one is a 3x a week medication that I haven’t even picked up yet. Everything is nearly healed, I dont have to sleep sitting up to be comfortable and best of all, as proven by this log, I am back to being able to consume caffeine! Almost back to normal, almost. :)

I ordered a cup of this before work, and the employee suggested adding some milk, so soy milk it was. Not sure if he slipped in some agave? But this is much better than the vanilla oolong! It kind of reminds me of Harney & Sons Vanilla Comoro in that I’m getting cubes of vanilla caramel from this.

Very creamy and sweet. I’m being ultra bad and going by memory, but I didn’t note any prevalent oolong base notes. Mostly creamy vanilla.