I was planning to wait until I was back in New York and in front of a computer before I reviewed this tea but my stomach has been acting up a lot lately so I’m back at the hotel a bit early tonight. As I was trying to figure out which teas to purchase from Samovar I figured why not just write up the review now. By the way, Samovar lounges only carries large tins :(. They also don’t carry all the teas they have online :(. Double sadness. It’s okay. I’ll be heading back and trying their matcha before I leave.
Apparently the last time I was in San Francisco I walked right past the lounge. Not once, not twice but over a dozen times. The lounge was a bit smaller then I expected. The outdoor seating was really nice though. What better way to enjoy tea than to be sitting outside with the sun shining and the summer breeze. After a good fifteen minutes of studying the menu my friend and I ordered the Phoenix Oolong and a plate of squash dumplings and a honeycomb cheese and fruit platter.
Food review first. Squash platter was a bit disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, it tasted good but for four pieces, it was a tad too pricey. If it was as fabulous as the tea then it would have been worth every penny but it was just ordinary to me. Even with the spicy soy sauce it was pretty ordinary. The honeycomb platter was amazing. What made it amazing was that it was endless. Lots of multigrain crackers, a lump of honeycomb, three cheeses, strawberries, honeydew, oranges, apples…. did I miss something? Can’t go wrong with fruit, crackers and cheese.
Now for the tea! Phoenix oolong. Honestly the reason we picked it was because it said it would last twenty-one infusions and it was $70 for a tin. We wanted to put the twenty-one infusions to a test. Yeah didn’t work out that well as we lost track of infusions after the fifth one but I believe we were in the high teens and it was still very strong and flavorful. The waitress told us to do thirty second infusions with a pot of boiling water. This seems to be the same method, thirty second infusions boiling water in the teeny glass oolong teapot, used to steep Downy Sprout. Thirty seconds were definitely enough and it was full of flavor. It was really easy to oversteep though =/. Perhaps a tea timer along with the pot of water? Yah know something we could just press down on and it lights up when thirty seconds are up. :) That would be nice. Anyways, the flavors reminded me a lot of Radiance’s phoenix tea. We did have something like that at the Steepster meet right? I don’t really know how to describe this tea. It’s tea. I mean you can clearly tell you are drinking tea, some good tea that even a Lipton drinker would attest to. It’s delicious. Golden, sweet, bitter at times from oversteeping, floral-ish. I could possibly drink this everyday if the price wasn’t so steep. I need to start making tea with less water. I get greedy when I’m sharing and it always ends up being too bland. Samovar, another great tea. If the price wasn’t so high I’d buy some but until then I’ll stick with Radiance’s version which I thought was pretty delicious as well.
