Emperor's Clouds and Mist

My favorite green tea; smoky, astringent, and maybe a little bit sweet. A heavenly, relaxing tea that is the perfect de-stressor. First time I tried it I was blown away, and I’m still in love. The loose leaves are definitely expensive, but I think it’s worth trying at least once.

Nope nope nope. Not a fan. I love straight, vegetal green teas. This one, however, is bitter and gross no matter how many different ways I try to steep it. Blech, not a fan.

Grabbed a cup of this from Starbucks today. The tea smelled lovely while steeping, very fresh and vegetal. Of course the fact that Starbucks uses boiling water to brew every tea, even green, meant that this cup turned out more bitter and acidic than it was meant to, which was a shame, because it really is a good quality tea and shouldn’t be abused.

Study time tea! Loving the earthy, grassy sencha-like flavour of this tea right now. Really full-bodied and leaves a nice aftertaste.

In other news, I finally got my November Tea Sparrow box, really looking forward to trying the new teas as well as chugging that Buddha Bamboo! Hopefully it will last me more than two days.

A couple days ago I tried cold brewing that White pearl of Fuijan. I don’t know why I keep thinking this tea will be better cold. It is NOT BETTER COLD. It gets suuuper bitter for some reason, and when I tried to balance it out with rock sugar (and regular sugar, which is a first for me, when it was still too bitter) it just tasted sickly sweet and bad tasting. The one thing I noticed was that cold brewing it brought out its apricot flavours really strongly, something I didn’t find in the hot brew. I just wish I knew how to make it taste at least decent when cold. I’m gonna stick to the hot version of this tea. Someone please remind me not to ice thing thing again. It would just be a waste of leaves at that point.

I personally made this account to rate how disgusting this tea is! I would not recommend it to even my worst enemy. This tea tastes like someone boiled carrots and asparagus and then poured the water into my cup. I tried even putting honey, sugar, and lemon into it and it still tastes like pee. Every time I think of the smell, or taste of his tea I automatically want to throw up. I literally feel ill now after drinking this tea. I also am an avid tea drinker and this is the worst tea I have ever tasted in my entire life. If you like this tea there is something wrong with your taste buds and should probably go see a doctor.

First off: Starbucks, you need to tone it down a bit. Yes, I want hot tea. No, I do not want it THAT hot. No, I’m not a big baby, my tongue had an actual mark/burn taste on it for several days after blindly taking a sip of this. I’ve never had this kind of experience with this coffee so what are you doing?

Now onto the tea itself. I can definitely tell where the flavors divide in the tea. I think I liked the middle part the best. I might drink this again, with my own temperature set.

Like most of my experience with Teavana, this was a “hmm…let’s just see what it’s like” choice. I will note that I do feel like I have a cold coming on, and thus my tasting ability may be impacted, but this was not a great experiment. At first I got a pretty seaweed-y punch. If not that, definitely a pretty strong plant flavour. That kind of subsided into a refreshing bean sprout note—by far my favourite level of this tea. If it had ended there I probably would’ve finished the cup, but as it cooled it progressed into a pretty strong soap flavour (at first lemon dish soap, followed by straight up white bar soap). Not overly pleasant. Wouldn’t buy again.

One of my favorites, so I had a cup last night. Lovely light vegetal notes :)

Picked this one tonight because, if Teavana’s information can be trusted, it is low in caffeine. I was at the store the other day to buy a Glass Perfect Tea Maker and they were sampling this tea. I think it is pretty good. I am getting a barely perceptible vegetal note. I am getting a buttery note. The steepster writeup also says notes of broccoli and spinach. These are imaginable for this tea although not strong. Overall it is a very mild tasting tea. It is already one of my favorite greens.

I brewed this once in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 175 degree water for 1 min.

I received Teavana’s Green tea Essentials gift box for Christmas, adn this is the first one I am trying. I’d never been to a Teavana before, or had anything of theirs. They always seemed like a shopping mall version of a quality tea store. I had only seen their locations in places I hate going, the mall, Sanata Row, etc, so I always assumed they would be pretentious and overpriced for a product slightly better then boxed store bought tea bags.

I hope I’m wrong, of course. Let’s find out:

They recommend 1 teaspoon per 8 ounces of water, so that would mean 4 teaspoons in my 32 ounce Bodum Assam. I like a little bigger tea, so I put a full 2 tablespoons, which is about 6 teaspoons. Ish. I rinsed the leaves and then tumbled 175 degree water over the leaves, letting them steep for 1 minutes.

Here we go:

The color is a nice light, clear yellow. Straw colored, if you will. The scent is very light, with hints of straw, wet grass, earth and butter. The standards for good green teas.

I’ll be honest, the smell was a little lacking, and that had me worried on the taste. But to my surprise, the taste is full of wet grass and straw with hints of butter. They say it has an initial taste smokey taste, I’m not really getting much of that. But the grass, straw, and butter taste that is there is wonderful.

This is a great green tea. It’s going to be great on damp Spring mornings, waiting for the Sun to pop out so I can get out on the bike.

So, I was wrong, Teavana puts out a great product. But I still don’t like their stores.