Sacher Blend (TE22S)

Full review on http://sororiteasisters.com/ on March 25th here are the snippits:

The bergamot is extremely light, barely noticeable, but the vanilla is what shines in this cup.

I tasted absolutely no bitterness nor astringency even after a rather long steep.

It may lack some of the promise the description eludes to especially if you are expecting much from the Bergamot notes, but if you have a sensitive palate you will taste it.

I think it is rather nice, and I personally love it because I prefer my Earl Grey to be light on the bergamot. I like bergamot but I too often find that bergamot is all I can taste in most Earl Grey. I think this blend is unique for those of us who only want a light EG flavor, and let us remember, this is not being sold as an EG.

The flavors pop more as the tea cools. Would be excellent iced.

I like this for a black tea but it says it’s scented and flavored…humm…I can’t really taste flavoring or smell a scent.

After about 5 minutes of waiting for it to cool at room temp…

There is a creamier type element to it but I don’t think it tastes like vanilla or cream, really. It’s more of a texture than a taste if that makes sense. I certainly do NOT taste any EG likeness either.

Don’t get me wrong…I DO like the taste of this tea I just can’t taste the flavoring claims, tho!

I can’t really give it a super high rating because it is lacking, I suppose, but it’s not a bad tasting cup either.

I drank this one right after my darjeeling comparison today. I find I can taste the darjeeling in it. That bright, coppery flavor I think must be a characteristic of darjeelings. I think the ceylon adds a depth to the sweetness of it and a hint of some thing like wood smells. I really like bergamot and vanilla together, but this is amazing. It has no perfume smell or taste to it at all and yet I still know for sure there is bergamot in it. Dylan thought this might be really good iced. I agree, I’ll save the last little bit for icing.

This tastes like a Darjeeling with a little hint of creamy on the end to cancel out any potential tart edge and then a little whoosh of faint citrus in the aftertaste. It’s not really a bad tea, but it’s not a special one either. The flavoring is too light for it to be considered an actual flavored tea, the bergamot is much too light for it to be anything remotely Earl Grey-ish, and the Darjeeling isn’t special enough for it to be a notable Darjeeling. So basically it’s one big ball of meh. In fact, the more I drink it, the less special it becomes.

This was interesting, I couldn’t resist adding this sample to the cart with my husband’s British blends, as we had learned about the Sacher Torte feud in German class. I had one the Earl Grey Ceylon Select sometime with in the last week and this was definitely more mild. The Darjeeling wasn’t over muscatel, the Celyon not too winey, but it was nice, I felt kinda European drinking it. I tried a second steep and it was very light, but still drinkable.

I am not very good at picking out the flavors of Darjeelings, yet. It may be getting close to time for another round of palate training! I do think the bergamot is light, and there might be a light hint of vanilla. It is good, but not a keeper for me.

So, uh, hi guys! :)

I am, I’m ashamed to say, a seasonal tea drinker. And since spring started about, oh, March 1 in these parts my hot tea drinking stopped pretty much around then, only to start back this past week. This, actually, is a backlog from last Monday, I think – but I wanted to count it because well, it’s my first tea of fall!

Unfortunately I didn’t really get much flavor from this. Could have been too little leaf, or water that was too hot, and also that I’ve cleaned out my diet and so no more sugar in tea for me – but it was pretty much like drinking hot water. Oh, well, it’s a sample pack so I have a few more tries left on it to get it right.

Man, it feels good to be back!

A review of Scented Darjeeling Tea (Sacher Blend Tea TE22S) by Upton Tea Imports
Steeping suggestion:
I placed 2 ¼ g/cup of the leaves into a cup and pour the boiling water in the cup and left to steep for four minutes.
This tea brews dark amber in color; I would have to say reddish amber and has a somewhat malt-fruity aroma.

I let it cool for a bit and simply take in the teas’ odor.

With first sipping and as I continue to drink the tea I find that I like that it’s soft on the palette; there is slight fruitiness to it, some citrus notes from the Bergamot oil I am supposing. This Sacher blend is to have some hint of vanilla added to it. So I suspect that is why the bergamot is not so prevalent as I have had in other teas with extra-berrgamot.

Something of this tea is similar to the Kopili Assam black tea. It has that same smoothness and creaminess and I could even say an overall caramel like taste to it.

I like this tea and it would make good iced tea as well. It is full-bodied tea, possessing quite a heft and the overall note is that it is smooth with a sweet malt flavor.

This tastes like a softly flavored, slightly creamy earl grey. Not bitter and slightly astringent. Everything about this tea is light. This is so much better than the earl grey stocked where I work. And it doesn’t have the off aftertaste of some cream earl greys I’ve tried. I like this one.

Upton Sampler Buying Spree Tea #11:
Slowly reaching the end of the Upton samplers, although I’m sure I’ll do multiple tasting notes for some of them at least. Good thing that 31 tea sampler from Golden Moon Teas was on sale today, or I might run the risk of having to drink the same tea twice! Sigh. Will…so…weak.
This is super tasty. On my sample packet it says that it is a “scented darjeeling” rather than a flavored one, or a straight Earl Grey, which is an apt description. The scent of the additional flavors is much stronger than their taste, although the taste is still noticeable. The vanilla is definitely more noticeable than the bergamot, but I think they blend together well. And there’s that little kick from the darjeeling underneath it all, acting as an offset. Very effective balancing act.

Been doing Upton Imports sampler thunderdomes, two teas at a time, sometimes with comparison obvious (same flush or estate darjeelings, say), sometimes less so, like here where I compared Upton TE22, Sacher Blend (scented darjeeling) with Upton TB84, Robert Fortune Blend (darjeeling and yunnan).

Pleasant floral darjeeling-y fresh-perfume scent dry. Both smell really good fresh in the cup. Brewed, a nice medium red brown.

Quite tannic/astringent. The floral fragrance is lovely, but I associate it with all nice darjeelings I’ve had, don’t notice that it’s especially extra oomphy with vanilla or bergamot here, just the slightest tinge. Kind of woody somehow both in flavor and texture. Not wet forest but dry timber wood graininess, kind of like licking a wooden block or wood chips, ha. That sounds bad maybe but oddly enough it isn’t unpleasant here, at least I don’t find it so; in fact, the more I drink it the more this weird raspy wood flavor thing grows on me. And it stands up to milk and sugar, which is good as that softens but doesn’t completely remove the astringency I tend to avoid in everyday teas.

The odd woodiness makes me think I’d restock this at some point just to experience something I haven’t elsewhere, but it’s not going to ever be a regular rotation thing.

This tea is rather strange. A decent but not spectacular Darjeeling lightly scented with bergamot flavouring and vanilla. This unusual pairing ends up like a faint version of the strange taste of orchid tea, a little reminiscent of powdered coffee creamer or dry meringue cookies. With a touch of milk, the aftertaste instead reminds me of white chocolate. The tea is overall mild without complicated flavor notes or progression; something I would rather gulp than sip and contemplate. It does a good job of warming me up. However, I am not a fan of this flavour profile, so I will not be ordering any more once I run out. That said, while it does not impress me, Sacher Blend is certainly not “bad”, and I won’t have any trouble finishing my current batch.

One of many samples I recently purchased from Upton. Its mostly whole leaf, with some broken pieces- and the aroma- what is that? sweet gherkin pickle juice? Bizarre….

Three minutes of steeping got very little flavor out of this, four got a bit more, so I went with 5. At bit better at that point but really just a meh sort of tea. I don’t get much darjeeling from it, and I don’t get much Earl Grey either.

Mostly this comes off as a weak earl grey, and if I wanted that, there are plenty of those to choose from .

Sorry Upton, this just isn’t worth drinking….

I ordered this tea because I have been to tea at the Sacher hotel in Vienna. While that was a wonderful trip, I don’t have any particular memories of what the tea itself was like. This is perhaps a bad sign, no? The description mentioned bergmot, and I love Earl Grey, so I went for it!

This is a delicate tea. The bergmot whispers rather than shouts, and I could not detect the vanilla in any form. As it turns out, I would prefer the bergmot to shout at me, so I found this blend rather bland. I brewed at just under boiling for 4 minutes. Halfway through my cup I got bored and added some milk. I would not recommend doing that, because what was an insignificant taste before totally bows down to the milk, and you end up with a cup of lightly scented milk!

I didn’t finish my cup, and I doubt I will finish the sample either. It’s not a bad tea, just not to my personal taste. If you don’t think of it as Earl grey you may have better luck than I did!

This actually does taste very similar to the tea blend used at the Sacher hotel. It is a wonderful Darjeeling blend with some Ceylon and a bit of bergamot. If you like a very mild Earl Grey, this would be a good fit as well.

I like Earl Grey, and I’ve been trying a lot of the Earl Grey varieties from Upton Tea Imports. I find a lot of them are too strongly flavored for my taste – I like a subtler flavoring where I can still taste the tea. I didn’t particularly like their Lavender and Blue Flower Earl Greys, and I will likely stay away from the Extra Bergamot. So far, of the ones I’ve sampled, I like this one the best. You can tell the Bergamot and Vanilla are there, but just barely. I noticed that some tasters prefer a strong flavored Earl Grey, but if you like subtle, this one’s for you. If you prefer a stronger vanilla, check out their Earl Grey Creme Vanilla.