wombatgirl

Three badly written haiku in honor of Tao Tea Leaf’s Phoenix Dan Cong tea:

I
Lovely long brown leaves
Hints of honey and lychee
Soft taste, whisper sweet

II
Fawn tint, floral scent
Mild taste and silky mouthfeel
Some astringency

III
Too mild for my taste
Tasty, but makes me want more
Fascinating cup

From – http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2364/tea-review-tao-tea-leaf-phoenix-dan-cong-2/ – go read more reviews!!

I just love the little mini-cakes that pu-er occasionally comes in. They’re just cute. An adorable little pellet of yumminess.

This is a lovely, lovely tea. The creamy rice flavor blends with the warm masculinity of the pu-er to make a dark blend that is rich with complexity and vigor yet smooth and tasty. Along with the rice flavor, it has the typical leathery, woody and earthy notes of a pu-er, but blended together smoothly. Others found citrus flavors, but I’m not tasting those. And, like many pu-ers, it’s great for multiple re-steeps. I’m on steep three currently… or is it four… of my current set of leaves. And the sweet and creamy rice flavor lasts and lasts. Other literature notes people getting up to 9 steeps. I would not be surprised to get rice notes to the end.

This is really great pu-er. I recommend it to anyone.

From http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2370/tea-review-tao-tea-leaf-rice-shou-pu-erh/ – go read more reviews!!!

From http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2361/tea-review-canton-tea-superior-dragon-well-green-tea-long-jing/

I am a big fan of Canton Teas, so it was with anticipation that I opened the packet of Superior Long Jing. And at once, I got the green bean aroma and the visual of the large flat leaves. Ah, Lovely. I tried brewing this two ways. The first way was with approximately a teaspoon of leaf per cup, brewed at about 165 for 2 minutes. This resulted in a nutty, buttery brew; quite enjoyable and a pleasure to drink. Then, after review the company web site, I tried brewing it with a lot of leaf at a very low temperature. This resulted in a more vegetal brew, very light yellow in color. It tastes less buttery and more like green beans. Very clean tasting, and also quite drinkable.

Of the two, I preferred the less leaf / higher temp steep. But either way, it’s a nice light, lovely green tea. A great example of this type of tea.

Tried this for an www.itsallabouttheleaf.com review. You’ll have to wait for it to be published for the full review, but overall a quick review = meh.

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First, I tried the Timmy’s 1UP Jasmine Green. I’m a fan of jasmine, so I was quite curious about this tea. Good looking leaf, but not highly fragrant. On drinking, it shows itself to be a nice, fairly standard jasmine green. A little heavy on the green. The jasmine was not soapy (always a worry with jasmines) but didn’t quite have the sparkle or lively quality of other jasmines. It was a little flat. But in general, a nice standard jasmine. Quite drinkable.
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From my review of all four of the Think Geek teas at It’s all About the Leaf – go read the whole thing!

http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2339/tea-review-think-geek-timmys-tea-sampler/

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I decided to try the Pirate Chai next. Oh! This one smells amazing. Heavy on the clove. I love cloves, and I love spicy teas. I’d like to do this in a traditional method, but as I’m sitting at work, I don’t have the necessary equipment. Once I started drinking however, it seems it’s pretty much just a clove blend. Maybe they were trying to make this like a Bay Rum style chai? For me, a truly good chai needs the spicy heat of the cardamom and pepper which this tea is missing. But, as a clove tea? It’s a great clove tea! In fact, my mouth is even getting slightly numb from the clove oil.. so you know it’s clove-y.
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from my review of all the Think Geek Sampler at It’s all About the Leaf – go read the rest of it!

http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2339/tea-review-think-geek-timmys-tea-sampler/

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- Now, the final tea in the set: Tea, Earl Grey, Hot. Mm.. takes me back to sitting around in Watson Hall, watching Star Trek: TNG with the Sci-Fi/Doctor Who club on Saturday nights. (And reminds me of Whoopi Goldberg’s character’s stupid hats for some reason.) The leaf of this tea smells VERY bergamot-y. Brewed up, it’s a fairly solid Earl Grey. Not too bergamot, not too strong. My guess is that the replicators of Starfleet do a generic blend of the various types of Earl Grey.

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from my review of all the Think Geek Sampler at It’s all About the Leaf – go read the rest of it!

http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2339/tea-review-think-geek-timmys-tea-sampler/

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- Zombie Blood Orange was the next sample on the menu. For being an herbal, it’s got something in it that looks very like green tea leaves. It’s also got some hibiscus – to give the blood color. I’m not a hibiscus fan – it tastes bitter to me. Definitely has orange peel. But, it all comes down to the taste right? It’s very hibiscus. VERY hibiscus. I think there’s orange in there somewhere. I still don’t know what that green tea-leaf looking stuff actually is. I don’t like this at all. But as I said, I don’t like hibiscus. This might be better iced and highly sweetened. Otherwise, blea. Not my cuppa at ALL. Apparently I am NOT a zombie.

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from my review of all the Think Geek Sampler at It’s all About the Leaf – go read the rest of it!

http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2339/tea-review-think-geek-timmys-tea-sampler/

Golden Moon Tea Rose

A rose by any other name… Oh, the lovely scent of roses. As a child, many of the important older women in my life all seemed to use a particular brand of rose lotion, giving me a definite sense memory of strong older, rose scented women who made me feel safe. And this tea definitely tripped that trigger. Highly scented, and very rose. I was enveloped in comfort as I inhaled the steeping brew.

But I also had a slight worry. I’ve had a few floral teas that taste like drinking perfume. Would this one taste like rose perfume? Smelling good is all fine and dandy, but the best memories can’t mitigate a cup of perfume. It would be downgraded to potpourri at that point. Luckily – my fears were TOTALLY unfounded. This tea tasted as lovely as it smelled. Unsweetened, it carried with it flavors of honey and an underlying sweetness. It also had a slight nuttiness to the brew.

I will definitely be purchasing some of this tea for myself. It had good memories, good aromas and good flavors. What could be better!

From http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2303/tea-review-golden-moon-tea-rose/

Drinking a big glass this morning iced. It’s so nice and refreshing; perfect summer tea. There is a slightly herb-y aftertaste that I’m getting more from it cold than I got warm, but it’s lovely.

Very fruity, but mild. The black/green tea blend thing is very odd, but this one is pretty good. I don’t really like guava, but it’s got a nice fruity flavor.

Oh, I really like this tea. It’s so nice, nutty and smooth. YUM.

No notes yet.

Finished off my 50g of this tea yesterday. If I were to put in another order for tea soon, this would definitely be on it. It was lovey, rich, creamy, and full of caramel goodness.

First sip without sweetener – blea. Bitter, annoying, harsh.

Then, I added sweetener.

And the birds did sing, the rabbits did romp, and all creatures great and small stopped to celebrate the goodness of this tea.

Fruity, slightly spicy, and sweet, with a hint of bitter on the back-end. I think I’ll need to steep this with more leaf for less time next time (which is a little scary, I used quite a bit this time). Maybe the same amount of leaf with less time. That may kill the bitter and allow for less sweetener, but wow. Very nice once sweetened.

Oh, I love this tea. So nutty, so green, so drinkable. It’s a great, great tea.

I hate the word mouthfeel. Hate it. Because it feels so pretentious to me. Per the Random House dictionary, it was developed in the 1980′s, which tells me it was likely developed by a Yuppie. Possibly in response to an overpriced wine. As I was child in the 80′s, I have a yuppie aversion almost as strong as my shoulder-pad aversion, my hyper-color shirt aversion, and my aversion to electric pink.

Even after all that, I still use this term. Because it’s such a good descriptor. One of my favorite things about the green rolled oolongs are the ways the liquor can feel like liquid silk rolling around on your tongue.

All that being said – the mouthfeel of this tea was amazing. One of the most silky and creamy textured teas I’ve had. I was however a little disappointed with the rest of the tea. The aroma was fairly mild, and the flavor was a little too delicate for me. But, oh, I would drink this a lot just for the mouthfeel. So nice.

I’ve been drinking this as a iced tea for the last two days. It’s somehow both crisp in flavor and smooth in mouthfeel. It’s been very enjoyable.

I’m easily confused. Especially when two conflicting rules butt up against each other. So blends of black and green tea definitely confuse me. Do I brew at high temps or low? Risk scalding the green to get the black to brew up fully? Or should you brew at the low temperature and risk a weak cuppa?

This meant playing with the parameters and seeing what worked best. The lower temperature brew resulted in a more fruity/floral brew while the higher temperature brought out the tea more. Both were flavorful cups that had some lovely fruity overtones. My favorite was the lower temperature brew. It had more floral and fruit notes and was definitely NOT a weak cup. Either way, it was a lovely, light brown cup that was enjoyable to drink.

Nice, flavorful, and fruity. Yum.

From http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2216/tea-review-teafrog-1001-nights-2/

the instructions on this one are a little odd. I was always annoyed at SpecialTeas for assuming that I’d be drinking a 6oz cup rather than an 8oz cup. And Lupicia apparently thinks that 6oz is WAY too much, they’re prescribing a 5oz cup.

Seriously?

Anyway, per the directions, it’s 2.5-3grams of tea per 5oz cup of water. Oy. but sure, I’ll try it.

first sip – no additives. i can taste the almond, and a little floral taste that together taste a little like caramel. Not bad.

So I added some sweetener. HELLO CARAMEL! Nom.

Next cup I tried some milk. It was nice, but not necessary.

This one is lovely with sweetener and when you use a lot of leaf. I’ll have to play with it more to see if I really have to use that much leaf every time.

This is growing on me. It does have a nice mouthfeel especially if I go heavy on the leaf.

Getting a lot of creamy mouthfeel from this today, and a lot of bright flavors.

I wanted to like this tea. I really did. But I didn’t. It was very sweet and very wierd. I can see the honey and soybean that people mentioned before. I kept sniffing and sipping and going “BLEA” and then thinking that it couldn’t be that bad, and trying again. Won’t be getting this one.

Meh. It’s a bit of a boring chai.