yyz Send Message

The dry tea smells a little bit of alcohol and a little like licorice allsorts. The leaves are fairly entire and whole dried cornflowers are scattered throughout. The brewed tea smells indistictly sweet and actually a little bit more of cocoa and cream than vanilla. The Tea
tastes slightly creamy with slightly bitter base . This assam has dark
chocolate notes and it blends with the vanilla to taste like some lightly flavoured chocolate desert flavoured with vanilla. The body of the tea was a little bit thinner than I’d expect with an assam, and the finish wasn’t as smooth as I may like, but is still pleasant to drink. Tea resteeps decently well, but tastes more of cocoa than vanilla.

This tea came in very pretty packaging a translucent green bag with a velum like sticker with the label done in such a way that it looks handprinted in black and red. The label is in Japanese but someone at the store told me that it tells you that the tea is organic and that it was grown and packaged at the same farm. This tea has been open so It doesn’t quite taste as sweet anymore but I remeber really liking it when I first had it. Just be careful with brewing temperatures and leaf amounts as it contains bancha and can get bitter and astringent if not treated properly.

The tea is a nice mixture of bancha and popped and roasted rice coated in a fine dusting of Macha. When brewed it is a translucent lime/yellow green. When brewed properly the tea tastes both sweet and slightly
bitter at the same time with notes of clover and bitter greens such as spinach overlaying the nutty taste of the rice. When newer I remember the macha contributing a sweet fresh greens taste, which may be in the clover taste now. The tea has a creamy thick mouth feel with a tingling sensation at the front of the mouth. It is an interesting mix of sweet, vegetal and earthy.

The second steep has a stronger fruit flavour, with a nice blend between strawberry,and red grapefruit. The vanilla is still present. The tea is less creamy and is oddly sweeter. Still has very nice flavour.

This was really lovely. It has the creamy taste of a really good homemade strawberry ice cream where the cream is allowed to shine and the strawberries are accents. This flavour hits many of the accents that I love in Zen Tea’s raspberry vanilla and fans of that tea would probably love this one as well.

The dry tea smells of fresh strawberries and vanilla whey powder. Once brewed the tea smells of rooibos, vanilla, faint red grapefruit and a sweetness that comes from strawberry. Despite the ingredient list the tea tastes soft not tart. It is creamy with a thick mouth feel for a rooibos. The first note is a creamy cool vanilla, with faint grapefruit top note followed by a strawberry and cream flavour. The vanilla flavour is very natural. The rooibos flavour is well covered by flavouring leaving only a tingling on the tongue as an aftertaste. I am glad Nina’s offered me the opportunity to sample this tea. Thanks again! I would love to keep this tea in my cupboard!

This tea is light and sparkly and captures the tart bright taste of passion fruit well. The base is tricky, if brewed at boiling it becomes very astringent, but when brewed at off boiling the base produes a pleasant sweet tea with any astrigency adding to the tartness of the passionfruit and lemon. The cinnamon is very mild and more acts in contribution with the passionfruit to add a light pleasant sweetness to the tea rather than a spiciness, though it does bring a little bit of warmth to the tea. The rose is barely noticeable and if anything adds a freshness to the fruit taste of the tea. Overall the flavouring was done very well in this tea.

This tea has been opened for a while so it is starting to loose some of its potency, but when opened if I was careful I could steep it about 11 times, 7 or 8 of which would have really developed flavour.

This is a green anxi style oolong with tightly rolled spring green leaves when dry. After a wash I steeped this tea 6 times this time before I stopped. This tea can be quite spicy and bitter so ten ren recommended short steeping times starting at 10 seconds and moving up at 5 second intervals. This tea is the most floral of the oolongs that I own that I have tried at the moment its flavours develops into a spicy floral referencing gardenia in scent and taste with a strong bitter undertone. Throughout the various steepings it also exhibited notes of a citrus overtone, spicy peach, spinach and green beans moving to the sweet yet bitter taste of coooked greens. It leaves a tingling on the side and back of the tongue and and a dryness at the front of the mouth. This is not my favourite oolong, but it has left me with a desire to taste more floral oolongs and is still an enjoyable experience in itself.

This is an interesting fruit flavoured black tea. It is not juicy or very sweet, but it has an interesting flavour and the fruit flavours are very natural and enjoyable.

The dry tea smells strongly, of ripe fresh apricot with a touch of ripe peach. The brewed base tea smells spicy with a touch of leather, smoke and licorice, overlain with a peachy fruit smell. The tea base is rugged tasting slightly of licorice, and slightly of that taste that burning fragrant hardwood leaves in your mouth. The tea does not taste overly smoky but in the first steep the base is dominant being overlain with the fruit which becomes more prominent in the aftertaste which is a mix of apricot and peach. The base tea is bitter in a dark coffee type of way but otherwise smooth. The tea becomes fruitier as it cools with apricot being dominant over peach. The 2nd steep has more fruit, with the tea base becoming spicier and less bitter.

Overall an interesting tea.

I still really like this tea as a single variety ctc. It’s very smooth, and has a depth to its flavour. Today I am getting more of the biscuity notes than anything, good for a lazy sunday. I think I like the more chocolatey and biscuity assams than the ones with wine notes. Any suggestions?

This tea smells like apple juice. Dry, the tea has quite a bit of dry apple and gun powder green tea. The first steep tastes of fresh apple juice with the tea base not extremely present except to provide a feeling of alertness and provide some sweetness. The second steep is the best, the tea base becomes creamy, providing a sweet, vegetal flavour, almost like fresh greenbeans, overlayed with apple. A very refreshing, unpretentious tea, that delivers what it promises.