Erin

This was the tea that first caused me to fall in love with black teas. Now that I’ve tried more, it’s no longer my favorite tea, but it is still great! I had this today for the first time in a while.

The aroma of the leaves was very sweet and fruity, but when I steeped them, it smelled like horse manure – very earthy and unpleasantly fragrant. Weird. This made me really scared to taste it. However, the taste isn’t like manure at all. It really does taste like black tea with cranberries and maybe some raspberries. The black tea base is much better than Adagio’s.

This is a pretty rich, strong tea. I won’t drink it too often, but the taste isn’t bad.

So great. My favorite.

See my other tasting notes for (much) more details.

I’ve been really excited to try this one because of all the positive reviews I’ve read.

As per Samovar’s instructions, I rinsed the leaves (or “awakened the leaves,” as they put it) and discarded that first infusion. The 2nd steep’s color was lightly golden yellow. It smelled faintly grassy, but not overwhelmingly so.

I like this. I can taste melons and flowers and sweet things. The aftertaste is a little grassy, but not enough to scare me away.

The smell of this tea hit me in the face right from the very moment that I poured my water over the leaves. It’s a heavier, stronger smell than I’ve ever experienced from a black tea before.

Oh, hmm. It isn’t bad at first, but it leaves a sour, bitter, very strong aftertaste. I can taste it all the way down my throat, and every time I exhale I taste it all over again. I’m not sure how much I like this; I want to like it, but that aftertaste is just too much.

Since I really like black teas, I went on ahead and finally ordered Adagio’s Black Savant Sampler. This is the first one that I’m going to try out.

This tastes really earthy and dark, like a good black should. It’s deep and rich. When I read that it has a peppery taste, I was confused. Do they mean peppers, like bell peppers, or do they mean pepper, as in paired with salt? I was nervous about either one. Turns out it’s the 2nd kind of pepper (paired with salt) and it’s nothing to be scared of. I hate pepper and never put it on anything, but I can hardly taste it here. It’s more of an aftertaste, and a very light one at that.

So this is good. I’ll drink it until my sample is gone, but it’s not a top favorite. I’m still glad I ordered it though, because I need other teas to drink so that I don’t drink up all my Dawn in a few days!

Yum. The description is right about the buttery mouth feel. This is some very light, delicate tea. I think I’m getting a bit of honey in the aftertaste, but it’s hard to tell for sure. The overall taste is so simple and harmonious.

As it cools down, I’m tasting a hint of some sort of very light fruit. This is probably my favorite unflavored white tea.

Another new tea. I hoped to like this one as much as I liked White Blueberry by Adagio, but something about this doesn’t thrill me. It is good, tasty, and fruity, but it also just tastes slightly… off. I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Even though the taste wasn’t mind-blowing, the color of the tea was! It was by far the most beautiful tea I have seen to date. Check it out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47736372@N04/4389642159/

This was my first ever tea from Samovar and I was quite excited to have this experience!

I rinsed the leaves like Samovar suggested, then let the 2nd infusion steep for 3 minutes (Samovar suggested 2-5). The resulting liquid was deep, deep brown. Unfortunately, I smelled the fishiness that some people have talked about. Not so much just fish, but a whole seafood store whose air conditioning broke in the height of summer. And some seaweed.

From experience, I knew that smells can be very deceiving when it comes to tea, so I wasn’t afraid to take a sip.

This one is a bit difficult to describe, as well as being surprisingly tasty and very complex. It is earthy, dirty, but not in bad way at all. It works for this tea. It doesn’t taste sweet right up front, but the aftertaste is lovely and lightly sweet, just enough to make you want to take another sip. And of course, the fishiness isn’t a part of the actual taste, but the seaweed is.

Overall, this is probably the most complex tea I have tasted to date. And I like it.

Oh, and if your immediate thought after hearing that the tea tastes like seaweed is one of revulsion, don’t be turned off! Seaweed is an ingredient of ice cream, after all.

The discussion topic about milk tea inspired me to try this a second time, this time with a bit of milk and the smallest amount of sugar I could grab with my two fingers.

It is still wonderful, but now completely different from when I drank it straight. I don’t know how the The Simple Leaf hasn’t made millions just from this tea.

The sugar really brings out the subtle sweetness. Now instead of tasting a hint of cocoa, I really taste lots of caramel and a dash of…is it honey? Something floral? The milk really finishes things off with an extra-smooth, creamy texture. My, oh my!

Once again, you need to try this tea. Yes, I’m talking to YOU!

I got this in the mail from wombatgirl today! Thank you!

The dry mixture (dry tisane? Is that an oxymoron?) smells very fruity, as it should. It steeps to a nice pink/red color. It smells like warm cherries, and tastes like very tart cough syrup. How unfortunate.

Even though I didn’t particularly care for it, it’s not a bad flavor. It’s incredibly fruity and tart, so I’m sure somebody would like it. I’m glad I had this experience, because now I know what I don’t like. So once again, thank you, wombatgirl!

Oh wow.
Oh man.

Okay. So.

Wow.

I’ve found a new favorite tea. Dawn is a wonderful, full-bodied black tea. The dry leaves smell like cocoa, and when steeped, there is a hint of cocoa in the taste.

For such a simple tea, I’m having a hard time describing it.

The texture is so smooth and creamy. It is so simple and delicious. I highly recommend this to everyone, especially black tea lovers.

Wow.

Backlogging from this morning:

Really oversteeped this one this morning. The taste is more sour and I don’t really taste the plum anymore. This one is really good when brewed properly, so I’m not going to change the rating.

This could have ruined my day, but luckily all my tea orders started arriving today. It was my birthday last week, so I used my birthday money to try out different tea companies that I’ve been wanting to check out. Boxes from 3 different companies were sitting on my doorstep when I got back from class. What a glorious day!

I have to keep telling myself that it is okay to indulge in my tea obsession, as long as it is birthday money. At least my obsession is with something healthy, right?

This is a bit too minty for my liking, but that could be a good thing for people who like teas with a whole lot of mint. I can hardly taste the flowers at all; it honestly just tastes like my peppermint tea from Adagio. It will be good for an evening tea, I suppose, but I won’t be drinking this too often.

I’m trying this iced (and again unsweetened) now.

This time around, the taste is more fruity up front. The strawberry also stands out more now as opposed to the apple. Now the mint is just a really nice aftertaste. I like it better now that it is iced; this is going to be really nice come summertime.

My first time with a Teavana tea, and it’s a good one!

First off, the color grabs me right away. It’s a very nice light pink that I’ve never seen from a tea before.

The taste is mostly mint, with the fruit as an aftertaste. The strawberry is pretty prominent, but you can also taste apple. I can’t really taste much tea, just the herbal peppermint. It isn’t floral at all.

Overall, this is a very light and refreshing tea. I’ll try it iced sometime.

I love mornings on Steepster because I love reading everybody’s new tasting notes. This was the 2nd tea out of 3 that came in my order from Rishi yesterday.

The dry leaves actually smelled like beer, so initially I wasn’t too excited. However, upon steeping, the smell became sweet and just ever so lightly fruity. The tea itself is a golden, light orange color. It’s very pretty when the light shines through it.

This is probably the tea that tastes the most like what the package says it should. I really taste honeydew melon in this. It compliments the white tea perfectly, since they’re both such light tastes. After the initial smell, I’m surprised I like this so much. It’s really good!

What a great morning tea. I like it more and more every time I drink it.

This came in the mail today, on one of the few times a year (or decade) that it snows in Texas. The UPS man was thoughtful enough to prop my doormat on top of the box to shield it from the falling snow. Southerners really are more friendly! I’ve been here for 6 months, but the little things like this continue to amaze me on a daily basis. Granted, I grew up in New Jersey, king of assholes, so the fact that people don’t flip other people off for no reason really blows my mind.

Anyway, about the tea. It steeps to a very pretty color that’s hard to describe. It’s kind of like pink mixed with orange mixed with yellow. If you want to know what it really looks like, check it out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47736372@N04/4382845180/

The smell is actually like wine. It’s intoxicating and fruity, inviting you to take a sip. I couldn’t help but oblige. It tastes exactly like it smells. It’s mostly floral with a hint of plum. Upon tasting, it’s obvious that this is a plum tea. It really does taste like plums. And I love plums. For just tasting floral and fruity, it’s surprisingly complicated. This is going to require many cups to get a full idea of what I’m tasting. I’ll let you know!

The first time I tried this, I wasn’t so sure about it. But I’ve found that as it cools down, it isn’t as harsh. It’s still very strong, but that’s what I like about black teas. They’re perfect for your 9am History seminar.

It’s a good sign when I’m halfway through a tin only 2 days after I receive my package. This is just so good!

When I first moved to Texas from New Jersey, about 6 months ago, people gave me the weirdest looks when they found out that I drink my tea hot and unsweetened. Apparently, it’s the norm in Texas to drink your tea iced and with so much sweetener that you risk going into a diabetic coma with every sip. Well, it’s a pretty warm day here so I decided to try my White Blueberry the Texas way, only without using so much sweetener. It turns out it’s pretty delicious! I still like my way better, but I could get used to this. I’ll certainly be drinking iced tea a lot this summer when it’s just way too hot outside for hot tea.

I was so excited when my latest order from Adagio came and they had thrown in this as a free sample, since my first tin of this was starting to run out. This is an old favorite, but my cup today tasted bitter. The smell is divine, though.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47736372@N04/4375765019/

I can’t honestly say that I enjoyed this very much. The sweetness that I was expecting wasn’t there, and it tasted a bit too vegetal for my liking. I tasted way more of the white tea than the tangerine, which I hardly tasted at all. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing (especially if you like white tea like I do), but if you’re wanting a tangerine white, than I wouldn’t recommend this. On the bright side though, it doesn’t have any aftertaste because it is such a light tea.

Even though I only steeped it for just over 2 minutes, my mouth was left feeling curiously (and annoyingly) dry. I can’t think of why that would be, since I didn’t oversteep.

This is another one that I’d be willing to trade or give away if nobody takes me up on the offer.

Backlogging from this morning:

When I opened the tin, I was surprised to see how large these balls were. [I’ll just say “That’s what she said” now, so I don’t have to say it after every sentence in this note.] They were probably 2 to 3 times the size of my Jasmine #12 pearls. I threw 2 balls into my infuser, and immediately they began to unfurl.

The taste is rich and complex. I can taste woody, earthy notes with a hint of chocolate. It somehow manages to be slightly bitter at the same time as being so rich. The smell is more bitter than anything, although it’s still a nice smell. This will make a very good morning cup of tea, because it is pretty gentle in it’s assault on your tongue.