Harney & Sons

I have some of this from both Alphakitty and Azzrian! I know though this is from the bag from Alphakitty first, but thank you both for the inevitable hook this tea will have on me.

I love the sesame seeds in the tea before I even steep it, I don’t think I have ever had a tea with any sesame flavor in it before, although I can only think of few others. Along with the caramel, I can smell ginger and citrus.

It’s much sweeter than I was expecting! The sesame flavor isn’t strong at all, I think it kind of mixes in with the bancha and adds just a slight genmaicha type flavor to it.

I’m actually not sure how I feel about it. It’s more citrusy than I thought it would be. It smells like caramel, but I just don’t get caramel when I drink it. Well, maybe, just in a sort of it feels like I’m drinking something syrupy sort of way. I’m going to have to cold brew it and try it that way.

Also would anyone be interested if I were to sell a couple envelopes of lots of samples? I am about broke for 2 weeks and I’d at least like to buy a couple of my textbooks while my school takes their sweet time direct depositing my money. I suppose I can beg my mom for like $200 to not freak out but it would also make me feel better to not have so much tea.
Because you know the two are directly correlated.

Drank this earlier but it was nothing memorable. I think I oversteeped it or something because the base tea was kind of overpowering and this odd mix of malt-smoke. Next time I will pay attention. Still had a bit of plum to it but I ended up letting it get cold.

Whooo I got thrown off by the tin. It just says fruit instead of fruits. I was like have I been calling this tea by the wrong name this entire time?

But it is still plural. I feel like I am drunk from humidity. So iced tea it is! It’s also sad that this is my first tea all day and it’s past 3. First tea all day is also first drink all day, so thanks humidity.

I don’t care for this iced. Maybe cold brewed, but flash chilled does not do it justice. I also feel like I oversteeped it just a little, which I know I did. But all I can really taste is cherry in the aftertaste. When I had it hot it tasted like plum too, which was far superior.

So noted, if making iced do not steep for the normal time and do not immediately get it cold for drinking.

And I really taste how similar this is to Tower of London too, minus the bergamot. The black tea is mainly what I taste drinking it iced and it’s very much like that one.

Are a lot of icons missing from the top (like the steepster logo itself) and on anyone else’s dashboards or is it just me? The best part is already knowing by heart exactly where to click anyway haha

Thank you Azzrian for a sample of this tea. I don’t know how I completely missed it from the one time I ordered from H&S because I would jump on anything to do with Alsace. Not my favorite place from my study abroad trip (i.e., Parisians aren’t the rude ones if you go to Strasbourg. I took Italian for 2 semesters and I always end up pronouncing French and Spanish words like they’re Italian…so I did so for “chantilly” and this woman FLIPS on me like you’d think I said chant-lily or something when all I did was pronounce the l’s! And people just stared at me while I was waiting at a bus stop. It was tacky.) but I still really enjoyed my time there.

This is such an interesting combination of fruits. I’m mostly getting cherry and plum, though I smell the apricot. It’s pretty sweet too, it almost feels too early for something this sweet but I will make it through.

I just really can’t get over how fruity it is, and it just tastes really good. As it cools, the black tea comes out a bit more since while it was really hot it was like a barrage of fruit flavors. There’s a nice balance between the flavors and the tea. I am going to finally have to get some of this.

This might taste better than most things I had in Alsace…but not tarte flambee by any means.

Wow, so I found a second coffee shop in town that carries Harney & Sons tea!

Unfortunately, only in bags. I wonder if H&S sells the teas to shops as a package because it looked like the exact same list I saw at the other coffee shop. I was hoping to try their Golden Monkey, but I guess they think it’s too expensive for people to buy-or because they sell their teas in one price package to shops and it’s too expensive for Harney to include it. The choices are mostly not interesting, but Black Currant was new, so I tried that.

It’s really hard to give a number rating because they put in just one bag for a 12 ounce cup, which is a little watered down from what I’d have at home (8-10 ounces in a cup). I don’t think that I’ve ever had a black currant tea, so I was mystified as why the black currant taste in the tea was so familiar. Eventually, I figured it out-they must put the black currant flavoring in their Paris tea! I don’t know if that’s well-known or not. When I got home, I opened up my Paris and took a whiff-definitely some blackcurrant in there. Anyhow, this tea is okay. I’d be willing to buy a sample from Harney’s to make at home under controlled conditions, but I won’t buy it again at a shop where their cup sizes are too big and they dilute the bags. Maybe they could just sell me a bag to take home? It was only $1.75. We’ll see. I’m not exactly excited enough about this to run out and do it. Maybe next time I’m out that way.

Sample swap provided by @Amy Oh

I haven’t had a FF Darjeeling since last year, so this was refreshing to drink.
Unfortunately I do not have a lot of experience with darjeeling black teas, so I can’t comment too much on this one experience as to it’s quality. Overall, it tasted like an enjoyable darjeeling and none of the characteristics were off-putting.

Thanks for the sample Amy!

Surprise tea of the day…..

I was running to the grocer for a few things…fresh spinach, cake mix, English muffins, and I ran into this! Of course it just jumped into my cart.

The tea flavor in this is plenty strong. There are hints of citrus and honey, too, but they are light. I should have realized there would be some sweetness involved (20 calories per 8 oz., 40 in the whole bottle), and I usually take my iced tea plain. My initial thoughts were that the tea was too strong, but by the end, I found it refreshingly good, a good strong black iced tea. It won’t be a normal staple in my cupboard as I like fresh brewed much better, but for a bottled tea it is good!~

Have been saving this one for a seasonally appropriate sipdown. Just enough “starchy” in the mix to give it a cranberry-bread flavor. Nice.

Fall is upon us, regardless of the calendar and thermometer; when you work in an academic setting, it starts early these days. Lovely thick fog permeating the creek bottoms and making your eyebrows sweat.

So prompted both environmentally and Steepstorally (couple of you had this yesterday), this was the tea of the a.m. If you’re one of us that prefers fruit flavor that is fruity and not tart, this should go on your must-try list. Cranberry pastry without the bakery.

I like this. That won’t change. But the more I drink it, the more I think it tastes less like almond and more like something starchy. Like homemade cranberry bread.

Have always wanted to try this one; Nicole gave me the opportunity. Without peeking at reviews, I remembered there was cranberry, but I couldn’t put my finger on the “other” I was tasting. Other is almond! And really, really tasty almond at that.

These are two flavors that can be used in interpreted really badly—way too tart on the cranberry, way too bitter on the almond, but this is a pretty perfect representation of both. I think I may need to try some on ice!

This was the first time that I tried yellow tea. I brewed the Hu Shan Yellow buds to 175 degrees fahrenheit. I steeped it for three and a half minutes. It has a similar vegetal taste that I experienced when I drank green tea. It also has a slight sweetness with a nutty taste with a bit of spice.The liquor ranged from a pale yellow color to a bit of golden yellow.

“One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain’t free…”

For cryin’ out loud, this song is stuck in my head! And it’s not the original version either… Mike Tyson makes me want to beat my own head against the wall! Aaaagh!

Luckily this tea is better than his rendition of the song! Soothing coconut and lemongrass mingle with a light vegetal base… Bangkok, take me away!

I gotta find Murray Head on YouTube and get Mike outta my head…

Thanks again to Alphakitty for parting with some of this – I know how much you like it! :)

Trying to make some progress on all traded tea samples that I’ve accumulated. Three is a good start for today and all of them have been green-type teas. Tomorrow: black teas!

Used a heaping 1.5 tsp of leaf for 8 ounces of water. The brewed liquor smells good – slight lemony coconut over a nice green base. The taste is even more nice. I was tempted to add a little rock sugar, but refrained this time.

I liked this better than H&S’s Tokyo blend. Next time I might use a little more leaf, but it was pretty tasty the way it was.

Trying to get through some more samples today sent from fellow Steepsters before a few new orders come in…

It’s light on the vegetal! While I’m not tasting full-on caramel, there is a nice sweetness and smoothness coming from this blend. I assume the “caramel” is aiding in that somewhat. Also not getting much in the way of toastiness from the sesame seeds.

Probably not something I’d purchase, but really nice to have tried it! Thanks, Alphakitty!

The dry leaf smells a touch buttery and toasty.

Used a heaping 1.5 tsp (maybe even closer to 2 tsp.) of leaf for 8 ounces of water. Brewed, this tastes like a mix of lightly toasty genmaicha smoothed out with a touch of buttery caramel. The flavor is a little lighter than I’d like. It’s kind of meh, but I think that’s because I’m still a little congested.

A big thanks goes out to Alphakitty for sharing a nice sized sample of this! I look forward to taste testing it again, and maybe even iced.

This is a free sample from Russel Allyn and Harney and Sons. Thank you!

I tried this one cold, with some trepidation because I thought it might become bitter or too astringent. Nope! This was not only delicious, but the sweet rising aftertaste was so very good that I couldn’t stop drinking it.

I have had only a few senchas ever, drinking mostly Chinese greens. This sencha is memorable.

This is a free sample provided by Russel Allyn and Harney and Sons. Many thanks!

The dry leaves had a lovely spinach aroma! I love the name – I did a survey once about “worship styles” and my results said that I feel closest to God out of doors. That is absolutely right, though throw in some mosquitos and our summer humidity and I will get close to God right by the a/c vent thank-you-very-much. The aroma of the dry leaves reminded me of the aroma of Weishan Mao Feng that I tasted a few days ago, but the liquor is nothing like!

The tea steeped to a lovely greenish yellow. I poured some into my small white cup and there were tiny specks of dark green, which I find absolutely beautiful. My husband freaks out if there are “bits” in his tea, but with good tea, I consider it to be decoration, like spices sprinkled on food. It makes it look so wholesome, so real, so unprocessed and natural.

The taste of the tea is vegetal, grassy, and very brothy. There is a bit of butteriness as well, but perhaps that is the texture of the tea rather than the taste. This is a wee bit brisk, not unpleasantly. H&S gives it a 2 on their briskness scale, so very low.

After the sip, for several minutes a sweet taste arises – the sweet plum flavor but here mixed with a hint of the spinach flavor as well.

The second steep is as dark, and the flavor almost unchanged.

I am glad I made a lot of this. I have combined the first two steeps in my tetsubin over the warmer so I can drink it all day, and I hope to give these leaves a good run and see how many good steeps they have in them!

Thank you, Russell and Harney and Sons!

I just happened upon this tea by accident. It is truly delightful and will added to my Favs!

This is a sipdown for me. I stand by my earlier notes. This is so fresh and clean tasting that I just want to guzzle it instead of sipping it. Snow melt is the description that comes to mind every time. It is very light – the liquor color, the taste, the aroma, but nonetheless really, really delicious.

I understand this is no longer available. I would love to have something just like it.

Back logging from last night: I decided to revisit this sample from Russel Allyn of Harney and Sons. This was our late night yoga tea for hubby and me! :)

As I said before, this tastes likes snowmelt in which one has cooked veggies, something like artichoke, asparagus, some smooth and mild and lightly buttered. Hubby, who still adds milk and sugar to his black tea, likes green and oolong tea plain. I watched as he poured cup after cup and drank it down. I think I got about seven of the twenty two ounces I made!

I didn’t want to finish my sample so I had steeped the same leaves three times in a tiny glass pot. I am glad I have enough leaves to drink this one more time – probably soon!

Thank you, Russel and Harney and Sons!

My bestie texted me this morning to ask if we could have tea today. I said, “Yes, please!” our computer got a virus and now my daughter’s high school transcript has to be redone completely from scratch. Oy vey! Transcripts are the very least favorite part of homeschooling to me!

Bestie has been wanting to learn to like green and white teas, so I chose this for our first. Since I have reviewed it a couple of times recently, I won’t restate a whole lot of what I said before, but it was a little different today and that is what I wanted to focus on.

The recommended steeping time is two to three minutes, and I was cautious before and kept it on the low side. Since it is such a light tea, I decided to increase my steep time today.

Drinking the first steep, I found myself running my tongue over my teeth repeatedly. I realized that the tea had left a creamy, almost buttery feeling. Yum! From now on, I will steep this one for three minutes.

I am drinking this again today, this time with hubby.

It smells lightly of butter to me, maybe lightly buttered squash, but the vegetal part is mild. There is still a sense to me that the tea has somehow cleansed the water of all impurities, restoring it to its pristine, newly created state. I think of this as a light mineral flavor, like melted frost.

Hubby says it is good, and he doesn’t know what it tastes like, and that he is a Philistine so I will quit asking what he tastes. All done, sweetie! Enjoy your tea in peace! LOL!