JusTea

I’ve been slacking off on my sample stash this summer. While I’ve been dutifully chugging through a couple of teas I’d acquired in massive (well, 3 oz.) quantities, I’ve mostly only been drinking tea at work. And I don’t like to try anything for the first time at work, since I can’t do much in the way of timing or controlling temperature there. I have been drinking copious quantities of iced corn, corn silk, and barley tisanes I picked up from HMart at home, so there’s that.

Anyway, now that it’s getting cooler, I’m more inclined to reach for hot tea, and today I decided to break out this sample of African Chai I’ve been hanging onto for the better part of a year. I picked this up from someone—maybe Nicole_Martin?—at one of the now-defunct NYC meet-ups. And while it’s not my ideal chai, it’s pretty good! I’m enjoying the base; it’s got just the right amount of astringency and malt for my tastes.

There’s a nice natural sweetness to this chai. It’s a little heavy on the cloves and light on the everything else for my taste, but it does taste pleasingly gingerbread-y. I’m not generally a fan of fennel or liquorice in teas, but while I do taste them they’re subtle enough not to bother me here. I was intrigued by the inclusion of rose, since I love the one other rose chai I’ve tried, but I can’t taste it here. All in all, this is a nice fall tea, and a great way to cap off my brunch of pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin butter. I’m not sure if it’s something I’d want to pick up more of, but I have enough left for another cup to mull it over.

From the Round 3 Here’s Hoping TTB

I don’t know if it’s because it was in a TTB or if there is some other factor, but the bergamot flavor is completely
missing from my cup. After looking at other’s thoughts on this tea I realize that this isn’t normal for this EG, so I’m not going to give this a rating right now. I will say that the base tea is very nice. A little brisk, but it has nice body.

Backlog:

This was from the last Amoda Tea box (I miss them!) I was happy to see this tea in the box, because it was one from JusTea that I hadn’t yet tried. I had tried their delicious African Chai – and I was happy that was in the box too, because I was more than happy to drink that one again! But since this Handcrafted Oolong was new to me, I was happy to be able to try something different.

The aroma I experienced when I first opened the pouch was that of fresh cut hay. This is a fragrance I’m familiar with having grown up in a farming community where the surrounding farms and ranches would grow hay and alfalfa, and I could always tell when the neighbors were harvesting their hay because the smell of freshly cut hay would fill the air. But I have to admit that it was a little weird to be experiencing that scent when I opened a pouch of Oolong. I often experience it when I have a white tea, but, not so much an Oolong.

My earliest infusions were sweet – like molasses – with distant vegetal notes. Later infusions brought some fruit notes into focus, as well as some woodsy tones. Notes of plum and nectarine, like the cooked fruit – imagine a plum/nectarine pie. That sounds good. I must be hungry.

A really good Oolong. Definitely one I’d be willing to have again. This one made me happy.

cavocorax sent me this one to try from Justea . I really like what Justea is doing so i’m always happy to try their teas to see if there is one that really knocks my socks off that i can get behind. Given this was an oolong, i was pretty sure this one would do the trick but i’m open to anything! :) On the whole, there is nothing about this ooolng that rocks my socks, but nor is there anything overly offensive that i don’t like. it’s just a middle of the road oolong with no bitterness or astringency, with some floral like notes hanging out in the background that i suspect would come forward as you resteeped this a bunch :) thanks cavo!

SSTTB: Pick #18

More exploration of straight blacks. I’m not really sure how many Kenyan ones I’ve had but this smelled kinda chocolatey and that seemed pretty promising. I feel like I was so terribly wrong though!

Never have I ever experienced such strong and in your face raisin notes in a tea! Not grape but foul, disgusting raisins. ICK ICK ICK! Not for me. Eww. Yuck. Like, there were other elements in here; some chocolate, some malt, a little citrus maybe? But they couldn’t even come close to negating the nastiness of this one.

I guess I wont rate it because I have a severe aversion to raisin stuff to begin with so my rating would be heavily biased but if I was going to rate it I suppose it’d be something along the lines of a 10? Noooooo! Not a raisin fan. Barf.

Love this tea! It so SUPER COOL! Check out the photos! It’s a handtied oolong, labelled as the world’s first bagless tea bag. It looks like a blooming tea on a string, a tea ornament. With that said, you got a tea bundled together for lots of space to expand and look gorgeous as it steeps, with little waste.

The flavor is really yummy. I went into a panic and bought 15 of them at the World Tea Expo – and from the constant crowd at Justea’s booth during the expo, they were quite popular. The tea star has a really thick creamy texture. Lightly woodsy and toffee sweet. Kind of reminds me of a light gold tipped yunnan black. I got multiple western style steeps out of this tea.

Full review with lots of pictures on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/tea-star-oolong-justea-oolong-owl-tea-review/ So many pictures, this tea is really attractive.

My eyes weren’t focusing too well this morning when I grabbed this packet not noticing the clearly written Earl Grey on it…so the strong whoof of bergamot caught me off guard. Lemon Pledge furniture polish strong. So I was a little suspicious from the get-go. Fortunately, it doesn’t steep as perfumey as it smells, though it was definitely floral bergamot rather than lemony bergamot. You EG folks will enjoy this.

I picked this up on the weekend to share with my parents. It’s super cute! As it brews the star POOFS up and becomes huge.

Sadly, the flavour was not for any of us. I would say “strong marine notes” but it tasted like kelp. So seaweedy.

Still, I’m glad I had a chance to try it. Such a neat idea, and I’m sure that people who like darker oolongs would like this a lot more.

Part of the May Amoda box….

This is pretty nice. It’s buttery, almost nutty, almost fruity. Just nice and easy drinking. I’ve gotten multiple steeps from it today, too.

I received this from BrewTEAllySweet in a tea stash sale. Thank – you.

I like earl grey and I have really enjoyed trying different earl grey’s with different bases. It is interesting to me how the base can change the taste of the bergamont. I have never had a Kenyan tea so I do not know the characteristics of the base. This was a smooth base, but the taste was a little different. The bergamont was at the tail end of the sip and it was very light. I had the thought that I was sipping spagettii when I was drinking this tea. The base just had an odd smell. For me this tea is a no. There was something about it that just wasn’t my cup of tea. I am glad for the opportunity to try this one.

I picked this out because it was low hanging fruit – a single serve sample that someone sent me, and it was an easy sipdown. In other words, I wasn’t expecting much.

It’s actually very good! A nice strong black with yummy malty tones. It’s rocking my afternoon.

Normally I keep all of my “day” teas (caffeinated) in a big basket on my kitchen island. I separated them into ones that are easy sipdown candidates, such as samples people have sent, and larger packages. It helps when I don’t have a taste for anything specific to rifle through the sipdown basket. I guess somehow it helps me justify the ridiculous amount of tea coming in. :D

Well, it looks like Justea has branched out into oolongs! And I’m the first to taste it here! :O

And it’s an odd oolong at that. It has that dark thick mouthfeel I get from Kenyan teas, but can never fully describe, and yet once I get past that I can taste floral and fruity notes. It’s an interesting and enjoyable cup. Once it cools a little, the light and the dark notes come together and balance themselves out a bit.

I’m not particularly fond of this type of oolong but I think people will enjoy it! I’ll pass the rest of my sample to Sil/Terri! (bc we know they need more tea!

(Sipdown: 216. Will I ever hit 200?)

SSTTB

Don’t google “Kenyan Black” when searching for brewing instructions as you will just get a bunch of pictures of people from Kenya. It will not help. However, adding “Justea” didn’t really help either since I didn’t notice a website and I was too lazy to search through the results on my iphone. I ended up just following the recommendations on the steepster page.

The result? A pretty good straight black. Malty and rich and with the slightest hint of bitterness that calls to mind dark chocolate. Pretty tasty.

This is one of the best Earl Grey tea’s that I have tasted. A spoonful lasted an entire afternoon. Yum! (Thanks Nicole for the sample)

Thank you MissB for sharing this with me. I was seriously worried that I would not like this given it is a chai with licorice root. However, sipping on it now, it really is not bad. I don’t think it is something I will be stocking but I am also not looking to find someone to pawn it off on either. The most prominent flavor is cloves but all the other spices are present and balanced. Not bad though not necessarily for me.

Here’s another sipdown from my *Sil*box.
This is actually quite tasty! Thanks to Robert the Devotea, my homemade chai making will never be the same. I used the whole sample with 16oz of vanilla almond milk, letting it warm up slowly in a pan for quite some time. After about 20 minutes I started bringing up the temp, until it was nice & hot (but not boiling).
It took a lot longer to make than it is taking to drink, LOL.
The blend of spices is very nice with this cup, with ginger & a molasses taste being up front.

Ooops! I must have murdered this tea! Everyone else likes it enough that I must have done something wrong. Maybe I overleafed and oversteeped ‘coz it was awful. I am not going to rate this one; it just wouldn’t be fair.

Hm. I like this tea – it reminds me of the amazeballs Kashmir chai in Edmonton, but that one is SOOOOO much better – yet it’s got a weird flavor to it that I’m just not digging. I think it’s partially one of the spices (too strong – and that’s saying a lot for me, I love me my spices) plus the floral/rose is a bit too heavy for my liking. Really, the French should teach EVERY TEA BLENDER IN THE WORLD how to use flowers in tea. For the most part, they’re the only ones where I can even tolerate flowers.

Having said all that – I do like that there’s a bit of kick and spice to this, some minor heat. It’s actually burning my tongue a bit (again, I love this) but it’s just too much, uh, flavor. Like, dial down the nutmeg or something, maybe cloves. It’s just too much.

Finished this off during the 10 days of sickness earlier in the month. I actually enjoyed it more while I was sick! Might need to add this to my wishlist for another time.