Steven Smith Teamaker

With buckwheat honey and almond milk.

So, this is day three with a KILLER headache/sore neck. Not sure why I’m in so much pain, I’m thinking I slept funny and just got a bad kink in my neck. Some of the only things providing relief right now are lying flat on my back, applying peppermint oil to my neck/back of my head, and drinking tea with lots of cloves!?

That’s what I’m doing right now – and the tea tastes fine. It’s super average; a good representation of a typical Masala Chai, I suppose? The cinnamon and anise notes are a little stronger than the rest of the spices. I’m primarily drinking it to ease the pain I’m in though, and not for the taste. Meh.

Lucky 13th day of my advent calendar from Sara!

This is a pretty tasty Moroccan Mint. I taste the spearmint and lemon, and at the end of the sip, I swore I tasted bergamot at first, but that must be the myrtle. It’s smooth and kind of creamy somehow. The lemon and spearmint balance nicely until the end of the sip, where the myrtle takes over.

I got this in a little trade with Lexie Aleah! Thank you! I’m kinda amused by the name of this tea company. My uncle’s name is Steven Smith.

My eyes have been opened to chamomile only recently. I had previously overlooked it, thinking it was stuffy and boring, but I have gotten over my prejudices against caffeine free teas. And I have tasted some fresh, quality chamomiles. This is no exception. I was pleased by the sight of the sachet, full of pale dried flowers and a few colorful petals, with linden collected in the bottom. The aroma was sweet, clean, and floral. Appley chamomile is the main thing I taste. So calming. I’m also getting floral notes that end with a little bitterness/fullness I don’t recognize. Maybe that’s hyssop? I’m not sure. I understand that there are a lot of herbs in this, but really, I mostly just taste chamomile. And that’s lovely. Makes me want to get into bed.

I’m curious about the rest of this company’s offerings now. Going to have to check them out.

The variety of dried flowers in the sachet are a pretty sight. I’m not sure what most of them contribute in flavor since this a predominantly sweet, apple-chamomile tasting tisane. Very fresh and full of flavor. It doesn’t taste like wood nor is it drying which is a major plus. Like with No. 39 Fez, the lemon myrtle really comes out with a second steep.

This blend doesn’t excite me much since I’m not in love with flowers (except citrus), but it’s clearly high quality and I’m happy to be drinking it. It’s definitely worth a try if you’re looking for a great chamomile-based tisane. Thanks for sharing, Mastress Alita :)

I typed a really long piece on fire ecology, prescribed burning and my emotional sadness regarding the victims of the current Camp Fire in northern California but this is not the place for that so I deleted it. The smoke from that fire has blown southwest and blanketed the Bay. I’ve had a persistent headache for 3 days and woke up with a very rare nosebleed this morning. I brewed this sample from Mastress Alita, something light and refreshing that might make me feel a little better.

Fez is a pleasant blend of a grassy Chinese green, lemon myrtle and spearmint. I think the spearmint is a little underplayed here and the lemon myrtle too dominant for the type of green tea used. A second steep really brings out the lemon myrtle and a tinge of astringency. Whatever compound is responsible for lemon myrtles scent and taste seems to be the same used in lemon PEZ candy and in lemon Pledge furniture cleaner/polish, so don’t do that second steep if either of those turns you off. Otherwise, I find this to be to be a generally nice, smooth blend and would really like to try it as a cold brew.

Received this sachet as a gift from Mastress Alita, thanks.

It’s Earl Grey. It’s good. Good aroma, beautiful dark red color, good body with a little astringency, great fruity/berry-tasting base tea and a perfect level of bergamot for me. It might be one of the best Early Greys I’ve ever had. I don’t think there’s much more to say.

I’ve been drinking this at work, where it has done very well. I like this blend, but I don’t love it, and doubt it will be a repeat.
Its the sort of breakfast style blend that would really be better with milk and sugar, and as I almost never drink those, it’s not quite my thing.
Still, always happy to try new teas!

I’ve decided to bring this as the current work desk tea, as its very nice. It will be a good work companion, solid, dependable, strong.
And strong is needed this week. Tech week is progressing just as tech week always does, which is to say it makes you wonder why you ever decided to peruse the arts at all.
So, right on schedule then.
It also means late nights, so a strong work tea is absolutely essential

So far this has been a nice blend. The one detraction is that the mouthfeel is a bit dry.
I feel that this was a tea designed to take milk, so I may try it that way in future.

So, in addition to being a tea drinker, I am also a knitter. I am a total cliche, but I adore the times where I can be curled up in my cozy chair, with a big mug of tea and my knitting, and just feel like Miss Marple. So, when I saw that this yarn company (Churchmouse) I snapped it up.
So Churchmouse has a collaboration with Smith Tea Maker, and there are four blends, one for each season. I am predictable, so I grabbed up the one for autumn.
Its a really nice breakfast blend. Sturdy, just the tiniest bit astringent, and well balanced. I think it would take milk and sugar very, very well.
It would also be a great cup of tea to drink while sitting in a big cozy chair and work on a knitting project!

I’ve been having terrible insomnia for nearly a week now; I’ve been extremely exhausted, passing out well before my bedtime, but when I go to bed, I lay there and can’t fall asleep. When I finally do, I wake hours later and can’t fall back asleep, so my exhaustion has just been piling up as I get a mere 3-4 hours of sleep a night. I finally think I’ve figured it out; I started taking B-Complex vitamins, and since I take a pharmacy’s worth of medications before bed, for consistency so I won’t forget anything, I take my vitamins then, too. Fairly sure that is doing it. Hopefully if I switch that to the morning (or just discontinue it) maybe my sleep will even back out. Until then, I’ve been getting by on black tea fumes.

I won’t be starting my Autumn Harvest November theme until I return from vacation, so I’m brewing up this single bag of Kandy, a blend of three Ceylon estate teas from Steven Smith Teamaker that I picked up from Ost’s cupboard sale (thank you Ost!) It smells so much like that baked bread scent I always associated as being the “tea smell” that I remember from my grandma’s house when I was a child, so it’s a bit nostalgic… I guess her English/Irish breakfast blends must have been heavily Ceylon in leaf.

This is a black tea that is a bit more heady/strong than is typically to my tastes… but since I’m so dead tired today, I really am not minding it so much. It is very malty/bready but there is a slight wet autumn leaf quality as well, and I’m picking up a pleasant cinnamon spiciness toward the finish. It has a stronger astringency than I recall from their British Brunch (formerly known as Brahmin) but it doesn’t reach into unpleasant territory. It’s quite full bodied and feels rather thick in the mouth. I’m rather enjoying it, and blacks like this usually don’t do it for me. I really think my palate is just acclimating more and more to these types of teas the more I drink them. It’s definitely hitting the spot this morning. I hope I get a few steeps out of the teabag.

this is my favourite non-52 teas flavoured genmaicha. I’m saying this and I just read that this actually has bergamot oil in it, so if I have a headache later this is why. but I don’t recall getting headaches from this? /shrugs/ we’ll see.

this really is wonderful though, the rose/toasted rice-ness. yesss.

Sampler Sipdown September! I had to get my grocery shopping done this morning, and as a treat to myself, I picked up a box of pumpkin donuts (yes, I am and always will be #CampPumpkinEverything). I’m not sure what is wrong with me, as I’ve never been a fan of plain black “breakfast” blend teas, but maybe my palate is starting to adapt to them, as that is exactly what I was craving to go with my doughy pumpkin-glazed goodness for… I guess it is lunchtime now? Whatever. So I grabbed the Steven Smith Teamaker Brahmin sachet sample I got from Ost’s cupboard sale (thank you Ost!) I have really enjoyed everything I’ve tried by this company so far (I even liked their chamomile tea, and I hate chamomile!) This tea has recently been renamed “British Brunch”, but they have not changed the blend in any way: it is still Indian Assams, Dimbulla and Uva estate Ceylons, and a bit of Chinese Keemun in the blend.

This is a full leaf breakfast blend in a sachet. Perhaps I should’ve let it steep a bit longer given that it wasn’t CTC, but I also don’t like my blacks to get too biting, and I think I hit my sweet spot regardless, because this was a surprisingly smooth tea! The steeped tea is a proper coppery color, and smells very malty, with notes of baked bread and molasses. The flavor was malty, tasting of warm bread, with some subtle hints of wood and smoke in the finish. There was no bitterness to the cup and mild astringency on the tongue after the sip. It was a very pleasant black tea blend, and accompanied my sweet and spicy donut really nicely.

Ordered this at a Local Coffee Shop because I’ve been wanting to try it. I should have known better… I wasn’t thinking and forgot to specify the temperature and it was over steeped. So I won’t write a review but I will say that I still drank it and I think I would really enjoy this actually when prepared the right way.

Summer Vacation! I was able to get this limited edition tea (from 2015!) from Ost in a cupboard sale. Thank you Ost! I’ve been happy with the few Steven Smith Teamaker teas I’ve been able to sample from my local grocery (err… all three…) so I’m excited to try this one, a Taiwanese oolong blended to taste like an ice cream flavor with input from Salt & Straw (my last trip to Portland, Oregon, I had a chance to have ice cream there, and it was the best; they had chocolate covered potato chip ice cream at the time, which just sang to my Idahoan heart).

The tea brews a lovely golden color and smells a bit like… butterscotch? Something about the buttery note of the oolong base plus something sweet and sort of caramelly all hitting my nose at once, I think. I wouldn’t peg the flavor as particularly reminding me of a vanilla ice cream, as I don’t think the flavors are coming off quite strong enough or creamy enough to really hit that spot, but the flavor is certainly unique and delicious. I rarely see oolong blends, especially ones done well, and in my opinion this is an oolong blend done well. The oolong base is rich and buttery, which compliments the sweet vanilla and sarsparilla notes nicely. The sarsparilla is particularly nice, it’s not too heavy but comes out toward the end of the sip and leaves a nice aftertaste. The tea still has that oolong floral element, and I get a bit of a floral softness toward the back of my tongue late into the sip, and I wonder if the jasmine is making the floral tones even more pronounced. I do love the floral notes in the tea, but wonder if that is what is making it not “read” quite as ice cream like to me?

Lovely tea. It’s sad this isn’t available anymore.

There’s a lot going on here. Dropped bag in a diner mug on my way out the door, so I’ll have to revisit when I have time to brew it properly. The aroma is fantastic; it’s like taking a handful of flowers and tossing them on a smoldering campfire. Tastes of vanilla and woodsmoke, balanced nicely by the smokier Keemun. It’s lighter than most black teas I enjoy.

Also, who doesn’t love Bela Fleck?

June Wedding! Something new! This is one of the few Seven Smith Teamaker teas my local grocery has, so I picked up a box tonight. This is their Moroccan Mint blend, and most Moroccan mint teas I’ve had have gunpowder green bases; this one is a Mao Feng base, and adds lemon myrtle (my favorite of the citrus herbs) along with the spearmint. So I’m actually pretty curious about this! I’ve also just been pretty pleased with the other teas I’ve tried from them in the past; their chamomile tea is one of the few chamomiles I can drink (thanks to the blend of rooibos and other florals helping mellow the flavor a bit) and their earl grey is probably my favorite plain earl grey I’ve had yet.

This was certainly a tea to my tastes! The spearmint and lemon myrtle blend into a really lovely flavor combination that isn’t too minty, and isn’t too lemony, while still providing nice flavor notes of both. And the green tea base has a very nice grassy flavor that can still be tasted beneath the mint and citrus, which I appreciate. The whole blend works together very harmoniously, and I’m imagining that this tea would work really well iced, as well. I imagine that will be the next thing I do with this!

Since it has been nearly a month now, I figured I should finally get around to copying over the reviews I hastily scribbled in a portable notepad I carried in my purse when I was on vacation Memorial Day Weekend.

On the last day of the trip, Todd and I needed to grab breakfast before his flight; normally I will bring my own tea to restaurants (and on this particular trip, I did bring my own genmaicha in fillable corn fiber bags to a sushi restaurant to avoid crappy bagged green tea!), but since it was the last day all my tea was already packed up and everything was moved out of the room for check out. I figured I’d just not have any tea with breakfast and I’d opt for coffee or juice, but the restaurant we found actually stated on the menu that they had Steven Smith Teamaker tea! I was shocked! I knew this brand actually uses whole leaf tea in sachets so I was like, huzzah! Tea for me! And I haven’t been able to try hardly any of their flavors since my local grocery only has two varieties, Fez and Meadow. So I went pretty classic and just got the earl grey.

And… oooooooh… this was one of the best earl greys I’ve tried yet! It was very sweet and smooth, I was so surprised! I’m used to earl greys being so harsh; usually the black base ends up being really bitter/astringent and the bergamot so strong it comes off really biting, which is why I have never liked it and avoided them for years (and only recently have I made efforts to adapt my palate to them). The base of this tea had no bitterness or astringency, and the bergamot was not overbearing at all. There was a very balanced citrus bergamot flavor on the tongue that actually finished in a sweeter black currant flavor, and I’ve never experienced that before. I would totally buy this tea!

Surprisingly a LOT like vanilla ice cream. Not a huge fan of vanilla ice cream unless It’s like vanilla bean! Very strong vanilla and cream flavor with a bit of vegetable flavor.

Very gentle, but with a bit more personality than your typical honeybush tea. I love peach/apricot scented teas, so this was up my alley.
I enjoyed it hot and iced.

May Flowers! I was gifted this tea by a volunteer at the library; it’s one of only two Steven Smith Teamaker teas I’ve seen locally in town, which is a shame, because as far as “bagged tea” goes, whole leaf in sachets is certainly my preference (sachets don’t leave an unpleasant taste in the water that I notice from paper bags, and I just have a general preference for whole leaf over crushed). I wish we had more options of this brand in my local grocery… especially since this particular blend has a heavy chamomile base (I immediately could tell from the scent when I opened the bag!), and I’m just not really a chamomile fan, despite my love of floral teas.

There are a lot of other things in this tea too: rooibos, hyssop, linden flowers, lemon myrtle, rose petals, safflower, cyani flowers, and natural flavoring, so it very much is a very floral blend, but the steeped cup still had a very strong chamomile scent. The taste was… eh. Definitely not my favorite because of the strong chamomile presense, but there did seem to be a slight honeyed note from the rooibos (which I honestly wish had been stronger), and an overall sweet floral touch. I think if the rooibos and lemon myrtle had been stronger flavor notes in this blend it would’ve been a bit more to my personal tastes, but I didn’t find it undrinkable, and I certainly have had chamomile teas that I found entirely unpalatable, so there was something here that was done right. A teaspoon of my lemon-infused honey even makes it quite pleasant.

A soothing tea with a nice floral touch, and fans of chamomile will definitely like this. There’s enough nuances it doesn’t come off as a plain chamomile tea, but it is similar enough to scratch that itch if you enjoy that sort of tea.

Thanks for sending me this to try Mastress Alita!
This is actually a local company yet I’ve only tried several of their teas before.

This is a very soothing tea. The chamomile dominates this cup whereas the last cup was more lemon heavy.(She sent me two samples of this) The lemon comes through every so often but doesn’t overpower the chamomile. It’s slightly sweet and reminds me a bit of honeysuckle. Although Good quality chamomile always reminds me of honeysuckle. Anytime I have any sort of chamomile tea in my cupboard it get’s inhaled. I’ve been drinking it since I was very young.