Tea Embassy

The smell of this tea dry is a little deceiving and it has taken me a while to appreciate it. It smells strongly of very juicy strawberries, so I expected a bold flavor to come through. It is a sencha style green, which I guess translates to delicate flavor. I have had a cherry sencha before and the cherry worked to not compete, but match the sencha in strength. I think the strawberry in this tea does the same. It is a kind of creamy tea in smoothness, so the name seems appropriate. I tried cold brewing it over the summer and it was refreshing but failed to amaze me like some other greens did when cold brewed. It seems like a more subtle tea which is rarely my thing, but I can appreciate it for what it is even if it isn’t going to get a permanent place in my cupboard.

I found this tea to be very good for the mornings. It was advertised as a “golden tea” and I think that’s a fitting title. It’s warm and bold. It has a full body but not too much flavor. I’ve only had it with honey but it seems to compliment it quite nicely.

Mild and pleasing, a round mouth feel. An afternoon rest after a stressful morning.

Two magazines and one book to lay out before the end of the month, so bring on the black tea!
Buckingham Palace is a mild but flavorful variant of Earl Grey. More round and less citrusy, Buckingham Palace is a chord of harmonizing flavors. Though I’m probably biased – anything with jasmine is A-OK in my book!

A welcome wake-up on this cold morning.

So good. Really quite strongly sweet.

Mmmm… this was very good. Definitely a top quality Yunnan.

Thanks Melanie for the sample!

Sipdown, 174. I got tired of this one fairly quickly today. I think in some cases teas with actual nuts in them sit with me poorly; I enjoy them initially while drinking but after a full cup my stomach starts to feel off. Maybe it’s the nut oils coming out or something. I do love a nut flavored tea, but I think it has to be all flavoring and no nuts for me. Oh well.

Well the off taste of my lips is fading so I decided to try this one today. I got this in a swap with PositiviTEA, thanks!

The dry leaf smells almondy and coconutty, but in kind of a generic way. I’ve had almond greens and coconut greens but never an almond coconut green! Steeped, this smells more coconutty than almondy, and that plays out in the flavor as well. I’m really not getting hardly any almond from this, though I suppose there is some almond sweetness in the background. The green tea is kind of generic but inoffensive. Overally this is decently tasty but I get more coconut macaroon from it than almond cookie.

As an aside, I think I am going to overhaul my tea ratings. Most things will be dropped by about 10 points probably because I think my ratings skew high. 70-79 will now be the range for decent teas that are pretty tasty but not too special. Thankfully if you adjust the ratings on the ratings page it doesn’t make all your old notes pop to the top of the dashboard, unlike changing the rating by editing the tasting note.

I’m doing this one from memory, as I’ve been so stupid to accidentally lock the drawer of my desk at work. As you may guess, I don’t have a key to open it and the sample of Wedding Cake rooibos I received from Dustin is in it. Darn! Hopefully someone will be able to open the lock next week.

Anyway as Dustin I find the tea’s to be similar in that they both have a powerful almond smell and flavor. I think because the rooibos in itself is sweeter, it blends more into the mix than the green tea base of Almond Cookie, which is a pity. Although a very good rooibos, it isn’t as interesting as the Almond Cookie Green in my opinion.

I’m not really sure how I could have been so stupid, but I posted this note accidentally with Amaretto of Davids Tea.

I received a generous sample of this tea from Dustin. Thanks so much!

This tea smells very amaretto-y, a smell I find infinitely comforting. Although the taste also is rather amaretto-y or almondy, it isn’t over the top. Generally I’d associate almond and amaretto flavors with black tea bases. I would have thought a green tea base too delicate to carry such a flavor. In reality that doesn’t pose a problem. Actually the green tea base provides a rather neutral base, due to which the almond/amaretto is more noticeable than it otherwise (probably) would have been, without tasting artificial (like some other fancy flavors).

PS: After relocating this tasting note, I’ve had a look at the ingredients. I wonder if I can actually discern between the taste of almond cookies and amaretto. They rather belong together. Anyway after reading the ingredients, I can imagine that what I perceived as amoretto-y is rather the combined flavors of almond and coconut. After all it’s very long ago that I’ve had amaretto and then I’ve never had it by itself, but always with either almond cookies or stratiatella ice crème.

This is a brilliant night-time herbal that is completely free of chamomile! Almost as good as T2’s Sleep Tight.

I don’t recall how many bags of this I have gone through over the years now since my first mention of it 8 years ago, but it still resides in my cupboard. I hadn’t thought about it in a while, but there was a cup of it steeped on the counter this morning. I quickly swapped the cup for an empty one, hiding the full cup and watched the husband search for his cup of tea for several minutes before he found it. That’s how it feels when you swap the utensils drawers in the kitchen, husband! >:) I of course had to take a few sips before hiding the cup and that put me in the mood for a cup of my own. It is still one of my favorite jasmines, but I don’t often reach for it so this bag has been around for a while. My second steeping cup is a little on the soapy side, just a touch in the finish. The scent is a crisp jasmine and the sip is strong and aromatic. It reminds me that I should get back into jasmine tea by having it more often.

I LOVE jasmine tea and this tea in particular has a sentimental spot in my heart. Years ago there was an amazing guy I had casually mentioned my love of jasmine tea to. Being the thoughtful man that he was, he picked out a bag of this jasmine tea for me on a visit to the Tea Embassy and gave it to me on our first date. I had forgotten that I had said anything about it and was impressed that he made note of such a small detail in our conversations. I remember that tea tasting better than any other jasmine I had experienced. It was clear and crisp and strong. Such a pure jasmine taste and I believe it was my first loose leaf tea experience too!

Recently I went to the Tea Embassy and picked out a bag of that same tea. I took it back to the home I share with that man, who I still think is just as amazing (if not more) and the family we now have. I’m excited to try that tea and see if it holds up to my memories of it.

When I open the bag, the dry tea has such a strong jasmine smell to it almost like I’m sticking my nose in a flowering jasmine bush! The instructions on the the bag say to steep for 2-5 minutes and I did only two for the first steep. Wow, it’s still just as bright and crisp as I remember. I can’t taste any tea, just jasmine. It almost borders on the line of soapy in it’s intensity, but I have always like over the top floral flavors. It isn’t bitter like some jasmine teas I have had, but now days I’m much more careful and aware of over steeping unless I have to walk away from my steeper for a while (which is what happened on the second steeping). Second steeping was a little tongue puckering in it’s intensity, but adding cream and sugar made it an enjoyable drink again. I adore this tea and am glad to be reunited with it! To me, this tea is love.

Ack! No! Made a cup of this and poured it over ice. Took a sip and all I got was old soapy coconut. It’s sad when tea goes bad.

I used to love this tea! Back when I was a rooibos fan, this tea was the best. Rich almond and coconut in a caffeine free base, it was perfect for the evenings. Since then I have developed a dislike of rooibos, so I hesitated to add this to my order. The first few sips were light. I could pick out a little almond and some soapiness that I have noticed in other teas that have coconut. The soapiness comes and goes and seems to depend on if I have a big sip or a small. I added some creamer and it seems to have killed it a little. I can smell the almond still, but it is muted. I get a little rooibos dry mouth after my sip if I think about it, but it isn’t bothering me otherwise. I was expecting to really dislike this tea, but it’s alright. I’m not as excited about it as I recall, but it is still a nice option to have in the evening.

I am plowing through this 2oz bag I got! It smells very similar to the Tea Embassy’s Almond Cookies Green tea, which is also being drunk at record speed. Both have a powerful almond and coconut smell and that strong smell carries through to strong flavor once brewed. Both are quite delicious with this one being non caffeinated! I didn’t understand why it was called Wedding Cake until I went to a friends wedding the other day and had a slice of cake. I was floored by how similar the cake tasted to the tea! My friend said it’s vanilla cake with almond frosting. It was delicious, just like this tea. The rooibos is a bit drying as it tends to be, but the fantastic taste distracts me from that most of the time. I think I’ll make a permanent spot in my cupboard for it in the non caffeinated section.

Definitely not a fan of the strongly flavored fruit teas.

I LOVE THIS TEA!

I first tried this at the Smith-Byrd Tea House in Prattville, Alabama. They have this wonderful endless tea policy! The tea pots are only two cup pots, but you can get unlimited pots of tea and you can ask for a different flavor whenever you like! They said that this is so you can try (and hopefully buy!) several different teas, and that is exactly what I did! But I digress.
This tea is delicious! To me, it tastes exactly like an almond cookie, almost like marzipan! My mother on the other hand thought that it tasted more like almond extract. This is a very sweet tea. I needs no sweeteners. The texture of this tea is incredible as well. The flavor is so full and bold that I feel like I am actually eating a cookie! I love it! Some people may think that this tea is too sweet, but I think it is perfect!

This tea is also good for a few re-steepings. I believe I have re-steeped it two times without it loosing flavor, but generally I only re-steep it once because sometimes the green tea gets a little bitter. Over all, this is a fabulous tea!

A most superb Oolong which is subtle yet a distinctive flavor and fragrance.

A solidly reliable cup for to get me through a hectic day. Last day of the semester at school, after that I got two fillings at the dentist, then fought my way through traffic, now dragging myself through dinner. Early bedtime is in store for me tonight, but not before a resteep of this with dinner!