TeaSource

Pah on milk and sugar! I’ve rediscovered this tea after running out of Darjeeling. I actually quite like it this time around. I’m still not quite certain what it is that is just beyond my reach in aroma. This has turned out to be a tea I can ‘oversteep’ for a little bit and it doesn’t negatively impact the flavor of the tea too much.

Dry, this smells very much like ‘tea’. Being BOP, I have to remind myself that I don’t have to use as much as I normally would. Sometimes I succeed, other times not so much. Once brewed, this is a very strong smelling tea. I catch a hint of something in the nose but not sure what it is. Fruity, maybe? Not a bad tasting tea and It can definitely handle milk & sugar. Next time I might try that.

Very good tea with slightly malty assam notes, yet not really assam-like. Hard to describe. A bit expensive to me, since I like other teas better that are cheaper, but I’d drink it any time. Did mine in a typical mesh infuser, 21oz boiling water in Adagio personaliTEA teapot, 2 tablespoons of tea, maybe 3 minutes. I accidentally left it about 7 minutes the other day and it did NOT GET BITTER!! In fact it was better than I’d remembered…

Had some of this this morning with my mum. She started feeling a cold coming on last night and we had to cancel our New Year’s Eve travel plans…bummer. I’ve been plying her with tea whenever she’s awake, especially green and rooibos. I love this one, and it didn’t disappoint this morning—clean, grassy, sweet, tangy, and fruity. She said this was mild and that she would like one with more flavor—when I asked her what she meant she said she wanted something darker. (Her taste buds are probably a little muddled, because I think this has lots of flavor!) I made her some Popped Rooibos to try too. She’s sleeping but I’ll ask her later what she thought…

This was part of my TeaSource Green Sampler. I decided on a green this morning, and I had smelled this one far more often than was necessary, so I decided to finally try it. What a fantastic, fruity, tangy aroma…this needs no sweetener, by the way; it’s perfect as it is. I was a little concerned the “tartness” it advertises would be more like the super-super-sour feeling that I get when I try teas that claim to be tart. But no—this was just nice, fruity goodness, and the smooth, tasty green really comes through here. A perfectly flavored green tea—which I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before. A great way to start my day—I’ll be getting this again.

Oh, and this re-steeps like a pro.

My first time trying jasmine pearls…I smelled them at the shop and was in love. I used 20 pearls in about 12 oz(ish) of 165 degree water, and it was fun to watch them sink to the bottom of my basket and unfurl. It’s still cooling off now, but I’ve had a few sips, and it’s light, yummy, and pleasantly, sweetly floral…oh sweet merciful yum. This is my new favorite tea.

A nice smokey black tea. What more can I say?

Thanks so much to my friend that bought me this tea for my birthday. This black tea was very pleasant to drink. It has a smooth flavor and a tiny bitter aftertaste that I actually found added nice complexity to the drink. I’m not sure if I could taste the cardamom, but I also wouldn’t say my palate is very highly developed. In any case, it blended well with the tea and made a wonderful yet uplifting blend.

Backlogging from yesterday.

Bye, Hulu Green; I’ve truly enjoyed your company. You showed me how nice greens could be, first with the help of a little honey, then all by yourself. Under your tutelage I began to appreciate the vegetal, slightly grassy taste of a good green—the taste of spring. It was with fondness and a little melancholy that I poured out your last leaves into my basket, inhaling that sweet springy aroma for the last time in a while. (But absolutely not the last…more greens are on the way soon.) Thanks for the education. 2012 will be brimming with more discoveries.

Don’t steep this too long, kids! I steeped it 6 min instead of 4 and it had gotten to the point where I didn’t really want to drink it. Popped Rooibos it is!

really, really good blended with re-steeped Azteca Fire. Yum.

Ooh, this is good. I’m not much of a green tea drinker but I got a sample pack from TeaSource to try and remedy that. This has a lovely, lightly grassy aroma (I’m still getting used to that) and a fabulous smooth taste when mixed with a little drizzle of agave. I just steeped it the second time (same temp, about 30 sec longer) without adding sweetener and it’s fantastic…smooth and not astringent at all. I really like how the second infusion of lots of my favorite teas is even better than the first! My favorite green tea so far (Triple Leaf Green showed me just how good it could be, and this is even better)—I think this will be a staple. Yay for green!

I had a Chem test this morning, so I steeped some of this up with some leftover Azteca Fire leaves, and man, this tea is delicious. Sweet, almondy, strong, and not even a whisper of bitterness. The Azteca Fire rounds it out and gives it a chocolatey note. Was equally good as a second steeping. I’m so glad I stocked up on this before it got discontinued.

So. Good. I don’t drink black tea too often because I usually really don’t want any caffeine, but this morning I had a paper to write. Soooo…I brewed up a cup of this. It smells AMAZING, like caramely mapley almondy goodness, and it has a very refreshing black tea taste with end-notes of round sweetness. It’s great for sipping while working on a paper! I re-steeped this two more times, the second time with some Honeybush Vanilla and the third time with the same contents. It holds up well to a second steeping—maybe not so well to a third, but the honeybush carried it through, and I wasn’t expecting it to last more than one time anyway. Delicious and doesn’t need milk or sugar to make it so—which is perfect for me! I’ll be sorry to see the 4oz I have dwindle away.

One of my absolute favorites iced. I cold-brew this overnight: 3 T of tea, 2 quarts of water, and about 3 T demerara sugar. I like to think of it as Kool-Aid’s older sibling. Peachy, fruity, sweet, and delicious. The taste of summer.

I’ve had two cups of this today, and every time I make it, I’m reminded of how perfect this tea is. Full-bodied from the rooibos, roasty from the rice, subtly sweet like caramel popcorn, with a little bit of green tea for a flourish…this really is perfect. If all the rooibos-dislikers tried this, I’m pretty sure they’d feel differently after just a sip.

Yum.

A fabulous everyday tea. Just like the description says, it’s full-bodied (and I love that in a tea), and it has kind of a caramel-y toastiness. Stunning.

So if you saw my previous cupping of the Dark Tea Rose sample from Zen Cha this is a bit of a follow up. I thought the shape and style of the compressed heart looked familiar and as it so happens I had a sample of this tea sent to me via TeaSource a while back. I remember thinking it somewhat novel, as the heart shape and ‘rose’ scent seemed to paint it into a perfect role for a Valentines day gift – so thinking it to be a pu erh – I didn’t bother to cup it as I was waiting for a time to gift it. After recieving the kindness of I Cheng in the form of a ‘dark tea’ sample, it jogged my memory and I found the sample in my tea cubby. I decided to go ahead and cup it again and found a few more details after sending an inquiry to the parent company in China.

First: Each tea heart weighs a bit different. I found the weight shift from 3.6g – 4.2g depending on the heart – a fine metaphor, but perhaps not the most equivocal cup. They also both had the YQY stamp on the tea heart – and I think this confirms origin.
The flavor was very consistent with my other cupping so I won’t draw it out.
Second: So concerning my correspondence with Yiqingyuan Tea Industry the details are as follows -
Hunan Dark tea, if some body say Hunan dark tea, actually is meaning Anhua dark tea, Anhua is a county of Hunan, Just Anhua dark tea is the most popular in China.
About Fu Cha is pile-fermented in Hunan, actually, the Fu Cha is just a type of Hunan dark tea, original place of dark tea is Anhua county of Hunan province, Dark tea has many types, such like Fu Cha/ Fu brick tea, Hei Brick tea, Hua Brick tea, Qing Brick tea, bamboo fu cha, qiang liang tea, bai liang tea, shi liang tea, dark rose tea, and grain dark tea, etc. so you said dark tea bricks, may it is fu brick ,or Hei brick, or qing brick, or Hun prick, but just Fu brick tea can grow golden flowers(also called Eurotium Cristatum)In Yunnan, there are two major types of Pu’er, Qing Pu’er and Shou or Sheng Puer. Shou Cha is pile fermented in Yunan.
Please have a check the attached information of Dark tea and Puerh tea, thanks very much!
If you have any other questions for Chinese teas, please just let me know, thanks!

Attached was also more technical information on the difference between Pu Erh’s and Dark Teas. The overall distinction is this:
Pu Erhs come as sheng and shou styles (shou being pile fermented and more akin to ‘dark tea’) and they all come from the Yunnan region.
Dark Teas hail from the Anhui region of China and are pile fermented and pine-wood fire cured (like Lapsang souchong and Bohea)
Both have pro biotic properties due to pile fermentation and have other potential attributes to diuretic and digestive health and are consumed with that consideration.
I always find it interesting to find new frontiers of tea and I hope you find this curious and interesting.

rich, well-rounded flavor

Ah- I love Earl Grey. Here the flavors are very crisp and clear.

The bergamot is smooth and citrus-y with very little floral notes. Not at all perfume-y. It finishes with a sweet yet tangy aftertaste. A wonderful Earl grey.

Haven’t had this tea for awhile, but I do remember it standing out as a powerful EG. Memorably good.

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this tea!

This is tasty. The strawberry flavor is a bit lighter than I expected it to be, and the pepper isn’t a strong taste either, but it is just enough to bring out the strawberry notes just a little. It’s tasty, not my favorite strawberry tea but it’s nice.

Well uping the steeping temperature/time made the sour cherry flavour a bit stronger, but this tea is still a long way from being black forest cake. It needs a sweeter, creamy element to it for it to work, I think. And chocolate – you can’t have black forest cake without the chocolate cake layers and chocolate shavings, yum!

The tea smelled distinctly of sour cherries while it steeped but as it turns out this was sort of false advertising as this was quite muted in the flavour. The tea mainly tasted of yerba mate and light black tea with a hint of fruitiness. It was rather underwhelming and nothing like black forest cake in my opinion, though maybe I just need to steep the leaves for longer.