Teavivre

Another from my recent Teavivre order and definitely one of my favorites :). The tea has small leaves that are a mix of black and golden. They smell extremely bready and produce an oak-colored brew. At first sip this tea shouts “BREAD!” and I’m like, thanks tea, I think I will. Once you get past the bread bomb, a buttery quality asserts itself along with a little malt, sweetness, and a slight tang at the very end of the sip that is kind of citrus-y in nature. This tea is smooth and mellow, very like what you might expect from a yunnan. You can tell that it’s high quality and also just plain yummy :).

My Teavivre order finally arrived on Friday! That same day, I got an email from Mary at Teavivre checking to make sure that everything arrived in good condition, which was really nice. Good customer service for sure!

I was excited to try this tea as it’s so highly regarded here on steepster. The leaves are small, dark, and twisted and smell malty, yeasty, and somewhat like cocoa. They yield a very bold sienna brew. The sip is dominated by a very strong sourdough bread note, much like I get from Verdant’s Laoshan Black. The taste is grainy up front, morphing into sourdough with subtle hints of honey and cocoa. The finish, though, was quite tannic to me, which was a slight minus in my book.

This is such an incredible green tea. I did 5 steeps yesterday and drank this tea all afternoon. Bright, beautiful green color and it smells so good. I was happy all day!

Please note that my reviews as not as deep as some of you but I am starting and trying to do my best here. I am sure that after couple months of practice tasting teas my taste buds will detect the different flavours.

Okay, now this one is just completely delicious.

Soooo incredibly smooth with a creamy quality to it, and the flavor is so bready and grainy with sweet golden honey notes and hints of tart stonefruit. There’s almost a slight greenness to it in the finish? But not in a grassy way, more light and refreshing than that, perhaps like the flesh of a green apple? The texture is just amazing, it feels full and round in the mouth yet so light and airy, almost like a mouthful of whipped cream.

Anyway, I adore this one. Somewhat light and smooth yet so satisfying, and reminds me of a lightly toasted whole grain baguette drizzled with creamed wildflower or clover honey, perhaps with just the tiniest smidge of apricot preserve. Scum-diddly-umptious!

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So I drank the first sample packet of this a couple of days ago, and it was a bit too floral for me.

Now that I’m sipping on the second one, I had to check to make sure it’s the same tea! There’s a tiny hint of light floral here, but nothing close to that last pot. I wonder if my steeper was contaminated from that chamomile lavender tisane I sipped down… XD

Anyway! This is so scrumptious. Very rich with oodles of molasses and dark brown sugar, syrupy dried fruits and a hint of tart cherry. And, of course, supremely smooth with a thick and satisfying malty body and notes of bread. A tiny hint of nectarous floral at the end of the sip, perhaps honeysuckle?

Nom nom nom. This would be a great one to start the morning with because of its heft!

I chose this as a sample with my TeaVivre (I think it may have been one of my free samples? I don’t remember :P) order. I don’t have much experience with Keemuns, but I’ve liked all of the ones I’ve tried so far. I thought they were supposed to be smoky, but I actually don’t think I’ve tried a smoky Keemun yet. Weird. The leaves of this tea are super thin and twisty. I had a hard time separating out a teaspoon as they all wanted to stay tangled together! :P Dry scent is very sweet and malty with dried apricot, yums! I did a 3-minute steep.

Brewed, the tea smells like rich, deep dried fruits with honey and molasses. I also pick up on a little bit of floral. Oh my, this tea is a wow moment! I think this is the smoothest, creamiest black tea I’ve ever had. The main flavor is creamy, smooth grain with honey dancing around it. In the background, I pick up on that deep, rich dried fruit flavor combined with a bit of molasses or burnt sugar. There’s maybe the tiniest bit of floral somewhere in the middle, but it’s not enough to make me love this any less! When I first started drinking this cup, I noticed a little bit of bitterness, but it seems to have dissipated as I continued to drink.

Thanks TeaVivre for yet another delicious black tea! Love you gals! :)

I have to admit that I’m a coffee drinker and green tea lover. I don’t usually pick a black tea during the day. Today I’ve decided to try this tea I have received from TeaVivre. I have to say that it will take me couple days to adjust to drinking black tea, especially after I drank 2 cups of strong coffee. I really like the taste but at the moment cannot distinguish all of the nuance and flavours of this tea. Hopefully with tasting more black tea I will become more knowledgeable and be able to talk about how it taste. Any tips for starters of black teas like me?

In an effort to trying and actually get through some of my puerh samples, i figured i should try to have 1-2 today, since my day is pretty much shot thanks to work stuff. I like this one, for much of the same reason i really love wild Monk from mandala…that smokey taste in the background of a smooth tasting brew. I’m not going to wax poetic about this one, but it’s one that i could see picking up a cake of, in the future when we have a proper place for me to have mountains of puerh!

Thanks for sharing this one with me Cavocorax

Thank you Angel from Teavivre for this sample.
I am very very very far from being an expert in Pu-erh. I am even an absolute beginner at this type of tea. I think I only tried one before this one.

First while opening the sample packet, the aromas are lovely as are the dark leaves, with some white points. Funny leaves. After steeping they are now so long, so green, still lovely.

I steeped this tea western style, 6 minutes as recommended and in a boiling water.
The liquor is very very pale, incredible regarding the dark leaves.
I add 2 brown sugar rocks and the liquor becomes now a pale orange.

Drinking it now it is a little bitter but not that much and a kind of special bitterness which adds personnality to a tea.
The notes are fruity : grapes and apricot maybe ?

This is a pleasant tea and ideal for the season, not too heavy, easy to drink.
I am knowing by now I can and should drink some straight pu-erh without fear.

This is a very floral and slightly sweet oolong. It’s not as exciting as other floral oolong teas I’ve tried but it’s nice in a simple way. The broth leaves the sensation of a buttery coating on the tongue- that’s something I usually appreciate!

Sipdown!

Okay, I gave this one a fair chance. I tried a 3 minute steep first, it was okay but had a weird almost dusty mouthfeel that bothered me. Tried a 5 minute steep, same thing. Tried a 5 minute steep with a 5 second rinse first, still the same. Tried a 7 minute resteep of that one, still dusty.

I guess the texture of this one is just not for me, and it’s clearly there to stay! The flavors underneath the dust are good, but not special or anything that warrants the cost of this tea for me. Just mild bread, honey, malt, etc. Oh well, I’m glad I tried a sample!

I’m not going to rate this because other people seemed to really enjoy it… I guess I’m just weird about the texture part of it. :/

I ordered this sample with my TeaVivre order. I figured since this was the only one of their Dian Hongs that I hadn’t tried, I should order a sample. The leaves are extremely dark, and they’re long and twisty. They kind of remind me of a smaller-scale version of the “creepy tree branch” Taiwanese teas. Dry scent is sweet honey with malt and some cocoa notes. I did a 3 minute steep at 200 degrees.

The brewed aroma is quite light, with grainy bread and honey scents. Honestly, I wasn’t very impressed with this tea brewed western-style… It was kind of just vaguely bready/grainy with a little bit of honey and a bit of a mineral note. And overall, it felt kind of dusty in my mouth, like it should have been rinsed first. I’m thinking this tea either needs to be steeped longer, or it just doesn’t lend itself well to western style preparation. I’ll definitely try it gong fu style when I get the gaiwan that I ordered recently. For now, I’m not going to rate this.

While I technically have about 25g of this hanging out in a tin with some Madagascar vanilla beans, I’m still counting this as a sipdown since the package is empty. I bought this during Teavivre’s Anniversary sale and will probably pick some up during their next sale (If I’ve gotten my cupboard under control) as it’s well priced and quite tasty. Nice and cocoa-y with some citrus notes and no astringency. I’ll miss it, but I’m sure it won’t be gone for long.

I picked up this tea by accident. I had meant to purchase the delicious Yun Nan Dian Hong Full Leaf, but somehow I purchased this one instead. Oh well. This is still quite delicious and if I hadn’t tried the full leaf version I would probably have purchased this one anyway as it ended up being a whopping $5.30 for 100g during their sale.
Overall it’s not as rich tasting or intricate as the flavors in the Full Leaf or Golden Tips, but it’s still tasty. The leaves are beautiful twisty things with a surprising amount of gold woven throughout and a sweet scent of dried fruit. The taste is sweet and cocoa-y with a lovely hint of citrus and maybe some molasses as well. I think this would be a wonderful breakfast tea. A flavorful way to start the day without being too overpowering.

Tea provided by Teavivre for review

First quick steep had a light body, and a nice mix of cinnamon, spice, fresh fruit, honey and crisp finish that I expected. It still tastes very much like typical fresh loose leaf white tea.

Gradually from the second on through my sixth steep, leaves of the tea cake unraveled and the liquor color darkened. It tasted less crisp and refreshing, but became sweeter and more mellow. Consistent flavour from each steep until my final sixth cup.

Trying a white tea cake for the first time was a wonderful drinking experience. I’ve only had fresh white tea before, and I didn’t expect this to taste any different. It was surprising to taste a white tea with a much heavier body and darker character. I think it’s a good tea to try if you already enjoy drinking dark teas like black and ripe puerh. It brings a nice balance between fruit and spice with a dark liquor and mellow body while still retaining fresh white tea’s charm.

I received some white tea samples for review from Teavivre the other day and on this nearly rainy Saturday I am sitting down with the beau to try this one out. Thanks Teavivre! We are brewing Western style according to the Teavivre directions with the full packet of leaves at 90 degrees for about a minute. We’ve got three samples of each tea, so we can try with a gaiwan at another time. For now, my liquor is a light yellow and smells faintly of hay and maybe something cucumber related, but I think that is because I accidentally saw the flavours list on Steepster before beginning my review.

Since it only steeped at 90, I am able to try it fairly quickly. This is the advantage of lower temp teas, I swear! First sips are mild. A light note of hay but not as sweet as the green oolong I had the other day. It is flavourful but light, if that makes sense. Not like weak tea or lightly favoured water but not a bold flavour either. My non-tea drinking brothers might not find any taste here at all, but the beau and I do. It is hard to describe, but hay and a bit of floral are present. I always worry that people will think hay means unpleasant, but it’s not. I love the smell of fresh hay. I am getting some residual sweetness that I think is a result of my earlier Jolly Rancher. Whoops.

The beau reports: “This is good. I like it. It has less of the earthy taste you get in other whites. More like jasmine but less in your face.” He says it has “a hint” of floral. I don’t notice, but I rarely do. We both like it, he more than I as whites are more his forte. For me, as a Chinese black tea drinker, this is a nice cuppa occasionally but not something I’m likely to enjoy regularly. He says it might be under-steeped and isn’t strong enough to get a high rating from him right now. I will do another steep in a bit and put a number on it after that one. I think he is right and a bit more time would have boosted the profile here. Will report back then!

EDIT: Second steep was forgotten in the pot which yielded a more flavourful brew but (surprisingly) no bitterness. It was enjoyable, but maybe a bit too much white tea in one day for me.

I’m loving the mulled and mellow taste of this. I got it as a free sample with my last order, used half the sample last night, and I’ve been steeping the other half this morning. It’s deliciously woody with a muted tang of orange in the aftertaste – there are pieces of dried orange rind in the sample, which I put in along with the leaves when I steeped, and as the rind softened, more orange taste came through so later steeps were more ‘mulled’ tasting.

It’s very warming and soothing; I drank this right up until bedtime last night and felt very cosy. I think I’ll be buying more of this before winter comes, and then hoping for snow so I can sit by the fire sipping it snugly.

Sorry, but I killed this one. I had a hard time deciding what ratio to use, and ended up with the whole packet, which was way too much, and I should not have used the whole packet with my 12 oz of water. What I could taste of it, it was like the sheng from David’s and Verdant that I’ve had.

I am thankful to Angel at Teavivre for sending this one my way. I sent the other pack to a friend to see what she thinks because she doesn’t like pu erh teas, but I told her these were different, and not the thick pu erh teas they’re likely to have had. Anway, I feel bad I busted my only sample. :(

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This tea really grew on me as worked my way through the sample packets. The balance of strawberry and oolong is just perfect, and it’s a very inoffensive green oolong with no floral grossness. I will definitely be repurchasing this one with my next TeaVivre order, whenever that is. Yum!

This was one of the samples I ordered from TeaVivre. I’m not really into green oolongs, but I do love strawberry so I figured it was worth a try! The leaves are fairly tightly rolled and various shades of green. Dry scent is sweet and tart strawberry candy, and something about it kind of reminds me of pineapple too. I brewed for 3 minutes at 190 degrees.

The brewed aroma is also strawberry candy, but I can smell the fruity green oolong in the background too. I actually like this quite a bit, considering it’s a green oolong. There are fairly strong peach notes that meld really well with the strawberry flavoring, and I don’t really get much floral, which is very nice. The strawberry itself is definitely more of an artificial strawberry flavor, but I find that it works quite well in this tea. There’s a also a lovely creamy texture here, and the tiniest bit of vegetal green taste at the end of the sip. Really, quite nice, especially considering I don’t like green oolong much. :)

From the Round 3 Here’s Hoping TTB

Teavivre has some wonderful teas, and this one is no exception. The strawberry flavor is light but consistent. The oolong is buttery with a light vegetal flavor, and it pairs with the strawberry flavor in a nice way. I can see myself reaching for this when I’m in an oolong mood. Something tells me my daughter will like this one as well.

Backlog.

Lately it’s been too hot for tea, especially the black tea which seems to have finally completed it’s aggressive conquest of my shelf space. Under an Everest of unopened black and puerh samples I found this stranded oolong- originally a smuggled sample from Amariel’s giant Teavivre swap bag (you gave me so much tea, Amariel!).

I’m glad I decided on this one; the minty floral profile is a refreshing thing in a house with no air conditioning. The first steep of the first serving had an interesting curry leaf aroma (I have witnesses that can vouch that this cup smelled distinctly of that plant), but this quality never resurfaced on the subsequent steeps. Probably for the best; mint and flowers are good enough.

Inspired by the review from Uniquity and accompanied by not enjoying giving a negative review – I am trying this one again today. First, I don’t mind giving a negative review of crappy tea, if it is crappy tea. In my opinion, once you reach a certain level of quality it should not happen. It is generally a matter of taste preference or bad preparation. I have always been impressed with Teavivre in the past. Yesterday, this turned out just bitter.

My problem with this one was mostly how I brewed it. Today I am doing it my way. Half the sample (2.5g) and 10 oz water heated to 180F. I steeped 1 minute. The liquor is clear, bright, and yellow. The taste is dry and reminds me of the dehydrated camellia flowers. I liked them because they were different. I find this very flavorful with strong cucumber/melon notes and a wood pulp flavor – not the negative version of yesterday, but a very nice one. There is a sort of floral note hanging around, or maybe I imagine it because I expect it. The aftertaste is lingering and mouthwatering. It also seems much sweeter in the aftertaste. No bitterness. No astringency that I notice.

It is not as powerful and deep as Silver Needle but then it is half the price. Messing with the parameters I find this to be quite pleasant. My one negative that I found again today that I did not mention here yesterday is the leaf. It looks like mulch. I don’t recall a Teavivre tea that was not beautiful full leaf. I thought my previous sample had been crushed or something but this one is the same way. This is mostly tiny broken pieces. Any one else notice the same thing?

I know we all have different tastes. I followed the website recommendation for brewing in a gaiwan. The whole 5 g sample with 90 ml of water heated to 195 F (90 C). The steep was 25 seconds. That is simply too much leaf for me. This was so bitter it made my mouth pucker. Maybe half the leaf or half the steep time would have been OK.

I decided to lose the gaiwan and grab the press. I used 10 oz of 180 F water and steeped for 25 seconds. This was much improved. Now it tastes like grassy fresh alfalfa hay. There is a light apricot note and the aftertaste lingers.

Honestly though, I thought the lower grade White Peony was more aligned to my tastes. I have never given Teavivre a negative review before, but this one did not grab me.

I have enough to start again on another day. Next time I will only use half the sample and much cooler water. I am not giving up yet.