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Summer Vacation! Completely exhausted tonight, and honestly wouldn’t mind some black tea, buuuuut… I was up way too late last night, and really need some decent sleep tonight, so I’ve opted for a cuppa of green tea tonight. So a grabbed a Chinese green from my T2 sampler stash, and this time I didn’t make the mistake of following their instructions. It said to use their full sampler packet to 450ml of water. I weighed the packet and it was 5g of tea. According to the site I use to help with leaf/water ratios, that is way too high for a green and would’ve been horribly bitter… no wonder that darjeeling turned out so horribly! So I measured out just what I needed and stashed away the rest of the sampler for another use. It’ll be nice to have some extra to play with anyway, I find I usually have to experiment a little with greens as it is.

I did 1.8g to 350ml at 175 F with only a 1 minute steep. I’ve never tried this sort of tea before and the packet said 1-3 minutes on the steep time, so without knowing if it tends to go vegetal-astringent, I decided to keep to a briefer steep. The tea has a very sweet, floral aroma; a bit like honeysuckle, and also a little like spearmint. The flavor is a bit light and delicate, and I’m not sure if that is just a feature of this sort of green, or if I should’ve gone for a longer steep (on one of my other uses of the leftover leaf I’ll make sure to push the initial steep time a little longer to compare). It is very smooth though, and I’m getting notes of warm hay and spearmint, with more subtle floral, nutty, and fennel notes. This is nice, and quite relaxing… I think I’d enjoy this iced as well.

Summer Vacation! I’m starting in on some of my Chinese teas, and since I have quite a lot in my collection will no doubt not get to sampling all of them during the few weeks this month I’ve dedicated to this task, but at least I’ll manage to get to some of them that I’ve yet to try. I’m really tired tonight though (drinking all these blacks in the evening after work is really getting to me) so I’m going for an oolong tonight. And I actually have never tried a TGY yet, even though oolongs are my favorite kind of tea. This one came from the Here’s Hoping Teabox, so thanks to tea-sipper for organizing and whoever contributed this!

I burnt the roof of my mouth on my soup with dinner earlier, which will no doubt be effecting my palate tonight. While I do enjoy trying oolongs gong fu style, I simply don’t have the energy tonight (nor any desire for that much tea), so I made a single 400ml cuppa tea western brewed. The dry leaf smells very grassy, but the brewed cup has the buttery floral aroma I’m used to from milk oolong, so I’m fairly sure I’ll enjoy this. The flavor is very floral, with a strong lilac/orchid taste, with a slightly grassy vegetal finish and some very subtle notes of fennel and nuts in the aftertaste.

It’s nice. Would probably be nicer if my mouth wasn’t so numb, and I have no doubt fresher varietals are even better, but since this is my first time trying it, I really have no benchmark here.

Summer Vacation! This is the last of my Indian tea stash. It’s been sitting in my cupboard for a while, so it is about time that I’m finally getting around to sampling it!

The dry leaf smells very similar to the India Assam Kanoka Hand-made Black, in that it has that peppery hay-like scent, though I also found this leaf to smell somewhat like dried pear. Brewed up, this tea had a very coppery-orange color, and the aroma off the cup smelled very fruity, very much like sweet mandarin oranges and mango.

This is another very smooth tea with no bitterness or astringency; the malt notes are on the lighter side, and the body is very fruity with a honey sweetness. I get a sort of mango-like tanginess left as an aftertaste on my tongue.

It’s a nice tea, and my only regret is that I’m drinking it at 11 p.m. when I know I have to work in the morning. So much for sleeping tonight.

Summer Vacation! I failed to get to this tea during my April “Chai to Stay Dry” theme, which is a real shame, so I’m finally reviewing it now. It’s a traditional Indian chai blend, so I say it counts while I’m wrapping up my look at Indian teas (and I only have one more to go before I move onto some Chinese teas!)

What can I say, this is probably my favorite chai blend when I want a chai that is traditional tasting masala chai that I want to drink with milk. It has a very strong spicy flavor (so there is no way I could drink a chai like this plain, myself), but the taste holds up great when taken as a latte. I wouldn’t say any spice holds a particular dominance like I have experienced with other chais; I can make out notes of all the individual spices, and they blend really nicely. I really enjoy creating different flavor profiles by using different milks, and have found it tastes great with vanilla almond milk, chocolate almond milk, and coconut milk. When it isn’t so hot out I will simmer the tea and milk and strain it, but in this heat I just make a quick latte by using double leaf and using about 1/4 warm milk and 3/4 tea to my large mug.

All in all, a really solid chai blend and the one that will stay in my cupboard as my run-of-the-mill masala.

Summer Vacation! I’m still going through my small collection of Indian teas, and I found another assam sampler floating around in my collection. While assams have never been my favorite, I figured I’d give it a go. It’s breakfast time, I have a new episode of Ducktales waiting on my Amazon account, a strong cuppa with some toast will do.

This tea was harvested in May of 2017 and I bought it last January, but my sampler has been sealed all this time, so hopefully it has kept fine. The dry leaf smells very much like a slightly peppery hay to me.

Color me wildly surprised that the aroma coming off this cup is actually quite sweet and fruity, not that heavy, bitter astringent malty scent that I’ve had from every other assam tea I’ve ever tasted. Mind. Blown. And this is why I’m willing to try any tea (banana teas and those containing my migraine triggers aside) at least once! I’m reminded of raisin bread and honey from the aroma. The taste is actually really smooth, with a much gentler maltiness, a more honeyed flavor, and a slight fruity/raisin taste on the finish. No bitterness or astringency to be had. This reminds me more of those smooth Chinese blacks with fruity/honeyed notes than anything even resembling an assam, and had it not been a sampler included in a tea sampling variety package I bought for the sake of getting to try a variety of things, I probably would’ve avoided it on the word “assam” alone. So I’m really happy I got to try this tea and am so surprised by it, as it is exactly to my tasting preferences!

When I made this cup, I had left plenty of room to add milk, expecting a bitter tannin overload and an astringency assault like I always get from assams. Normally I can never get a cuppa of assam down without adding milk, and often some honey as well. Absolutely no need with this, it is perfect as is!

My latest cold brew iced tea! I’ve had this forever, but I’m finally getting around to making it; thankfully it seems to have withheld the test of time well! I find that I don’t really like the taste of red rooibos when it is iced for some reason (though I love it warm!), but I do love green rooibos iced, and have been trying to keep a few more green rooibos blends around for that reason in particular.

According to the package and website, this is a green rooibos blend with “dried fruit”, and they don’t provide any more details about the ingredients than that; if I had to harbor a guess picking through the tea, I’d say it appears to be dried apple, dried blackberries, hibiscus petals, and rosehip are in the blend. The dry leaf does have a very fruity smell, a little punchy, and actually somewhat like bubblegum (a cross between Juicy Fruit and your standard sweet bubblegum aroma). It’s quite pleasant!

The tea has a really nice flavor; the mouthfeel isn’t as heavy as most hibi-hip teas, being a bit lighter and coming off almost juicy or puckering on the finish, but the taste definitely has that hibi-hip punchy sort of flavor. There is a tart blackberry flavor toward the back of the tongue, and a flavor that is sharp, and almost mineral-like, that hits on the tip of the tongue but fades quickly. The tea is tangy and refreshing. I really like green rooibos as a tea base and definitely want to try more iced teas using it. I’m almost wondering if that mineral/earthy quality that is very subtle beneath the strong fruitiness of the tea is from the green rooibos. Yum!

Summer Vacation! Here is the second of the Arya darjeeling teas in my collection… and as it turns out, I had them mixed up, looking at my self-labeled sampler packet this morning, which is labeled as the “Arya Classic First Flush.” Which means the one I drank yesterday night was the second flush, and I reviewed it in the wrong place. Oops. So I had to delete my previous review and move it to the correct location, so if you are getting deja vu, that’s what happened… sorry for the mistake, but it’s fixed now! This tea is also courtesy of the Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox, so thanks to tea-sipper for organizing and all the lovely folks who contributed.

This tea brewed up a much paler orange color than the second flush Arya tea I sampled last night. The aroma from the cup still smells very sweet and fruity to me, almost tropical… a bit like a POG juice. The flavor of the tea tastes more like and delicate than the second flush I sampled last night… it doesn’t have that deeper, malty note. Rather, it almost makes me think of a white tea, as there is this deeply floral taste to the brew, with a slight vegetal undertone. I’m still getting some orange fruity notes to the cup, as well, which is seems to share with the other Arya tea.

I’m enjoying this tea as well, and I’d say all in all darjeelings may be Indian teas I need to explore, while it is assams that just aren’t my thing. I am really curious how that other darjeeling may have faired, if T2 hadn’t botched the directions so badly (or perhaps it just was that low of quality, and was just a really astringent tea… who knows!) Between these two Arya teas, I really like both, though think I like the second flush just a touch more; I think the second flush makes a better breakfast tea and the first flush a better light afternoon tea/high tea sort of sip, though. And it is the sort of thing I’d prefer if I’m in one of my floral moods (which tend to take me often).

Summer Vacation! I had a pretty bad experience with darjeeling yesterday, but one cuppa isn’t enough to turn me away from a tea! So tonight I grabbed the other two darjeelings (the only other two in my collection, I believe) to sample to try to get a better general idea of the taste, because I’m hoping I can get these to brew up less bitter. Both of these teas were graciously made available to me from the Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox, so thanks so much to tea-sipper for organizing and all those that contributed teas to the box! Otherwise I wouldn’t even have the opportunity to get to try some more darjeeling teas, so I really appreciate it!

Both of these teas are from the Arya Estate, and one is a first flush and one is a second flush (and me knowing nothing about these kind of teas, I honestly don’t even know much about the difference, so it’ll be interesting to sample both). Since I mistakening grabbed the second flush, first, first up is the second flush Arya darjeeling. The dry leaf has a maltier black tea scent to me than the darjeeling I drank from T2 last night, and also smells just a little peppery.

I had a single serving sample, and this time I weighed the leaf to ratio out the water accordingly (I still don’t know why I blindly trusted T2s directions on the outside of their sampler packet instead of doing that last night, honestly). The brewed cup has a lovely honeyed-orange color, and the aroma is a very malty aroma with a honeyed sweetness to it. The first sip and I’m already so pleased to not taste any bitterness; it’s very smooth! The first flavor note that really strikes me is a very pleasant orange rind/marmalade flavor, with some additional notes of malt, honey, and some subtle autumn leaf vegetal notes near the finish.

This is a very different experience from the cup I had yesterday. Very pleasant, with lots of fruity and sweet notes, and lacking the harshness and astringency. I really enjoy this!

Summer Vacation! Trying a darjeeling from the T2 black sampler back this time. I’ve only ever had one other darjeeling before, and from what I remember, I did enjoy it a lot more than I like assam teas.

This Darjeeling from T2 doesn’t offer any special information regarding flush or whatnot, so I am not expecting much from it… I am more curious to just get a little more familiar with the tea type. The scent of the brewed tea is a little like autumn leaves, but with some floral notes. Flavorwise, it is actually a lot more astringent than I was expecting (I don’t remember the other darjeeling I’ve tried having so much bite to it). The flavor was a bit like autumn leaves, but with a bit more of a honeyed floral sweetness… until that really bitter astringent finish sets in. That just kind of ruined the whole cup. I’m wishing I hadn’t made the sampler according to the instructions, which said to brew the whole thing with 450ml of water… now I’m thinking I should’ve used way less leaf from the sampler and experimented with the ratios a bit because I think T2 has weighted this way too strongly for their own instructions. At least for my tastes. I probably could’ve made something drinkable with it if I’d done my own thing instead of following what it said on the package. As it is… way too much bitter astringency for me to enjoy these flavors. Even with a touch of honey.

It’s still scorching hot, so the iced teas won’t be ending any time soon! I ordered this really recently during a free shipping sale from TeaSource, one of my favorite companies, so this is actually one of the newest acquisitions to my cupboard. I was especially interested in trying this one out because I thought it would make good iced tea, and I am a bonified hibi-hip iced tea fan!

This one turned out really nice! I was actually surprised that it had such a strong peach flavor with a hibi-hip base, since hibi-hip is a very dominating base flavor, but it does; there is a nice, rich fruity hibiscus base (my favorite for a nice iced tea, as it creates that tangy fruit punch sort of flavor) and then there is just this really succulent sort of sweet, juicy peach taste as a top note layered over the hibi-hip base that works really well. Since fruit herbals take a lot of tea thanks to their chunky size/heavy weight and I tend to order small amounts (2 oz), I may have to stock a larger amount of this soon, as I really enjoy this! It’s very refreshing, just the right balance of sweet and tangy.