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This was my wildcard purchase at Shang today. It sounded interesting and it was only $6.50 for a box of ten pouches, so I figured why not? I like dates. I have no idea what dong quai tastes like (apparently it’s the same thing as angelica root, but I don’t know what that tastes like either).

So I mixed a packet up in hot water while my sister was over for dinner, because we were both curious about it. I originally did 6 ounces, but bumped it up to 8 after the first taste. This is incredibly sweet stuff. I mean, it’s literally like drinking honey and molasses in water. I realize dates are sweet, but dayum! And apparently dong quai tastes like celery leaves, because there’s a very strong celery leaf flavor in here that doesn’t go well at all with the sweetness.

Overall, this is odd but not terrible. I’m not really sure I should give it a rating even… I wouldn’t even know where to begin with this one! :P

Nicole recommended that I go visit Shang Tea while I’m in Kansas City, so we drove there this morning to see what they had to offer. There was a very nice man working there who brewed us up some samples to try and seemed very knowledgeable about their teas. I noticed later that there was a photo on the wall of him in the tea fields. Apparently he goes there about 2 or 3 months out of the year, he told us. I’m not sure whether he was the owner or not, but he was very nice and I wish I had asked him his name. I ended up buying samples of several different teas and a box of some interesting-looking instant mix.

So I ended up steeping this tea three times throughout the day, the first at 3 minutes, then 4 and 5 for the other two. I think this may be the first tea I’ve had that I’ve enjoyed the second and third steeping more than the first. Honestly, I don’t remember that much about the first, as it was in the afternoon. I would describe it as a mixture of black and white teas. The second and (especially) the third steepings were fantastic, with an amazing creamy grain note that reminds me of something, but I can’t quite place it. I would call it similar to rice or cereal grains, and there’s a bit of a hay note as well. The texture is creamy and light. Yum! I may have to try for a fourth steep in the morning…

So I found a couple of boxes of Chanakara Collection tea bags at my mom’s when I was going through some things. They were still wrapped in cellophane so I figured that they were probably still semi-fresh even though they’re a year or more old. There was a time in my tea past when I ordered several things from Stash’s website, and a box of these teas was one of them. I liked them so much that I ended up ordering a six-pack of boxes on Amazon, so that’s where these came from. I felt like having a nice chamomile blend this evening while watching Brave with my mom and boyfriend, so I opened one of the boxes and selected this tea. There don’t seem to be instructions anywhere on the box, so I just did boiling water for 5 minutes. I could definitely steep this one longer if I wanted a stronger flavor.

Overall, I find this to be a perfectly nice and pleasant chamomile-based tisane. I’m not really familiar with lotus or chrysanthemum flowers, so I couldn’t tell you what they add to this, and I found that the linden blossom tea I tried tasted quite similar to chamomile. So overall, this is mostly a chamomile tisane with a little bit of extra. There’s definitely a honey note, and something that reminds me of sweet pastries.

I was pleasantly surprised by this tisane, and I could definitely see myself keeping it around as a nighttime treat.

Hello from Kansas City! My boyfriend and I are here visiting my mother for a week. We got up at 4 AM this morning for our 6:15 AM fight, so needless to say, I am pooped. We had just under a two hour flight to Chicago, then just over an hour flight to Kansas City. It all went fairly smoothly aside from the fact that they put our one checked bag onto a different flight that arrived an hour-and-a-half later, so we had to wait for that. We took a little nap and now we’re just relaxing, ahhhhhhh…

Anyway, I brought about five teas with me, and this was one of them! Partially because I need to be trying to sip down my TeaVivre samples, and partially because it smelled really good when I opened the tin last night. It’s amazing how different this tea is after trying so many “tippy” Yunnan teas from other companies. It’s so good! I haven’t had such a bready-tasting tea for a while now, and it’s making my mouth very happy. :D

I hope everyone is having a good weekend so far! I won’t be posting much for the next week, but I will be around daily to check messages and such. <3

P.S. – Upped the rating from 88 to 90!

My last Butiki sample from Mandy! This is actually one of the teas I’ve been most excited to try since I discovered Stacy’s website, and I ordered it in today’s sale. It’s very light and fluffy, mostly marshmallow leaf with various colored flower petals mixed in. Smells vaguely sweet and vanilla-esque.

This actually reminds me a lot of chamomile – it has that same musty, sweet floral taste. It’s very odd, considering there’s no chamomile in this blend… There’s also vanilla there, and a bit of butter. The whole thing is quite creamy and thick in texture.

I like this a lot! I can’t get over how similar it is to chamomile… I stopped buying chamomile blends because they’re just such a pain in the ass to brew. All those little tiny pollen strand things get stuck everywhere. But this is a nice alternative to that! Hooray!

Time for my first-ever sheng (and really my first-ever puerh)! Sarsonator sent me a surprise sample along with a note that we should do a tasting together. So hooray! The leaves are large and fluffy and lightly colored. They have a pleasant hay or autumn leaf smell, maybe with some fruitiness included. Time for some gong fu!

Method: 4g tea in 4oz water, 212 degrees, 5s rinse/5/5/10/10s

Rinse (5s): Smells like a pond! I taste dried stonefruit, autumn leaves, very sweet!

Steep 1 (5s): autumn leaves, dried apricot, golden raisin, lightly vegetal

Steep 2 (5s): fruit leather, raisins/prunes, mild autumn leaves, roasty

Steep 3 (10s): very roasty, autumn leaves, sharply vegetal, astringent

Steep 4 (10s): roasty, autumn leaves, dill, parsley, slight floral, buttery

Steep 5 (10s): similar to 4 with some fruit leather

Steep 6 (15s): similar to 2 (dried fruit, autumn leaves)

Steep 7 (20s): light autumn leaves, herbs, citrus

Steep 8 (30s): fruit leather, sweet, leaves

Steep 9 (60s): surprisingly not that strong or different, similar to 8, astringent

Steep 10 (2m): deeper fruit leather, autumn leaves, astringent

Overall, there wasn’t that much flavor variation between steeps, which makes me think that Sars’s method of combining steeps into a mug may be better suited to this, or even a western-style steep. The flavor was largely fruit leather (which is like concentrated dried fruit) and autumn leaves with a roasted edge. Quite yummy! The only issue I found with long steeps was some astringency, but that may have not been the case if I’d done a long steep at the beginning. Thanks to Sarsonator for the sample and for trying it out with me! :D

Hooray, another tea from Mandy! And this is actually a tea that I ordered in the sale, too. I love pistachios and creamy things, so it seemed like a perfect fit! The dry leaves are quite spindly and there are pieces of pistachio throughout. It smells like flavoring, with that alcoholic note that makes me go “ick”. I kind of get vanilla from it, I guess. I’ve learned so far to not really bother smelling these teas dry, as the alcohol scent overpowers everything else.

The brewed aroma is vegetal green tea, mostly spinach. There’s a little bit of vanilla scent too. This mostly tastes like green tea… I get a little bit of nuttiness, maybe some vanilla and cream in there. I would call it Green Tea Ice Cream. :P This kind of reminds me of Verdant’s Minnesota Blend in that it doesn’t taste how I would expect, it mostly tastes like a green tea with nice vanilla and nut notes. I think I will try this with more tea per cup when it arrives.

Of course, I added vanilla soymilk at the end, and of course, that makes it taste much more like ice cream! Still not necessarily pistachio though, more of a light green tea ice cream. :)

Yay for Mandy! Lol… This is actually one of the teas I ordered in today’s sale, partially on a recommendaton from Sars and partially because it has marshmallow. I didn’t realize that the base tea is Zhen Qu (which I also ordered)! The leaves are super cute, curly and golden. I’m getting that same alcoholic small from this tea, which I guess is just a byproduct of the flavoring. I do smell some chocolate under it, but not much else. 3 minutes, goooo!

Brewed, it smells like those chocolate oranges that I love around the holidays! I don’t know if this is a turn-off for some people, but there is definitely an oily layer on the top of this tea, especially since I stirred the tea before taking the basket out, to make sure the chocolate chips dissolved. Doesn’t bother me much, but it’s definitely there. Yum, this tastes like chocolate oranges too! Definitely the dark chocolate variety. I’m not sure how much marshmallow I get, but there’s definitely a sweetness here and I don’t think it’s coming from that dark chocolate. This is definitely the best chocolate tea I’ve had.

…I totally added soymilk to the second half of my cup, just for kicks. Yum chocolate orange mousse! ;) So glad I ordered this one, thanks for the recommendation, Sarsy! I’m beginning to think all flavored teas benefit from some vanilla soymilk, lol. It adds creaminess without that overpowering “cream” taste that I get from using half-and-half.

Another Butiki sample from Mandy! I’m not generally a huge fan of chocolate teas, but I haven’t tried one yet from Stacy so we shall see! There are chocolate chips and pieces of dehydrated strawberry mixed in with the Assam base. The leaves are quite small compared to the other black teas I’ve seen from her. It smells like strawberries, yum! Steeped 3 minutes.

The brewed aroma is strawberry and those layered chocolate wafer cookies – the ones with the really light and crisp wafers with the waffle print, and then the chocolate filling between them. I think I can smell a little espresso mixing in with the chocolate. The strawberry flavor in this reminds me of those strawberry goo-filled hard candies that are wrapped in the foil that looks like a strawberry! I find the combination of the dark chocolate and the espresso together to be a bit bitter, even with sugar added. However, the strawberry is definitely the star. I get a bit of chocolate throughout, and I only taste the espresso in the aftertaste.

Overall, this is quite tasty, but I’m glad I didn’t order it over other things. Thanks Mandy!

I got this in a swap from Mandy! Thanks, dear! I have recently discovered a love for oxidized oolongs, and I love maple, so this is a no brainer. The dry leaves are beautiful – very large and jet black, spindly and spiky like some creepy tree’s branches. There are a couple of big pieces of pecan in mine. Dry, this smells like… alcohol. Ick. Hopefully that doesn’t continue on to the brewed aroma! I was surprised that the recommended temperature is 170 degrees, seems low for an oolong to me. But I will follow it because Stacy certainly knows her own teas better than I do! :P

Yay, the alcohol smell is gone! I definitely smell maple, and there’s a creamy nuttiness from the pecans. Underneath, I catch the scent of autumn leaves from the oolong. Well, I’m now happy about the 170 degree temperature because I get to drink it faster, hah! Honestly, I was expecting this to be stronger considering Mandy’s sample was a bit of a generous 1.5 tsp. But it is definitely delicious! The flavoring is roughly equal in strength to the base tea, so I get to taste them both, which is very nice considering I was curious about the oolong base too. It’s maple first, then I get that creamy, nutty pecan flavor toward the end of the sip. Finding this a bit astringent plain.

I added vanilla soymilk to the second half of my cup, and I think I prefer it this way. The creaminess of the milk really brings out the nutty side of the tea, but the maple is still there too, especially at the end. Yum! This is how I would most likely drink this tea if I were to buy it. Thanks Mandy!