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First Review. I like smoky tea and this morning I was in the mood for that fire in the fireplace, cabin in the woods and bacon on the grill taste that a good Lapsang Souchong can give ( especially during Lent when the Eastern Orthodox world, moi,does not eat any meat or fish at all)…yeh bacon! Well…the fact that this has dried big puffy Jasmine flowers and small dry pieces of Orange rind was interesting. What would those additions do to the tasty tea? I set the steep at 4 minutes (3 was suggested). My first pour and sip was smooth, lighter than expected and smoky salty in a corn-on-the-cob sort of way. You could not taste floral or orange. Curious. You don’t need sugar with this tea but of course I added some just to see what would develop. A smidge of sweet produced the flavor of the brown (but not black/burnt) part of grilled marshmallow. Really good. This is my favorite Lapsang blend. You can drink a whole pot without feeling like you’ve been fighting a forest fire. Love that! I drank a pot and then had a second somewhat weaker steeping (should have let it set longer).

Thank you Amanda for this Sample! I was just about to pull out the basket to stop the steep at 5 minutes when my cell rang….so I forgot and chatted another 5 minutes with my daughter about my Grandson’s story “My Wonderful Day With Grandma” where he got to break a plate at Taverna Greek Restaurant ‘OPA’ and spend the night. Soooo the tea went 10 minutes before I set it free to pour. Smells vanilla creamy…and very much like Panna Cotta with burnt sugar top. Where is that rhubarb? I know rhubarb is not just tart and can be cooked down to a warm and fat flavor, it really is a vegitable officially, almost in a vegital way but I could hardly detect it even as I enhaled deeply from the wet rooibos mix. It is there alright so barely that you have to know that it is not sweet or tart but more like a tomato is a fruit if that makes sense . As things go…if you like Panna Cotta this is fine and good. If you wanted Rhubarb it would be hard to find here. The fact that this is caffeine free is a plus.

First Review. VERY DIFFERENT! This is the PERFECT tea to drink when watching an old movie like Murder on the Orient Express or an English Murder Mystery! I need to redecorate my condo in chintz and add a proper tea table and Lomonosov Teapot. Why? This is an Old World floral tea…one that takes you somewhere else…to a place in time where you first thought tea belonged before you were educated to know better. Not tea bags…not there…but in old movies where there was tea service and refinement. I’m getting carried away again being a visual thinker in my right mind (Lefty). Rose petals in tea are rarely this sweet and floral. I am reminded more of very fragrant trailing roses on an arbor in the heat of the day…so concentrated. There is safflower and a citrus finish that keeps the tea bright. I have no idea what the fruit is. Possibly sour cherry? This is a popular Russian fruit flavor in tea. I went to taste my jam and think this is it since I use it in my other Czar Nikolas ll for guests (see other notes). Very nice sweetened. Adding milk is not necessary but I tried it and it’s just ok. I steeped 5 minutes. Good dessert tea. I would serve this with chocolate (dark) or a salty cheese (opposites work well together). Oh yes this is inexpensive…8.8 oz cost me $7.99 plus shipping (amazon) same with the other Czar Nikolas ll Renaissance (exporter is in Sacramento,CA with no online ordering).

Feeling nostalgic today…remembering a time most of you were not alive as yet. San Francisco in the 1950’s. You HAD to dress up to go into town. Hat and gloves even as a little girl. Grandmother wore her mink coat or stole. She had money…we didn’t but we always were clean and pressed. Anyway, there were flower vendor stalls all along Powell Street (where the Cable Cars run) and around Union Square. The favorite flowers of mine were nosegay’s of violets and baby roses or just violets. Rows and rows of nosegays. Pick one beautiful bunch out for a small price and carry it around in your gloved hand. This tea is like that sweet smelling nosegay. My grandfather (Charlie Cameron) took me dancing at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco on my 13th Birthday which was grand indeed! He looked like Clark Gable! OK lock me up. Getting too syrupy!

First Review. I must compliment David at Verdant for great service since I was trying to order during the transition to the new website (which is fantastic) and had trouble with the payment screen not working…so he added some extra samples and shot me a nice email. You can be sure I’m coming back to such a service oriented company (great tea too!).

I followed the instructions to the letter for steeping but the tea was just too weak. I let it go 5 minutes before pouring. Next time since this is a blended Pu’er I may need to make sure there are enough pieces of actual Pu’er in the basket so the brew is stronger (note to self). The Pu’er is like chocolate colored chunks of tree bark and there are small pieces of orange peel and ginger, small tart elderberries (almost raisen taste) and galangel (spice/heat). You really smell ginger. Golden cocoa brownish orange colored liquid. Note* I did not read any reviews before I made MY notes and tasted the tea myself.
First impression…more like regular black tea than a Pu’er. No earthiness and the ginger is not as strong tasting but somewhat lighter than I expected. A nice floral orange blossom bouquet but no elderberry flavor or scent at all. Where is it? Hidden in a cloak of ginger? There is heat at the tip of the tongue from galangal that is nice…not too hot. Children can drink this and not have too much spice. I added some sugar which brought the richness of the spice out to a lovely fullness. As the tea cooled a bit I could smell a slight smoky earthy Pu’er note that the sneaky ginger had hidden with it’s strength when heated. I went back to my glass teapot and drank some of the cooled tea which was very nice and much less gingery. This tea will be soothing when stressed or not feeling quite well. I need to try this again.
*Second steep…really good…still ginger and spice and enough body with no earth or fish whatever. What I notice though is that long after I’m done the flavor lingers. I have this wonderful refreshing taste in my mouth that is so good that I want to go back and brew some more…(I’m getting a bit sloshy though).

First review and a huge thank you to TEAVIVRE and ANGEL for this beautiful sample! (sample is hardly correct…it is generous and wrapped in a way that honors the tea inside)
I made sure that my glass pot, glass mug, infuser…everything was sterile so that no sneeky flavor from past tea tastings would interfer with this one. This tasting is special. I love Pu-erh! The little Toucha is cute (I know cute is tacky) with the little rosebud on top of the small dome of aged Pu-erh. I poured the water over the tea and waited….watching the dome disolve…1,2.5 minutes (tasting along the way). Pulled the basket out and smelled the leaves…small and almost black like wet potting soil earthy. The scent is like sweet straw and a bit spicy. The liquid pour looks like light molasses in color. First sip is slightly sweet, not too earthy with a slight caramel cinnamon finish. I’m a sweet lover so I added a tad of sweetening…and it brought up the caramel flavor. Delicious and mello. Now a bit of creme…um…buttery caramel Pu-erh with a bit of earthiness and still good color and body. No fishiness and I did not rinse the Toucha. The rose did not have an effect for me. Maybe it was in the background and gave the spice or sweetness.
*Second steeping 2.5 minutes reveals a less caramel taste but still a beautifully mild earthy flavor and round tone perfect for adding what you want for a latte. I made an iced version just to see how it would taste…thinking of the 72 weather outside. This was wonderful iced! Bravo! No bitterness at all! Ice cubes, sweetening and milk or whatever you use…ice cream…and a Puerh smoothie that you can still taste as what it is! Fantastic! Purely as straight pour…or as you wish..tea is such luxury. I found that my first tasting this morning took my appitite away which was a nice bonus since I could lose a few.

Thanks to Amanda for this sweet sample! I had my first Lapsang Souchong at my local tea house (Happy Lucky’s) last month and really loved it. When Amanda and I arranged our swap and I saw this Smoky Chocolate I was excited to try it. You either love or hate the smoky tea’s it appears to me, and I’m a lover. I read the other reviews and agree that this is lacking on the chocolate taste. The smoke is not too powerful at all which would be a relief to those who are timid about trying a straight Lapsang Souchong. Adding some sweetening does improve the tea and brings up the chocolate a bit so that in my opinion the aftertaste is almost like a chocolate Necco wafer candy. Malty, chalky. Don’t brew too long or you’ll have a bitter brew. 3-4 minutes max. I did not add milk.

Thank you to Melanie for this ample sample! This is a nice evening Rooibos created it appears by ESP Emporium for Valentines Day. It is a long steep (8-10 minutes) producing a medium cognac liquor that smells like chocolate almond biscotti but tastes slightly sweet and not almondy at all. The full 10 munute steep and a bit of sugar brings all the color and flavor to fullness. More rose color from..uh…roses and rhubarb (can’t taste rhubarb so it must be adding warm roundness instead of acid) and the slightest hint of floral. Rooibos is there in the dry finish. Since Rooibos can sit and cook…getting better and better throughout the day, I think that having a fine tasting one around for one of those busy project days when you just can’t watch a pot is fantastic. This would be a nice addition. Not complicated but comforting. Sweet and desserty, not too chocolate or floral and not needing sugar or milk but good with them also. There are natural and artificial flavors and soy and rice in the mix but used well.

Thank-you to Melanie for this sample. I just came back from an outing at the local Museum. Venetian Glass by Dale Chihuly for those of you who know him. Fantastic! I have always loved the way light plays on glass (a couple of you live by Orient & Fume in Chico,CA and a few in Seattle where Dale is from). Anyway, afterwards my daughter Annalisa and I went to a Turkish shop for pastry and tea/coffee. She had pomegranite tea and I had Turkish coffee with cardamom. Nice small cup of heavy but good caffeine and semolina coconut honey cake. So good! I was not in the mood for more caffeine at home so decided to try an herbal tea. This Pomi-berry sounded interesting. The dry mix looked like a fluff of fine grass and white dust with some dry apple chunks and a very few pieces of what turns out to be pomegranite. I steeped the herbal tea 3 minutes creating a fragrent blush rose liquor. The flavor is somewhat odd. I could not place it at first. Camphor? No. Ah…now I have it…Lavender. How wierd. Apples, Chamomile, Pomegranite, Lemongrass and Lavender. A bit too odd for me. Not gross but odd. Maybe a roque fairy would like this or a real die-hard lavender lover but I just can’t put this together and say yum… I am glad to try it though!

First Review. Medium light chocolate puerh mix with cocoa hulls. The dry scent is almost a sweet pipe tobacco slightly cocoa. The steep is 1tsp per 8oz. for 5min. resulting in a mild, slightly earthy cocoa brew that is best enhanced with sweetening and cream as a latte for dessert (unless you are a true espresso drinker and drink puerh straight). In such a case I would even suggest a tiny twist of lemon or orange peel. There are many more elegant and refined puerhs for sure out there however, not everyone enjoys the stronger flavor that comes with them. Lighter or flavored puerhs like this one allow more people to drink without fearing strange fishy or super earthy tones.

Uh I like this bagged tea. Don’t ask why or anything but I do. It is a nice throw it in the cup when you don’t want to work at it vanilla honey tea that is warm and yum. So there. AND it comes from down the road right here in Colorado…ha!