A Southern Season

This is a sip down, and wow, did I ever need to finish this! I bought it two years ago. At first I didn’t drink it much because it was be of my first fine teas from SS, and then I just kept buying and trying more and more tea and not drinking my stash. There was just enough for one pot.

This was the first tea I tried that tasted like sweet potato, and it was JacquelineM who nailed down that reference for me when she tried it. For some reason, her review of this is no longer here.

This tastes a lot like Teavivre’s Yunnan Dian Hong Golden Tip. Smooth, sweet, baked potatoes with the skin on, even the slight orangey overtone. Very yummy!

I can’t believe I haven’t had this one in seven months! My two tasting notes seem to be at war with one another, one saying the tea is delicious, the other proclaiming it to be good but weak. Today I decided to be extra careful with this tea from the Fine Tea wall at Southern Season. I weighed the leaves instead of using a teaspoon because they are so long and light and fluffy that I might misjudge even when trying to be generous with the leaves. It took quite a pile to get the weight right!

My guest loved this one. She was especially enamored of the aroma of cooked sweet potato. Like most Chinese black tea, it was very smooth, and like most golden tip teas it was very sweet. I am glad we revisited this one today!

Very golden, sweet, but very light. If you like Golden Monkey you might like this, but it is not nearly as caramel, swet, or honeyed. It was well-liked at “little tea-time” today. I may try another gold yunnan someday to see how the two compare.

This was amazing! So light and delightful, sweet and tasty. It was a pale to medium yellow color, and tasted very similar to Golden Monkey from Harney and Sons or Zhen Quo from Southern Season. I think the body was a little lighter in the tea which isn’t a surprise since it really does look like it is ALL golden tips. A very good tea, and a big hit at today’s tea tasting. We did a resteeping and it was certainly drinkable but was weaker than the first steeping.

I was expecting smokey tea since this has “Russian” in the name. The aroma of the dry leaves was completely lacking in smoke, but I still thought it would come out in the steeping. Not so! I don’t taste any smoke, and I had a hard time figuring out what I was tasting until I really good it a good sniff. Pepper! I have read several reviews that describe peppery tea, but hadn’t run into one myself yet. Here it is! And it was pretty good. The pepper is mostly an aroma, but perhaps whatever lends the peppery scent is what gives it the full bodied taste and muskiness, because I did think of musk melon as I drank this. Not bad! I added milk and a little sugar, but it was pretty good without additions as well. No bitterness, only a hint of astringency.

I had originally purchased this hoping my girls would love it for their breakfast/school tea. They liked it the first time they drank it, then decided they wanted to stick with what they were already drinking. This is getting old, so I wanted to use it up quickly, and that means a pitcher of iced tea! I lightly sweetened it so hubby would (hopefully) drink it.

I tried it today with a friend. We drank it as is, lightly sweetened and my friend liked it and said it as plenty sweet enough for her. Daughter said she couldn’t detect any sugar. Uh-oh, Dad likely will not enjoy it, then! I added home made cherry simple syrup just for kicks, and thought that was pretty good, too, so maybe that is how I will entice the hubster to drink it.

A decent tea to go with a meal. Strong enough to stand up to red meat, but not so spectacular that I wish I was drinking it by itself. Not bad, and organic to boot.

Hmmmm. Dry leaves – nice, very light honey aroma. First cup from the pot was unsweetened and no milk. Very smooth, no astringency, light flavor, sweet enough to drink as is, but no where nearly as sweet as Golden Monkey or Zhen Qu. Pretty good.

Second cup – Leaves are out, they have BEEN out, but this cup looks darker and has a stronger aroma. It isn’t as sweet. Is it just me??? I add sugar, but it is too much! Just a tiny dab of sugar will sweeten this one. I also add a drop of milk to counteract the newly sensed strength to what seemed so light on the first cup. Now I have what tastes like a good, but plain Jane, breakfast tea. Hmmm. Maybe I need to do a new pot on a new day and try this one again! It isn’t bad. Just wondering how it changed from one cup to the next from the SAME pot? Must be me!

I am attempting to get a handle on the tea tin storage problem, which means it would be really great to get rid of all the tins I don’t care to have hanging about. Since no one was drinking this and we have a lot of tea we really like, I decided to 86 this ne by making a cold brew pitcher to finish it off. I left the leaves for two whole days but it isn’t bitter. It is as unspectacular cold as it was hot. On the upside, I now have an empty tin to fill with something I like!

A quick cuppa before heading out for my first radiation treatment, or as my eldest calls it, OFF TO GET MICROWAVED! I hope I get a superpower. Note to self: avoid dung beetles.

I thought I would give this another try. It is unchanged, as is my opinion! It isn’t terrible, it is plain black tea. There is a tiny bit of astringency but not much. It has decent body but lacks nuance. It would be fine with lunch but I would rather have a tea that makes me oooo and aaaah. I think this must come from camellia assamica bushes because I have that little tummy rumble I get when I drink assams and yunnans! I do best with camellia sinensis teas!

Another tea that ranks as “just okay” and fits the need for tea with a meal. Not bad, but nothing I would rush to place another order if it ran low. In fact, I probably won’t replace it! There are soooo many really yummy teas!

Hallelujah! The search is over for a replacement tea for my daughter who says she MUST drink it during math or fail. Her London Cuppa is no longer available here, and I found out that it was heavy on the Kenyan tea, so I tried this one from the fine tea wall at SS. It is very low priced – only $2 the ounce! This is smooth like a Ceylon and has a lot of natural sweetness. I could drink it without sugar, but with sugar you have something akin to good ole’ Southern iced tea taste going on. This isn’t a high-falutin’ tea. It is a good basic, smooth tea much like Lipton loose or Black Pearl, but smoother. We steeped for four minutes but it could have used one more.

I really have to find a source for this tea. At $12.50 an ounce, I can not buy a lot at once. I wish I could buy a little every now and then, but it is so hard to find. There was a two year period where SS didn’t have it at all, and it has been a long time since I have seen it there.

I needed a tea experience tonight, and you are guaranteed an experience with Wild Forest. This tea makes you want to go to your shelf and throw away every tin of mediocre, flavored drivel and display things like this in a place of honor, like a treasured possession.

It is incredible how long the flavor lingers. Unbelievable, almost. Yes. Big fat yes.

ETA: corrected price above. It was 12.50 per ounce and I buy two ounces at a time.

There are a few teas that I feel bad about hoarding. I see them on my shelf and I am choosing a tea to make and I think, “I really love that one but this isn’t the right time for it. I want to be able to pay attention to it, or drink it with someone who will really appreciate it.”

That’s not exactly the case with this one. I am intentionally hoarding it. I believe this is one of those oolongs that actually benefits from aging, but I am not trying to age it. It is simply too good to waste on an ordinary moment.

This is the most expensive tea I have ever purchased. I buy only one or two ounces at a time. It is seldom in stock where I buy it. So I keep it for very special times.

Today is special because I really, really need it. And I have time to enjoy today, so BONUS!

I had the first two steps with breakfast, and even though I had toast with cherry preserves my first sip of tea made me go, “Wow! This is so fruity!”

It is so sweet you would swear there is licorice root mixed with it, but there isn’t. I have had TGY that approached this flavor before, but this tea takes it over the top. There is round sweetness, fullness, fruitiness, and spice. You bet if I see it in stock again, some of it is coming home with me. Think of a perfect TGY with a bear hug mixed in.

This is a magnificent tea. It reminds me of the finest tie guan yin, but with even more flavor, more sweetness. Well worth the price, I will continue to buy an ounce or two at the time and cherish each steeping.

I shared some with my 18 year old male student who is rather new to “real” tea and he said it was his favorite so far. I don’t know when I should break it to him that he has very expensive taste in tea!

Backlog: I drank this a couple of nights ago and it was quite late so I didn’t log it.

I think I am ready for this tea, I think I remember how good and how different it is, and then it always takes me by surprise. I asked for years if they added licorice root to this and they swear NOTHING is added. Last time I drank it, I realized that it tastes like a great Tie Guan Yin, but amped up a LOT.

Still, it took me by surprise with how strong and sweet it was. It is a special treat that I don’t have very often at 14.95 an ounce, but an ounce goes a long, long way. I made steep after steep gong fu style and it earned its keep.

It’s baaaaaaaack! After two years of not being able to buy this one, they have it on shelf at A Southern Season again. The bad news is, it has gone up to $14.95 an ounce. O.O But hey, I can buy one ounce, resteep like mad, and hoard it until I can afford more.

When I first tried this one I was rather new to oolongs. This tea fascinated me, and it still does. It doesn’t seem quite as alien to me now, though. For a long time I was convinced that something had been added, like perhaps licorice root. (The staff vows that nothing at all has been added.) But now that I have had some really fine TGY teas, mostly thanks to Teavivre, I recognize that this is somewhat similar to those. It is much stronger though, and has a cooling flowery presence that swells each time you inhale, and it doesn’t stop after your finish your tea. I can continue for quite a long time.

This is one I will only drink when I have time alone with my kettle and cup.

I am celebrating the New Year by bringing out a tea I adore, but alas, don’t know another source for right now. Once upon a time, I could get this by the ounce from Southern Season, but now you have to order a whole pound, and that would be hard to justify with about 100 teas in the kitchen. Sandy mentioned that perhaps we should split a pound. I may have to look into that, because this tea is just as amazing as I remembered it.

This is a medium bodied tea with full dark flavor. Like JacquelineM, I find hints of ancient pines and resin, but an amazing follow up of flowers…deep, forest wildflowers the memory of which stays with you. This is a treasure. I used my new little Yixing pot that just completed three whole days of seasoning. I hope I get to see what it looks like after decades of use!

I have only had one other oolong tea, and that was quite some time ago. I don’t even know if I steeped it properly! But I wanted to give oolongs a try and see what all the hubbub is about. The young man at the shop said to wash the leaves and steep for 3 minutes, so that is what I did. Also, the Harney Tea book said to resteep adding about 30 seconds each time, so subsequent cups follow that rule.

Oh…my…..goodness. I don’t know what to say. Is this how oolongs taste? I am confused. I feel just like I felt after the first time my husband kissed me – first, WOW! followed by, “I want to do that again!” The first sip was…. very light in taste at first. Then the aftertaste – AMAZING! Being new to oolongs I am at a loss to describe this. It doesn’t taste like any tea I have ever had. After the first sip, it gets stronger and stronger. Each cup gets darker, oddly enough. One would think it would be lighter. By the fourth steep, it is starting to get lighter. There is such a sweetness here. It is almost like when you pull honeysuckle flowers off the vine and drink the nectar, but closely followed by a mineral coating that stays with you. Each time I inhale, I REALLY taste this tea, and I mean for several breaths AFTER the sip. This one is a keeper, really amazing. Now I have to try even more oolongs!

This is a lovely English Breakfast, very similar to the one by Harney and Sons. It is lighter than Queen Catherine. I like this one with milk and sugar. It is a very comforting cup, good for morning when I want a gentler start to the day. Sometimes I do need something stronger to kick me into gear, but this one is nice for days when I wake up alert or don’t have to be on “go” right away.

So I have decided that for me this is the perfect office tea. I like the tast both hot and cold. I like it with out any additives – no trips back top to the break room to grab sugar or milk. It is very forgiving if I forget and over steep.

I have been lazy in not rating this one before, it is one of my favorite teas. I love the leaves it is a mixture of slightly twisted brown/black and fuzzy golden leaves. The wet leaves smell of honey and a warm field of grass to me. The tea is a lovely golden brown color. It is a gently complex tea without much astringency. It tastes of honey, overlying a warm vegetal base and a little nutty. I drink it black but it is satisfying with sugar as well.

It is Wednesday! That means tea party day and lots of tea. Today we served homemade sugar cookies and strawberries dipped in chocolate sauce that hardens when it is gets cold. It is super easy to do – just heat some chocolate chips with a bit of coconut oil until it is creamy and smooth, drizzle on or dip the strawberries, and put them on wax paper in the freezer briefly. Peel them off and serve.

This is the tea I chose to start with since we were having such sweet foods today and my guest really really loved the pairing. I like for the rich sweets and such to be paired with an unflavored sturdy tea usually, and it really worked today. The tea wasn’t harsh, but it didn’t disappear under the food.

There are several teas I want to order from Harney and Sons but I won’t let myself until I sip down some more teas.

I got an email a few days ago from my husband. It was titled “Tea Disciple.” It turns out that a fellow he met at work has travelled extensively and loves tea from all over the world. He is presently drinking Celestial Seasonings Fast Lane as a replacement for coffee and wants recommendations for a good black tea blend with boosters like mate. Anyone know of some good ones? I recommended that he go to Tin Roof Teas and buy his mate and try some of their loose leaf black teas and mix it himself.

He mentioned that he had been in Sri Lanka and found some teas there that he loved, so I took my two high grown ones that I don’t care for and sent them to him. That reminded me that some of my other Ceylons are getting old. I need to drink them up. These past two days I have been drinking this one from the Fine Tea Wall at A Southern Season. You purchase these by the ounce and there is no minimum.

This is an enjoyable Ceylon, though I do like their Ceylon Extra Fancy even more, and I like Harney and Sons Kenilworth Ceylon and Ceylon and India teas more also. Once I sip this one down I will not be replacing it, but rather I will stick with the ones that I like better.

Hubby started out only wanting Ceylon teas with TONS of milk and sugar. Now he mostly drinks oolong, green, and white tea plain, so I have a big backlog of Ceylons to finish off! But it is a great problem to have! I was delighted when his tea tastes expanded and changed!