English Tea Store

Azzrian thanks so much for this!

It smells like Toffee prior to infusing. Afterwards with smells like pu-erh and caramel.

It tastes like butterscotch. The pu-erh base is certainly in the back ground. The end sip is where I can pick up on the almond flavors. There is a creamy-smooth texture to it, too, much like toffee or creme brulee.

This is pretty impressive. It surprised me. It’s a goodie!

I hope my sense of taste has mostly returned. Thanks to Rachel Sincere for this sampling!

STEEPED: Very fruity sweet smell. I think is pomegranate or grenadine. Dark brown colour.

TASTE: Spike of fruityness and slight bitterness over a base of black tea.
Sweetened (and cooled off) I can taste the vanilla and fruityness. Not as bitter.

COMMENTS: Maybe I’m still sick and tasting bitterness? But I could of oversteeped. Taste some good potential if I can get it brewed right!

Wow…. This is another one from Traveling Teabox B From Amanda and MAN this is GOOOD!!! i Saw Scottish and Caramel and was set on having it and im So glad i did Fav tea From the box!! the caramel just Sings in this tea!! What a Wonderful tea!! this is my desert tea!!

I had mixed feelings about this tea. Mostly, however, I did not particularly enjoy it. When drinking this tea, be prepared for it to be intensely floral (almost perfume-y). As they mention in the official description, the flavour does seem to fluctuate a wee bit – more jasmine some moments, more Earl Grey in other, with an interesting aftertaste – so it is certainly an adventure to drink. It’s not a particularly strong tea, but even so the flavours can be a bit much if you’re not expecting such a flowery, fragrant tea.

This tea is wonderful. The lavender is very strong in this one. It complements the citrus tones from the earl grey very well. I like to drink this tea in the morning as a relaxing wake-up!

EDIT:
So I realized that the last time I logged this tea it was mainly a description of my steeping process. The flavors in this tea are wonderful! The green tea is not especially strong or noticeable, but it serves as a good foil for the lavender. This tea contains just the right amount of lavender. It completely relaxes me, and it definitely got me through finals! But back to the flavors…this is a tea that I can taste through my entire mouth. It feels warm and homey and I love it! I would definitely recommend this tea!

This is one of my favorite teas. It is very calming. I like to add just a little bit of honey to make it perfect. You cannot steep this tea for very long though. I believe it is because of the lavender. Whenever I steep the tea for over two minutes and thirty seconds, it tastes very strange. If you only steep it for that amount of time, it comes out perfectly!

I’d say this tea is a nice, nondescript smooth fruity blend. Sometimes there’s just not much to say. I’ll drink it but I won’t get excited about it.

This is a second tasting note. My first was for the hot preparation. Now I’m taking another step in my iced tea exploration. This time, I didn’t use a SBT but brewed a loose-leaf tea I picked out of my cupboard!

So arctic raspberry is a real winner iced. I didn’t even have to sweeten it as much as I did for the SBTs. I was so proud of myself for making it all on my own and having it work out. I recommend this fresh tasting raspberry tea for any iced tea enthusiast.

I was apprehensive about this one, considering another “flavored” berry tea from the same place seemed to have no flavor beyond the black tea. But the dry leaf smelled pleasantly like raspberry and there were raspberry chunks in the blend, so my hopes were raised a little bit.

Once steeped, this hot tea tastes quite naturally like raspberries. In fact, I almost don’t get the black tea background flavor to it; there’s really no depth. Only until it cools down a bit and I’m halfway through the cup do I get the full flavor of the black tea plus the arctic raspberry. All in all a nice enough cup of tea. I bet an iced tea enthusiast would like this one.

Just got my order in from the English Tea Store, so I’m excited to have so many new teas to review. This morning I tried Angel’s Dream, which is one I was very excited about.

In the package, it smelled strange, like there was this weird artificial odor to it. I think it might have been from the plastic bag it was in, because when I stirred it around, the smell dissipated. When I brewed it, it smelled fine. No obvious scents other than a slight fruitiness.

After I tasted Angel’s Dream, I had to look it up online to see what flavors I was supposed to be getting. Maple? Really? Blackberry I can see, kind of, but to be honest this seems more like a nice, smooth, slightly fruity black tea. It’s closer to an English Breakfast than to a flavored tea to me. I definitely am enjoying it but I wouldn’t seek it out again because I have plenty of fancy plain black teas.

I am on a chocolate kick lately. This tea i received in a swap. It is a nice black tea with a decadent milk chocolate scent. The taste is delicious! There is a little artificial tinge to it but it is mostly chocolate that i taste. I love this tea with milk and sugar. Delicious treat!

I really loved the tea of the same name by Darlene’s Teaport, but I didn’t feel like committing to a full order there just yet. I was, however, about to place an order at ETS with the free shipping coupon (thanks for posting it Azzrian!) and noticed they had an identically named tea. Now, it seems like several of the ETS blends can be found elsewhere (though usually for more) so I thought it was possible that they had the same distributor and whatnot. And for $4.20 it couldn’t hurt trying! I needed one more tea to round my cart out anyway.

I did a short cold brew on this and indeed, it is the same tea! Or it’s awfully damn close. Sweet grassy green, hints of juicy strawberry, and a slight hint of tropical pineapple goodness peeking through. The strawberry is just right in this blend, not overpowering or artificial candy-tasting either. It’s such an amazing iced tea! I’m so happy that I found this, since I really do enjoy it! In fact, I’m liking it more now so I’ll up the rating a little bit from my original tasting. Yum!

This tea was brutalized in shipping. I have not had this tea before, so I cannot say whether this has affected the flavor.

This is only the 2nd Scottish Breakfast tea that I have tried-Upton’s being the first. I bought a 4 ounce pouch. The pouch is a re-sealable and made out of a plastic-y film and not foiled-lined on the inside. Not sure what teas are in this blend, but it doesn’t taste like Asssam, Ceylon, and Yunnan. Maybe just Assman and Yunnan? Keemun? The dry leaves are full and have a malty and slightly smoky aroma.

The liquor is more brown than orange in color. This flavor is malty and really peppery (black)-especially when the tea is hottest. No smokiness in the flavor, so probably no Keemun in it. It’s somewhat lively, and although not weak, definitely not “smash you in the face” strong. An acceptable first cup-but I have better options. The level of tannins is surprising low. Not bitter or astringent.

I want to note about the shipping here. The box was literally beat to hell in shipping. The top flaps of the box were peaked up almost like an A-Frame house and there was a big dent in the side. I realize that UPS/USPS etc, handle the packages and not the tea shop. However, I have placed dozens of tea orders by now and have never had a box like this show up on my door. My orders from China and Taiwan have never looked anything but great.

The packaging issue is ETS fault. The cardboard was not sturdy and the box was too big for the order. The box had only some brown kraft paper on one side for “cushioning”. This did not work at all and the pouch of this tea had a gouge in it about one-half inch deep and 1.5 inches long (although the pouch was not actually punctured). If this had been an expensive signature tea instead of a ridiculously cheap $1 an ounce blend I would have sent it back un-opened. This company has several other online businesses and I picture all their stuff at a big warehouse-not stored properly and obviously not packed by people who know and/or care about tea. This tea is okay, but not good enough to make me ever want to buy from this company again.

NB – Rating number is for the tea alone. The other issues did not factor into the number.

Brew temp 208

I have no idea why I am buying a decaff Irish Breakfast tea.

I guess it’s for those days when I want to chain drink tea. I pretty much limit myself to 4-6 cups of caffeinated tea a day (depending on how caffeinated they are). When I have a high quality tea that re-steeps multiple times (like a Dian Hong), I can hit the 4-6 cups ceiling really fast. My herbals and other decaffs are all sweet in one way or another and I like a more traditional option such as this.

Anyhow, this is just okay. It’s not bitter or astringent. It has a reasonable, but not tremendous, amount of flavor. The first Irish Breakfast I ever had was Ceylon and Assam and I pretty much expect them to all be that way, but of course this is not the case. This is Assam, Kenyan and possibly others. To me, it doesn’t taste a lot different than an English Breakfast with Assam and Kenyan such as PG Tips. Another strike against this is that the bags are only 2 grams-PG Tips and Taylor’s Yorkshire blends have 3 gram bags. I’m not excited about this, but still, I think this will do on one of those days when I really NEED a lot of tea, but need to watch the caffeine and don’t want lots of sweet herbals. However, I think I will look for a higher quality, loose leaf, decaff straight tea like an Assam in the future.

Sipdown! And what a sad sipdown it is, too. I really enjoy this blend – perfect for a treat that’s sweet but not sickly, and not astringent or bitter as black blends can be. I will require more of this in the future, so if I ever swap with you (yes you) and you feel like sending me some, that would be awesome.

I think I brewed it a touch strong today, as I used up all the leaf instead of leaving behind a 1/2 tsp, which would have been silly, so it’s a bit overpowering, but still very enjoyable. Bumping the rating a touch because this is definitely a tea I’d like to keep around in my cupboard. I seem to have a soft spot for flavoured pu’erhs, haha. But not like, ginger pu’erh, we’re talking dessert ones. Nom nom nom.

Thanks again for introducing me to this one, Azzrian!

I am so disappointed. This one did not work well in a travel mug for me (or I screwed it up). I thought this delicious earthy caramel tea would be fabulous, but I tasted mostly a sweet, somewhat caramelly but fishy flavour. It certainly wasn’t terrible; I finished it before I finished my mug of Della Tera’s Eight Candles. I wonder if this tea needs to “air out” after being brewed, or something?

I still think that this is a strange combination, but it really works so deliciously well! Enjoying a cup of this again tonight courtesy of Azzrian! I have enough to take to work in a travel mug, so should really do that sometime, because it’s quite the caramelly treat.

ETA: This one made it through 3 very tasty infusions! The caramel flavour was retained through all three, which was awesome. I probably could have had another infusion as well, but really wanted some new teas, haha.

Thanks for sending me some of this, Azzrian!

Probably too late at night for this (oops), but oh well. It smelled delicious and I wanted to try some! I didn’t rinse this one as I figured I might lose the flavouring if I did.

The aroma is sweet and toffee-like, with just a hint of pu’erh fishiness. Completely tolerable though, and quite yummy-smelling!

The flavour is rich with delicious toffee, complemented by a pu’erh base that is dark and earthy and perhaps the slightest bit fishy. A strange but surprisingly delicious combination! I will definitely be having this one again, and thoroughly enjoying it!

I really, really like this pu-erh. It has the full musty body of a pu-erh without being too harsh. I can usually only do a small cup of the straight stuff, but add some toffee and caramel and I break out the giant Disney Goofy mug! It’s lovely. I take it black but it would hold up well to milk and even a little sugar.
My ONLY complaint – and this is only going to affect those who decaffienate by pre-steeping – is the toffee melts quickly and is pretty much gone by the second steeping. Not an issue if you’re only going to steep it once, and still very yummy.