English Tea Store

This is a very good Earl Grey Cream. Smooth and calming. I added a little sugar in the raw and a tad bit of milk to mine and it really brought out the cream in this tea although I could taste it before hand as well. The bergamot is perfectly balanced. No astringency or aftertaste. I do believe the smell of bergamot in the bag when leaf is dry is stronger than the outcome when brewed so if you have smelled this and fear it may be too much for you don’t worry – brew it up – its very pleasing!
Not AS complex as some Earl Grey’s I have had but you know I really like to have this in my stash because its always dependable and always consistent.
I also do like English Tea Store as well as a vendor.

I think I like this tea more the more I drink it. The vanilla balances the rooibos perfectly. Despite the cinnamon being tame, I feel it’s a good addition to the vanilla and rooibos.

Very comfortable to curl up with late at night.

When I want a relatively austere, non-sweet tea, this one takes the cake.

I was worried when I saw the lavender – I don’t always get along with that particular herb, though I love floral teas. I needn’t have worried – it was perfectly civilized in this blend! The flowers give the tea a natural sweetness. Lovely – very nice for an afternoon tea, not too light, but strong enough to take a drop of milk

First dance with pu-erh. Bonnie sent me this one and judging by the name, it seems like the perfect introduction. Being a bit apprehensive, I went shorter than recommended on the steeping time and added a little sugar and just a splash of cream. Well people, it’s delicious. It’s super creamy, caramelly, butterscotch-laden and delicious. The only way I can tell this isn’t a regular black tea blend is that there is a musty, earthy flavor that pops through the creamy sweetness and gives the tea some character. It’s a little woody, and causes me to think of the taste of cured tobacco and, well… damp caverns. Don’t take that last statement as a bad thing though, it’s very good. Overall, this was definitely a new and different experience to me. I was a little apprehensive about pu-erh, but this blend at least is very good and approachable. I like it. Now to try some unflavored pu-erhs…

This is ETS’s “Loose Organic” Earl Grey Cream (not the “Metro” Blend). The picture above matches, but not the description. I think there’s some confusion with ETS’s 2 versions.

Description: “Flavored with oil of Bergamot, like all Earl Grey teas, Cream Earl Grey was created through a series of experimental blends with flavors like cinnamon and vanilla.
For added depth and dimension, our blenders mixed fresh cream with this classic Earl Grey.”

Adding only a T. of honey to test, this blend is smoother than the Metro blend (imo). No bitterness detected. The bergamot level is about the same (as the other blend). I prefer more bergamot (for creamsicle effect). Has a slight creamy feel. Not noticing cinnamon or vanilla, but there is a slight sour cream aftertaste. As with other Earl Grey’s, my next step is to add some cream to bump up the yumminess, but could more easily drink this without.

Second Review.
I forgot that I had this tea because I poured it into a short canning jar, and it traveled to the far back of my tea cupboard where I found it huddled with my teacups. Nice surprise to find it since it is so tasty at breakfast time.
I love malty, full and robust tea in the morning (anytime really). Listen folks, when you get older…you need a kickstart to let your system know it’s time to get moving. Tea is my axle grease! This tea does the job in the A.M.!
I’m not going to go into all the details of how I brewed this cuppa and the blah blah color of the leaves and such. That was the first review. I like this tea. Simply put, I add my cream (I don’t like grey tea so 100% milk, can milk or cream is for me) and sweetening and this brew tastes great. The maltiness is not overly heavy and the astringency is there but not too strong either. I noticed that when I got up to do a few chores…my second cup cooled down, but the tea really tasted good. Ha! Of course this was going to be a good tea to use for iced tea also. Hoot man! A Scot’s gotta do what a Scot’s gotta do! The next steeping will go into the frig!
The temp will be in the 80’s today…and when you live at 5000 feet that means the air conditioner comes on. Monday my pool opens..hooray! (Grandkids will arrive more regularly for a swim and Grandma’s tea!)

I do have so much to be greatful for! God has really blessed me!

I’ve entered a dark room where I’m stripped of everything I know up until now about tea (which I must admit is fair to midlin little). Diving into the world of tea,tea…(that was done on purpose) I set to brew my first 20z pot of tea and began checking the brew at 1 min, 2 min and finally at about 4 minutes where I stopped the steeping and felt it had reached a perfect brewing. Still added some sugar then some cream. Wow is this malty with a slight smokiness and slight furry tannin in the far back of the tongue. I can see why this is loved. Next year on St. Andrews day when my Priest blesses the Tartans and I’m decked out…I’ll bring this tea to the Church to serve with scones after the Liturgy. It is worthy of a Highlander! Beautiful whiskey color and a bit of a vegital greenbean nose but so slight. Really good this malty tea. I’m thinking about using this with some buckwheat honey, caramelized onions and garlic on a bit of beef (used wheat beer before). See what it tastes like. You could serve this tea in a bar because a beer drinker could dig this. I dig this!

Friday night tea with my daughter and granddaughter and outside there is a new dusting of snow and a big 16 degree chill. Perfect tea weather. I made some gingerbread and lit candles before getting my tea tray ready. They chose Lady Londonderry because it just arrived in the mail and smelled wonderful. We let it steep about 4 minutes since we like our tea a bit strong with milk. Nice floral notes…like delicate candied violets. The maltiness is so slight and I did not notice any lemon or orange. Maybe next time it will show. I would have chosen a hardier tea for this weather but this does take you to another time and place where songbirds and flowers are present. My perfect evening was topped off with a new classical piano composition by my 16 year old granddaughter who composes choral, and orchestral music also. I cried…so beautiful.

Today I’m doing my long ago, ancient history tea review revisits.

This bag of tea has not been reviewed for 6 months and was one of my first purchases as a newbie tea drinker. This was before my intro to Teavivre, Butiki or Verdant Tea’s to name a few.
I bought a whopping 16oz bag (which is why I have plenty left) of this heavily flavored Pu-erh tea.

I made a 24oz pot of tea. Gutsy to make that much, but it’s a coolish afternoon and I’ve been catching up on some DVR saved programming.
Being careful not to over steep, (something I’ve learned in the past 6 months is that over steeping increases the sourness of artificial flavoring) I poured a good mug of dark coffee colored liquor and added cream and sweetening. (I did taste the tea first but decided to go for the complete latte route)
It tasted like flavored tea but not like a Pu-erh. I’ll admit that this was a splendid effort by The English Tea Store at covering up the Pu-erh taste. There is lots and lots of toffee and caramel flavor!
After a cup, I began to find that I had enough! It was too heavily flavored. Cloying! Too artifical and still, a tad bit sour.

My taste in tea has changed. I have to admit to it. And with the stroke of the keyboard and one craggy old finger, the rating is coming down too.

An average little tea.

Second tasting note…a brew for St. Valentine’s Day while listening to Tony Bennett and waiting for some more snow to arrive…(snowkeling right now). My son in San Francisco put me up to Tony Bennett since he’s singing there tonight (heard him at the 50th anniv. of the Golden Gate Bridge years ago…"I left my Heart in San Francisco…ah) anyway…I’m not that sad to be alone today…better than with someone creepy or abusive! So, this strong and muscular Pu-erh swept me off my feet (my daughter says blek tastes like socks but she has 5 little boys at home and 3 girls so everything is socks!). I love Pu-erhs! Smelly good like History and Earth and Culture and Wine Caves (you should smell Winery Caves if you want SMELL! all wet and dark soury and wonderful). The smokiness could cure sausages…and the caramel is just enough…not too sweet and not too strong. Toasty. I could add this when making gravy like people do with coffee ( if you never did this it’s the way to make rich gravy!). The mind is boggling. My husband divorced me when I became disabled a couple of years ago…so sad? Nah…I get to go to Coldstone Creamery tonight and meet up with my grandkids for Ice Cream with it snowing outside…is that great or what! Happy Heart!

I’m falling in love with Pu-erh’s. As a former /hic/coffee…LOVER!!!….I think the appeal of deep, sultry, sexy, smokey Pu-erh has seduced me. This smells like an early morning campfire all smoke and woods (tall trees) with breakfast jacks and maple syrup in the background. What Toffee! Coats your mouth! You can almost smell someones caramely lovely pipe tobacco way off in the distance. Moist. The smoke lingers through the nose. Must be sweetened and add cream in my opinion. I steeped 4 minutes…it is too weak to drink on a shorter steep.

Yum blueberries. No blueberries in Ecuador. : ( Thankfully I can get blueberry tea to make up for it!

This tea is very pretty to look at. Gunpowder tea has always seemed visually appealing to me. It is both interesting and beautiful. The cornflowers are also beautiful. but very scarce. The smell is very much blueberry. Sadly not fresh blueberry, but more a blueberry jam type smell. While not as great as fresh blueberries, blueberry jam is still great.

It is freezing today, so I couldn’t wait to have my hot cup of tea. The brewed tea smelled a bit more like fresh blueberries, I believe that the green tea base helped with this illusion. The plantiness that it adds to the scent really helps it. Unfortunately, I also caught a scent of anise. I have no idea where it came from, but it was undoubtedly there.

Unsweetened it was pretty good. Green tea up front with a fresh blueberry aftertaste. Unfortunately there was still something that lingered in the background reminding me of Anise. When I sweetened it the blueberry became stronger and more enjoyable. The green tea was overtaken, but it wasn’t gone. I enjoyed the subtle vegetable green that it added to the flavor.

It held up decently to a second steep (2min) which was still tasty, just watered down.

Sadly, it doesn’t get a higher score because I got random anise flavor in the brew. I have no idea how or what was making me think this had anise in it, but it didn’t make me happy. It was tame enough that I could enjoy the cup of tea with no major distractions from the phantom flavor.

On a completely unrelated note, my puppy won 2nd place in the bulldog puppy category over the weekend! : ) I was so proud of her!

Tasty standard breakfast blend.

Wow… Today was one of those days that come to and end and you have to pause and think to make sure that everything that happened was for real. I am so hyped up right now, that hopefully typing this up with settle down my hyper mind so that I can get some sleep.

First off, my Dad accidentally broke my favorite tea cup last night. I actually shed a tear for it. It was a gift from my best friend when I left the US, and I can’t buy another one here in Ecuador, so I am going to have to order one and have someone eventually bring it to me. So, my morning cup of tea, had to be prepared in a different cup… : (

To start off my day, hopefully on a more positive note, I had some of this tea. I purchased it from a lady that was selling it at a Christmas fair here in Ecuador. It was random enough to find someone in Ecuador selling loose leaf tea in Ecuador at a Christmas fair that I had to buy it…

The leaves were pretty to look at. I feel that rose petals add a ice delicate touch to almost anything that they are added to. In this case, the only role they played in the blend was visual. I could smell rose at all. It was pretty much all cinnamon with a touch of vanilla/cake smell. Weird, because it doesn’t mention having vanilla in it at all.

The brewed tea smelled like a plastic cinnamon. Yep. If cinnamon were made of plastic, it would smell like this… It wasn’t terrible, just not quite natural. The flavor, thankfully, was a lot better. It reminded me of red hots, and the plastic smell somehow turned into a creamy taste. So, in the end, it turned out to taste like creamy red hots… I like it enough that I had a second cup of it, sweetened with Splenda. Sweet it was pretty good! : )

I wouldn’t buy this again, but I am happy I gave it a chance!

So, after I finished the tea, I went with my boyfriend to buy ice cream, and we randomly ran in to an English Bulldog breeder! So, one thing led to another, and I am now laying in bed with my beautiful French Bulldog (Sencha) and tiny little baby Mona Lisa!!!! So surreal… Sencha is very jealous at the moment, but I really hope that the company will suit her well!

…and that wraps up my surreal day… : )

I got this tea from Culinary Teas, but it’s the same tea. It’s so refreshing. Love the floral sweetness it has. Very nice tea blend base. Love this iced, wonderful for a perk in the morning. It has a nice creaminess to it. I love Nilgiri iced, and with the flavoring, it’s perfection.

I am super happy. Ecstatic. Thrilled. : )

They opened a small tea shop in Ecuador. It isn’t very large, but it is quaint and enjoyable. And honestly, a huge step for tea in Ecuador. I always had to bring all of my tea from the US or Europe whenever someone came to visit! But, now I get to buy some of my own tea, at decent price, right here in Quito!

The tea shop is called Le The, and they sell a decent variety of teas. Most of them flavored, which is all right with me. I asked them what company they imported their tea from, and the store clerk didn’t know. So after I chose a few varieties I came home and went to work on Google! Since they kept the names on the teas I was able to find that all of the teas in the shop came from English Tea Shop! Confirmed! I am so excited! I am going to be able to get some of my tea right in the comfort of my own country! I love trying new teas!

The first tea I tried was this one. I only found it bagged on the site, but I bought it loose leaf. The leaves were small and dark. Didn’t smell very much like maple, but more like a light lapsang souchong. I decided to try it since I loved 52teas pancake tea so much. The blackness of the tea was pretty monotonous, but not really knowing what to expect, I went ahead with my 2 teaspoons for 16oz of boiling water.

The liquor also smelled smokey, and I got a bit worried. I do not like smokey teas. Not at all. They taste like chimney soot to me (sorry to those who enjoy them!)… I decided to go ahead and sweeten it before I tried it, just in case. I used 1 heaping teaspoon of brown sugar. I took my time stirring and dissolving the sugar. I was nervous that it would taste like a smokey sweet mess.

And… Sip… Sip…. Yum!!! I like it! It actually reminds me quite a bit of 52teas pancake blend! Not quite as smooth and a tad bit more smokey, but still enjoyable. It didn’t take me long to finish up my cup with a contented smile on my face. I didn’t get any chimney soot flavor, there was more of a Maple and Camp Fire flavored Cotton Candy thing going on (hope that makes sense!).

I am happy this tea is decent. I am happy that I can go wander around a (even if small) tea shop! And I am happy that I get to write about it and there is a possibility that someone out there has also had the chance to try it!

OK, happy giddy excitedness is all in writing now! : ) I might have to try this tea again and readjust the rating because my excitement might be influencing my taste buds…

This was totally awesome cold-steeped. It was sweet and creamy and citrusy… really very delicious. I really love an Earl Grey Cream iced… there’s something about that combo that is great when combined with cold black tea. The flavors in this one were so bold and strong, and yet not artificial tasting. This seems to be a pretty solid EGC tea.

Yet another from SimplyJenW! Since my throat seems not interested in calming down, lots of hot tea is very appealing right now. A cream Earl Grey is definitely something I haven’t had in a long time, but I do very much enjoy them. The dry leaf on this one smells nicely of bergamot and cream. The bergamot brings out a sourness to the cream, which doesn’t sound very good when I say it like that, but the smell as a whole reminds me a bit of cheesecake. Mmm, bergamot cheesecake.

When it’s brewed it loses most of that sour cream-cheesecake aroma and the cream this time is bolstered by the warm aroma of the black tea, which makes it smell nicely rich. The aroma is actually very well balanced between bergamot, cream and black tea. The flavors are nice on this one as well: citrusy bergamot, smooth, tasty cream. The black tea base is pretty nonremarkable, and I’m wishing perhaps for a rich ceylon note to anchor the bottom, but it’s also not overwhelming or bitter. Overall definitely a nice example of its kind.

This is a very, very good lemon rooibos. Rich, liqueur-like and slightly sweet with a nice deep tang. Wonderful!

A very nice Irish Breakfast, strong, but not overly aggressive. Great value for price.

A very nice, well-balanced Assam at a great price.