Granville Island Tea Co

I first had Early Grey with cardamom at a friend’s house. I thought it was divine but I hadn’t been able to find something similar for years. Finally I found it.

The tea smells very pungent. It put me off at first. Steeped by itself, it’s not really that great. However, it’s delicious when you add milk and sugar to it. Very smooth and aromatic (but not overpowering). Ultimate “roundness” in my mouth which I really enjoy :)

Steeped at 205 degree F.

My boyfriend came across this cool recipe for tea-infused creme brulée – it actually called for earl grey tea but I couldn’t find any of that variety (I’m sure I’ve got some somewhere, it’s just buried in the depths of my cupboard) so we decided to use this tea instead. The result was quite delicious with the creme brulée bringing out the sweet grenadine flavours and mellowing out the tannins in the tea. Yummy!

It goes decently enough with milk, as it helps take offthat astringent black tea edge. But it also kills a lot of the fruity grenadine flavour, unfortunately. This tea might be better drunk plain with a bit of sweetener, maybe. I’ll see about trying it that way next time.

My only other experience with Monk’s Blend is from a rather unfortunate (and yucky) teabag so I wanted to see how the real blend tasted. The tea was slightly sweet-smelling but not heavily so, scented with vanilla and fruity notes (from the grenadine I’m assuming).

The flavours are not terribly bold and I get the impression that the tea base is supposed to take centre stage and that the flavouring is more a compliment than anything else, as opposed to an actual flavoured tea where you mostly get the flavouring rather than the tea.

The result in this case is a mild, smooth-tasting tea with little astringency and enhanced with notes of sweet pomegranate (some people have said that grenadine tastes more like cherry, but this one at least is distinctly pomegranate to me) and hints of vanilla. Not bad.

I got this tea from Jillian and decided to steep it in my Sorapot.

[It was very pretty – I’ll need to take pictures next time.]

First off, one of the things that I absolutely love is the short steep time, because it means that I don’t have to wait that long in between cups. I got a pretty good rhythm going, lengthening the steep time by maybe 15 seconds or so on each subsequent cup, stopping at four. I could have gone longer, I suspect, because the flavor wasn’t weakening for me – a very good sign.

This tea was buttery, with some sweetness that sashayed around and swished through the aftertaste. At times, it had a very pronounced vegetal quality to it, which is something that I’m somewhat indifferent on. For me, it didn’t stick around consistently, and I consider that to be a saving quality. It had a darkness that colored the flavor of the tea, which keeps me from wanting to compare this to a Formosan Oolong since it had some similar qualities.

Overall, I found it wholly enjoyable, so thanks for sending this to me, Jillian! I look forward to many steeps in my future.

Finished up what was left in my stash…doubly strong…still good!

This hits the spot this morning! YUM! Nice even taste.

I have a lot of back logging to do from the weekend but will do that later.
I’m having this tea again this morning because it seems I am a little low on black and black flavors…might have to revisit some Adagio’s today. I am expecting some goodies in the mail from a non-steepster source so once I get that package I will break in to it ASAP.

I received a lovely package from Jillian and this is the first tea from her goodie-mailing that I am trying and it tastes pretty. Yes! You can taste the prettiness! LOL – The rose is just enough to be floral but identifiably rose moreso than just your average floral taste. Thanks Jillian!!!!

Five minutes might have been a bit too much for the CTC tea in this blend. I added some milk and I am picking up a trace of vanilla this time, but it’s an accent rather than the focus of the tea. It’s not a horrible tea but it doesn’t really do much for me – I think I’ll put it up for ‘adoption’.

This tea is an interesting mix of regular-looking black tea and CTC teas. It still smells sweet and vanilla-y when it’s dry but when I was steeping it the smell actually reminded me of Adagio’s Sweet Potato Pie!

The taste is also still rather astringent even though I added some milk.

Backlogging from this morning:
The vendor told me what’s in this tea blend but unfortunately I see to have forgotten it all. I’m catching a slight vanilla scent in the dry leaves mixed with what I think of as the standard tea smell.

Taste-wise it was light but at the same time rather astringent, so I’m thinking maybe darjeeling or a nepalese tea might be involved. I’ll experiment with it, but so far I’m feel rather ‘meh’ about it.

A longer steeping time made the first steep in particular taste fuller and it gave the tea some slightly buttery notes.

I got three good steeps out of this tea and I’m pretty sure I could have gotten at least one or two more. The flavour has great staying power.

The tea looks quite similar to the Ti Kwan Yin I got from the same company, although these leaves are rolled up a bit smaller. The dry leaves of both also have a sort of spinachy scent to them, although I think the Tung Ting’s is a bit lighter (it’s hard to compare, I just sent away the last of my Ti Kwan Yin so I’m going by memory and my old tasting notes).

The first steep (1 min) is really only enough to get the leaves wet and to encourage them to unfurl. So the resulting liquid is quite thin and light; floral in flavour with a hint of sweet bakeyness on the end.

With the 2nd steep (2 mins) we get into the real deal. The tea starts off delicately floral, and then a warm, fruity flavour takes over, finished off by very light bakey notes. The aftertaste is somewhat floral too, I think.

I think I’ll go for third steep after this. :)

The scent of this tea is quite floral, I can smell it across the (albit rather small) kitchen, almost as though it’s a bouquet of fresh flowers rather than a cup of tea.

The flavour carries strong floral hints aswell, but there’s also a bit of a light, cooked fruit flavour aswell. It’s very light and smooth on the tongue with no astringency that I can find.

I’m picking up just the very faintest hint of smoke this morning. It’s a nice morning tea IMO for those who want the wake-up but not the harsh taste that some of the Indian teas like Assam tend to pack. This is a very smooth-tasting tea that doesn’t really feel like it needs milk or sugar added to it.

EDIT: It resteeps nicely too.

This is such a complex, full-bodied tea. It makes me eager to try other Keemuns to see if they’re anything like this one.

I made this my morning wake-up cup of tea. Apparent English Breakfast tea was once pure Keemun instead of the blend that it is now. I could see that, this cup packs enough of kick to help me shake the sleep from my brain.

The scent of this tea is rather unimpressively tea-like – although I did notice that it’s stronger than, for instance, a Ceylon. The flavour reminds me quite strongly of a milder version of Adagio’s Black Dragon Pearls with distinct notes of tanin and cocoa.

Not bad at all. :)

My order from Teaspring.com is waiting for me at the post office, yay!!!

… I wonder what I bought…? I can’t for the life of me remember what’s in it. I do sure hope there’s Tie Guan Yin, because this is the last of the good stuff that Jillian sent me. Unfortunately what with the closing times my local post office has, I can’t pick it up until wednesday. (Yes, I could probably find an order confirmation in my inbox and check what I bought, but let me have my little game, please.)

So now I’m still waiting for… uh… Well, I ordered from Nothing But Tea yesterday, so I know I’m waiting for that. And I seem to recall placing an order with 52teas a while ago. I think. I was definitely at the site, so the question remains, did I buy something or did I change my mind? (And again, if I did, I wonder what I bought?)

Just in case I didn’t buy any Tie Guan Yin (oh my gosh how will I cope if I didn’t???) I am savouring the last of this cup. There’s a reason it’s named after a goddess, I’m just saying!

Yummilicious!

Third steep of yesterdays leaves. It’s a mix of one part having tons of pre-christmas stuff to do, one part being lazy and one part wish to wring as much out of these leaves as I can.

First cup is a bit thin. It could have done with a ‘crutch’ or a slightly longer steep. The second cup will invariably get that, given my brewing method of leaving the leaves loose in the pot, so we’ll see if it makes a difference.

I would like to say that the tea had gained a sweet note, but to be honest I think that’s just the after-effects of the piece of chocolate I just ate…

Second cup with a significantly longer steep is better. It still has some of that baked flavour left, but I want to repeat the statement that it tastes like how bees look, because I’m picking up a small note of strong honey underneath.

Okay, that’s the morning tea. I’m going to get started on a to-do list and then my numerous chores.

A proper pot of tea now, another Jillian tea.

I suggested this one on my ‘wishlist’ for her not because I was wildly curious about it, but because Tie Kuan Yin (which this is) is my most favourite type of oolong ever. I more or less knew what I would get, but I just couldn’t pass it over without at least asking.

The leaves look a bit darker than I remember of this type of oolong, but then I remembered that when I’ve bought it from Teaspring in the past, I’ve always gone for the jade variety. So the leaf difference is pretty obvious then, isn’t it? They have a slightly smoky note to the smell. Not very much, just a little bit. Apart from that they smell fresh. Leafy. Planty. A living plant, not a dead leaf.

It brews up very light in colour and almost lime-green. I checked Jillians notes briefly and since she seems to have used a shorter steeping time than I normally would I thought it best to follow suit on the first time. There is plenty of aroma though. A lovely, leafy, almost floral smell that makes me think green thoughts. (Not green tea thoughts, just thoughts that are green. This is a very difficult concept to explain. Sometimes it’s just as if thoughts have colours.)

Mmmm yummy! I suddenly understand, I think, what you lot mean when you say something has a baked taste. That’s another one that I’ve seen a lot of people use, and I’ve never been able to put my head around it. I totally get it now, I think. There is a lot of it. It both makes me think of baked goods and it also makes me think of leaves and greenery, and I can’t decide which is more dominant. And bees. This tea tastes sort of like how bees look. Please don’t make me try to explain that.

Yes, it’s summerly and springly and still my favourite type oolong in the whole world.

I feel like such a tea fiend, carefully heating my water in a temperature-controlled kettle and trying out my cool, new ultra-fine mesh filter. No sludge at the bottom of the cup – yay!