Liquid Proust Teas

So, I’m used to Earl Grey from tea bags, yeah? Well before my loose-leaf revelation, back when I was more of a feckless youth, I was near completely apathetic to tea in general, and mainly surrounded by teabags and barley tea that my grandmother brewed in profusion due to a lingering mistrust of plain drinking water from her own younger years.

Despite the near 99% loss/lack of taste that was the typical result of brewing a tea bag from what I remember, I actually always liked Earl Grey. I loved the citrusy perfume, the bold contrast and harmony with the heavy smell of the black tea, the sense of somehow irrefutably English pomp it seems to evoke. These lovely promises of smell never really carried through into the brew very well (because… teabags), but if Earl Grey were just a fragrance, I would be all over that, and I remain a fan of the blend’s concept, if not always the taste.

Honestly, this is not really what I think of when I think of Earl Grey. I’ve never actually tried Lady Gray, but I imagine the lightness, intensely floral perfume, softer balance, and delicate taste are probably more closely matched with Lady Gray (just going off the name) than it does the classic Earl Grey, which I have always associated with a bolder, stronger kind of flavor and elegance.

Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy it, though, it’s a floral, sticky, elegantly hot mess of a black tea in quite a few good ways and the way it displays all the elements of its blend impresses me. The dry leaf is beautiful, the scattered feathers of pink-white amaranth petals and pomegranate seeds catch the eye coyly against the dark brown lengths of leaf while filling the room promisingly with their strong scent.

Tastewise, the bergamot is light, it blends into the tea subtly, making a citrusy tinge off of the sweetly sour pomegranate. The black tea base is lightly astringent and quite giving and friendly to other flavors, making room for the other ingredients to play out their roles while providing a good backdrop.

If pushed hard, I felt the tea was bolder and headier, although the perfume was too strong for me. Steeped more lightly and quickly, I find it to be an extremely elegant and layered experience, very ethereal and sweet, like a memory of sipping tea alone in a flower garden as petals dance by in a wind. The flavors transform and slip away quickly, both in the mouth and across resteeps (in a gaiwan, because my western pot is a pain to clean), adding to that sense of fleeting nostalgia, I think.

All in all, while not what I would be looking for if I was looking for an Earl Grey particularly, this tea is pleasant, quite interesting, and very classy (what I would think of as a “high tea” sort of tea). It isn’t something I would drink regularly (and it also seems to have an oddly nostalgic effect on me whenever I drink it), but I think it would be well suited to drink during spring. Perhaps during a picnic. Or while staring out the window blankly at the backyard. Or while idly contemplating the sky. As long as it’s a relatively contemplative and tranquil space where I can allow myself to be captivated by the unfolding of the perfume into the pomegranate and flowers and appreciate the change of textures as it goes from stickily sour to gently lingering in the sweetly dry finish.

Well kids, today is National Coffee Day (so I’ve read). My wife is normally the bigger coffee drinker out of the two of us, mainly because all that caffeine doesn’t work for me as well. Since she has been gone, I wasn’t really feeling like making a pot to myself and it’s been raining enough to cause a flood warning so I didn’t want to go out specifically for a coffee.

Next best thing? A tea with a coffee element! And lo and behold I have this here tea in my arsenal. I liked this tea well enough the last time I drank it. I like it even more this time. It is a lighter tea, both in the color it brews up and in the taste. But the taste is really well done. A nutty, slightly smokey (not Lapsang smoke but more an earthy smoky of a Sumatra coffee) and very smooth flavor is produced. I did three steeps (2 minutes, 4 minutes, and 5 or 6 minutes) and each one was really consistent with the flavor.

Second time I’ve brewed this and it remains and unexpected but pleasant flavored tea.

Interesting. This tastes kind of like a VERY light roasted peanut butter coffee with a hint of oolong. Or maybe it is light buttery oolong with a hint of roasted peanut butter. I can’t tell from sip to sip. There is a sort of intertwining rotating dance going on here and neither partner can decide who will lead. That is not a bad thing. You get different, albeit similar, flavors with each sip.

A very creative, unique, and fun tea.

This is tasty stuff, though I’m not getting much french toast. It’s more of a vanilla dessert. I wonder how it compares in the different batches.

Just a thought: AQ2T did really well with the maple syrup taste in their Syrupy Pumpkin Pancake blend. If you guys ever wanted to collaborate, I’d recommend adding some of their syrup flavoring to this, and I think it would be perfect.

Either way, I’ll be buying some more of this when it’s gone.

Really sad to have drank the last of this today. Was still delicious. Le sigh.

BRAVO, SIR. Bravo. 205 degrees for 3 minutes and I got a chocolate treat.

LOVE the color
Nice aroma!
Yummy taste!
IG snapshot:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJf6mFcANiZ/

Just received my LP tea order. I went for a darker mix (FT Dianhong, Dark Kitchen Sink, Jin Xuan and Coffee, Rummy Pu, Laoshan Chocolate Genmaicha, Swanns Way) because.. well.. I love dark tea. I sense that Andrew picked up on that and so he added this tea into my order. While I absolutely love the process (I love anything and everything birch), the CTC tea kind of makes me nervous.

So, I picked this one first. I followed directions and used 4g (1g over but just barely) and brewed it for 45 seconds. I set the temp for 200F just because I wasn’t sure and again, I didn’t want to get the tannic astringency and bitterness I normally associate with CTC black tea.

I have to say that this is WAY smoother than I thought. It has a fairly classic black tea flavor but I detect no tannic bitterness. As an added bonus, there is a faint birch flavor at the end of the swallow on the back of the tongue. Having had birch beer/pop and birch flavored candy, I am pretty familiar with the flavor. I’ll be interested to see if I push the steep time and temperature if I can coax out more birch flavor or if that just makes the tea go into bitter territory.

Second steep of 1.5 minutes yields less birch but still a good smooth black tea. Color me surprised. My rating for this is absolutely taking into consideration the fact that it is a CTC tea. I suspect if I had this experience with a whole leaf tea I might be a little more underwhelmed but this certainly outdid my expectations.

First tea out of the TTB round 5! I was really hoping to like this one as I do enjoy the occasional rum-laden beverage, however this tea is definitely not for me. Thanks LP for including it in the box though as I really wanted to try it.

This is a sad sipdown. The end of a great tea blend. Sweet, this, rich and earthy. A nicely balanced melange of flavors. I’m gonna miss this tea.

This is a very nice dessert tea. Chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, smooth, with nuts at the end. Some earthy puerh comes through on the second steep. I would have steeped it more, but I fell asleep before I could do so.

While I kept meaning to review this…. Pu’erh and oolong got in my way :p
This was an enjoyable tea to create because I talked with Tealet for the black tea base which is quite unique. The idea came from making an earl grey tea that wasn’t too brisk or awkwardly bad quality flavoring. Wasn’t too hard to do that as I had good results with the peach and bergamot oolong I did last year.
Anyways, this tea excels at what I wanted. Great citrus undertones with a feel while the black tea is smooth and goes well with breakfast. I’ve drank this a few times during breakfast and haven’t found an issue with pairing which makes me happy because my best friends favorite type of tea is earl grey. Really looking forward to giving her some as a gift.

This is a mild tea. It’s not special, but it’s certainly not bad. What I really like about it is the teeny tiny rolled up tea balls.

I also can see the root beer taste like Daylon said in his review with stronger steeps.

Sipdown

I found an unopened bag of this last weekend and drank the rest of it on Friday (delayed note, for sure. Ha-ha). The last bit of this was grandpa styled. I even added the vanilla bean to the cup, which made it excellent . I don’t venture into flavored teas that often, but I’m glad that going through my stash allowed me the opportunity to revisit this tea for one last time… :)

Backlog

A tea treat for everyone, apparently.

My wife and friend had both sat down to drink this as we celebrated the new “tea lounge” and study. We were able to each have an experience where neither of us disliked a tea, but had shared similarities in flavor as well as appreciation for this blend.

I realize, after have read LP’s Ode to the new adventure(s)/end of tea blending, as well as have spoken to him in person on said adventure(s), I’ve come to the realization that Liquid Proust Teas will be the new Butiki….However, unlike Butiki, I’ve had the opportunity to sip, share, and enjoy LP’s blends. So, not only do we celebrate the new room where my wife and I can study/read/write/sing/jam out on the drum set/listen to vinyls/have coffee/talk/etc., but we celebrate the new adventures for LP, our family, and friends as well.

Notes (wife): French toast without the cinnamon

Notes (friend): French toast with lots of vanilla

Notes (me): Mmmmmm

I had received this yesterday, but was too immobile after work to make any. However, I must admit that this has been a fun tea to drink. I’m currently on the third steep; which really comes to life with the French Toast experience. I can taste a lot of the “toasted nutmeg bread smothered in vanilla maple syrup” in this steep; which is an accomplishment for LP, since he’s the food-tea combo inspired artist who made French Toast tea.

I will have to extend this note later on, but I want to point out something that occurred to me only a moment ago….A few weeks back, I had the pleasure to visit with LP, to drink tea, eat, and share many thoughts with him on many subjects. However, during the tea gathering, an idea was brought up about pairing food with tea. I believe that Andrew (LP) mentioned that there’s very little known about food & tea together, as much as there is with either wine or beer paired with food. Yet, here is an artist who has accomplished something so complex, unique, complicated, and undiscovered—and with his blends—has made a whole new kind of tea. He uses quality leaf with quality ingredients. And although I’ve never disliked anything thus far (I haven’t tried the Mediterranean Chicken Tea, as I’ve heard/read it called) while drinking LP’s stuff. And with that said, this is why I’ll always support his projects/teas no matter the cause. He’s a great individual with a unique talent; to which I’m happily able to give my monies over to him with the hopes that he can achieve his tea blends and/or dreams!

This tea was okay. It mostly tasted like a root beer flavored black tea. I expected something heavier, but I got a light cup. The tea did have a smoother quality that I usually associate with Dian Hongs, but the cup had a decent amount of dry tannin. I personally did not get a lot of flavor, but I did not think that was horrible. I just don’t think it compares to LP’s other teas.

Lovely tasting cold brew. Took me no time to drink it all. Juicy watermelon. Tastes true to eating watermelon, no artificial taste present. Oolong comes through as a creamy base. Rebrewing the leaves.

Another sample from TTB puerh plus.

This smells wonderful, and very much like jackfruit. My first steep was good, what I would expect from a fruity sheng. Very aromatic, with just a hint of bitterness. 2nd steep still had an amazing aroma and now there’s a bit of mouth drying astringentcy. 3rd steep tasted the fruitiest and continued with a bit of astringency. Later steeps mellowed out and got sweeter as the steep times increased into multiple minutes. Very enjoyable!

I feel like this tea presented itself as a series of dessert flavors. What I got first was a strong brown bread flavor—the bitter earthy kind. There’s a figgy, raisiny kind of flavor that lends sweetness to the entire mix. I also got dark chocolate, but the creaminess of the brew made it taste almost like a chocolate fudge topping. Sometimes I got marshmallows, which switched my mindset from bread pudding to s’mores. . .fun!

As it cools, the vanilla makes itself more well-known, and many of the other flavors drop away. Now I’m drinking a creamy vanilla pudding, but that fig-raisin flavor is still hanging around.

Last of the LP teas! It’s been such a chocolatey, desserty kind of day for me. Happy Birthday LP!

Now that I’ve brewed it, the liquid smells like burnt chocolate pudding and yams, which sounds disgusting, but I am a fan of. I love overcooking chocolate pudding and eating the skin off it.

The brew actually tastes pretty simple. It’s sweet, with a strong flavor of sweet potatoes. These sweet potatoes have the skin on, as that earthy flavor is pretty strong. The cocoa comes up next with a sharp buzz on the finish. A sweet, very strong raisin flavor comes back up the palate after swallowing. I was surprised not to get any of the nuts or rice in the flavor.