RiverTea

Ok, I’m bumping up my rating on this one a few points (from 70 to 75) for a very good reason: this tea appears to be impossible to fuck up.

A few days ago when I first tried it, I thought it tasted pretty bland, and figured that the problem was I steeped it for too short a time. However, precisely because of its blah nature, it seemed like it would be the perfect morning tea when I couldn’t figure out what else to have.

So I made it again this morning, and made sure to add a little extra leaf to the mix to see if that would spice things up. I also told myself that I would steep it for a full 5 minutes instead of 3.

Then I prepared my breakfast… and completely forgot the tea was steeping. When I looked up at the clock, not 5 minutes had elapsed, but 8 or 9. So I both overleafed and oversteeped this thing!

I was trepidatious when I put the first cup to my lips after I finished my breakfast. I was expecting a cloying, bitter mess.

Nope. Perfectly smooth, non-astringent (well, maybe slightly astringent, but only 1 on a scale of 1-10), and still really unassuming.

This is the perfect baby-steps tea for someone who is new to black tea in general. And thusly, I will probably slot it into my regular rotation as I expand more and more into drinking black tea. I have a nice 2nd-flush Darjeeling I plan to whip out tomorrow, but this is pretty good in the meantime.

It looks like I’m slowly and methodically going through all my RiverTeas. This one is Number 3 of 10.

I’ve had a few other Yunnans beside this one – Simple Loose Leaf’s Yunnan Breakfast Black and Rishi’s Golden Yunnan – so it’s interesting to try this in comparison.

I steeped this one for about 3.5 minutes, and it tastes fairly light/smooth. There was no astringency, but also none of the really malty, cocoa notes I’ve been told to expect from Yunnans. I wonder how it will be if I resteep it for 5 minutes.

I will say that the dry leaf looks and smells lovely – it’s sweet and haylike, and looks almost like a black version of Bi Luo Chun because of the golden colour, the long strands, and the slight fuzziness.

If it doesn’t work out, at least I’ve got some perfect tea for my mother, who just wants plain ol’ black tea.

EDIT: I did resteep it for five minutes, but the resulting brew was nothing special. It was a lovely dark brown colour, but there wasn’t much flavour. This seems like a one-steep tea to me, with a longer steep being ideal. In that sense, it would probably make a good, no-nonsense tea for the mornings, since it’s not that challenging. I wonder how it would handle gongfu brewing, though.

Another backlog from last week – and it’s a sipdown.

I wasn’t a fan of this tea brewed up hot, so I thought I’d turn the remainder into iced tea last week. It’s better iced, but I’m still not a fan of the flavours in this blend. It’s got this musty sweetness to it that I don’t like – I really want it to taste juicy instead.

Ah well. Another tea down! And now that it’s officially autumn, my iced tea habits will wind down. I’m still making one last pitcher or two of watermelon mint tea from Davids, but that’s just because I’m in denial.

Ok, I’m in a really weird frame of mind right now. I just finished watching “Oldboy” (the original one from Korea, not the US remake), and Jesus Christ, that movie is effed up. I mean, I knew the plot because of Wikipedia, but still…..oy. I wasn’t expecting…..I don’t know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t that.

So I sipped a pot of this while watching it. It was good, but this tea isn’t quite hitting all of the right buttons for me. I was expecting a tea that was really bright and juicy, something with a nice pop to it, but this one has a darker, smoother flavour. I want to call it “smoky” but that’s not really the right word – just the most fitting one I can think of right now. Maybe “caramelized” is a better fit. I could definitely smell and taste the apple and probably the papaya, but I’ve never had fresh mulberries so I’m not sure how to pick that flavour out.

This is definitely a good tea replacement for dessert, but maybe my head’s just on the wrong way because of that damned movie.

This was an interesting tea. I had hopes for the ginger/pineapple combination, but when i picked it, i didn’t realise that there is both basil and tulsi in this one. As a result, while this is a pleasant enough cup, the ginger and pineapple are dominated by the tulsi. I think i would love this sooooo much if there was no Tulsi – it would make a pretty good tea. And i’m not a tulsi hater, it just bring a particular taste to the table and it’s not what i was looking for in this tea. Still, it’s nice to try a few more teas :)

Another sample from RiverTea. In my opinion they seem to be doing well in the straight black world, fruit teas and white flavoured teas. Everything else seems to be a little hit and miss. Hot, this one had a few pepper notes but not a great deal. For the most part this tastes like a rather generic fruity sort of rooibos. Not a bad cup but rather tasteless…

I received my second box of RiverTeas today and figured i would try all the samples they sent me since that would mean not having to add them to my cupboard since the other half is going over to Cavocorax since it was a joint order :) This one isn’t bad…it’s not as strawberry as i want it to be, but the base isn’t overly bitter and does still come through. It’s more mango than anything, and in my world, that’s not a bad thing…but i did want more strawberry :)

This is interesting and has a lot of flavor. It brewed up bright red from the beet root. There’s no hibiscus in it. Oh, and there were ginormous chunks of fruit in it. It looked like the pictures on websites – like 1 inch chunks of citrus. I bet it would be amazing iced.

I really love this tea. I have reviewed it before but it really puts me in a happy place.

Dinner tomorrow night with Stephanie, looking forward to that! I think half of the fun is deciding which teas to take her.

This was my first choice today for first flavored tea of the day. It just smells so delicious and I really like the base.

In other news, I’m looking for people for end of the month assignments in Yakima, WA, Little Rock AR, Kingston ON, Glen Ellyn IL, Effingham IL, Yuma AZ and Chattanooga TN.

So last night was fun (house full of kids) but I was a little extra tired this morning. I had to fill up the sugar bowl (don’t judge) and I totally stood there and filled up my tea cup full of sugar instead. Definitely needed more caffeine.

If you like Earl Grey, you owe it to yourself to try this tea.

I received my first Rivertea order today. I ordered mainly because of the 50% coupon that went around a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t realize when I ordered that the tea was coming from Germany because the shipping was so reasonable.

The presentation made me feel like I was opening a present. I opened the outer box, and there was gift paper folded over (like you do tissue in a clothing gift), sealed with a “Happy Brewing” sticker. Inside that, the teas were nestled in festive, multicolor packing peanuts. Instead of just bags, the teas were in cardboard cylinder type “tins”, then inside sturdy zip loc bags inside that. I liked that, because I can pull the bag out, enjoy looking at how pretty the tea is, but it lives in something that blocks the light. There were three samples tucked into the box, in sturdy little green opaque zipper bags. They all appealed to me, so I felt that they were handpicked based on my order instead of randomly thrown in. I am looking forward to trying them. Also in the box was a glassine envelope hand tied with a piece of red curling ribbon. Inside that envelope was a green felt leaf. I have no idea what it’s for. It’s big enough to use as a coaster, except that there is a piece cut out of the middle that suggests it’s for something specific.

Anyway, on to this tea. It’s so pretty! Very colorful, like confetti. Smells amazing. And tastes good to boot. I had never had a mango variant of EG, but I really loved this. Every time I took a drink I was making audible “mmm” sounds. My husband thought it was funny. I drank it in record time too. Usually I linger over a cup of tea (and this is an 11 oz cup, not a small one) but this was gone within 10 minutes.

Scheherazade’s Super Sipdown Week! #17

My teaspoon this morning contained a mulberry! At least now I know what they look like :) I used slightly hotter water than last time, and was rewarded with an even more flavourful cup. It was very juicy — primarily papaya with a hint of jasmine and apple. I’m guessing the “other flavour” is mulberry, and is what’s really giving this tea its sparkle. It’s certainly a lovely morning cup!

This was the third sample with my first RiverTea order. Based on this experience, it definitely won’t be the last! The packaging was fabulous — it’s probably the most nicely put together package I’d received in a long time. The free samples and the complementary spoon were welcome surprises, too.

Anyway, the tea. This smells wonderful dry, and equally wonderful brewed. It’s sweet, with a strong note of fruit and berries. The dry leaf contains generously sized pieces of papaya, and pretty blue and yellow petals among the white peony leaves. The taste is luscious, rich caramel and mulberry, with sweet, juicy papaya. The white tea base adds a slightly floral, slightly peachy note, and there’s also a hint of apple. It’s very, very creamy. Drinking this is almost on a par with eating some decadent dessert!

I’d heard a lot about this one, so I’m glad to have had the opportunity to try it. It’s definitely one I’d consider adding to a future order. There’s definitely going to be one — I can feel it coming on already!

After yesterday’s black tea kick, I felt like having this tea this morning. However, I have to admit that it’s so strongly scented and flavoured (with the rose coming forward more, rather than the fruit) that this is definitely only a once-in-a-while tea.

I didn’t even finish off the final cup in the teapot. Today’s been a bit hectic.

Backlog from yesterday:

I tried making this tea again and slightly overleafed it, making sure to reduce the number of rosebuds I put into the infuser. I also added some agave nectar into the teapot.

It was still very fragrant and rosy, and still not very strawberry-ish. I have to admit that the agave nectar didn’t help much, though.

I think in the future I’ll just stick to making single cups of this rather than a whole teapot. It’s nice, but definitely a bit more fragrant than I was expecting. I should also try seeing whether it’s good at 85C rather than 80. Bumping the rating back down.

And now I try the first tea from my very first RiverTea order!!!

I chose this one because it’s extremely fragrant. You can smell it from outside its cardboard canister (by the way, I agree with everyone else in that RiverTea’s packaging is absolutely lovely). It smells heavily of roses and fruit, and also has a sort of tangy aroma that smells like champagne – I guess that’s where the natural flavouring comes in. The smell definitely matches the name of the tea.

The leaf itself is dark green, almost brown, and looks like a sencha, and mixed in with large chunks of the other ingredients – you can definitely see pink peppercorns, white rosebuds, and huge slices of strawberry.

I followed the steeping instructions – 1 tsp per cup, 80C, 2-3 minutes – and got tea with a very rosy scent and golden colour. The champagne and rose flavours, and perhaps a very very soft hint of the pepper, are noticeable in the taste, but I’m not getting much strawberry. Perhaps it’s really meshed well with the rose. I wonder if adding some sweetener would make the strawberry come out more.

Anyways, I have a huge pile of this to experiment with. It smells so lovely that I can’t wait to try it in other ways.

Scheherazade’s Super Sipdown Week! #10

I like the pairing of strawberry and grapefruit here. It’s unusual, but it actually seems to work pretty well. Bitter and sweet at the same time, with a pepperiness from the honeybush. It’s pleasantly juicy, very fruity…potentially one I’d pick up with a future RiverTea order.

This sample came with my first RiverTea order. It was another I’d considered while putting my order together, and another I finally decided against as I was trying to limit myself a little. My cupboard is out of control, after all. Still, it worked out because I got to give this one a try anyway!

I gave this 5 minutes in boiling water. The liquor was a medium honey brown-gold, and something in the scent reminded me a lot of 52 Teas Strawberry Pie Honeybush. A good omen, because I loved that one!

To taste, this one is very fruity. Grapefruit is the main flavour, and it adds a sharp, almost bitter, tang to the overall flavour. The strawberry is mild, but it’s there, adding a sweet and juicy undertone. The honeybush is also sweet, but otherwise remains an unobtrusive base. There’s no woodiness here. I wasn’t sure about this one at first, but as it cooled I got more of the fruit flavours, and it actually turned into a pretty successful cup. The grapefruit is a nice counterpoint to the sweetness of the honeybush and strawberry, and the combination works really well. I have a three-cup sample, so I chose to brew this hot to start with, but I’m pretty sure it would work equally well cold brewed. If I add it to a future RiverTea order (and there’s a good chance that I will!), I’ll definitely be trying it cold. A genuinely lovely, caffeine free option, and a welcome addition to my pre-bedtime rotation.

Sipdown (147/153)!

I have a little bit of backlog to get through; honestly not a lot though. I haven’t done much tea drinking these last few days for a variety of reasons; the primary one being a weird work schedule outside of my normal sleeping pattern which has just resulted in my being completely exhausted the last few days. I’ve almost literally woken up, gone to work, come home and gone straight to sleep… Boo!

But anyway, I’m definitely stealing an idea from aisling of tea here because I totally timed drinking this tea (once it had arrived) with it also being my 1500th tasting note! She did the same thing for her 1000th tasting note because, you know, celebrate with “Celebration”. How crazy is that!? I think pretty crazy. 1500 tasting notes since joining Steepster less than a year ago! When I joined Steepster I had no idea how involved I would get in this community, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!

As for the tea, dry is definitely smelled like juicy strawberries and visually it looked almost identical to Tea Desire’s Buddha Bamboo (my favourite bamboo tea thus far) but with red flowers instead of yellow. And shit are they red! Super red! Steeped up, and it tastes pretty similar to Buddha Bamboo as well but that’s to be expected I think; they’re both strawberry bamboo teas. The main difference that I recall is that this was creamier and BB is definitely juicier/more “punchy”. But both are good! I think it would depend whether you like punchy things or creamy teas on which would be better to stock. In this case I think I lean towards the Tea Desire blend. I think it’s the addition of red currants that sells me.

The rest of this is going to VariaTEA whom I fully expect will enjoy it because I know how much she, too, enjoys Buddha Bamboo. Gotta share the tea wealth!

Scheherazade’s Super Sipdown Week! #4

I used up the last of this sample yesterday evening. I like the mango and green banana notes, but on the whole it’s probably not for me. The base is a touch heavy, there maybe wasn’t quite enough vanilla, and I was really looking for more fruitiness. It’s not bad by any means, but I’ve definitely tried more successful tropical blacks. A pleasant cup nonetheless.

I received this as a sample with my first RiverTea order. I’ve had two cups so far, with a third remaining in the bag, so a pretty generous sample! I did actually think about adding 50g of this to my order, but I decided against it at last minute. Based on the sample, that was probably the right decision for me. It’s nice, but it’s not quite as punchy as I’d hoped.

The dry leaf contains huge pieces of cinnamon stick, and equally huge whole chamomile blossoms. The chamomile blossom actually unfurled while brewing, and it was pretty to watch all of the petals folding back. I was slightly concerned that the cinnamon would overpower everything else, but it didn’t. I gave 1 tsp of leaf approximately three minutes in boiling water and added a splash of milk.

First sip didn’t taste of much to me — the honey-like sweetness of chamomile, a swirl of spice, generic black tea. I left it to cool a while, and when I returned to it the flavours I was looking for really came through. There’s definitely mango, and there’s also quite a lot of banana. I wasn’t expecting to be able to taste the banana at all, so it was a pleasant surprise! The vanilla adds a touch of creaminess and a sweetness to the overall cup, but it’s very much a background flavour. There’s a lot going on in terms of flavour…maybe a little too much at times. I do wish the mango was a little stronger and jucier, but it’s a pretty nice cup as it stands. I’m definitely glad to have had the opportunity to try it! A good first experience with RiverTea — on the strength of this one alone I’m looking forward to trying the rest of my order!

Dude.

I loved this.

The first one of my RiverTea order that I decided to try, and incidentally the only one I ordered which wasn’t fruity.

I am almost regretting not buying more than 50g. Almost, but the weight of my tea cupboard looming over me makes me ok with not having more.

It’s sweet and toasty and nutty and it’s a great example of what good (complementary) flavoring can do to a green tea….since green teas aren’t even my favorite.

Sample sipdown!

Got this generous sized sample from Cavo, and I have been drinking it every now and then until I finished it this weekend at my cousin’s cottage.

At first I wasn’t sure I how I felt, but now I’m regretting not ordering some with my last RiverTea order.

It’s not incredibly flavorful, but I realized that for breakfast all I want is a good sturdy tea that I can throw some milk in and just enjoy, simple, no fussing. This weekend I had brought this and a bunch of flavored teas to sipdown, and I found myself reaching for this one more than anything. Which is both because it was decent and because I’m not as keen on flavoured teas as I used to be, gotta mix it up! There’s something comforting to me about just drinking straight black tea with milk. Like my old Tetley days except 1000 times better.

I don’t necessarily think this is so special that I need it, but I will be keeping my eyes open for strong, easy black teas to try!

Thank you, Cavocorax!

I was sure I’d reviewed this before but I guess Steepster ate it. Or I lost my mind.

Sipdown (150/156)!

Woke up early this morning (technically afternoon) so I was able to sneak not one but two cups of tea in since I started work later than usual anyway. I made this one of them and I’m only just now realizing that I ended up having two banana teas for breakfast…

I’m sad the sample of this in my latest RiverTea was only a cups worth of leaf; I’d have really liked to share this with VariaTEA because I have a sinking feeling she’d have liked it better than I did. That’s not to say I disliked it though; I thought it was exactly like it had been described to me by Sil many times: liquid banana bread. Who doesn’t love banana bread? Crazy people – that’s who.

But that said I kept mentally comparing it to Tea Desire’s Banana Tea Chocolate Cream and it fell short to TD’s blend every time because of the lack of chocolate and the fact I found it less sweet; and if I remember correctly those were things that she didn’t like about BTCC so I think she’d like this better. The oilyness of the tea liquor was still there though. That trait doesn’t personally bug me, but I know it bothers others.

So yeah; liquid banana bread for sure! Just not something I want to stock when I still have BTCC stocked up and so easily available. But this is one of many RiverTea blends I’ve added to list of ones I’ve tried and it was a great, peaceful morning tea so there’s no regrets with requesting it as one of my samples.

Also leaving a link to a song here because it’s what I was listening to this morning and, again, I’m only now realizing how fitting it was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Graa_Vm5eA&list=PLAB044185EF279688&index=9

I’m pretty well obsessed with this singer right now, and this album in particular. So good.