Samovar

This is an interesting pairing. A rustic flavor to it that is woodsy, nutty, earthy and slightly vegetative. There is kind of a nutmeg and clove taste in the background too. Sweet, but not a sugary or honey-like sweetness, but also not the saccharine-like sweetness from rooibos. This is more of a toasty tasting sweetness.

Not a lot of bitterness to it, not a lot of sweetness. Just a pleasant cuppa!

I wasn’t certain what to do with this tea. The directions on the package definitely cause some confusion. First, the website mentions brewing at lower temps, but there’s no mention of this on the package. (Space, I know, but at least indicate there’s an option.) Being the rule follower that I am, well, except with reading the ending of books first, I went with the package instructions and, boy, do I regret it. (Lots of commas in that sentence.)

Dry tea smells really nice. Slightly toasty with a crisp scent.

Anyway, I followed the instructions on the packet. Boiling water rinse to “awaken the leaves” – yeah, they put it within quotation marks, too. Discard. Then steep with more boiling water. It started looking really dark, so instead of waiting the two to three minutes, I stopped at one. I’m really glad I did or it probably would have been undrinkable. It’s strong. It dries my mouth and makes my tongue feel picky. It tastes like boiled raisins mixed in vegetables. It’s not floral or sweet at all. It is interesting, though, and not as horrible as it sounds in description. There is complexity to it as well and I find myself still sipping. I think part of the disappointment is reading about a fabulous sounding tea, only to have it turn into boiled veggies. I really wish I had tried this at the lower temperature. It would be interesting to do a comparison.

I received this from Geoff via seykayay — thank you both!

As everyone else has said, this is quite a unique tea (thanks LiberTeas for enlightening me on italics). The closest tea to it in my experience is Mellow Monk’s Top Leaf. No, of course that’s an entirely different tea. However, this as well as the top leaf opened with a very strong earthy note that to me, honestly made me think of their growing regions (both of which, Hawaii and Aso, are volcanic).

Besides that strong earth ‘volcanic’-seeming flavor, I felt like it was pretty smokey. People have mentioned it being like grilled fruit, but I unfortunately didn’t get the fruit part. I detected a very subtle aroma of fruit in the wet leaves (which yes they were pretty, whole, and large), and immediately hoped it would be present in the flavor/aroma of the tea. Alas, I pretty much got the grilled part and none of the sweet or fruit.

It was a little starchy after the grilled/smokiness faded. Unlike other people, this actually went for 3 full steepings: 1TB leaf, 4oz water (each time), 4 mins, 2 mins, and 5 mins.

Being that this is quite an expensive tea, I wouldn’t buy it because I didn’t love it (but I did enjoy it). At the same time, it was really a fun one to get to try. Thanks again for those who shared with me!

Quite excellent. Smooth with enlightening aromas.

First impressions -

Smell – This is Ocean of Wisdom mixed with Lapsang Souchong.

Looks – Same as smell, but in general this is a wickedly evil looking tea with its general red and orange hues mixed in with very black leaves.

Taste – The smokiness of this tea is definitely the prominent flavour here. If you’re not a fan of smokey teas, you need not read further. I’m getting some hints of the roobios, though at this point (while the tea is still very hot) it’s more of an aftertaste. We’ll see if that changes in any way as it cools.

This morning, I decided to try something new. I wanted to get away from the flavored teas having ingested way too many yesterday. So, I took out Samovar’s Four Seasons Oolong. I set it up in the Breville for this morning, which means that I didn’t do a rinse. Boiling/2 min 30 sec.

The scent of the dried leaves is woodsy, but not overwhelmingly so. The aroma, once brewed, is much more floral in nature. It almost has a hint of the milk oolong scent in it as well, buttery. The taste is nice. Floral, definitely. I can taste magnolias, that stiff, slightly bitter taste. The oolong tea is nice. It’s strong enough to discern among the floral notes. I do not taste any fruitiness or butter taste. It’s good, delicious even.

Wow.

Wooow.

I mean, I love peppermint and all, but this is crazy. This is my third (and final) Yerba Mate from Samovar, and what a way to top it off. I’m going to have to experiment with this more to get more of the Yerba Mate flavour out (the peppermint is overpowering, but I’m not chalking that as a complaint because I love the stuff).

That’s really all that can be said at this time. I’m just enjoying this one.

So after trying Sweet Yerba Mate the other day, I gave this variant a try.

I can definitely taste the lack of licorice in this one, and the addition of green tea in it’s place. Mostly the same comments to be said about this one, except instead of a sweet taste I’m getting something a little bit more bitter. Perhaps next time I should try letting the water cool closer to a green tea temp before infusing, even though Samovar recommends boiling water for this one.

This one did not have the typical “fishy” smell before brewing, so I thought it might be better than my last Pu-Erh. Once brewed, the familiar smell returned, all though it was not nearly as overpowering. The flavor was good, very smooth and mellow. No sweetness, no bitterness, just a slight earthy tone. Overall a good tea, and the best pu-erh I’ve had, but it still has the smell.

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Well this was definitely a new experience.

My first foray into the world of Yerba Mate. I recently got interested in a few varieties from Samovar, but I wanted to go with the “original” before trying any deviants.

First of all, portions of this tea is so fine that not even my laser cut infuser could keep it all in. So I can imagine that my first infusion is going to taste different from subsequent ones, but we shall see.

First impressions are that it’s very grassy, but not as bad as some other people had made it seem. There’s a very sweet, grassy initial taste that leaves behind an interesting aftertaste, almost slightly bitter in nature.

As a black tea fan, I can actually say that I like this. I haven’t gotten a chance to see how good it is with multiple infusions, but at least the first infusion was bursting with flavour.

Mmmm…this tea is delicious. It has just the right amount of jasmine, especially noticeable in the scent and the aftertaste, without being overpowering. The silver needleness is still there and is quite nice. The tea brews darker than I expected and is very smooth and relaxing, but still nice to look forward to first think in the morning. Thanks Samovar…I’ll enjoy this tin and order from you again in the future.

And this is why I like oolong.
Thanks Meghann!!!!!

Pu-erh on wheels. Delicious, juicy, multi-note bittersweet orange marmalade tempered by the perfect touch of ginger are riding shotgun. This tea has great complementarity of flavors and is a fun changeup from the more serious straight-forward pu-erhs that I love. Might be a good intro to pu-erh, especially for folks who like flavored teas; I didn’t pick up much of the usual fishy/seaweed but it still had decent depth. The hint of ginger leaves a bit of a tingle on the tongue.

After brunch cuppa..

Brewed this in the Breville at boiling for 3.5 min and just added a splash of half n half with creamer.. it came out to the perfect sweetness. I’m not into boiling with the brown sugar and whole milk.. I can better taste all the flavors instead of overpowering sugar.

This is one that I hadn’t had since I bought it from Samovar sometime last year. I had originally made it per the package instructions, but it came out MUCH too sweet for my liking. Instead of boiling it for several min then adding sugar and milk, then bringing to a boil again, I just steeped it for about 6 min along with 1/2 tsp of the Vanilla Dian Hong and added a splash of milk.. no sweetener. Came out perfect.. Also, steeped it a second time for about 8 min and drank it straight.. it was definitely more mellow and just as good if you don’t want the extra calories.

Very woodsy, yet sweet undertones.. color is more caramelish. Great morning cuppa.