Samovar

I drank this for breakfast. Nice plain breakfast tea. This helps me wake up without puzzling my taste buds. No additives, 2 tsp, 12 oz boiling water, 4 minutes 1st steep, 5 mins 2nd.

I’ve been drinking this all day, trying to make myself like it as much as the A&D Caravan. My best effort was 1 1/2 tsp in 8 oz boiling water steeped for 3 minutes, then a second steep of 4 1/2. It is delicious but I don’t find myself gulping it down as greedily as the Caravan. Oh well.

I don’t think I’ve been using enough leaf for this, previously. The Samovar directions are usually very generous for amounts of tea and I’ve been automatically decreasing them. I’m frugal! Today I used a heaping tsp in 8 oz of water. This was delicious. Sweet, and slightly fruity. Very mild but tasty. I didn’t think I liked this particularly before, but suddenly I was craving it, and now I really like it. Weird. I’m on my 4th steep, which is taking it a bit too far, but there are still hints of what I was enjoying.

This oolong was good, but a little too sweet for my tastebuds.

First pu-erh I’ve ever tried. Really liked its earthy flavor.

Steep Information:
Prepared in store. Served in the Duck Eggshell Porcelain Guywan Set with an iron pot of water. I was pretty impressed with myself, for the first time using a guywan I only made a mess the first pour! I went through about 3+ pots of hot water and the tea was still going strong but our food was done, the parking meter was up, and it was time to go to our next scheduled event.

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: vegeal, nutty
Steeped Tea Smell: Very little to no scent
Flavor: light, silky, vegetal nutty
Body: Light to medium as it went on
Aftertaste: not noticeable, but I was also eating
Liquor: translucent yellow green

I had this for breakfast at the Yerba Buena Gardens location. I ordered it as there was no Golden Phoenix Oolong Tea available. The waitress suggested this as an alternative and i enjoyed it. I had the Ginger Quinoa Waffle (Soft like a pillow, heavenly. Served with fresh fruit & real maple syrup) along with this tea.

Images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/12/samovar-loose-leaf-oolong-tea-bai-hao.html

Steep Information:
Prepared in store. Served in a tiny yixing clay pot, with an iron pot of water and a small iron cup. The leaves kept getting clumped and blocking the spout. I had to swirl it around to get the tea out. I managed to make quite a mess of it.

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: Fall leaves
Steeped Tea Smell: Muddy fall leaves
Flavor: Fall leaves, Gritty
Body: Full
Aftertaste: astringent
Liquor: hard to see in the dark lounge

I do not like pu-erh, but everyone recommended this one for a non-pu-erh lover. I agree that pu-erh is best with food, I found it “meh” as opposed to gross. The muddy bit was less pronounced when i drank it while eating.

Ordered at the Zen Valley location for dinner with Squash Dumplings w/ Dipping Sauce (Handmade vegetarian squash dumplings w/ spicy sesame-soy sauce).

Pictures: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/12/samovar-loose-leaf-pu-erh-tea-maidens.html

I’ve got through several tins of this. It’s my before bed tea. It’s warming, soothing, and doesn’t stain my teeth like a rooibus. (No chamomile. Many people, myself included, are allergic to chamomile.) I steep it 2 or 3 times. The first steep is very sweet and tastes strongly of licorice. The second steep is more firey with ginger. The third is a more gentle ginger. The orange lingers and is more like a Lemsip citrus to me. Again, soothing! Tonight I’ve added a little Wei Chi Cha, which I don’t really like on it’s own, but here it’s adding even more sweetness and warmth. I’ll be fast asleep very soon.

My love of all things roasted and toasted has lead me to a tin of this tea. The look of the dry “leaves” was a little startling after spending the last year looking at quality tea leaves. Of course I know what Houjicha consists of…but still, the tea is pretty ratty looking to say the least. The tin contained mostly ragged leaf fragments and a good portion of sticks and stems. It smells kind of like a puffed cereal…and roasted tree bark. Houjicha has an interesting, comforting flavor to me. It’s one of those teas that seem so simple and plain but the taste ends up being complex and reassuring.

I’ve had this tea both hot and cold and both are lovely in their own way. The hot tea made my stomach feel nice and warm and settled. I can totally see why it would be used as a digestive aid. Houjicha has that tummy-friendly feeling as well as a unique roasted, nutty flavor. Not medicinal…but helpful and tasty. When the tea was chilled it had a nice mix of nuttiness, deep malt and a lingering sweetness. I must say that I’m a fan. And it’s technically green tea…not my usual oolongs or black teas. Yay! I can’t wait to try other Houjichas, but for the time being, this suits me just fine.

Every time I spot another lychee-flavored tea, I have to add it to my shopping list immediately. I love the fruit, but I have yet to find a tea that tastes as good as it smells. So far, I’ve tried the Lichee from Lupicia, the Lychee Black from Samovar, and the Lychee from Chado Tea Room. They don’t deviate too far from each other as far as ratings go in my book.

I bought “Vanilla Blossoming”, which I’m guessing is the same. Wow! This is magical! This is a really evocative tea. The first sniff took me straight back to childhood. Suddenly it’s Christmas and I’ve got my nose in a big box of chocolates. I smell chocolate, but also the fillings. Lots of sweetness. Complicated. The taste is a dark, vanilla, but also the bourbon. I could swear this has alcohol in it. I love this tea.

I only used 1 teaspoon in 8 oz water, so much less than the directions say. 2nd steep was still good.

I won this in a contest on Steepster! Thanks!!

I made a pot of this the other day. It was quite good lemony and refreshing. I also tried this iced which wasn’t as impressive, but this is really a sold lemon black tea1

So, like Auggy, I don’t have much past experience with lychee in any form so I’m not sure if my rating has much merit… But I will at least rate it strictly on the terms of how I like it.

In terms of the looks of the dry leaves, I think this is probably one of the most black and thick leaves I have seen… but once they’re wet they turn into the usual black tea leaves.

I knew there would be a floral aspect to this tea but the look of the leaves don’t give off that impression. The smell gives it away, but I think I wasn’t expecting so much floral flavour from this. It’s becoming a trend, this whole “not expecting certain flavours” thing.

I’m not sure if I would call this one “light”. Maybe I steeped it longer than others, but it seemed pretty dark and full bodied, just with strong hints of lychee.

Not sure if I would get this one again simply because I’m still not sure if I care about lychee that much, but it’s definitely a good tea to try and I’m grateful that I tried it.

I had a Samovar chai day at work today. I kept the same leaves in my infusor and resteeped several times, accidentally infusing for about 1/2 hour for one of the steeps. This worked really well for an easy chai, giving a mild black tea flavour, with a tasty cinnamony spice. I don’t really like the stovetop method for this chai because I don’t like a stewed tea taste. I prefer Up N Atom for a stove top chai because it’s spicy enough to mask the stewed tea. I really like the Samovar chai for standard brewing though.

When I first made this I made the mistake of following the instructions on the tin and adding a spoon of black tea to the simmering mixture. I forgot that I loath stewed tea, and that was the overpowering flavour I got from this first batch.

I tried again this evening without adding extra tea. It doesn’t look like there’s much tea in the tin so I decided to try to get as much flavour from the spices as possible. I simmered the mixture for 30 minutes. A first cup, with a little honey, was very nice, with a lot of cinnamon sweetness and a little ginger kick. I’m going to leave the rest to settle over night and see how it is in the morning.

I’ve been enjoying adding a spoonful of this to re-steeped black leaves when I fancy a little bit of spice and to keep them going longer.

I really like Samovar a lot, but I wish they would reduce their $100 free shippng threshold.

Recently got a sampler pack from Samovar through a Twitter contest-thing. So, adding that to the two samplers sets I ended up with from Adagio… it looks like I better get around to trying (and liking) mate.

Having only tried a toasted mate before, this is my first ‘real’ experience with yerba mate. It has an interesting herbal, almost minty sort of taste to it. But it has something else to it that I can’t quite put my finger on. (I think in the toasted, I referred to it as tobacco-y. This is not the same… something.)

Definitely an unofficial rating at this point.

A great, deep black tea for a pick-me-up. Good for a coffee alternative.

A family elder passed away recently. Today, I drove Mum up to NY so we could attend the wake, an ordeal that was far more emotionally trying than I expected. I took two mugs of Ocean of Wisdom, one for Mum ‘n’ one for me. I so very much appreciate that I just don’t have to think about brewing this because it’s so forgiving. Rushing out and don’t have 7 minutes to spare? Need to grab it and go after just 5? That’s fine. Forgot about it and let it sit and steep for 20 minutes? That’s fine, too. I also really appreciate the quality of my mugs, which kept our tea hot from when I made it at 10:30a through when we finished drinking it on the way back down from NY at 6p.

I hope Samovar warn me if they ever decide to discontinue this blend, so I can buy mountains of it.

Tangent: I see a lot of tasting notes in my feed that say “see previous notes.” I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually gone looking for the previous notes because it’s such a pain in the butt to find them. You know how when you read a tea’s tasting notes, if a person has several, there’s a button that says “show 5 more notes” or something like that? I wish the Steepster folks would copy that code and paste it so it appears on our dashboards. That way, when I’m reading my feed and someone tells me to check out their previous tasting notes, I can actually do that because the button is right there. [/end rant] No, I haven’t suggested this to them. The last time I suggested something they basically said yeah, thanks, that’s not going to happen. They stopped just short of outright saying that they’re not interested in suggestions for improvements or new features, just critical bug reports and duplicate entry reports. So I won’t be sending them more suggestions, just sharing potentially interesting ideas with you. =)

Yesterday, I drove home to NYC to spend the day with framily. It’s a 1.5- to 2ish-hour drive (depending on traffic), so I prepared by packing two water bottles (one still, one fizzy) and two mugs of Ocean of Wisdom. I was actually in the mood to try something different, but was plagued by doubts: what if something didn’t agree with me and I was far from home? Better to play it safe, and my safety blanket tea is definitely this one.

I enjoyed half of the second-steep mug on my way up, which was mostly a strong clove-and-ginger brew. This time, I sliced some fresh ginger into my infuser, so it is from there that the strong ginger bite came. Upon reaching New York, I parked the car and went to meet my friend, leaving my beverages in the car.

I returned to the car at around midnight. By this time, my tea had been exposed to 45F/7.2C temperature for about 13-14 hours. I have never had this blend cold before, so I was a little hesitant to try it. I decided to finish my half-drunk mug, first; the tea was cool (not cold) and was actually quite good! The ginger felt especially lovely in my throat, which had experienced more talking and laughter in several hours than it generally does in a month.

The tea in the second, as yet untouched mug was tepid. Finally, I found a shortcoming (ha! if one can call this that) of this perfect tea: it’s best when hot, good when cold, but “meh” when lukewarm. This is understandable; I can’t think of many (any?) things that are actually good when lukewarm. I had a bit of it and put it away in favour of my fizzy water. I figured I’d just wait for it to get cold and then drink it.

Aside: Have I mentioned, lately, just how much I love my mug? 13 hours in perfect autumn weather, and still the coldest the tea got was “cool.”

Another aside: You know how I’ve been looking for a smaller, spill-proof mug because my 16oz/~475mL ones are just too big for tea tasting/drinking at home? I finally found one! Not on Amazon, not at Target or Bed, Bath & Beyond, but at my supermarket, of all places! I’m so thrilled, I can’t wait to make my next cup of tea. =)

Today, I chai’d this up. Did you know you could chai this up? I didn’t, but that’s never stopped me before. =)

Honestly, I’m not sure Ocean of Wisdom can do any wrong. It is such a forgiving blend, and apparently you can do whatever you want with it and it’ll remain delicious. I did my usual: boiled water, sugar and tea (since it’s rooibos, I like to maximise steep time and don’t bother waiting ‘til the water’s boiling), then added (vanilla soy) milk and let it bubble, bubble, bubble for a while.

Nummy.