Samovar

Yummm this is a great tea to cozy up with at bedtime! :-)

I received my Samovar order yesterday when I got home from work…awesome surprise! I was SOOO excited to try this. Now, when dealing with Silver Needle tea I will usually put more tea leaves in than what is called for. This is because Silver Needle tea is usually so light in flavor. So what I did was put about 1.5tsp (maybe even closer to 2tsp) in 8oz of water and steeped for a little over 4mins (I got a bit side tracked due to my toddler wanting to help clean, but really ended up making more of a mess lol). Anyways Samovar had a 5min maximum on the canister so I figured I was still safe, but I usually steep my white teas at the middle marker. Anyways, this brewed to a nice honey color… a bit dark for Silver Needle tea I thought, but who cares right?! hehe. I could smell my freshly brewed tea and it was sweet smelling, floral, and earthy… as in a cedar wood earthy! I took my first sip and it was amazing! I have never had Osmanthus flowers before, but it tasted like a nectar… a bit like honeysuckle perhaps? Yes, I think honeysuckle would be a good comparison the more I ponder on this. Then I could fully taste the Silver Needle as well, a nice vegetal/slightly cedar woodsy taste. Very clean and pure tasting, a double plus in my book! This is a total score with Samovar’s tea and I can’t wait to try more of their tea. They definitley know what they are doing and have high quality products!

My favorite caffeine-free herbal blend. Just spicy enough.

I should have known better than to drink the Samovar sample. It’s a serious problem in that they seem to do black tea exactly the way I like it, so they set the bar so high I want to stop trying other stuff and just go immediately to their online store, do not pass go.

I loved the Samovar Earl Lavender, and this is pretty much the Earl Lavender (as I remember it, it’s been a while though) without the lavender. It has the same brown sugary taste to the base as the Earl Lavender, and the same citrus presence without oiliness or too much perfume. The citrus is definitely there, but it isn’t overpowering.

I don’t recall noticing with the Earl Lavender that the bergamot had a lemony note to it. I usually get an orangey note from bergamot. But I get a sort of lemon/orange from this that is really nice.

Now that I’ve had a lot of loose leaf Earl Greys, I feel confident in saying this one is very special indeed. It’s a little nouveau in flavor owing to the tea base, with depth that more traditional versions don’t have however good they may be. I may need another category of Earl Grey in my harem, just for this. I can see it coexisting with a more traditional two dimensional Earl Grey for the times that’s what I’m wanting.

I’m boosting the rating of the Earl Lavender, too.

word….
this tea is superb…

I like this Osmanthus Silver Needle better tha Rishi’s. It’s a better pairing of the two with a softer balance so one doesn’t overpower the other. The Silver Needle is nice, but doesn’t seem to be of the best quality. It may have been just my batch, but it seems very broken.

over ice with a slice of orange. mmm… perfect summer drink.

It is a beautiful day to sit on the back porch, listen to a book and enjoy the sun. So I decided I needed some iced tea. In particular, a pitcher of Moorish Mint. Great idea. As for most iced teas, I doubled the tea. No sugar, though. It’s right enough as is.

I love this as a sort of dessert / after dinner tea. It’s even good chilled.

A little bit of ginger, a little bit of orange peel and a thick earthy Pu-erh. If I don’t have a cup every few days, the next time is like experiencing it anew. My favorite breakfast tea.

This is my favorite all-day tea. Hot in the morning, cold in the afternoon, warm again at night.

My 2nd day trying this tea, and I’m still a little disappointed by it. Maybe it’s too subtle for my tastebuds? I love the standard Bai Mudan from Samovar, but I really feel like the peach doesn’t add much at all to it and I find the flavor very weak. Even in the second cup, which I brewed for longer at a higher temperature I probably wouldn’t identify the peach if I didn’t know what it was.

Next time I’ll try adding more tea (maybe one heaping table spoon isn’t enough?), but I doubt I will buy this tea again.

I swear. Samovar and I are not meant to be. I feel like somehow our relationship is cursed.

I finally feel less frustrated about the whole took-forever botched-up order (I still need to drop off the return box). So I felt that I could try and give this tea a fair shake. I had two really pleasant cups and took the remainder of my second steep along with me in my commuter mug. I got into my car. It died. I chose to irrationally blame the tea. It is a tea of doom.

Okay, so it’s not really a tea of doom, but my eyebrow did raise and I kept looking at my cup outta the corner of my eye. When I got home from work I decided to keep steeping this tea to both 1. dispell my fear of a cursed tea, and 2. get my moneys worth outta this tea.

It’s quite a good Lapsang Souchong. It’s on the less smoky side of LSes and it does have a nice sweetness. And perhaps I still feel a bit jaded about the whole first order fiasco, but I just can’t imagine spending my money on a full tin of this. I have one more sample (as a result of the fiasco) so I’ll try it again at a future date and perhaps give it a more thorough review (and an even fairer shake). But if I have car trouble on that same day, well…doom. Doom! DOOM!!!!!

I’d rate this as a kitten purring on my “cat noises scale” for LSes. NE

Smells very berry-like, which is kind of confusing. And wood, which makes it kind of unpleasant because it is almost hitting that sour wood thing. The taste is woody – sweet, bordering on sour wood. (Huh, it’s apparently not just a rooibos thing then.) Actually, I take that back, it is the just aftertaste that is bordering on rotten-sweet (and that lessens when I take big sips). The rest of the taste is a nice, plain wood. I don’t pick up any of the cedar or orange or leather notes the tasting notes mention. Just wood. Well, maybe a faint hint of bright citrus note that makes it more fresh, sanded wood and not just a tree limb. It’s not all that complex tasting (at least not to me) but it isn’t flat tasting either. Fairly straightforward and… well, honestly? Kinda plain.

Wow. I can’t decide it if is vile or somewhat interesting. The interesting part tastes like fresh snapped peas (non-cooked)… that have been doused in cigarette ashes. Yes, I believe that is about as complex as this one gets. The green bean taste saves this from being rated lower. I am staring at the mug daring myself to drink more but my stomach says nooooooooo.

Lightly sweet lychee flavor…..

Steeped it after a quick rinse. The smell is softly honeyed. The taste is… delightful. Gently floral and honeyed – not in a light, summery way but more of a dark, wintery, woodsy taste. If I preferred darker oolongs, this would rank pretty high. But I prefer greener oolongs so, while this is tasty, it’s not something I have to have on hand.
2.9g/6oz

Oops, I think I brewed this wrong. I steeped it for 3 minutes but looking around, everything says a max of 2 minutes. I’ll have to try it at a shorter steep next time. I’ll wait to rate it until then.

Anyway, even with oversteeping, this tastes rich, floral, honeyed, delicate and smooth. There’s a very dry aftertaste that, combined with the bright, sweet, dark, rich flavors, brings to mind a white wine.

I’m interested in seeing what this tea does if I treat it a little better!

Steep Information:
Amount: 2 tsp
Water: 8 ounces filtered boiling water
Tool: Adagio IngenuiTEA 16 oz
Steep Time: a little over 5 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: honey, wood
Steeped Tea Smell: sweet wood
Flavor: smooth, sweet
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: woody
Liquor: dark orange brown

I got a small sample pack from Samovar since everyone always sounds so pleased with their teas. I also could not recall having a plain honeybush and wanted to try it unflavored.

It is not something amazing, but I can see how it acts as a wonderful base for so many flavored teas.

There was a fine dust sludge in the bottom of my teacup when I was nearly done.

Resteep: 7+ minutes, lighter translucent orange-brown color, light taste, weak

I am disappointed in the resteep.

Images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/06/samovar-loose-leaf-honeybush-tea.html

What a pleasant and soft tea. Upon opening the tin, the peach flavor was overpowering. So I thought. hmm, is this going to taste like some icky, peachy Jolly Rancher? Suprisingly, when brewed, both the peach and jasmine flavors are subtle and “synergize” into something quite nice.

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