SerendipiTea

Steeped this at 170 for 3 minutes and I am surprises at the lightness of the brew. It has a nice jasmine flavor to it as well as a flavorful oolong base. I can taste a little bit of the orange peel at the end of the sip if I try really hard. I will have to steep the next pot for longer or hotter. Thanks to Jacqueline I have a few more cups worth to play with. The more I try jasmine teas the more I enjoy them.

Second steep at 10 minutes is not nearly as delightful as the first steep at 5. It’s merely a shadow of that lovely, tart brew, taunting me with hints of its former glory.

Sad.

Another sample from Meghann!! This one smells so very, very good…

Oh. Oh, my. Oh.

Fruity. Tart. Sweet. Blood orange. Rich. Thick. Magenta. Amazing.

Excuse me, I need to be alone with this for a bit.

I’ve been drinking this tea for a couple of weeks, and it hasn’t been doing much for me. It’s not as robust with the delicate muscatel notes of a 2nd flush, and not as subtle and gentle as a 1st flush. I guess it makes sense since it is an atumnal flush.

I enjoyed this Ceylon one morning at a local cafe when i was really sleepy. it was brisk, and strong, and woke me up. probably not the best ceylon out there, especially for the price, but it worked for me on that sleepy day.

Ahhh, Wednesday. I find myself with the day off today [yes, the glories of retail are numerous and boundless] and have been sipping on this sucka for the majority of the morning. Here is what I have discovered:

1. I like this tea hot better than I like it cooled. Cooled, it gets a bit astringent. Sometimes, I like astringency; it can work to contrast with the flavors the tea has to offer and heightens its better aspects. But in the case of this particular one, the astringency is a bit too close to its profile and it’s kind of unpleasant.

2. That being said, hot, it is rather tasty.

3. The creamy, milky notes are deep, soft, and billowy, however…

4. The floral notes are loud and somewhat overwhelm everything. It pervades both the scent and the taste.

5. On the tongue, I find it difficult to concentrate on other flavors past the floral taste. It’s like…one part gardenia, one part hyacinth, one part roses, one part lilies. I love every single one of those flowers in their own right, but if you put them all together it’s overwhelming in more ways that one.

6. When the creamy aspects of the tea shine, it’s brilliant. They are always there, lending a rounded, opaque sense to the overall flavor of the tea, but I wish that it was more consistently dominant. This could have everything to do with how I brewed it, though, so I’m curious to see what happens in consequent steepings.

7. On the nose, the florals blend with a nearly-just-as-loud fruity component. I’m on the fence as to whether I really like it, or it makes me just a teensy bit queasy. In whole, the scent is strong, young Skywalker.

8. The aftertaste is sweet, and, again, floral. Maybe with a light hint of fruit. Like…an apricot, perhaps.

To round this up, my verdict is positive. It’s a nice tea, and from what I’ve seen thus far I think I’ll be brewing it in smallish quantities so I can enjoy it hot. And next time, I’ll have to remember to use le sorapot.

Slightly saturated but mostly accurate picture from this A.M. | http://bit.ly/a5p6yD

Very nice green tea for a meal or afternoon, since it is darker than most greens with the complexity of an Oolong. Pleasantly surprised with how complex the flavor was and would consider it a hardy green tea (which is why I recommend it for a meal). One of my favorites now.

Strong tea base sweetened by the coconut with a great mango flavor. Not much else to say, but this was the perfect afternoon cuppa!

Wow, this tea smells of tart citrus, fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. Looking at the teas description, it is blood oranges and not grapefruit, even better! I haven’t had blood orange since Ciao Bella’s Blood Orange Sorbet a few years ago. The tisane brews up the color of a blood orange too. Such a rich deep crimson. Delicious. This tea makes me want to dance!

Thanks JacquelineM for letting me sample some of this tea! Must get more!

I go back and forth between this tisane and Buccaneer. I think I prefer the mintiness of this one. I’m fairly certain that this has chunks of coconut in it, even though it’s not listed as an ingredient. It’s a soothing blend of chocolate, peppermint, and vanilla. Fortunately, the rooibos does not come through strongly at all. Overall, a very good dessert tea.

Yep! Today I am drinking Mango Magnus. This is one of my favorite mango teas. It is the perfect blend of black tea with an accurate taste of mango. Very smooth.

First off, it is hard for me to not like a chai when made the traditional way – I mean, lots of milk, lots of sugar, what’s not to like? At the same time, since making it that way takes so much longer, I rarely have chai. So I almost always like this type of tea and I almost never make it. But I’ve been looking forward to trying this smoky chai from sophistre for quite a while so today I finally mustered up the energy to make it.

I can’t say I would have pegged this as a smoky chai – though maybe that’s because I’ve been drinking Russian Caravan this morning – but there is a certain something in this that is really different and unique. An edge I’ve never gotten from chai before – it makes it a bit mysterious. And tasty. That little edge is addictive, too. I like tasting it.

I don’t think this is a dramatically different chai from most of the others out there, but at the same time, that little extra note (the smoke, I imagine) gives it a distinctiveness that I think any chai fan would appreciate.

My first matcha so I don’t know what good vs bad is. But. i did enjoy it. I started off with a very leafy taste with a surprise but very brief finish of lemon

Received this as a surprise gift from teaplz the other day. YAY.

The water was probably too hot in preparation, because I was too busy looking up how long to steep this for and forgot I had the kettle on. Whoops.

Regardless… this stuff is pretty awesome. It’s smooth and light, and it’s taking a lot of willpower not to gulp it all down at once. There’s something in there that I can’t quite place—not exactly floral, but something nature-y. After three cups, you’d think I could get it (though let’s be honest here—I’m probably using that as an excuse to drink yet another cup of tea). It’s both comforting and delicious.

Though if I don’t stop drinking tea now, I’ll never be able to fall asleep tonight.

This is a great vanilla black tea option. The vanilla flavor profile is kind of medium and doesn’t get in your face. It balances nicely with the black tea used here which is rich, malty and gives off chocolate notes. This is naturally sweet and I enjoyed this best unadulerated.

mmm. Chocola-tea coconut.

Another package from my tea and yarn club. This arrived accompanied by yarn, of course, a lovely mug, and honey sticks, which were entirely unnecessary with this tea. Smelled heavenly, and tasted wonderful and sweet. ‘Twas fine with me that it was mild, it was also soothing. I liked the mix of black and rooibos, I’m not sure if it would have worked so well if it had been just one or the other. And the mix of chocolate, vanilla and coconut was a treat.

This is a full bodied tea. It’s smooth but not spicy. It’s hard to find it in shops unfortunately.

This one was part of the introduction to Japanese greens that EvaPeva sent to me a while ago, and I have to admit that this particular tea has been standing around in the cupboard being all neglected and shunned because I was a little bit afraid of it. For some reason that I honestly couldn’t explain if I tried, I’d got it in my head that I wouldn’t like it.

Then today I decided to try it. I’m not sure why I didn’t change my mind today or whether there had been someone else involved with inspiration powers. I just tried it out.

The leaves look like ordinary sencha with some fragments and dust mixed in, along with a handful of bits of something that kinda looks like hay. A little seaweed-y in smell, but other than that there wasn’t really much in the way of any kind of aroma of the dry leaves. Certainly nothing to be scared of.

After steeping it got that thick, fat slightly sticky smell. It was rather seaweed-y and a little cat breath-y, but that wasn’t really scary either. I’ve come to expect that from greens. Especially japanese greens. It was light green-ish in colour, a bit murky and honestly not really very appetising looking. I assume it must have something to do with dust-y fragment-y bits. So maybe not the most pleasant sight or scent in the whole world, but nothing out of the ordinary and nothing really to be nervous about.

(And no, I do not believe that matcha has been added to it. At least not on purpose. It doesn’t look like stuff that has had real matcha added to it, it looks more like the sort of dust and fragments you find at the bottom of the tin. Besides it doesn’t say anywhere that I can find that there should be matcha in it, and I don’t really think that would be something you wouldn’t mention.)

It’s supposed to be stems and twigs and what not and it’s not really supposed to have hay in it (right?), but it does taste a little hay-y. It’s got a bit of a bite to it, right at the back of the throat. A green flavour but a slightly darker tasting green. Not darker as in fermented, but darker as in… daaaaaarker. Less bright. Less sparky. Less I-Am-A-Lovely-Spring-Day-Come-Smell-My-Flowers-Yay!-y

I think maybe kukicha is to greens what smokies are to blacks. Green tea for grown ups.

I like it.

I did a second steep too and that’s even greener. The aroma is a little less in-your-face-y but other than that it’s the same. Apart from it looking, you know, extremely very green.

The taste seems a little toned down here and loosing some of that daaaaaarkness that I liked in the first steep. It’s a bit more normal sencha-y here. Apart, you know, from the filthy-looking colour.

I like it, but I definitely liked it best the first time around.

This one has a VERY full flavor profile so if you don’t like that sort of thing, then I would avoid this one. The primary flavor is mango, but the coconut provides a strong backdrop. The finish is all coconut. The Niligiri black tea is not bitter or astringent. This one makes a very nice iced tea. It didn’t rate higher with me as the flavors are not most natural tasting. However, I would buy this.

Tea party @ Rabs’ house! (Virtually speaking…)

It’s really pretty late for me to be having caffeine but tomorrow being a holiday and all I’m throwing caution to the wind. I had a cup of this earlier, but then I went for a run, ate dinner, put kids to bed, etc. before writing a note and I thought I’d better refresh my recollection. :-)

I’ve had a couple of really outstanding vanilla flavored black teas, some that were fine, and some that were pretty awful. This one is definitely at the high end of the spectrum, though I don’t think it passes Mariage Freres Black Orchid or Samovar Vanilla Dian Hong.

I bought a little tin of it from SerendipiTea, and it’s adorable. It’s the shape and just about the size of a chewing tobacco tin (not that I have one handy to compare it to, it just reminds me of that), but probably has a smaller circumference. The dry leaves have a vanilla smell along ice cream lines. Creamy rather than beany. There’s a dusky tea smell underneath.

The tea smells creamy rather than beany, too. Very pleasing aroma. Surprisingly, the taste isn’t as ice creamy as I would have thought. It’s smooth, but it has a sort of sneaky intensity to the vanilla flavor. You don’t realize it’s as vanilla-y as it is until you sit with it for a bit. The vanilla flavor really comes out in the aftertaste if you breathe in through your mouth after sipping.

On the problem of cocoa: yeah, I get some, more in the taste than in the aroma. I find that there’s a very fine line between chocolate and vanilla flavoring sometimes, particularly if they are leaning toward less sweet. I generally think of them as opposites, having been trained that way from an early age (do you want chocolate ice cream? or vanilla? black? or white?) but when you think about it, they’re both from seeds. More specifically from beany, poddy, plant things. So why shouldn’t there be some similarity? In any case, the more intense the vanilla, the more it seems to me to have chocolate overtones. With chocolate, it’s a little more difficult to make a generalization, but I have found vanilla notes in chocolate on a number of occasions.

I like this one. Really. So what to do here?

I’m going to solve the rating question by bumping up Samovar and Mariage Freres slightly, to give what I think is an appropriate space between them and this on the rating scale, which will enable me to give this a slightly higher rating than I would have otherwise.

This is the first sample that JacquelineM sent me that I’ve used up :( It was absolutely wonderful this morning — all vanilla-ey and comforting. This definitely will be purchased in the future. TG

Warm fuzzies inna cup!

After the exciting contest put together by Daniel Mann, Morgana and I decided to both try the Colonille. Can I tell you how cool it is to have a tea buddy thousands of miles away? Yeah, it’s pretty cool. My sample of this tea comes courtesy of the wonderful JacquelineM a.k.a. my fairy tea sister! Okay, onto the tea: the first few sips the vanilla seemed to be all coy and hiding in the background — teasing the back of my throat with its presence. As the cup began to cool the vanilla gained strength and was just nummy. It’s one of those “sink into your chair” type of teas. Aaaaah…

I think that it’s a lot more subtle than the Tea Guys’ French Vanilla — which I’ll have to try again tomorrow to compare more accurately. Thank you so very much JacquelineM! TG

Smooth, creamy – heavy coconut and vanilla. Good full flavor.