SpecialTeas

This is probably the nicest assam I’ve ever had. My wife & I loved it! You can bet it didn’t last very long at our house & we’ll definitely be ordering more!

Very good Oolong, one of my favorites. I steeped it at just under boiling for 1 minute and 1 1/2 minutes (could probably go one more as well). I don’t know though if it’s worth an extra $90ish/pound over the Fine Ti Kuan Yin from SpecialTeas (511) which I love.

I so love this tea.
But now I am out of it.
I must order more.

Holy monkeys. This is a second steep from yesterday’s tea, iced. I made about 22oz and added about 1/2 a teaspoon of sugar. It’s a small amount but most likely totally unnecessary. This is sweet! Like, good sweet. Like almond cookie topped with sprinkled sugar sweet. Iced it gives more of a crispy cookie baked a few hours ago instead of a softer cookie fresh from the oven. But honestly, it’s a cookie so neither of those options are bad. Other than the extra sweetness, the rest of this tastes remarkably like the tea when hot. So yeah, two thumbs up.

It’s like baking in a cup. Part of me now wants to make cookies, part of me feels like I already have. Not that I have made cookies that taste exactly like this (I am a chocolate chip girl so I don’t think I’ve made cookies with cinnamon before) but still. Cookies!

Really wanted some Fine Earl Grey Lavender this morning, but I only had a gram of that. So I took that tiny gram of FEGL and put it with enough of this to make my normal morning 28 oz (shared – I don’t drink all 28). I’m sure the lavender barely made a difference.

This is good Earl Grey. I enjoy it. I will probably never crave it, but then I rarely crave full on Earl Grey. I tend to enjoy the slightly softer versions (Lavender anyone?) more. But this isn’t overly strong so it works out pretty nicely. I’ll keep hunting, though, for my perfect, slightly softened Earl Grey. But if I’m at a loss one day and feel I must have EG in my pantry, I think this EG would get voted in.

With this, I’ve finished off two more teas in my pantry.

Very nice. Smooth and sweet with a good EG flavor. Had a little bit of an aftertaste, probably from the flavoring, but nothing that lessened the enjoyment.

Absolutely stellar: my favorite Ceylon, unless you count Brewhaha’s Rose Tea, which is a Ceylon base. Delicate, honeyed flavor; relatively difficult to over-brew!

I’d give this four thumbs-up if I could! Alongside Mangalam, this is one of my two favorite single-estate Assam varieties. If you like super-strong, super-malty ones, though, it’s probably not for you. The flavor and color are on the lighter end of the spectrum: sweet and honeyed, with rich floral undertones.

Next to Assam Meleng or Dejoo, I’d declare Mangalam the Queen of Black Teas! The delicate, honeyed flavor is simply exquisite. Don’t drown this one by adding milk. It’d be a sacrilege! Best made by the pot, I find.

One of my very favorite teas. Nice sweetness, not too strong. Still good after a couple of infusions.

Quite possibly the best Earl Grey I’ve ever had. The texture is such that it’s like it already has cream in it.

Adding milk and sugar makes it taste like (an elegant, sophisticated) candy. If you like that sort of thing. (I do.)

I had enough of this sample to make one more cup, so I’m having my one cup and celebrating having made just a tiny bit of room in my tea pantry. It’s a dusty cup but I’m not going to have any sympathy for that in my ultimate rating (which I’m thinking needs to drop a bit but we’ll see). Thankfully, the smell gives me more spice than toilet tank potpourri, which is what I’ve gotten previously.

No sugar or milk this time. I got a whiff of the citrus and all I could think of was the yellow TheraFlu. Uh oh. But that has passed so maybe it was a one time taste? Smells spicy but tastes a bit bland in comparison. There might be a hint of a mulled cider taste in it.

Not a bad tea but kind of dull. I think I would rather have mulled cider or chai instead of a somewhat in-between tea. For those that find chai too spicy, though, this might be a good alternative. And it certainly fits the season more now than when I had it in summer. Regardless, I’ve dropped the rating some just because it’s a bit boring.

I’m mixed on this tea. I like the taste and the spiciness to it (the cloves) but it makes me think of potpourri. And I’m pretty sure I’ve been in a bathroom that had this exact potpourri in a basket on top of the toilet tank.

So on one hand – spicy Christmas in a cup. On the other – toilet tank.

Good stuff, both infusions were good at like 2 1/2 and 3 1/2.

Very good Ti Kuan Yin. Did 2 steeps for 2 and 3 minutes at around 200 degrees with 2 heaping tsp in 14 oz pot.

Did the first steep yesterday and didn’t have time for a second until this morning. Used 2 heaping tsp in a 14oz Yixing pot. Water was at about 195 for both steeps, 2 minutes and about 2 1/2 minutes. Both infusions were very good, the second definitely a bit darker and stronger.

I think I’ll drink it until it comes out my ears.

Quite nice. Strong but with a nice soft taste to it from the lavender. Reminds me a bit of Rushka from Mariage Freres (though I don’t think Rushka has lavender – or any floral, just citrus. But there you go).

In my morning fogged brain, it is always an adventure picking out teas. Mostly because my thought processes don’t work well so making any sort of decision is challenging work. This morning there were two factors that made me pick this: 1) My first thought was of Jackee Muntz but the husband is not a huge fan of Keemuns so I didn’t want to waste the caramel loveliness on him since he wouldn’t appreciate it and 2) Teaplz had this yesterday so we’ll call that the power of suggestion.

The smell of the leaves (both dry and wet) is just… wrong. Sour, bitter, strong… wrong. But the tea itself is fine. A bit too mild in fact. I normally have it with sugar to combat the sometimes tumbler-created-tea-bitterness but today went without and it was just fine.

In my view, this tea needs two things. 1) Better smelling leaves – because that turns me off so much that I just anticipate nastiness when I drink and I should never feel the need to brace myself before a first sip. And 2) More flavor. The tea taste is mild to the point of almost watery tasting, the rose taste is mild to the point of just general sweetness. Something needs to come to the forefront on this tea. Some flavor, any flavor, needs to take charge and say “I will flavor this tea!!!” But it doesn’t. Oh well.

It’s been a bit since I’ve had this, mostly because the husband isn’t a big fan and so I feel a little guilty making him drink something he doesn’t enjoy. I’m the one that makes our morning tea and I try not to abuse the husband too much in the process. But in the spirit of cycling out my current teas to prepare to replace them with new ones (lots and lots of new ones), I decided to have this one again.

The sour smell from the leaves always makes me think I hate this tea, that the smell carries over to the taste. Other than that, I seriously can’t remember this tea. Well, maybe a vague recollection that milk does it no favors? But the directions say to try with rock sugar. I have raw sugar, which begins with r-something and ends with sugar, so I put some in.

Ooookay, I think I put a bit much (though I only used a teaspoon for my 12oz). I’m going to need to try this straight sometime (but taking it with me on my drive to work is NOT the time to be daring – tea mistakes cannot be fixed in a car with no sugar or milk and going 70). My first impression is SWEET! Like, not awesome sweet but dear-lord-how-much-sugar-did-I-put-in-here sweet. The second is… hmm, tea. Soft, slightly fluffy/floral tea. I don’t peg the rose so much as just a general softness to the edges of the tea. I think it is a bit too delicate for milk which is probably why I remember milk doing nothing happy to it. Not an overly complex flavor (and I have got to try it with less/no sugar) but a decent enough tea to work for me, if not overly memorable. I bet it would be a good as iced tea (and when I say that, I mean Southern sweet tea with a cup and a half of sugar per gallon).

Hah! I just got an email from the husband. I asked him how he liked his tea and his response was that it was awesome, a 4-star tea and what was it. I know he didn’t like this tea before but again, I think it was the milk thing. Plus, he’s a big fan of sweet tea so I think the super-sweetness of this tea is most likely what he’s really enjoying.

That’s not to say this is a bad tea. If I had to choose between this and no tea, I’d totally go with this and be happy about it. It’s just not overly memorable or blow-me-away-able. But sometimes having a little light, fluffy cotton candy of a tea is needed. Hopefully I remember that next time instead of being tricked by the sour smell of the leaves.

(BTW: I brought GM’s Rose sampler with me today to have a somewhat delayed head-to-head tea competition with rose as the theme ingredient. Whose tea will reign supreme? Actually, I have an idea but I’ll wait for the official word from the judges.)

A nice, slightly buttery, very floral oolong. It has a little more flavor at a higher temp but I like the multiple steeps I can get out of it at a lower temp. This one is one of the husband’s favorites.
6.5g/12oz