Teabox

Oh my god, what is this strange magic?

This is unlike any oolong I’ve had before. The nose is sweet and fruity, with grape notes. On the palate it’s light, sweet and intensely fruity, more like a white tea than an oolong. There’s a touch of hay, and lots of bright, juicy, fresh fruit – peaches, grape, lychee, melon, plum… I’m not even sure – so many fresh summer fruit flavours.

Super unique and almost sparkling.

My officemate came to work all week with a cold that she insisted she had over the holidays and couldn’t be contagious at this point in time. So, of course, here I sit on a Saturday morning, snorking, snuffling, hacking and wishing the world would turn down it’s volume because my head is in a pressure cooker. What tea? What tea? I need AROMATICS!! Do I have any? Oh! A Sample of chai! I know I have one somewhere….where???? Ah. Found it.

I drank a lot of bad chai in the 1990s. Really bad chai, usually made from powdered mix and made “better” (ha!) by my adding Coffee Mate French Vanilla Creamer. I have been “done” with Chai since that time, as none have been able to erase that memory of my first chai experience. But this one has piqued my interest.

My biggest issue with chai is the amount of cinnamon that most blends use. If “just the right amount” for most folks is used, I find it overpowering and a bit bitter. Kolkata Street Chai removes the cinnamon from the chai equation for me, leaving just 3 aromatic spices to create an alt chai flavor profile. When I opened the packet, the blend of cardamom, nutmeg and saffron were almost intoxicating….heady and compelling… to the point where it felt like the longest 4 minutes of my life, steeping this tea. The CTC used is strong but not bitter when steeped at 4 minutes, and supports milk and honey well….so well, in fact, that I burned my mouth via lack of impulse control. I can be such a greedy greedy tea child, especially when I’m feeling ill.

Teabox has created a intriguing alternative to typical masala chai in their Kolkata Street Chai. I will purchase this tea. I will learn to drink it slowly so that I don’t have a numb spot on my tongue where I have burned my tongue. I will learn to savor the aromatic spiced tea instead of gulping it down, lost in the pure childlike joy in my mouth. ……maybe…..

Another Glendale Estate tea.

The dry leave is silvery green buds, all very uniform and lovely. It smells very faintly of sweet hay with a touch of green. The steeping recommendations suggest 1-2 teaspoons of dry leaf per cup. I was having a hard time fishing leaf out of the bag with my spoon, so I shook out 2g, which looked to be roughly 2 tsp.

The recommended steeping parameters suggested 85-95C for 3-4 min. I typically enjoy shorter steeps and lower temperatures, so I started with 85C water for one minute. No flavour. Two, then three, three and a half, four… I think I finally settled on about six minutes and this still tasted like barely anything, even though the liquor steeped up to a pretty intense gold.

Hot, this isn’t worth drinking. Cooled to luke warm, it’s very delicate but lovely. The nose is very grapey. On the palate it’s fresh, light and cooling, with notes of grape, cucumber, fresh peas and zucchini.

Don’t drink this one with anything else on your palate – it gets easily overwhelmed.

After drinking Blue Mountain Twirl today, I thought I’d try out some other Glendale Estate teas, in hope of finding a similar flavour profile.

While Blue Mountain Twirl is a green, this is a black, from the Glendale Twirl Plantation. The flavours of these two teas are very different. While BMT is sweet, malty and very grapey, this has strong mineral, vegetal (chard or kale?) and muscatel notes. Much less sweetness, which mainly shows up on the finish, instead of in the whole sip. This is mildly astringent.

I notice similarities to both a Darjeeling and Da Hong Pao. It gets even tastier as it cools.

An enjoyable cup, but not as interesting or delicious as BMT.

A very unusual tea. It has a lot of green in it, and brews and tastes to me more like a green tea than a black, as the other reviewer mentioned. It also has a small unpleasant bitterness. I think the next time I brew it, I will make it like a green tea with a lower temperature.

The smell is vegetal and aromatic. The taste is grassy, vegetal, and earthy. I like it, I just don’t like bitter aftertaste, so will have to experiment with it and do another tasting note. Ordered more than a sample of this, so will have to experiment with it in different ways.

Today my sweetie and I are sampling Darjeelings. First up are two autumn 2014 flushes from the Turbo Estate.

This one is a clonal black, one teaspoon steeped for 5 min at 86C.
The other is an organic black, two teaspoons for 4 minutes at 90C. http://steepster.com/teas/teabox/42874-thurbo-autumn-darjeeling-black-tea

These teas are extremely different. While they are both distinctly Darjeeling, as I’m starting to develop a palate for, I would not have guessed that these are both from the same estate and flush.

This one is quite light – sweet, floral and fruity. It’s mildly astringent with no bitterness – very smooth in comparison to the organic black. There’s an ever so faint note of olives on the nose, which appears in the flavour as the cup cools.

The Organic black is very bold, brisk and astringent. Slightly bitter, though not unpleasant. My initial impression was that it had a very typical “black tea” flavour, though there’s a vegetal tang at the end of the sip, and that faint ash or char characteristic that I notice in many Darjeelings. It smells rich and bold, with a fruity note that I’m coming to associate with muscatel.

This dry leaf smells light and grapey, and is a mix of green and grey medium size leaves.

The Organic black smells much less sweet, with a touch of malt, and more of a generic black tea scent. The leaves are slightly darker and shorter than the clonal.

Neither of these teas appeals to me overly much, though they are both pleasant.

Today my sweetie and I are sampling Darjeelings. First up are two autumn 2014 flushes from the Turbo Estate.

One is a clonal black, one teaspoon steeped for 5 min at 86C. http://steepster.com/teas/teabox/54838-thurbo-clonal-autumn-darjeeling-black-tea
The other is this organic black, two teaspoons for 4 minutes at 90C.

These teas are extremely different. While they are both distinctly Darjeeling, as I’m starting to develop a palate for, I would not have guessed that these are both from the same estate and flush.

This is very bold, brisk and astringent. Slightly bitter, though not unpleasant. My initial impression was that it had a very typical “black tea” flavour, though there’s a vegetal tang at the end of the sip, and that faint ash or char characteristic that I notice in many Darjeelings. It smells rich and bold, with a fruity note that I’m coming to associate with muscatel.

The Clonal is quite light – sweet, floral and fruity. It’s mildly astringent with no bitterness – very smooth in comparison to the organic black. There’s an ever so faint note of olives on the nose, which appears in the flavour as the cup cools.

The Clonal dry leaf smells light and grapey, and is a mix of green and grey medium size leaves.

This smells much less sweet, with a touch of malt, and more of a generic black tea scent. The leaves are slightly darker and shorter than the clonal.

Neither of these teas appeals to me overly much, though they are both pleasant.

I’m finally digging into my Teabox order from Black Friday, even as I continue to work to log it all in my cupboard (probably about 40 teas to go?)

I thought I would start off with a Darjeeling oolong, which is something I don’t think I’ve tried before.

The steeping directions recommend 2tsp, 80-90C water and 5 min. I tend to prefer my teas steeped a bit shorter, so I went with 85C water for 3 minutes.

The dry leaf is medium brown and irregular sized pieces. It smells slightly creamy, with a fruity note.

Steeped, this has a very distinct flavour that I’m coming to realize is a characteristic of Darjeelings. Not just the muscatel, but a slightly acrid char flavour (or maybe it’s a mineral note?) It’s not bitter or unpleasant, though it’s not my favourite flavour either, but it seems to be a common thread amongst many of the Darjeelings I’ve tried.

There’s also a lot of fruit – primarily apricot and peach, with some grape, and a bit of vegetal tang that’s on the grassy side. Very smooth and easy to drink.

This is quite nice. I’m not sure if I would have been able to identify it as an oolong – Darjeelings are so distinctive and different from other teas. I probably would have guessed a green on a blind taste test.

I’m looking forward to further developing my palate for Darjeelings.

My first green Assam! I wasn’t really even aware that anyone was producing green Assams until donkeytiara offered to send a sample of one in my swap package. Naturally I had to try it, Assam fan that I am. And it’s pretty good, though not at all what I expected. It’s on the lighter side, yet still quite vegetal. It’s more like one of the grassier kinds of Chinese green than it is a sencha, I think. There’s quite a bit of astringency—even by my astringency-loving standards!—and I think it could easily be too much for those who prefer more delicate greens. What there isn’t is any resemblance whatsoever to a standard black Assam. I don’t know why I expected there would be, or what kind of similarities I was expecting, but it’s not here. Nonetheless, this makes for a pretty good cup, and while I wouldn’t go out of my way to get more of it—there are plenty of other greens that tick the same boxes this one does for me—I certainly wouldn’t object to drinking it again. Thanks for letting me try this, donkeytiara!

A somewhat odd-tasting tea: similar to a FF Darjeeling (albeit in a muted form), but there is also a note of something akin to wheat, or a similar grain. Way too expensive for something that tastes rather flat, and is nothing much in particular.

First infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz water, 75 deg., 2:00 min.

Second infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz. water, 75 deg., 4:00 min.

Third infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz. water, 75 deg., 10:00+ min.

This tea is a blend of a bai mu dan and a FF Darjeeling: one-third the former and two-thirds the latter. The white tea components tend to tone down the Darjeeling aspects (which in turn rather overwhelm the former). Nice enough, I guess, but too expensive for something so mixed-up.

First infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz water, 75 deg., 2:00 min.

Second infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz. water, 75 deg., 4:00 min.

Third infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz. water, 75 deg., 10:00+ min.