teasenz

I do not like this one. Woody, tannic, weird aftertaste – ashes? I think this was a sample. Sipdown.

Wow, compared to the tasting notes by others (and apparently myself) I’m not even tasting the same tea right now. Oh well! I don’t find it that good today. Tannic, but not that malty, with an odd flavor. It’s quite minerally. 197F Pseudo-westren style. Maybe I didn’t use enough tea or long enough steeps or it didn’t like the longer steeps. I don’t know.

I have enough for one more steep. Unless it blows me out of the water, I’m not purchasing more than this sample.

Backlog.
Fruity, earthy, smooth. Pretty consistent over 7 or 8 steeps. 100ml gaiwan, 195F, 5gish. I enjoyed this.

Hubby is at last home from the “great Eastern snow storm.”We got a half inch here at home but three inches in areas immediately around us. Ha ha! But since ice on the roads is a factor with no one here having snow tires or chains, he had to work 75 hours this week, with 58 of those hours being consencutive and only broken by a three hour sleep and two twenty minute naps. Where he works, there were some truly treacherous icy roads to be dealt with. He gets tea and homemade chocolate peanut butter chip cookies for being our hero!

I really adore the whole gamut of Big Red Robe teas, from the sweet ones to the smokey and robust ones.
These twisted black leaves with only a few golden brown ones mixed in attest that this will be one of the roasty ones.

I tried this yesterday with Chocolate Silk Pound Cake, strawberries, and freshly whipped cream. It was fantastic with food, with a nutty flavor like dry walnut skin contrasted with a light underlying sweetness. I didn’t pick up on smoke as much as nuttiness.

Today I had a cup by itself, and was surprised to find that it tastes much smokier on its own, bordering on a mild Lapsang. (This is a Lapsang loving household!) The smoke was really front and center, whereas yesterday walnut predominated.

Both days I noticed a light drying effect which was nice with cake as its clears the palate. I really want to try it iced as well. I think it would be great!

Reviewed for Sororitea Sisters here! http://sororiteasisters.com/2016/08/31/da-hong-pao-teasenz

Nice tea, but there are better deals :)

Finally picked up some of this and I’m pretty glad i did.

This is molasses brown bread with some mild peppery notes and honey notes. I let it steep a couple minutes too long so the honey is kind of a burnt honey. I don’t get any citrus in the aftertaste but the burnt honey and pepper do linger. Looking forward to another try paying more attention to the time. So silly, I measured the leaves, got the water temp according to recommendations, looked at the time then wandered off and got distracted. :)

Water: 8oz

Leaves: medium green curled leaves

Steep: 3m

Aroma: vegetable

Color: medium yellow

Clarity: great

Taste:When measuring out the leaves 1tsp didn’t seem like enough leaves so i added a bit extra. When adding the water i made a mistake and didn’t allow it to cool for another 50s due to me reading the temperature of 185 on the package but on the website i read 80c (176). Even when using too hot water the tea flavor was nice no bitterness or anything.After that cup i went back for another this time using the water at the proper temperature and it was still great.

Thank you Teasenz for this sample!

With that being said this wraps up my Teasenz reviews!

Water: 8oz

Leaves: long thin bright green leaves

Steep: 3m, 4m

Aroma: spinach, vegetable

Color: pale yellow

Clarity: Great

Taste: When looking at this tea online for the first time i thought it sounded quite interesting its a labeled a white tea but is also considered as a green. Opening the pack the leaves were very long and thin so i knew right away i wouldn’t be able to use my measuring spoon. The initial aroma of the dry leaf was that of spinach. To measure i first pour what i think is going to be a good amount into the bottom of my french press. The taste of this tea was nice and light with no bitterness, where the vegetable aroma is faint but noticeable. I went back for a second cup after having my first.

Thank you Teasenz for this sample!

Water: 8oz

Leaves: solid medium ginseng dusted uneven leaves

Steep: 5m

Aroma: non-floral, Ginseng

Color: golden yellow

Clarity: good, it improved to great as i drank more

Taste:This is my first Ginseng Oolong tea! I’ve always wanted to try Ginseng infused tea so i was quite excited when i saw this one. Upon opening the packet the leaves look completely different from any thing I have seen before. The leaves were solid uneven dusty/powdered murky green color. Before brewing i watched a video on the company website and i noticed that the lady in the video didn’t rinse her leaves which is something i would normally do, but this time i knew not to do so. When making this tea the first time i realized i used wayy to many leaves 2.5tsp for 1 cup. They later unraveled as the tea was steeped. With that being said the taste was light i didn’t notice any special ginseng flavor. Overall i say this was an okay cup.

Thank you Teasenz for this sample!

*Update

I decided to give this one another go, this time using 1tsp of leaves for 8oz of water with a 4m steep. the color remained golden yellow, while the clarity improved i could see the bottom of my cup & the micro particles that escaped my strainer. The classic oolong aroma shined through with a hit ginseng. The taste was light and smooth.

GCTTB V1

The box has landed! I happened to have today off, so I’m enjoying tapping into the box and sifting through the many, many goodies to see what I want to try/sample. There’s a LOT to go through!

I’m surprised this one caught my eye; I’m not big into green tea but I think the very unique shape of the tea leaf really intrigued me. The description says that each little curl/ring is done by hand which is just crazy to me. Can you imagine being the person who has to curl the leaves? They’re just so petite and charming. I mean, certainly not the craziest shaped tea leaf I’ve ever seen but just so beautiful none the less.

I got two infusions out of this; I feel like a third would have been possible but there are just so many other teas to try. With the first infusion, I was a little taken aback by how smoky this tasted. Like, it’s really smoky. There are other nice notes too: it’s vegetal and has a bit of a green pepper note as well as a kind of butteryness. The finish is also a little nutty. Second infusion was much more smoke and nuttyness.

Definitely liked this one! Wish I’d had a camera to take pictures of the little rings as they unfurled; it was hella pretty.

Water: 8oz

Leaves: very tiny golden brown buckwheat

Steep: 4m

Aroma: Sweet & Wheaty

Color: bright yellow

Clarity: hint-cloudy

Taste: With this tea i decided to go by my own brewing technique instead of following the direct instructions. Using 8oz of water & 1tsp of buckwheat. The aroma shined once i opened the packet it was sweet & wheaty. I’ve been curious about buckwheat but never tried it till now. I also read else where you can eat them when your finish brewing tea. Pouring it in my cup it was nice i didn’t need a strainer because the tea gather in its own little cluster not moving as i poured. Only 2 pieces escaped the cluster falling into my cup. The color was bright yellow with a hit of cloudiness but i could see the bottom of my cup completely. Overall i found this to be not too surprising taste wise, just a nice simple cup of tea. I can see myself having it again.

Thank you Teasenz for this sample!

Water: 17oz

Leaves: very tiny fuzzy purple flower buds + a bit of green

Steep: 5m

Aroma: Lovely & Relaxing, classic lavender

Color: clear grey

Clarity: Great

Taste: I tore away the silver tab at the top of the tea, not even opening the package i could smell the scent of lavender when i brought it to my nose! It one of my favorite scents so opening the packet completely i got the full aroma. Such a nice pleasant aroma having that relaxing feel to it. I noticed the directions on the website were different from my usual tea making calling for 500ml/17oz of water & 2-5grams of tea which i googled 5g and found it to be equal to 1tsp which is what i went with. I also read that this tea is sometimes too strong on it’s own so i might try my 2nd cup with a touch of honey. It’s also 1am when i decided to brew this i wasn’t ready for bed just yet so i thought why not make a cup of tea. When finish brewing (some of the buds had also bloomed) & poured in my cup I noticed that instead of a purple hue i was expecting the tea was a clear grey color. The aroma before steeping remained even after brewing. As for taste i find it to be very light not too strong on its own. Overall i found this to be a nice tea, i’m going to try brewing it again to see if i can achieve a purple tone using less water but the same amount of leaves.

Thank you Teasenz for this sample!

Update: 6/13/16
I made this again with 8oz of water and 1stp of tea to see if i would get a purple color as shown. Sadly the color only turned to a dark gray color.

Sipdown. 3min, 8oz, 212F
Not a whole lot to say. Honey and a note I couldn’t place that I didn’t like much. I’ll let the previous rating stand.

23Apr- 205F, 1.5tsp, 8oz, westren.
Dry leaf- malty, spicy.
1min 30s- spicy, honey. 2min- got a bit too tannic so I backed off and went to 1 min steeps instead.
Good 79

You can read the full review on my blog:
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2016/3/15/tuesday-tea-anji-white-tea-teasenz

tea from christina this one is my first teasenz tea and it’s so pretty! giant, flat, sometimes transluscent leaves. the tea itself isn’t knock your socks off but it’s pretty good :) it’s a really light tea with sort of bean notes. thanks for sharing christina!

I like how the dry leaves of this tea were many different colours of green , some of them bright green. Brewed up it was sweet and nutty with notes of green bean. Loved this tea!

Thanks Christina for the sample!

Christina gave me a big sample of this tea and I’ve enjoyed it 2 times aleady! Thanks Christina!

I like to add a little honey to this tea to give it a bit of sweetness and bring out more of the honeysuckle floral taste. I’ve been feeling pretty good drinking this tea and love the fact that it’s anti-bacterial. I have to get some more of this tea for the winter months ahead.

This is the last sample I have provided by Teasenz. All of them have been very good quality at a reasonable price. They offer flat $5 worldwide shipping from China.

The aroma of this one is fresh field hay with soft floral notes. The dry leaf contains plenty of furry silver buds and light green to dark brown leaves. The taste of the first cup was like drinking fresh mountain stream water, filled with stone and mineral elements. Mid sip reminds me of damp forest leaves. Late sip has light floral elements that remind me of the namesake peony flowers. The second cup is much darker in flavor. It is a combination of stone, forest leaves, and fruit – like apricot with hints of plum. Second cup seems more syrupy.

First tasting note for this tea!

The dry leaf of this flower tea is a mix of white and pale green strands, but since I couldn’t see any jasmine buds or flowers, I’m assuming that the two weren’t mixed together to create the blend.

However, the taste of this tea wasn’t that memorable. The jasmine flavour was thick, but it was a surface-level thickness, without a lot of body underneath. A lot of the time, with really good jasmine, there’s an underlying sweetness that reminds me of oranges or orange blossom, but that secondary flavour wasn’t present here. I’m going to chalk that up to there being no jasmine flowers in the blend.

The green base was quite mild, which I didn’t appreciate — I think that if the base tea had a more intense flavour, it would have competed with the surface-level flavour of the jasmine and overall given it more body.

Full review at: http://booksandtea.ca/2015/10/random-flower-teas/

The leaves of this tea are long and spindly, and light pea green. They also smell like buttery vegetables and snap peas.

The resulting brew was pale yellow that darkened to a clear green as it cooled. This had a more traditional green tea taste – buttery, vegetal, and green-beany, but still remarkably light and clear.

Full review at: http://booksandtea.ca/2015/10/teasenz-teas-liu-an-melon-seed-and-anji-bai-cha/

The leaves are long, spindly tubes with a dark forest green colour and they smell faintly of licorice. The resulting brew was clear, light green, and had a delicious sweetness on the back of my tongue to complement the notes of greens and cooked vegetables. It reminded me of pine sap — a bit sticky and refreshing.

Full review at: http://booksandtea.ca/2015/10/teasenz-teas-liu-an-melon-seed-and-anji-bai-cha/

This is very nice. The dry scent is typical of silver needle yet the taste is a little different. It is clean and crisp. It is sweet. Not at all bitter. Instead of a hay and cucumber profile, this one leans a little more towards green. It has floral/fruity notes. I also catch fast and light hints of minty. I steeped for the recommended 4 minutes at 175F. Had I gone short steeps at slightly higher temp, it would almost certainly turn out differently. As prepared the flavor is bold for a white tea and has plenty of depth. I feel refreshed and relaxed after sipping. Teasenz sells some pretty good tea.