Teavivre

Good morning from the west coast.  

A gentle green tea that can be had upon waking without causing an upset stomach. I enjoyed the entire sample from tea-sipper over the course of last week as grandpa-style brews before eating breakfast.  Clean, sweet, beany-vegetal, nutty and toasty as long jing is known for.  Impressions of cream, grain and apricot. Never astringent.  It did, I think from the amount of loose trichomes, tear up my mouth a bit.  I remember having that issue with long jing in the past. The effect on my mouth cleared up after 2 days of sipping.  The calming aroma and flavor more than made up for that effect.

Thank you, tea-sipper :)

The garden is fully planted. Between the perennial growth and annual plantings, we have:

mandarin orange, lemon, loquats (too young to flower), pomegranate, pineapple guava, strawberries, blueberries, grapevines, honeydew, watermelon, avocado, native currant, quince, banana (it flowers but never fruits)
mints, parsley, thyme, oregano, bay tree, thai basil, cilantro, sage, borage, lemon balm, chamomile, lavender
chives, garlic, leeks, green onion, bulb onions, turmeric, ginger
arugula, chard, amaranth, bok choi, artichokes, fennel
yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, eggplant, potatoes, pole beans, beans for drying
sunflowers, roses, jasmine, honeysuckle

And those are just the edibles with multiple varieties of many plants. I don’t even know the extent of our flowers and succulents. I do have 8 or 9 Bay Area native trees and shrubs I’ll be planting today.

This is a very grassy and floral Tie Guan Yin. There isn’t much of buttery and cooked green leafy vegetable notes, but plenty of lilac and violets.: very clean and refreshing. It has a strong lilac and white lily aroma, re-steeps well (that is when SOME buttery notes do creep in) and has a nice lasting aftertaste.

All in all, it is a very good representative of the grassy TGYs. Bonus points for being quite affordable. The only thing that keeps it from being amazing is that it does not have that vast, never-ending complexity of the very top teas.

This is a relatively new addition to Teavivre black teas that did not impress neither the members of the Steepster community nor the reviewers on the Teavivre site. And I can see why: this is a smooth, understated tea without any single flavor or aroma jumping forward and grabbing your attention. The main taste components are malt, cherry, hay and gentle sweetness. It has a mild sweet and flowery aroma and does not re-steep well.

However, I think that this tea is good in its own right: I sometimes want a simple pleasant and smooth tea that is sweet and soothing. It is well-balanced and while not super-complex is good as a drink to sip while working or as a desert tea.

The main flavors here are a slight tartness and a jello-like flavor. I’m finding myself wishing I hadn’t bought so many large bags of fruit tea from a company I hadn’t ordered from before, though I hear their pure teas are much better. This isn’t bad, but it’s very generic.

Thanks so much, AJRimmer!  I always wanted to try so many of the blends you sent!  This one included.  I envisioned a dark forest with this — maybe plums? I guess dark fruits, which sounds like a divine blend.  Looking at the ingredients, not really plums — grapes!  And not many more fruits here… which is misleading, other than apple.  The blend of ingredients LOOKS dark anyway.  I can’t really taste apple.  Mostly rosehips with a hint of mint.  I really wanted more here, but at least the rosehips aren’t overpowering.   The second steep is lighter, even with a longer steep, but again, I’m just glad it isn’t overpowering rosehips.  Hopefully the other Teavivre herbal blends are also able to tame the rosehips.
Steep #1  // 1 1/2 teaspoons for full mug // 7 minutes after boiling  // 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // just boiled //  6 min

Tried it again, this time with much softer water.
So much better.
Taste of custard and so much more.
To sum it up: use soft water!

It seems most / all the reviews are 6+ years old. Maybe the vintage makes quite a difference here. I am reviewing the 2018 vintage . I would be interested to read new reviews. You guessed it: this ‘premium dragon well’ did not live up to my expectations. It is supposed to be ‘award-winning’ (Golden leaf award). Yet it does not deliver that much bang to me.
There is nuttiness, sweetness. But too subtle, thus too bland to me.
4g, 220 ml, 85° C increasing, 40s, 60s, 60s, 80s, 120s, 150s, 180s, 5min, 10 min

The toffee flavor mixes well with the rooibos and comes out pretty strong. The flavor is simple, but heavy. I like it, but probably wouldn’t order it again. The resteep is tasty. The packaging for the samples is just terrible, though I understand that resealable pouches are much more expensive to produce.

Most of you know my husband prefers to drink oolong, green, or white tea. He likes black but has always needed milk and sugar to enjoy it so he asks for tea that he likes plain to keep it simpler and healthier.

Then I showed him the article about black and puerh tea extracts having efficacy against corona type viruses in a lab setting, just because it was interesting. But he has been super cautious because he is essential personnel and helped oversee setting a quarantine facility for the military as well as a drive through Covid testing site and has to keep working. Two coworkers got sick and were tested but no results have come through. He had little contact with them and isn’t worried, but a nine day hospitalization with near fatal pneumonia years ago has left him cautious, so basically I make black and puerh tea constantly while he is home.

While I am glad he is drinking black tea sans additions now, a wonderful wonderful takeaway from this situation, I was getting the screaming Mimis for something OTHER THAN mild black. So for supper last night, I made this.

I have two sample packs of it, and I desperately hope they still sell this because it was amazing. We tried to order Chinese food just to support the little family at our local restaurant but they have closed for now to stay safer, so I made mushrooms, onions, and red bell peppers in a veggie and soy sauce stock with Asian noodles. Basically it was a veggie lomein. It was delish. I love mushrooms, though, so…

The baked flavor was there, but with food it seemed only mildly roasted. It might be different if it was paired with sweets or served alone. The floral aspect was somehow heightened and oh my goodness, it was silky smooth and easy to guzzle. The food wasn’t heavy but it was substantial in texture and flavor, and yet still the tea managed to shine through and take a starring role in the meal. Definitely a re-order.

Cold Brew Sipdown (326)

So first of all, why is an ingredient for this on steepster “puerh leaves” since there definitely are none?

Anyways, I am inventorying my teas again because it calms me. This time I am doing a new excel spreadsheet but I likely will also do a written one soon enough as well. This tea is what I have been sipping on while doing that. A sipdown which means one less tea to log.

This was a good one and I will miss it. If I were placing a teavivre order, I would consider adding this to the cart though I wouldn’t place an order just for this.

I saw this one described as tart and I’m surprised because it’s not tart at all for me. I was expecting tartness though and I decided to prep the sample cold brew to mitigate that. It worked well and made for a juicy blueberry flavour. Thank you Sil for the sample!

This one is quite tropical! I taste what seems like pineapple and coconut. It’s a little weak, so you need to overleaf it, but really it’s a perfectly decent tea! It’s especially refreshing after having so many sour fruit blends recently.

Sipdown (843)…

A calming bit of afternoon tea & a super rare green tea moment all in one. I didn’t think this was the freshest tasting jasmine tea, though to be fair it’s a sample and I can’t honestly recall how long I’ve been sitting on it. Props for being a lot more jasmine forward though, with more of a crisp vegetal finish sort of like eating a bite of really fresh iceberg lettuce. Did get a tiny bit astringent in later steeps though, when the jasmine was beginning to wain. Neither green tea or jasmine are typical tea choices for me, but what’s that thing we’re all saying right now!?

These are strange times…

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-AcjaqAf7M/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrSfb3C48C4

This is way weaker than I expected. I overleafed it the second time I tried it so that I could get a better sense of the flavor. It’s a bit tart. I prefer a light, refreshing orange flavor, but this was heavier with the sour ingredients. The flavor is okay, but not unique or interesting in any way.

Accidentally left this one in the car so I didn’t get to drink it until after work. It needed a little extra sweetening to curb the sourness, but now it tastes okay. Not at all like forest berries though – maybe more like jello? It tastes like a typical red fruit combination, but a little more artificial. It’s honestly okay, but I was really hoping to taste those berries. Well the title is forest fruit, but I assume berries because what other forest fruits are there.

Yet another sample from Teavivre that I have to make note of because it is so delicious. I’ve had a hankering for unflavored blacks lately. Is this a thing? As one’s tea journey progresses, flavored teas fall out of favor? I feel like it is, indeed, a thing. I still love flavored teas, though. I don’t think that will change completely.
Anyway, I was perusing my tea cabinet this morning, and realized I needed to dip into my stash of samples in hopes of finding a tea I felt like drinking. Came up with this one and it was the perfect thing. Sweet, mellow, comforting, strong scent of, well, black tea. I loved it. So much so, in fact, that I went to Teavivre to buy some. I don’t think I’ll be getting it, though, as they are currently only shipping from their US warehouse to US destinations, and this tea didn’t seem to be on the warehouse list.
The current coronavirus crisis really brings home how globally interconnected we are, and how, eventually, everything gets affected. Even the tea in your cup. Here’s hoping this outbreak is short lived.

Tasting notes: spinach, vegetal, seaweed

Brothy mouthfeel

This tea is a bit unremarkable. I put it in the fridge to take to work with me. It’s okay, just generically fruity and rather sour. It wasn’t much more expensive to get 4 oz than to get a sample, so I have unfortunately more of this tea than I’d really like to drink. I’ve had it twice now and hope to not have it many more times.

Teavivre has closed temporarily to protect employees and customers from the novel Coronavirus, but their US Warehouse is still open. You can still order from the US stash if you are in the US so I placed an order last night. They have been really generous with their samples and I hope that the US Warehouse keeps this closure from affecting them as much.

I ordered this sample a while back because I absolutely love their jasmine teas. My first ever jasmine was not from Teavivre and it was too strong and too much like bubble bath. I don’t know if it was artificially flavored or what. When I got my first jasmine sample from Teavivre I was astounded at the difference. I have enjoyed every form of jasmine tea I have tried from them,

This one is no exception. Hubby and I had Asian buffet leftovers tonight and made a double steep from the sample pack. The “snails” are soft with lovely light green and white color. Beautiful. Now I wish I had saved it for a gong fu service I am doing later this week.

Sunday afternoon tea with my housemate while watching movies.

I brewed the entire dragon ball in a 500 mL teapot with water off-boiling. Initial tastes were smooth, malty, cocoa-y, minerally and nectar-sweet with very light bitterness. As the tea continued to steep, the flavor profile morphed to savory notes of orange-flesh squash, leather, malt and bright tobacco with a gritty astringency. The rose remained a pleasant and never over-bearing floral addition. Overall, a nice tea to brew in a large pot for a lazy Sunday.

This might’ve been the final tea of a swap with Kawaii433 this time last year. Thanks so much for your generosity and being a part of my day today <3 I miss your reviews, by the way!

Movie pairing: The Manchurian Candidate (2004)