The London Tea Room

Using this weekend to (once again) focus on finishing up drips and drabs of teas that I have tucked everywhere. This is the third one I have managed to finish off since yesterday. Gotta clean out the pantry some so I can buy more tea!

I wish I could taste a bit more Keemun in this one. I think I’d like it more then. Not a bad afternoon type tea but I think Lupicia’s Afternoon Tea definitely wins.

Trying this without milk to see if that’s what’s killed the taste the last two times I attempted to take it to work in my travel tumbler. And it is, some. The nutty taste is warmer and has more depth but it’s still pretty thin. I remember my first two cups being much better than this has been treating me now. Boo.

Okay, I’ve no idea what’s been going on with this tea – whether it is the tea or user error – but this is not giving me happy tea vibes the past couple of times I’ve made this. So yeah, rating is going down. I still have more so I will keep trying to fix what is obviously broken but if I can’t, expect the rating to go down even more. Because this? Not fun. Thin, flat, weak with just a faint nutty taste but otherwise like drinking dishwater. That’s all I’m getting out of this.

Though now that I think about it, I think that this time and last time were the only times I’ve ever prepared this with milk (which tends to be my default setting when I’m putting something in a travel tumbler). I thought it was strong enough to take with a dash of milk but now I’m thinking that is the source of the flat boringness. Mental note – take it straight next time and see how it goes. (And can I just add? I get grumpy over black teas that aren’t able to deal with at least a tiny bit of milk. Wusses.)

No clue what I did to this today but this tea was not nice to me today. Bland and thin and without any depth of flavor at all. It just tasted like stale nuts. Thin and papery and boring with a little chaser of bitter driness. I need to give this another shot but if it does this to me again, the rating will drop. Oh yes. It will.

Backed off of the steep time just a little to hopefully make it a bit tastier for the husband and I think it worked out well for both of us. Still is a mix of cardboard-y Assam and bright-ish Darjeeling plus a little earthy but it lacks the bitterness of last time so I’m thinking 4mins is a good time. I also snuck a little sugar into the husband’s so I’m sure that helped but based on how my sugar-less one taste, he probably didn’t needed.

I haven’t tried this tea yet so I thought I should break it out today. The smell is nice. My first thought was “Cardboard? I didn’t think there was Assam in this?” But then I stuck my nose in the cup (instead of just smelling the wafting scent while pouring) and that changed my mind. The main scent is a slight smoky + earthy, stout Keemun but then there’s a bit of lighter, somewhat fruity Ceylon dancing around in there, too. Once it cooled just a tad, the smoky hint was gone and there was a solid tea smell left… I’m having trouble picking the scents of the tea out as well but it smells almost like… grape. There’s a little faint earth + wine scent and a little faint muscadine scent. Super-light, I really had to smell to find it, but it keeps it from being ‘default tea’ and makes it ‘good tea’.

And it tastes like good tea, too. No sugar, no milk, but it is probably stout enough to deal with a little of that because it does have a very nice body to it. (Insert wolf whistle here). There’s a taste that, if stronger, might develop into cocoa at the front end and a taste that, if stronger, might be a Darjeeling-esque citrus/muscadine sharpness at the end. And the aftertaste has a dry, starchy sweetness to it. As it cools, that Darjeeling-esque tartness increases just a hair but the dryness of the aftertaste decreases, too.

And now my cup is empty. Overall, a good standard tea. I feel kind of bad that I can’t say it’s great or bad, just good. But it’s not hard to get through, it’s not a special occasion tea. This is like the clothing equivalent of a pair of lounge pants. They don’t make you look a few inches taller and 10 pounds slimmer, but they look a whole lot better on than those sweatpants with the little elastic at the ankles and you know you’ll wear them at some point (if not pretty regularly). The same with this tea. It’s not quite a ‘need a cuddle on the couch’ tea or a ‘makes my mouth sparkle’ tea. It’s just good, solid tea.

I shared this tea with the husband and his response when asked his thoughts: “Kind of like a Darjeeling with the bitter notes at the end… the first part makes me almost think of a pu-erh”. Overall, though, he wasn’t a big fan (but then, he’s not a fan of Darjeelings or earthy teas). This was more up my alley than his.

Last night was on of the first nights in quite some time that I’ve gotten a good night’s sleep. Because of that, I don’t need a comfort tea this morning so I brought this one out for a few reasons. 1) Because the husband loves grenadine so I thought he might enjoy this. 2) Because I want to see how it is with zero sugar and milk. And 3) I still can’t reconcile the fact that grenadine is pomegranate.

I love pomegranates. The husband does not. However, we tend to go through those giant bottles of grenadine fairly rapidly – and I never use the stuff. I suppose though, once something is so processed that there is no actual fruit in the syrup, it no longer tastes like what it is supposed to come from. But that still doesn’t prevent my mind from saying that grenadine is fake cherry, even though I now know it is wrong.

So aside from the flavorings of this tea messing with my head, what else can I say about this tea? Without sugar and milk, it’s not really super-sweet. There’s no bitterness or anything – it’s just not as sweet as I was expecting. And the grenadine flavor comes through more on the front smell when I sip and the aftertaste once I swallow. It doesn’t really show up in the middle that much. I can’t specifically taste the vanilla, but I imagine the lack of an edge I feel to the tea is due to the vanilla addition. The flavors are strong but not smack-you-in-the-face strong – but at the same time, not a whole lot of just ‘tea’ taste going on.

I put a tiny bit of sugar in the second half of my cup and while it didn’t really increase the sweetness that much, it seems to bring out the grenadine flavoring and makes the overall taste of the tea taste lighter, somehow. I think I might prefer it with that little bit of sugar.

“Oooh, grenadine and tea… maybe you will be a cherry-flavored tea that doesn’t taste like cough syrup to me! But wait… what are those little orange things you have? That’s in my mango tea, too. You aren’t mango, are you?”
“That’s not mango, that’s calendula.”
sniff … “But you kind of smell like mango.”
“I’m not mango.”
“But you smell fruity and mango is a fruit.”
“Cherry is a fruit, too.”
“But those little things are mango-colored.”
“That. Isn’t. Mango. That’s calendula. I am not mango.”
sip … “Hmm. Fruity. Hello mango, are you in there?”
“I’m NOT mango.”
“But you’re fruity. And a little toasty. And sweet. And yummy.”
“I AM NOT MANGO!”
sip … “Okay, now that you are cooling, you aren’t so much indistinct fruity. You taste, well, sort of like grenadine has been splashed into a toasty, almost bake-y tea.”
“THAT’S BECAUSE I AM GRENADINE TEA.”
shrug … “Well, I suppose you aren’t mango after all, even if you do have those little things my mango tea does.”
“Sigh. I hate you.”
“Mmm, sweet grenadine flavored tea. I love you.”

it really does smell like campfire! well, campfire with a hint of berry :D

but it doesn’t taste like campfire, and i suppose that’s a good thing… to be honest, maybe I put too much splenda in- but it tastes like a normal (though very nice cup of black tea) with a hint of berry… and the lovely campfire smell.

i still really like it. The description makes it sound like it’s a wonderful fall tea and it does remind me of burning leaves a bit- but moreso I love sniffing and imagining i’m in a chateau ski-lodge in Colorado.

update uhmm, it’s highly possible i oversteeped this tea… perhaps 5 minutes is too much. because it’s starting to taste bitter.

i added creamer and that’s softened it. much better!

By the time the husband was ready for tea, I had finished two steeps of Caravan, so I decided to partake in the tea-ness. Though we’d try this one again today if only for the novelty of the little CTC leaves which I find quirky and fun.

It’s not an overly-nuanced tea. There’s clean cardboard, earthy and a little almost Darjeeling brightness. Getting a little bake-y hint, too and a hint of astringency once I breathe in after a sip. Nothing too exciting and closer to flat than a well-balanced flavor but it’s a good standard tea, I think. Probably won’t get it again but I find myself intrigued by CTC leaf so I’m sure I’ll be getting more of that style of tea.

Made tea for the parents and thought this would be a novel cup. Having it so soon after the London Tea Room’s blend helps me really compare. The other is a better cup, so I’m adjusting ratings a bit.

This isn’t bad though. Heavy bodied, cardboard-y and Assam-like. It tastes a little murky – not the cleanest tasting cup but it is nicely aggressive in an Irish Breakfast sort of way but it… brightens up in taste as it cools but can also start to get a little astringent then, too.

Anyway, the general consensus is that this is a good cup but nothing to write home about.

Actually bumping up the rating of this tea just a wee bit today. I took this one with me on my morning commute, so I added about a quarter teaspoon of sugar and half a teaspoon of milk (for 12oz) just to keep off any potential bitterness that might develop from sitting in an insulated mug for half an hour. I honestly don’t think it needed even those minor additions because there was no hint of ick or even real astringency even on my last sip. This tea held up really well as a tumbler tea and I appreciate that.

As Kat suggested a bit ago, I took my tumbler lid off about half way through. It didn’t cause a significant change to the tea, but enough of one that I enjoyed it more lid-less. There was an almost tart fruity scent to it that taste-wise came across as a similar-to-Darjeeling brightness with the lid off and that made the tea a little more interesting. I’m thinking that’s what the previously tasted spiciness changes into with a little milk. I still got an enjoyable clean cardboard taste – I’m becoming quite fond of that taste.

This isn’t exactly a special tea or anything, but it’s a pretty good one. More of an “I don’t know what to have so I’ll have this one” tea instead of an “ooh, this looks good and I’m kind of craving it” tea. But it’s good (and necessary) for me to have some good, solid teas I can fall back on when nothing seems to spark my interest and for that reason, I could see this one becoming something I want to keep on hand.

And honestly, I find the brewing interesting. It brews up disturbingly dark but it’s fun to watch the little tea grounds run around in my pot. I still think of post-horked cat food when I see the wet leaves though.

Another tea I picked up on my trip to St. Louis!

The leaf is so weird…. They are little balls. Tiny little balls. It reminds me of coffee grounds, but a little rounder. The wet leaves remind me of a mix of wet coffee grounds and something mostly digested that my cat would hork up.

All of which brings to mind the question – is there GOOD CTC leaf? Because if there is, this would probably be it. But isn’t that a bit like saying it was a good tax audit?

It brews up into a actually very pretty cup. Clear and a dark reddish brown. I see why they say it is like Assam – the smell is very similar. A bit of me fears the taste with such small leaves PLUS a similarity to Assam. But I will attempt it first with no milk or sugar (mostly because there is no room in the cup).

Okay, this isn’t bad! It’s got the cardboard taste I now know is ‘malty’. But when thinking about the quality of the malt taste, I still have to bring out the cardboard comparisons. This one isn’t gourmet but it isn’t a dirty, used Amazon box that’s been half way around the country and has little dings in the corners. This is a fresh cardboard box. Clean and shiny with a nice smooth outside yet to be roughed up by indelicate postal workers. The taste hits right in the middle of my tongue and sort of settles in, lingering after each sip, creating just a hint of dryness right there (but no where else).

There is a spiciness in the scent that I don’t really get in the tea until it starts cooling just a bit. It makes me wonder if a tiny bit of milk and sugar would bring that spice forward more. I might have to try that next time. This doesn’t seems as stout as the Kenyan tea from yesterday, but it isn’t a wimp by any means. It would hold up well to milk.

So this seems like a good solid tea. Not overly special but nice. Smoothish but malty (cardboard-y). I imagine for a stouter extending the steep time would work. I didn’t taste any bitterness at 3:30 so I’m not sure when (or if) that would show up… Anyway, good stuff but nothing I’ll be tempted to buy once my 2oz are gone. Probably.

ETA: Did a 2nd steep at 4:00 and it is still nice, clean cardboard. A little thin this time so I could have gone 4:30 probably but was just nervous with the small leaf size.

(Also, not as review-y but as an aside – this tea has seriously stained my teacup! I’m sure it will wash out but there’s a little ring around the top and everything!)

You know, my spoon has been dipping a little enthusiastically into my teas today. What does that mean? It means I’m using more leaf than I normally do but am too lazy to take leaf back out after I’ve spooned it onto the scale. And yet, heavy spooning or not, I still have some of this tea left. Just a tiny, tiny bit but still. I want to be able to unclick the “In Your Cupboard” button. It’s very fulfilling to do that, don’t you think?

Anyway, today (just like yesterday and the day before) is rainy and cold. Sigh. At least my irises seem to be enjoying it, even if I’m not. So I’ve not been all that happy and thus not been in all that tea-y of a mood. So I’ve been trying encourage myself by focusing on either some of my not-yet-tasted teas or by trying to unclick that little button. And option number two is what lead me to this tea (although it didn’t work).

I would just like to officially state for the record: this tea suffers from MPD. Sometimes it is Yunnan-y, sometimes it is Darjeeling-y, sometimes it is very-bad-Assam-y. I realize it is probably the brewer (yes, that would be me) that is at fault for such inconsistencies, however I’m totally going to blame the tea. When this is good, it is quite good (and that’s what I’ve rated it on for the most part), but when it is bad, I just want to drop it in a hole and cover it up like my cats try to do when they smell something funny.

Today (with the heavy spooning and the short steeping and the no additives-ing), it’s sort of bringing to mind a stout but slightly thin Yunnan with a hint of a Darjeeling-esque end. I’m not exactly sure how something can be both stout and thin but apparently it can. In my world. Today. Maybe my tongue is broken because now I’m 2 for 2 with ‘thin’ teas even with my heavy spooning. There is a hint of what might end up as bitterness at the end but it isn’t there yet so I should be safe (which is good because I can’t add milk to kill that bitter off if it shows up since it also kills pretty much all flavor in this tea making it taste like I’m eating construction paper).

I do wish that I had managed to use up all of this tea today. Not only to unclick that little button but because today a nice tea personality is coming out and I would really like to tend this relationship on a happy note. Sadly, looks like I’ll have one more chance to get this wrong.

Half & half does this tea no favors so I decreased the steep time and just added sugar this morning. Probably added too much sugar with a full teaspoon for my 12oz but it tasted good so it works for me.
(ETA: Some how my rating got really high. I have no idea why it was set at a 90 but it’s been corrected. The cup was good but not that good.)

Feeling well enough today to make it to work, so that’s good. This morning this tea made me think of copper soil. Both bright and earthy. Energizing yet cuddly. It’s an odd mix but I kind of enjoy it.

Brought this tea to my parents’ house for my morning Christmas tea. Mostly I wanted to have it from a teacup again to reaffirm my love of it after the mediocre showing it had in my travel tumbler.

In a teacup again, this tea is yummy. Bright, clear, smooth with a little Darjeeling-like citrus sparkle laid over top a more Yunnan-tasting base tea flavor. This is the first time the husband has had it and he’s a big fan, too, giving it a 5 out of 5 and saying that it is like a Darjeeling but with very little acidity or bitterness. Smooth and with good, full flavor.

This tea definitely is happier in an open cup and I’m happier with it there too.

The husband left absurdly early today, necessitating separate tea brewing for the two of us. Usually I made a big pot of one tea and split it but today I went ahead and made two different types of tea so that I could experiment a little without the potential of torturing the husband (and so that my tea wouldn’t be room temperature by the time I left the house).

The experiment that I wanted to try was using one of my ‘teacup teas’ and see how they did as ‘travel tumbler’ teas. To me, teas that I enjoy in a teacup – which allows me to smell the tea as I drink it – tend to fall a little short when put in a travel tumbler with a lid. Keemuns are especially unhappy for me in something that prevents smelling the tea while I sip – changes the entire taste. So most of the time for my tumbler, I have to go for flavored teas (which, frankly, I am getting a little tired of) or a breakfast blend, English-style. English-style because the addition of milk and sugar makes the experience more forgiving if the tea gets too bitter sitting in my tumbler for my 40+ minute drive to work.

So today I wanted to try a smoother black tea ‘teacup tea’ that would hopefully not require sugar or milk and still be a pleasant drinking experience. So I grabbed this and crossed my fingers.

It still had that Assam-turning-into-Yunnan-as-it-cools front flavor and it still had a nice, bright Darjeeling end taste. So that’s good. There was no bitterness, even at the end of my 12oz, though the closer I got to the bottom of the tumbler, the more it moved from a Darjeeling ‘bright’ to a Darjeeling ‘tart’. The tea and I never entered Tartness-Land, but we got close enough to see the border guards in the distance. If I had done a 5 minute brew, I imagine we would have gotten our passport stamped if not seen some of the local sites.

So overall, the basics of what made this tea interesting were still there. Starchy front taste when hot, smoothing out as it cooled just a bit and turning earthy. And then, if I took a big swallow, the earthy would throw out some strong cocoa notes. And always finishing with the bright, citrus-or-muscadine end that always screams ‘DARJEELING!’ to me. But even though all the pieces were there, it just wasn’t as… happy as it was out of a cup where I could smell the lovely scents as I drank. Not a huge difference but if this was the first time I had had this tea, I would have given it a lower rating (probably somewhere in the low or mid 70s). But as it is, I’ll leave the rating where it is and just consider this tea a teacup tea that can be put in a tumbler if needed.

So, did you know if you accidentally hit the escape button while typing a review, it all goes away? Apparently so!

Let’s see if I can remember what I wrote and pick up from there….

Upon first impression, the dry leaves smelled like Assam but then as I continued to sniff, they remind me more of a Darjeeling – there is a bit of sharpness that makes me think of the muscatel taste in Darjeelings.

As I’m waiting for the water to boil (oh how I miss my Zojirushi – would it be overkill to bring that on my next road trip?) I Google a bit to see if I can find anything about this estate or tea. Other than the fact that Lupicia sells tea from this estate and that this estate’s tea seems to be in some Kenyan tea blends, I’m not really finding much. If anyone has any good links to share about the variety of tea plant they grow in Kenya and what they do to the leaves, I’d appreciate it! (Or where to buy more of them!)

Brewed up, the tea is a somewhat murky brown. Smells like a stout Yunnan, though. Mmm, tastes like a stout Yunnan, too. It’s very Yunnan like but makes me think of Yunnan Gold with a hint of Irish breakfast. It’s not from brewing it too heavy, though. Now that I have my teacups, I know I’m doing 2.3g/6oz. So this is just a stout tea.

I’m starting to get a bit of that sharpness I smelled that reminded me of a Darjeeling. As it cools, the front taste becomes Darjeeling-esque and the tail has the warm fuzzy tones of a Yunnan almost with a little cocoa taste after the swallow. Very faint though so it is more of a dry cocoa feel. If that makes sense. For all its stoutness it is a smooth tea with zero bitterness. I imagine it would hold up well to milk and sugar if that’s how you roll, but it has enough of the Yunnan-ish taste for me to find that unnecessary.

And now my cup is empty and I am sad. This is a good tea. I imagine that anyone that finds Yunnans somewhat boring or too smooth/mild tasting would enjoy this one. Or someone that finds Darjeelings too sharp, though this is definitely thicker than a Darjeeling. Or maybe this is the tea for the Irish Breakfast set that finds Chinese teas too weak/thin. Or maybe it is a tea for someone that likes all of those and wants to squish them all together into one nummy tea.

One last comment – I can feel the caffeine hitting my blood stream. This definitely fits on the Irish Breakfast side of the caffeine equation as I’ve never felt that Yunnans were particularly caffeinated. WHEE!!!

ETA: 2nd steep at 5 mins. It’s not an overly impressive second steep which is somewhat sad. Still had a Yunnan-esque flavor to it and still stout, but I couldn’t pick up any of the Darjeeling tartness/sharpness anymore which turned the tea into just sort of normal. Maybe like a second steep of an Irish Breakfast made with Chinese blacks.

I went to a tea room today! Whee! It was The London Tea Room (http://www.thelondontearoom.com/) in St. Louis and it was nifty!

They do a lot of the blends in house so I definitely wanted to try one. I MEANT to get the London Tea Room blend but due to a miscommunication (apparently they don’t speak Texan) I ended up with their English Breakfast blend. That’s okay, I’ll deal.

Now, from the rating you might think I didn’t find this an overly redeeming tea. It’s true that I didn’t love the taste of it – found it meh-ish… totally drinkable but not something I need to take home. BUT! It was neat in that I was able to identify what about it I didn’t like. It was that pesky cardboard taste that normal people apparently call ‘malt’. So yes, it was the Assam in it. Apparently, I’m pretty darn picky about my Assam (and the quality of my cardboard). The taste of the Assam was dominant and since it wasn’t as lovely of an Assam as Thomas Sampsom or Assam Harmony, it didn’t really blow my hair back. However, on the instances that I could taste beyond the Assam, it seemed like there was something good back behind there which, looking at the description, was probably the brightness of the Darjeeling trying to poke out. It was just hiding a bit too much. It was easier to find when I didn’t have milk or sugar in the tea, but ultimately I had to doctor the tea a bit because it is only gourmet cardboard that I can have straight and this was just the normal stuff.

I would like to say that the husband got their Earl Grey which was good and insanely fresh tasting in regards to the bergamot – and smooth enough to drink without milk or sugar. And my SIL got the Monk’s Blend which she sugared and milked to an almost insane degree however the sip I was able to steal was delicious and ensured that I bought some of that loose. Anyway, after my pot for one (two cups) of English Breakfast, I was nicely caffeinated and picked up 7 teas from them to take home with me (including the Monk’s Blend). I can’t wait to try those!

Yay tea room! (Wonder if there’s any chance we can go back tomorrow?)

This is everything a good Irish Breakfast should be. Malty, strong, and robust. I can taste the Assam and Kenyans nicely in this.