Upton Tea Imports

COLD or ICED the pear is more noticeable!!!!

I can taste the sunflower type notes and even green rooibos, and even a strong nuttiness! It’s falls a little short for the pear flavor altho you know something fruity is there. It’s a nice taste overall, however.

Re-steeping yielded a good result. I left the infuser in the mug while drinking and the resulting astringency was quite nice.

This is good. The smokiness of the dry leaves carry into first steep. Behind the smoky facade, there is a nipping quality to this that I like -sort of a touch of iron in your palate. Not sure whether it is the Keemun or Darjeeling, but it’s definitely welcome.

IMHO, second best of the British Blend Sample. Not sure if I should get the full size though.

Sadly, not impressed. Perhaps it was my preconception – I had expected a noticeably smoky RC, a Lapsang-Lite so to speak.

To its defence, after the initial dissatisfaction with the gulp a buttery and a very slightly pepperish taste lingers on the mouth.

But I refuse to give up, next time I will try this with 1.5 teaspoons of dry leaf. Let’s see what happens then.

The dry leaves are sweet-smelling, with a hint of chocolate. But I could not get that flavour from the steep.

Not a big fan, really. I’m not sure that’s because I drank this in the morning while still half asleep and slightly moody but nevertheless, it tastes dull.

Vey slightly astringent, which I like. But that’s all. Perhaps a slice of lemon would add some character.

I am not a big fan of the in-your-face attitude of most breakfast teas, so this was a happy surprise for me. With its round tiny bits, the dry leaves look like pepper and smell heavenly – I guess the Ceylon is the reason.

When infused, it does not give you a jolt, but gently nudges you into awakening. I had this with a standart cheese/olives/bread breakfast and was quite satisfied that, while brisk, its taste did not interfere with them.
The sample earned a place in my morning rotation.

Having fallen in love with Upton’s other LS (Imperial), I had high hopes for this. Perhaps I haven’t perfected the steeping process, but I found that the lovely flavour of the raw tea leafs (which was better than the Imperial) did not translate to the steeped tea. It tasted rather unfinished and lacks depth, a little metallic and not quite smoky for my taste.

I agree that this is a great Intro to LS 101 tea and especially good if you want a light LS. But those who love the SMOKE! in their LS might be disappointed. Perhaps mixing this with other, more smoky LS varieties will do the trick.

This is one mean LS!
Certainly not everyone’s cup of tea (pun intended). Left a very silky smooth aftertaste in my mouth, with very prominent but not overwhelming burning pine notes. As a novice steepster, this is the finest LS I have tasted.

Will try the second steep next.

This one is not as good as Adagio’s Golden Monkey. It is smooth. Sort of cocoa like. But does not have the caramel tones I come to to expect from Golden Monkey. But maybe this from a different region in China?

Weird stuff, really. After the first few sips I felt compelled to go the Upton Tea web-site to check if this tea was flavored with mint. I had a strong impression I was drinking a Darjeeling equivalent of Moroccan mint, only lighter tasting. So off I went and there was no mint in there. But the description said “mildly minty character and an interesting green pepper nuance”. Mildly? Really? I think it’s far from mild, it leaves a lingering menthol-fresh aftertaste that makes my mouth tingle for minutes and I am not exaggerating here. I’ve no idea how green pepper should taste like but there is some definite spiciness to the taste as well. And to top this off the brew has a sweet edge to it.

I wouldn’t say it is a bad tea and I appreciate the uniqueness of it but it kinda contains a mix of flavors that should not be mixed together. It feels like a mouthwash, I mean it. Thus a lower rating.

I was disappointed in this tea. It was touted by Upton as some fancy high end tea w a price of $20 bucks for 10 g. I was hoping this would have cocoa notes as Upton mentioned instead it is a Lapsang Souchong lite w/mild smoky overtones. Glad that I just bought the 5 dollar sample.

I was lured in by the description mentioning minty notes and green apple. Well, as it turned out minty translates into sweet grassiness and green apple into something fresh tasting but not exactly apple.
Overall the tea really is well balanced, it is on the sweeter side that I usually don’t like in Darjeelings but still is not overwhelmingly sweet for me to discard it totally. And the refreshing notes make a very good addition to the taste, balancing the sweetness and giving the tea very high drinkability. It is a perfect evening relaxing tea without too much flowery taste of FF Darjeeling.

YUM! This is a fruity, sweet, delicious treat!

The pear flavor is pleasant and sweet – and just a hint of sharpness from the sunflower comes through – just enough to cut through some of the sweetness of the pear. Making this sweet, but not too tremendously sweet.

I noticed flavors of, sequentially: honey, preserved plum, tobacco, and slight smokiness. It’s sweet even for a Chinese black. I’m betting it would blend beautifully with a Yunnan. Great value, too—it will probably become a staple of my teachest.

The aroma is sweet and light, somewhat of apricot. The liquor is medium-colored and has a notably clean taste, that of archetypal “black tea”. It has no astringency, mild sweetness, and a nice body. Not a complex tea, but not boring.

Thank You Doulton for allowing me the chance to try this tea

I was pleasantly surprised with this one. It is delicious, slightly sweet, light on bergamont, mildly chocolately. Just very yummy! It smells great before and after. Gorgeous flavor!

I bet if Captain Jean Luke Picard wanted to change it up a bit he would say….“Chocolate Earl Grey…Hot!”. This is one I will be buying when I run out.

This reminds me of Almond cookies and green tea. This is quite good, indeed! Hot or Cold!! Special thanks to LiberTEAS!!!!

My new teapot from Upton arrived this morning (I shall call him Colin). It’s one of the 4-cup Chatsford Bone China (on-sale!) pots that I’d been eyeballing for over a month — so I’m thinking that it’s fate that Tim was mortally wounded (Tim’s now chilling on one of my bedside tables right next to my Wonder Woman lunchbox — every now-and-then he gets to wear the cozy Doulton made just for fun).

Anywho, since I was ordering from Upton I naturally had to get a few samples (I’m so weak). I held myself to the three that were on my shopping list. And this is the one with which I decided to christen Colin.

I could very much smell the bergamot when I opened the packet, but it was almost a woodsy bergamot. After steeping it’s a lot more woodsy than bergamotty. It’s a pleasant, innoffensive cup of black tea. The description mentions grapefruit — I get no grapefruit. Maybe in the distant aftertaste, but I’m not a fan of grapefruit so this is a good thing.

Overall it’s a decent breakfast tea, but I don’t plan on buying more of this. NE

BIG storm coming. Pushing Summer out, and bringing what little of Autumn we will see riding in the wake.

Time to ride the dragon.

Was at Field of Greens yesterday and opted to eat next door at the Path of Tea. My companion was excited they had lapsang, and so we got a pot.

Every time I have some other lapsang, I get a craving for my black dragon. I’m on my third steep and every deep sip just envelopes me like a huge from an old friend.

Sometimes I make this tea, and I stare into the cup, and I think “I wish I could quit you”.

There are days you just don’t understand why you like lapsang. Today is that day.

I love drinking this tea with lots of different steeping techniques because you get a different flavor profile every time. Today is a medium short steep in a big pot, and it couldn’t be more different from recent gongfu steepings. This pot is all sharp edges and bristling questions, like an arson investigator picking his way through the lingering smoke. There are days this is what you want. If today is not that day, I have found that small, very short steeps produce a much rounder, softer cup.

I love steeping this in the gaiwan, now. When I brew this Western style I find you can’t really risk more than two steeps before the result gets both thin and sharp. But in the gaiwan with short steeps you can get a half dozen quality steeps.

As an aside, I’ve discovered that you can do gongfu style steeping in the small size (2 cups) Beehive teapots if you want more than a thimble full of tea with each steep. Sure, you’re committing a fairly large wad of tea leaves, but getting 6-20 steeps of 2 cups each is a lot of tea to drink, so it works out pretty well. I especially do this when I engage the “gongfu madness” to make a large batch of a tea (usually because I need to take a big thermos of it with me out to the disc golf course or ultimate field) and the results have been fantastic. Combining several short steepings produces a wonderfully complex cup.