Upton Tea Imports

Ahhh, this is what I needed this morning. This tea is brisk, robust, malty, and chewy. This tea is a strong and hearty blend of assam teas.

I really like this tea. Its robust, brisk, malty, and chewy. Its a blend of assam teas and it really hits the spot in the morning.

This is an excellent blend of assam teas. The tea steeps up a dark amber color and is brisk, robust, malty, and chewy. This is a great wake up tea and is a good substitute for coffee. Its got me awake this morning.

Yes, I am feeling better, at least well enough to drink tea and type. This is a blend of orthodox assam teas. What more could you ask for. This tea is robust and brisk and very satisfying. I just love the chewy maltiness.

This is a robust, brisk, malty, and downright delicious tea. Its an orthodox mixture of assam teas. It really is an eye opener. I detect only a touch of bitterness and astringency. Here in Maine its a very ugly chilly rainy day and this tea is just perfect for it. I like this tea and I’m happy I ordered 1/4 pound instead of a sample. Its right up there with River Shannon on my list.
2.5g/8oz

Bummer…I love smoky teas and this one just wasn’t. It tastes like a blend of oolong, keemun and darjeeling. I would say that this tea is an afternoon tea. It really wasn’t robust or brisk enough for breakfast. However, this is not a bad tea. It has a nice light mouthfeel and fruity notes. It has a sweetness to it and is a tea I would drink again, but not one of my favorites. I may add some Lapsang Souchong to it to see what happens.
2.5g/8oz

This is a nice bold, robust tea for breakfast. It has the nice malty, chewy taste that assam’s are supposed to have. A very tasty tea.
2.5g/8oz

This tea is in small little pellets like grapenuts. It is a bold, robust, and chewy tea with a caramel note at first sip. I was really surprised at this tea. There was no bitterness and a touch of astringency. I got more caramel notes as the tea cooled. Yes, this is a CTC tea but it just amazed me with the taste.

This is a very nice breakfast tea with the assam and ceylon teas mellowed out by the yunnan. Its brisk and robust with malty notes. I am getting a little bitterness and astringency this morning.

Now this is an interesting tea. Its brisk and robust without the bitterness or astringency. Its more mellow than River Shannon thanks to the added yunnan tea. This tea has plenty of malty notes. I have to agree with Morgana, she hit this tea right on the nose with her tasting note. Read her tasting note as I really can’t add any more.

I’ve actually had this several times the past two days, just been too busy to log it properly!

I dislike plain mate, so I blend it with Earl Grey usually. I’m out of my proper Earl Grey Creme that I prefer, so I’m using a blend that Teavana recommended, their regular Earl Grey with their Vanilla Honeybush. It’s not as good, but it makes a decent cup of caffeinated tea. I think I prefer the roasted with this black tea, though.

Mate isn’t really what I look for when I drink it, but I find that it’s good to blend with other strongly-flavored teas and then it doesn’t hurt it at all. I have a strawberry lemonade herbal tea that goes much better with this green mate than the green mate does with this Earl Grey. I think the green would probably match up well with an oolong tea—I’ll have to try that next time. Just make sure you use hot (nearly boiling) water so you can extract the most caffeine!

Doulton’s Shakespeare: A Tasting Note in 5 Acts
Act IV scene 4

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Henry V, Prologue

The last time I had a straight-up Keemun I was doing my basic black trio comparison in order to learn what Keemuns, Ceylons, and Assams generally taste like. Keemuns came out on top as being my favorite amongst the three. With this Keemun I didn’t have to focus on the comparison at all, but instead just enjoy a good cup of black tea.

After my first sip I knew that this tea would be one of Shakespeare’s histories. It just seems too earthy and real to be anything else. I had visions of a mud-spattered Kenneth Branagh with a bad haircut giving rousing speeches to an outnumbered army. Therefore this tea is my Henry V (the king formerly known as Prince Hal). In Henry IV part 1 we watch Prince Hal go through his “Lion King” type transformation. Well, now that he’s a king we get to watch him get his king on.

This tea seems to give me an internal speech that says:

Once more unto the morning, dear Rabs, once more;
Or close your eyes with your braincells dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a woman
As modest snoring and humility;
But when the blast of dawn blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger. . .

Or something like that. NE

Sipdown no. 63 of 2018 (no. 419 total). Sample tin.

A very tiny bit left in the tin (1.5 spoons full) so I dumped it into a mix for cold steeping along with the Tea Table Keemun Hoa Ya A and some Leland Tea Snickerdoodle to see what that would do.

It’s a truly odd black iced tea, neither fish nor fowl and not as strong as I would have expected.

But I have nothing of interest to add to my original note on this one.

This is the fourth and last of the teas in the British Blend sampler. I have to say I really like the little tins Upton uses for its sampler sets. They’re very cute.

The darjeeling owns the smell of the dry leaves here, along with a little smokiness that must be from the Keemun. Fruity and smoky. Yum. The Ceylon seems to be coming out more in the steeped tea’s aroma. I am getting that sort of berry undercurrent I’ve found in other Ceylons.

The tea is flavorful and medium bodied bordering on full with a mouthfeel that is thicker than water but not thick enough to feel like it’s coating your throat. I didn’t try it with additives yet. It doesn’t really need it, at 3 minutes of steeping. There’s nothing harsh or bitter about it. It has some astringency.

It’s deceptively simple tasting. It seems to me sort of a Rorschach inkblot of black teas. If you want to find a chocolate note in here, I think you can. Vanilla, probably. Fruit? Definitely. Nut, I think so. Smoke? At tad. Wood? Some. Earth, probably. Name some other things you typically find in tea and if you let your mind wander during the tasting you can probably convince yourself it’s there. At least until you’re more highly caffeinated than I am this morning, as this is my first caffeine of the day.

Finished my sample yesterday. I ended up drinking it just to get rid of it rather than because I liked it. It’s not bad, it’s certainly drinkable, but it’s not to my tastes either. I’ve got myself a lovely new tin of the CTC Irish Breakfast and I will be sticking with that! mmm.

Tried this again with cooler water, and I’m still not a fan. It’s just got too much ceylon in it to really be an Irish Breakfast to me. I’d accept it as an English Breakfast maybe, but it’s just not making me too happy. I’ll finish my sample but I don’t plan on getting more. I think it’d probably suit other people just fine, but for me…not doing it at all.

Short steeping time and fairly hot temp — because I couldn’t wait to try it. I’m thirsty and so it might not be the best time for me to drink a brand-new tea, but I wanted something plain black.

It’s pretty nice, but not quite what I want for an everyday tea. My first impression of the similar Upton offering, the CTC Irish Breakfast Assam tea, was much nicer. It may be the hot temperature but this one is a little more bitter and astringent — this reminds me more of English Breakfast or English Afternoon tea than the malty taste I want from an Irish tea. That said, despite not suiting my tastes, It’s quite a good blend and well worth a try, and I definitely look forward to finishing my sample using lower-temp water.

Doulton’s Shakespeare: A Tasting Note in 5 Acts
Act IV scene 3

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Julius Caesar, Act II scene 2

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a very limited experience with Darjeeling teas. I couldn’t find any other Namring teas by Upton on Steepster, so I went ahead and checked out Upton’s website and they’re onto the 2nd flush of this tea. I’m drinking first flush. So I kept the heading for this tea basic and if it does indeed need some clarification on the tea name, then by all means adjust it.

Er, it seems like a Darjeeling from the dry leaves to the steeped. It walks like a Darjeeling tea, it quacks like a Darjeeling tea, therefore it must be a Darjeeling tea. I agree with the descriptions of “woody” and “nutty.” I could possibly squint my tastebuds and give it a “fruity.” Finishing with a sweetness? Not so much. It starts off quite pleasant and soft, but as the cup cools it gets more “bitey.” I only did one steep which is quite a rarity for me, but a big reason for that is that I have to be at work early tomorrow and needed to switch to tisanes STAT.

I dub this tea the character Julius Caesar. It seems a bit cockey and sure of itself. It believes that it’s entitled to a 100 rating. That it’s a tea god among tea men. I am its Brutus, stabbing it with my pointy knife saying “yeah, you’re not all that and a bag of chips.” It’s a fine tea, but nothing that has me wanting to back it up when the Ides of March rolls around. NE

The unintended consequence of opening sample no. 3 from the Upton British Blend sampler today is that I now have Gerry Rafferty doing the backstroke through my brain repeatedly. At least the saxophone is awesome.

Tippy leaves ranging from dark, almost black to light, almost tan, though mostly in the chocolate brown range. Dry, it smells smoky. I’m getting salted, charbroiled meat. Nice.

The aroma of the steeped tea is not very smoky at all. It’s fruity. Kind of a stonefruit mixed with grape smell. Very nice. The liquor is dark, close to a brandy color, but redder.

If you like smoky, this is really delicious. And if you only sort of like smoky, you should give this a try because it’s a pretty mild, smooth intro to smoky tasting teas. To be clear, I like smoky, I like piney. I like drinking campfires. The part I can live without is feeling like there’s smoke coating my nose hairs so that I continue to breathe it in long after the tea is gone, but I’m willing to do that to enjoy smoky tea.

Baker Street isn’t harsh or tarry, and it doesn’t make me feel like I’m going to be smelling smoke for three days after drinking it. The darjeeling contributes a brightness that keeps the blend from tasting like tree resin, and there’s a fair amount of the signature darjeeling flavor in the finish. There’s a hint of pine, but it’s mild. The smoke itself isn’t even the most obvious taste. The most obvious taste to me is a fruity woodiness.

I’m liking this one a lot. It’s got ooomph, but it doesn’t hit like a ton of bricks. Despite its name, I think it would make a really good start to the morning.

A good strong black tea. I’ve been drinking this every morning for about 3 weeks and enjoying it very much. Drinking it is reminiscent of drinking coffee, however I put down the coffee mug several months ago in favor of the tea mug. It is like coffee in that it has an aftertaste like coffee, and has a very heavy, oven-roasted flavor. (This could be an effect of my using nearly boiling water to steep it though)

The leaves are very fine BOP colored dark red/brown with golden pieces interspersed. My upper lip goes numb when I drink River Shannon, so I would say there is some caffeine in it, or cocaine.

I think the most important thing here is not to get the water too hot…I’ve only just started drinking this again after temporarily running out of filters and it’s quite pleasant, but it does seem to get bitter faster with close-to-boiling water rather than cooler fare.

Oops — steeped this one a bit too long this time. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t terrible, but wasn’t good. It steeps to perfection quickly, but that also means it oversteeps quickly! Be careful!

Perfect for breakfast — it steeps super-fast with great taste. I think it gives a fuller flavor than the Twinings Irish Breakfast teabags, but steeps in about the same time. I need to experiment with water temperature to find the highest it can stand.

I definitely like this one better than River Shannon — it’s pure Assam tea rather than a blend of Assam and Ceylon. I think it’s more a matter of personal taste, though, as I love the Assam.