Upton Tea Imports

This is extremely good tea. I make it with a fair amount of milk and a bit of sugar and find it very satisfying. It must have a high caffeine content as it really gets me going. Great stuff, I will for sure be ordering some more once I am out of my initial 125g stash.

Tastes like spinach veering into seaweed territory. More seaweed as it cools. It’s not bitter and I think it is of good quality – it’s just not my thing. (I don’t like sushi and don’t like seaweed at all!) I think this is going into the Traveling Teabox!!!!!! I think I may make some Earl Grey to get this taste out of my mouth!

A delicious cup—definite caramel-ly aroma and flavor with the real caramel bits in blend. Creamy without added milk; lightly sweet. A luscious dessert tea or afternoon pick-me-up. 2nd infusion is cloudy with a slight reduction in flavor but still tasty.

Ahhhhh. This is much more in line with what I like in a green tea. Sweet and peachy without a single flavoring or additive. There is a slight vegetal undertone, but it’s very pleasant.

I’m on my second steep now :) Slightly sweeter. Very delightful. It’s funny how tea experiences differ – even within a single tea in a single tin. Although I did what I thought was the same exact thing, this second steep is much sweeter than it was the last time I had this tea. I think that’s one of the reasons I find tea so enjoyable – the unpredictability and the elusiveness. We can try to set the scene just right, but just like life – you never know exactly what is going to happen. Sometimes the same thing is more delightful than at other times. Sometimes you oversteep and it’s forgiving, sometimes a total disaster – cup down the drain. This may make people uncomfortable – I guess they are the soda drinkers, literally and figuratively!

I think I’ll make one more steep :)

Delightful! I taste peaches!!!!!!! THIS is the taste I remember from the delicious green teas I’ve had at tea houses! Also, the curly snail looking leaves are adorable. :)

2nd steep, resteeping for 4 minutes: No peach, but still very tasty. Almost tastes flowery, like a jasmine. Still very delicious and enjoyable.

3rd steep, resteeping for 5 minutes: Still some good flavor, but I think it’s done after this one.

I like to take a minute out of this review and THANK YOU ALL, Steepster site and Steepster participants! I’ve learned SO MUCH about tea in my short time here, and have really expanded my horizons. I didn’t even know you could resteep tea before joining!!! :)

Another JacquelineM tea. This is a bold breakfast blend featuring Assam and Ceylon. The Assam is definitely more prevalent, and I’m coming to discover that Assams just aren’t my favorite black teas. They taste too bitter to me. Still, this is a good morning pick-me-up.

Hm.. so the last time I had this I had just come home from a workout and it dehydrated me quickly. This time I’m beginning to see why, as this is drying out my tongue something fierce. Lots of tannins. I like the cocoa and cardamom flavor, but it’s too harsh overall.

I kind of want to reserve judgment on this, because I’m drinking it not long after a workout and I’m feeling a bit dehydrated, but.. for as slowly as I’m drinking it, it’s very tasty. I was expecting more of a cocoa taste, but this cup seems to be more spicy and sweet. That’s fine by me; I love anything with cardamom.

Thanks to JacquelineM for this sample! More to come.

You all would be proud of me – I took my tiny cheesemaking thermometer (smaller than a pen!) to work so I could make greens and oolongs! It wasn’t any trouble at all. This was my first one (and I do mean first one – I’ve never brewed green tea myself!).

It brewed to a beautiful golden color. It’s not very vegetal or very smoky. It’s not bitter. It’s a very solid tea :) but it’s not blowing me away. I would drink it again but probably not go out of my way to repurchase. I’ll be able to give better reviews once I’m familiar with more greens.

Needed something sweet after dinner, so I made chai drinking chocolate! 1tsp chai steeped in 1/3c milk (the hottest you can get it w/ scorching and making a mess), then added 3TB drinking chocolate mix. Sooo good…

New leaves. White chocolate spiced rum chai latte. 1tsp chai/1TB white chocolate creamer/1TB spiced rum creamer/3oz milk. I was hoping the white chocolate would bring out the complexity of the spices and the spiced rum creamer would increase them, but it didn’t work. Basically a sweet, slightly spicy milk w/ a very light tea taste.

Same leaves from last nite. 2nd steep, 7 min, 6oz water + 1TB spiced rum creamer. I added spiced rum creamer instead of milk because I’m hoping it will give the chai the depth it was lacking clean. I increased the steeping time by 2 min instead of one to make sure that the chai stood up to the creamer since the 1st infusion was lighter than I expected. Disappointed. I think I might be getting a hint of warmth from the chili, but beyond that it’s just watered down spiced rum creamer.

Got a bit of this from Carolyn!=D A lot have you have probably heard me talk about this one. I love a chai w/ chili and this one is even better because it doesn’t have any licorice or fennel. My only beef is that it’s decaf. Caffeine and tea to me are kinda like alcohol and beer (except I don’t drink beer lol) to me, unless there’s a medical reason or religious conviction not to consume the 1st, I don’t see a reason not to:)

I tweaked the steeping parameters just a bit. Because some of the weight is spices, I used 1tsp (~2.5g) and heated the water to just below boiling because I didn’t want to kill the health benefits of the tea.

Taken clean. Inspite of using slightly more tea than suggested the liquor is a dark reddish brown, lighter than I expected. The aroma is typical of a chai. Hmmm… Interesting… The tea base is quite strong and spice is the chili. The other spices provide a light warmth, but are lighter than in most chais I’ve had. I’ll have it w/ milk tomore before giving my final decison.

This tea is very highly rated on the Upton website so I purchased a sample. Its a good tea but for the price its not something I would purchase again. I can get 800g of Z010 ‘China Oolong Se Chung’ for the price of 125g of this and I find the ZO10 to be a tastier tea…easy shopping choice.

This is a tea made for milk, it is quantifiably better with than without. There is a definite tomato taste and scent, in the very nicest of ways and I think I caught a whiff of mint. Very, very nice tea.

Trying to finish up the sample tin (can’t bear to just pitch tea.) Drank with warm milk and a scant teaspoon of brown sugar. This combination helped to mute the artificial cranberriness, making for a reasonably palatable drink. Not changing my rating, however, as the base blend, on its own, is not good.