Upton Tea Imports

1/18/2014 First tea of the day on a cold morning. 3g per 6oz @ 212F for 4min. First impressions. Dark in the cup but lighter in the mouth. Aroma is … tea. Good, straightforward, simple. Aroma matches to taste – a smooth and straightforward cup of tea flavoured tea. It’s making me want to play with it, try it with milk and sugar, try it at different steeping times, try it with a wash before steeping.

Caveats – first morning tasting which is when I can’t taste or smell well, tea has been stored (unopened) since 2013.

Nice mild taste with a hint of annus flavor. A light and brisk drink.

I really like this Irish Breakfast Blend. I think this will be my standard waking up Cup from now on. The smell is awesome. Great blend!

My wife wanted this one. She liked it. The smell is very very nice. The taste is a bit more like cranberry juice to me. With the same aftertaste. Very nice and not too strong.

The best Darjeeling I ever had to date! The more I drink it the more I love it. Will buy again.

My only other Darjeeling teas I have tried is Tazo and Bigelow tea bags. It tastes most like the Bigelow One, but with a more complex taste. I am glad I bought this.

Oh my gosh! I bought some teas from MissB and also asked for some samples of others and suddenly there was a sample explosion of way more samples than I expected! It is very appreciated. thanks so much! That means I should really be working on sipdowns… my collection seems ridiculous right now but maybe 2/5ths of them only have 1-2 teaspoons left. I’m going to try strictly sipdowns OR trying new teas for the moment… not so much old favorites I have a lot of. SO I apologize in advance for the continuing avalanche of tasting notes. :D I had to try this one first, as I saw in a tasting note that someone mentioned this one tasted like SpecialTeas Earl Grey de Le Crème. Now, if there was a catastrophe, and there was only one tea I could save from my collection, the Crème would be it… my ancient one ounce package that only has a few teaspoons left. Of course, it was an old Steepster select tea that another Steepsterer generously sent me. Here’s hoping this one has the same magic…

Steep #1 // just boiled // 3-4 min
This one is lovely, but I can tell right away it isn’t the same blend as the SpecialTeas, unless both of these blends had different batches I wasn’t able to taste or something. The SpecialTeas had crisp bergamot, very strong. This one has an almost candy-like lemon myrtle flavor to it. Different than most Earls I’ve tried, but good! Of course the cream aspect makes it taste like a lemon donut or something. The black tea bases are also very similar, but also not quite the same. I think the SpecialTeas has more of a briskness to it. A different blend than the SpecialTeas, but not terrible and a nice change! The second cup was the same as the first.. it’s odd that it reminds me of a lemon cookie (or the lemon donut that was in my dream last night!)

This is the first genmaicha I’ve ever tried. One of my favorite authors @neilhimself had mentioned this is his favorite tea and I wanted to try it ever since. I happily got this as a free sample from Upton. I really though this tea was outstanding! The idea of rice in the tea blend was very strange to me, but as soon as I tasted it, I understood. The counterpoint of the greenness of the tea with the nutty toastiness of the rice is very balanced. Its almost like taking a whiff of a bucket of popcorn and drinking tea or smelling your morning cereal. It sounds strange, but it works. Its a very smooth and relaxing cup and I would most definitely buy a tin of it.

My first words after tasting this tea for the first time were “wow, that’s good.” It’s a bit earthy, but has an almost sweet or mint-like aftertaste. Medium-bodied, with a smooth texture. I like to almost slurp it, because I think that pulls out more of its earthy tones that I love in a good oolong.

I got this in a sampler pack, and I have a sneaky suspicion that this will become a staple in my cupboard.

Update: I tried this at 185 degrees for 3:30 and I believe it was much better. More earthy (which I love) and a bit thicker.

Brewed up strong pretty quickly. Has a classic tea taste which always makes me want to make iced tea (and that is exactly what I did with it), yet there is also some earthiness to it. This is really hitting the spot tonight after doing a ton of yard work on an unusually warm Winter day. Very rich…the taste is lingering in my mouth for some time after drinking it. The price is very reasonable as well. Worthy of a re-order for sure.

I finally got back around to this tea in my morning-tea rotation, and it is every bit as good as I remembered it being. The comforting buttery texture and the slightly-earthy taste are the perfect start to the weekend

I brewed this according to package directions, and it is delicious! It’s a less oxidized oolong, but still has good body to the flavor. It has a bit of a buttery texture, and a lovely light green color. I’ve gotten three steeps out of these leaves with no diminished taste, though I did increase the steeping time to 2:30 for the third steep. Since I got this in a sampler, I will definitely be buying more once my sample is gone.

Backlog:

A really nice Magnolia oolong. Delicately soft, sweet, and pleasantly floral.

The sweetness reminds me of nectar. The floral notes develop as I sip, and there are notes of fruit in there too, something between apple and melon. Nice.

Subsequent infusions became more flavorful, the floral tones became sharper and more focused. Notes of grapefruit are tasted … the sweeter notes of grapefruit, not so much the tart or bitter of grapefruit.

Overall, a really pleasant Oolong.

I have been binging on Terraria the last day and a half, after multiple tries I finally beat the Wall of Flesh (for those not in the know, yes it is as creepy as it sounds) and unlocked Hardmode. I have then, of course, spent the intervening time dying nigh constantly. The frustrations of a gamer’s life are endless as the hoards of monsters trying to eat me. Since it is bitterly cold in the Midwest at the moment, I am pulling a very springtime tea out of the annals of my notebook to review today.

Pre-Chingming Top Pai Mu Tan by Upton Tea Imports is a special tea, Pre-Chingming means it was harvested before the festival of Chingming (usually celebrated the first week of April) one of a few holidays in the Chinese calender for honoring one’s ancestors. It is famous in tea culture for producing more subtle aromas and flavors than teas picked later in the year. I should mention that the designation of Pre-Chingming was originally applied to green teas, specifically Lung Ching and Bi Luo Chun. This tea has a mild and vaguely spicy aroma, like pepper and sage. There is also the aroma of dried oak leaves and a hint of paper. The aroma is very mild and fresh.

Once the leaves have been steeped they become sweet and fresh, like new growth and not at all like dried leaves. There is still a hint of pepper, but now it is more like the aroma of a peppery lettuce instead of the spice. The liquid sans leaves however has very little aroma, there is a faint sweetness and that is all.

The taste surprised me a bit, it is fruity, starting off tart and fading to honeydew melon. I was not necessarily happy about the melon notes, I do not like melon at all. The midtaste is sweet vegetal like a delicate note of artichoke and fresh leaves, the tea finished with a peppery note and leaves a gentle, sweet, aftertaste. This tea is very subtle and mild, I probably would have loved it if not for the melon taste. This is another of those teas that I can say ’it’s not you it’s me’ to it and recommend it but with the caveat that I was not a fan.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/01/upton-tea-imports-pre-chingming-top-pai.html

Wow. This is my first Upton tea that I’m really, really enjoying… and I almost sent it off to someone without trying it!

Strongly scented of bergamot, as most EGs are, just out of the bag. Steeped it smells more chocolatey than anything. The taste is quite luxurious… creamy, chocolate with a hint of bergamot in there only slightly, and even after some Truvia was added. Added to shopping list!

The aroma is reminiscent of Luden’s cherry cough drops. The cherry doesn’t carryover too strongly to the taste. Light and refreshing.

I brewed this with boiling water for 3 minutes and then cooled it in the refrigerator. This is a very softly spiced black tea with no astringency or bitterness. It is really smooth. I taste cardamom. I’m not sure I would have picked out the cinnamon if I didn’t know it was there. The chocolate makes the whole tea meld together and taste super smooth without actually tasting very much like chocolate. It’s more of a suggestion of chocolate, a lingering in the aftertaste. The taste reminds of baked goods. It is quite yummy!

A little too strong for me plain, but tasty with a splash of milk.

First off, let me state that I’ve never brewed this tea western-style. But simmered in milk it is pretty good. I’m still playing with the proportions, but I’ve had some good cups so far. I’m trying to get to that intense tea-spice-milk balance they achieve in my local Indian restaurant but I’m not quite there yet.

I started with 8 ounces of 2% milk in a pan on the stove, brought it to just under a simmer and held it there, then added the tea and some Splenda and stirred it continuously. I tried 4 grams of tea and 5 minutes and although it was fairly rich and tasty it was just a little weak. I then tried 6 grams and 8 minutes and it was much better but not quite what I was shooting for yet. The tea flavor was there this time but I wanted the spices to be a bit more prominent.

I’m going to try the Upton Chai Spice Tea next. It has more cloves and may be closer to what I want. Upton was very generous with the Chai samples over the holidays this year. I received seven 15 gram samples of various blends in just 3 orders!

Tried a cup of this before sending off the rest to an Earl Grey -loving Steepster. I’ve sent this out to someone else already as well, I’m just blanking out as to who.

Plain, I found it a bit harsh, smoky and dry. Sweetened with a bit of Truvia, it perks up considerably. The bergamot presents more fully, the smokiness is still there, and the dryness is still present. While I’m far from an earl grey aficionado, I’d say this is a pretty solid blend.

I drink this LS, and I’ve been drinking LS for many years. I would appreciate it if someone who considers this a “starter” Lapsang with mild smokiness, would suggest a different Lapsong Souchong to try. I find this one quite smoky, and I have tried many others. Thus I am very interested in suggestions since I like ‘smoky’ Lapsongs. By the way I know quite a few Londoners who drink LS with milk. I’ve tried it and it is quite good.