Upton Tea Imports

I drank this earlier today, & it was a nice smooth & robust blend, with a hint of smoke! The funny thing is, I didn’t notice the smoke until the last couple of sips! Anyway, I really like to combo of Assam & Yunnan, especially since those are the 2 categories of tea that I seem to enjoy the most. Together? Oh yeah, Sil, it was satisfying! Thanks!

Multiple cups already, including one for my boss, who quite enjoyed it.

Trying to finish this up so I can, in good conscience, dive into my new Sungma second flush. It’s more roasty than other darjeelings but I like the richness.

I like the soft wither style of darjeelings because I feel they result in a darker, richer cup. The current fashion is for darjeelings to taste more like oolongs, so it’s not easy to find teas of this style. Luckily, Upton always procures a couple. This cup has a pleasant roasted note and a deep muscatel aroma. There’s not a hint of the astringency that can make darjeelings temperamental and it tastes like wild grapes chased with water from a cold rocky stream. A tea like this one is always one of the pillars of my tea collection.

About halfway through an Upton sample size of this one, and I’m really liking it. The only Kenyan tea I’ve tried in the past was very dark; very earthy. This Tinderet is none of that. An easy steeper that reminds me of melba toast and fruit. Really nice!

Swap from TastyBrew. Thanks, TastyBrew! This one smelled really good, and malty. It tasted like a really good black tea. Couldn’t really discern specific notes brewing it western style. I also added milk, so that could be the culprit, but I wanted milk this morning, so there! ;) I think I’ll try the rest of it gong fu style, since TastyBrew had such good luck with that!

I continue to have great results with this tea. Drink it straight, don’t be shy with the leaf, and enjoy a tea that seamlessly melds a wide range of flavors.

I’m always surprised when I read a person’s comment that teas of this type don’t appeal to him or her; I have to restrain myself from ordering every Yunnan golden fleece/bud/tip from every tea purveyor on the web. The first time I had one, I was hooked like the first time I heard Bob Dylan on my parents’ stereo 40 some odd years ago. I even promote this tea to non-tea drinkers (like my wife) who don’t respond to the Assams and Ceylons that make up most blends. How can you not love the creamy, honey-sweet caramel flavors of these Yunnans?

This one from Upton is a little more lemony and peppery than some, but still retains the characteristics that make you feel like you’re drinking from the very wellspring of tea itself.

This has been my morning tea for a long time. There is absolutely nothing fancy about this. It’s rich, bold, malty and takes (requires) milk and honey well. I haven’t had this in awhile since trying all kinds of new ones, but it was a long night and I needed something extra strong. This is definitely still a favorite, a little bit like coming home.

Update: I forgot how strong this one is caffeine wise. Don’t drink this one without food!

Very pleasantly surprised by this cup! I very rarely buy any flavored teas from Upton, but since I was grabbing all the other samples I figured I’d give this a go. Especially since I’m knee deep in a caramel phase. It smelled like caramel candy in the bag. Once brewed up, it has a nice caramel flavor on top of a smooth black tea. With a bit of raw honey and milk I’m having enjoyable treat. I’ll get a few mugs out of this sample. For $1. I love Upton samples.

I asked for suggestions for roasty black teas in the discussion board a week ago and one of the suggestions was to try Big Red Robe. Since Upton is my go to site for cheap samples of things I’m not sure I’ll like, I stocked up a variety of roasted oolongs. This is the first one.

I should have really taken notice of my mood before I made this. I’m just not in the mood for trying a whole new variety of tea. Maybe a new flavor of a tea I know I like, but I’m just not feeling experimental. Wish I’d realized that before I brewed this up.

That being said. I think I like this. It actually tastes more like a hojicha than anything else i can discern right now. But I’ll resteep the leaves this evening and see if anything else emerges. It’s ok. I don’t know if its what I’m looking for though. That’s why I love upton. $1 later I know that Big Red Robe teas (while I LOVE the name) are not necessarily my tea of choice. Not bad by any means, just not really what I’m looking for.

Fun with a gaiwan day 2!

I bought a sample of this tea a LONG time ago (I know because the date is printed on the label) only because it was crazy expensive and I was curious what a really expensive tea tasted like. At that point I didn’t really know the differences between pretty much any black teas. Or else I probably wouldn’t bought anything listed as a keemun. But I didn’t know any better and spent $8 on a sample. I justified it by comparing it to the glass of wine my husband always orders at dinner.

Anyway, I thought this was another prime candidate for the gaiwain. And I was right. The first few steeps were definitely giving the normal smoky keemun flavor, but around 3 or 4 it got super chocolaty. Now it’s like drinking a cup of roasty dark chocolate tea. Reminds me a bit of Laoshan Black, but with a honey sweetness added to it. I’m really enjoying this. This gaiwan has really opened my eyes to all the flavors in teas that I never really tasted before. Very cool.

So I was having so much fun trying out my new gaiwan that I looked through my cupboard for another candidate for gongfu steeping. I brewed this one a few days ago western style and loved it so I thought I’d see what it was like using the gaiwan.

Holy snikeys! I feel like I’m totally maturing! (not too much though, obviously). I could taste differences in steeps. The first couple were what I expected and then POW caramel. Like yummy gooey caramel. It was crazy. When I brewed this western style it actually reminded me more of a hoppy pale. Now it’s like a cinnamon butter caramel. How can there be such a difference? I wonder where it will go from here.

I always do a resteeped pot of the tea that I make at night and chill it overnight in a mason jar to drink the next day. Sometimes, I taste different things in the cold tea than I did when it was hot or warm. This time there was little change. The chilled tea has a bit more bite, but still has a little bit of a murky stewed vegetable taste to it that I don’t like.

In the jar, it looks like I’ve got a urine sample on my desk with a straw in it. :| Also, it kind of smells like marijuana.

I’m a green tea idiot, so keep that in mind. I’d always thought green tea was horrible, bitter and undrinkable. Until about 30 seconds online taught me that I’d been brewing it all wrong. I just chucked a bag of it into a cup, covered in it boiling water, steeped it to death, and then tried to drink it. And failed. Because I’d made it taste like a cleaning product.

So, on my last Upton order, armed with the new knowledge that tea cares about brewing time and temperature, I got samples of some greens and oolongs and whites. This was the first one I tried. I brewed it per instructions at 180° for just under 3 minutes.

And I didn’t like it. I didn’t turn it into bitter stew, but it was kind of pale and thin and asparagus-y. I resteeped and the flavor was different, and better, but still a bit too delicate and a bit too brothy to suit my tastes. My girlfriend said it tasted like grass, but not in a bad way. Neither of us found it unpleasant and we drank a number of cups, but we weren’t wowed either. I think I like my tea more astringent.

I’m going to refrain from rating this one until I have more green tea tastings under my belt.