Whittard of Chelsea

Recently I received a sample of this Single Estate Black Tea from Whittard of Chelsea. As many of you know I start each day with at least 1 Black Tea and then move on to other tea bases throughout the day.

See full review here:
http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/05/24/darjeeling-happy-valley-2nd-flush-from-whittard-of-chelsea/

i have a great idea! let’s drink lots of tea and then go to the gym and pee every 10 min.
thanks traveling tea box!

(it’s a nice enough darjeeling really. i like it!)

It’s a shame that this tea is a limited edition! The blend of Darjeeling and Assam is truly lovely. I was worried that this tea would be bitter but it isn’t at all. The taste of the tea isn’t heavy at all, although it is strong. It is much lighter than a standard English breakfast tea.

I was very excited when I saw this tea. I sampled it in the shop and thought it was wonderful! When I got it home, I realised how little like mulled wine the tea tasted. Don’t get me wrong, I think the tea is lovely and delicious in its own right, but if it’s meant to taste like mulled wine, I don’t feel as though that was fulfilled.

This is another London purchase and it’s spectacular. Very, very lemony and robust. This will be a staple. Just a dab of honey brightens this up even further.

This tea is very straight forward.

It tastes like someone put a few drops of tea in robitussin. Not worth the purchase. A very similar, but higher quality, tea is Teavana’s snow geisha (it’s sad when Teavana is the better option).

Backlog:

I got this as a free sample when I ordered tins from Annie’s Tea Time. I knew I wouldn’t like it, so it sat around in my cupboard until I decided to give it to my mother. She likes flowers in her tea :)

I was with her when she brewed a pot of it and she offered my some. I figured, might as well try it since it’s already brewed. It wasn’t so bad, but definitely tasted like roses, fruity roses, reminiscent of a dainty lady’s hand lotion.

Flowers or not, I prefer not to consume hand lotion. (^^)

First off, I was assuming that this tea was going to be a lot like their regular EG, just with a less oomphy tea base. I’m not sure if I’m right. I would assume they use the same bergamot flavoring, but this one tastes a little different. It either is different or the way it interacts with the tea changes the taste to just seem different.

The bergamot doesn’t give me much of the pith/peel taste like the other did. Instead it is higher and more floral with a tail end of an orange juicie-ish taste, followed by a tiny pith tongue tingle.

The feel of the tea is still rather silky, but it doesn’t feel quite as heavy. Which makes sense, being an afternoon tea. But the other one felt a little sexier. And sure, the regular EG had a little bit of a muddy flavor to the tea, but this one… the tea seems to be almost completely overwhelmed by the bergamot.

All that being said, I don’t hate this tea. It’s not badly done, the bergamot isn’t offensive, it doesn’t make me want to pour it out. It’s just not wow-worthy. I think I’d like it a lot more (been more impressed by it) if I hadn’t had the original EG first.

The husband seems to be in a similar boat. He quite enjoyed the original EG giving it 4.5 out of 5 stars. (Yes, we have our own rating system in the house. We initially used it for new recipes but it has since carried over to anything I need a definite “yes, get more” or “no, never again” answer on.) This one, though, ranked more in the middle ground with a “it’s good and nicely mellow” but captured only 3.5 out of 5 stars.

All in all, it’s decent and I’d pick this up at the grocery store if we were in an EG bind, but doesn’t answer the question of What Would Jean Luc Picard Drink?

Greetings fellow Steepsterites! Yes, I have been woefully MIA for the past while, due to a couple of main reasons. One, I have a new obsession with knitting (anyone here on Ravelry?) and two, my tea pantry is rather full. These two factors have combined in such a way that it means that I am adding very little new tea to my pantry (currently I am in sip down mode – I’m down to 75 teas!) and spending most of my money on yarn (though I did finally cave and get A&D’s Double Knit, Tiger Assam and Mount Gray. More on those in future.) Just in case my love of tea and half a dozen cats didn’t cement my status as a nerd, I think adding knitting to the mix does.

Anyway, even when focused on drinking through some teas, I still can’t say no to trying new things. Which is how I ended up with this little tea (and a couple others). So yes, keep in mind during this review that this is a tea provided by Whittard, not purchased with my yarn money.

As some of you may remember, I am on the hunt for the perfect Earl Grey. WWJLPD. (What Would Jean Luc Picard Drink…. what was I saying about my nerd status?) So far, I have come close but haven’t hit THE tea. Will this be it? No clue!

It does start off strong. The smell of the dry leaf is really neat. It’s so easy for EGs to go perfumey but this one doesn’t. Instead it smells spicy and earthy and really nice. I sniffed the bag the entire time my tea was brewing. I suppose the earthy could be the tea, but given the strong scent of the bergamot, I kind of think the tea isn’t going to play much of a role here.

Post-steeping the liquor is really dark. Seriously, when I made the husband’s tea, it looked like coffee before I added the creamer. Not a good or bad thing, but an interesting one, I think. Smell-wise, it’s a bit sweeter and lighter than the dry leaf which edges it a bit into perfume territory, but not in a bad way. In a ‘yum, I’d wear that everyday’ way instead of that ‘OMG, what is that old lady wearing? You can smell her half a mile off’ kind of way (the latter of which tends to be the perfumey way most EGs smell).

I feel I must interject for a moment before I continue. While I am on the hunt for the proper EG (WWJLPD), I tend to be massively disappointed with EGs more often than not. I’ll admit, I was expecting this one to go the same way. Especially since my first sampling of this was with no sugar or milk (though a rather short steep time). So it is with rather a lot of surprise that I must report:

Crap people, this is good. The initial note is bergamot. Like, bergamot. As in the fruit. Maybe a bit of bergamot peel, even. It’s obvious and noticeable yet not overwhelming. The tea is definitely the backup singer to the bergamot. It’s a bit indistinct and bit muddy but it’s solid and full-bodied and feels silky. I definitely like how it feels. (I’ve been subjected to a lot of Twinings English Breakfast in the past week which must be drunk with milk to make it tolerable but even then, it has a bit of a starchy, cardboard-ish mouthfeel. This is positively decadent compared to that so I very much appreciate it.) There’s a touch of bitterness at the end of the sip, but it’s not from the tea. It’s kind of a peel/pith tingly note from the bergamot. Tea-wise, the end is very clean with no astringency or bitterness. As the tea cools a bit, I get a slight touch of tacky feeling in my mouth after a sip which tells me that, with some encouragement, this tea could go astringent, but I’m okay with that because I think that quality helps make a tea good with milk and sugar (a necessity in the perfect EG since the husband takes his morning tea doctored).

While I’m not ready to marry an EG based on one tasting, I’ll admit, this one has me rather excited. I could totally see this as answering the question of WWJLPD.

Sigh, it looks like my Steepster absence has not changed my inability to write a short review! I have two more Whittard teas (both EGs!) to review and a few A&D teas so I shall try to be a better tea reviewer in the future. If I can tear myself away from my knitting. (I’m currently making socks.)

Despite having purchased a gaiwan months ago, I only used it for the very first time today. I didn’t want to use a tea that was too pricey or short-stocked for my maiden voyage, so I went with this one, which I still have a good 25 grams of after a year in my cupboard.

Using the gaiwan was pretty easy – pretty much the same premise as opening the lid of a pot just enough to drain the cooking water off boiled pasta. I only got a big piece of leaf in my cup once (which is better than my track record with draining pasta). Whittard only has western-style instructions on their site, so I used Teavivre’s gongfu instructions for their Huang Shan Mao Feng as a guide (80 C, 5s rinse, 30/60/90). I started at around 85 C for the rinse.

Rinse (I don’t know if you’re meant to taste this, but I did): butter! Somewhat salty. Mild flavor of some type of cooked greens.

1: Similar to rinse, but more cooked greens & less buttery. Getting some bitterness.

2: I poured this one off after 30s, but it seemed a bit weak, so I poured it back into the gaiwan for another 30s. This made it kind of unpleasantly bitter, like overcooked greens. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go any further after this cup, but…

3: I poured this after 65-70s. Still bitter. Don’t think I’ll go for a fourth.

Obviously my gongfu skills need refining, and this tea is hella old, and I very likely overleafed, but I’m inclined to think my original 91 rating was more of a reflection of my beginner’s enthusiasm than the tea’s quality. It’s probably not a good sign when the rinse is my favorite steep.
And now my head hurts. Dropping the rating like it’s hot.

Cold-brewed (about 2 tsp for 450ml) way too long. Like more than 24 hours. It got bitter, which I remedied by adding more water and a little simple syrup to take the edge off. It wasn’t as good as it probably would have been after 8-12 hours brewing, but it still made a fine iced tea. I should get myself a proper iced tea pitcher so I can easily remove the leaves if I don’t want to drink it right away.

Oh, yum. I think I managed to brew this one correctly, since Whittard was kind enough to include brewing instructions on their website for this one.

Dry leaf is deep green and wiry, with a scent that I can really only describe as “fresh”. The liquor is a medium-pale greenish-gold color with an aroma of buttery steamed spinach. Flavor is light, sweetly vegetal, with some butteriness and perhaps a hint of smoke.

This may be my favorite unflavored green tea so far. (Granted I haven’t tried that many yet, but believe me, it’s good!) I can see this becoming my everyday green.

Pretty solid everyday tea for the price. I find it has hints of tobacco in a good way and is worth having this on hand for those who like strong black tea.

All gone.

You know, since I said that this tea wasn’t that great, it’s been really growing on me…

I have been drinking this all day today. 3 pots, I think it’s getting nicer with each steep.

I got this tea from my wife for our 4th anniversary, along with the teapot and teacup that started me on this adventure in the massive world of tea.

It’s a nice drink, but it is very easy to over steep it and it becomes quite bitter pretty quickly. I do love the smell, but the taste doesn’t quite live up to it. Still, an enjoyable occasional cup.

Whoa! This is some powerful stuff. I took a sip at about 3 minutes in (1 heaping tsp for 8 oz water), and it packed quite a wallop. Not a tea I would drink black, though I’d err on the side of less milk so the flavors aren’t masked (I used 1/2 tsp sugar and just enough soymilk to turn it an opaque medium brown).

The write-up for this tea says it’s good for breakfast, and I would have to agree. It’s a better breakfast tea than their English Breakfast blend – fuller, more well-rounded, and less harsh. This might become one of my regular morning teas.

Whittard strawberry tea is strong, I drink it black with one spoon of sugar. Available in loose leaves or tea bags,nice hot.

Nice rose tea,I like it loose black whith sugar. Best drunk at night.

A rather musty tasting tea from Whittard,Darjeeling not one of my
Faves.

Whittard green sencha sold loose or in tea bags. Drink black with
One spoon of sugar. Nice Green colour.

Whittard lemon tea is nice black with one spoon of sugar added. Comes loose 125g 4oz or in tea bags.

Whittard Russian Caravan is a slighty smokey tea available loose or
In Tea bags. Nice to drink in the day.