Whittard of Chelsea

Woe, for I am on my last tea bag of this, out of a sampler my dear friend gave me as a present. Dry, it has a subtle floral, almost fruity smell, and brewed, it gets a little bit stronger, but not overpowering. The taste is much like the smell – somewhere between floral and fruit. I definitely need to get some more – winter’s coming on, and who doesn’t need some blossoms to see them through the dreary snow? ;-)

Grabbed the first thing I could find to combat the taste of the last tea I drank!

See other notes for tasting/review :)

Thanks to Liberteas for this one!

This is pretty good! It’s a darker oolong but not charcoally. It’s crisp but not really woodsy. It’s a bit nutty, but a sweeter nut flavor.

I had a half cup hot and the other cold and I really like both! YUM!

From experience, Whittard’s rose teas tend to lack something… rose flavour. There’s one rose tea by Demmers Teahouse which is unspeakably amazing, though, but I’ve not had any good rose tea in between the two! So this is a try of the next tea up from English Rose.

The scent is appropriately… black with a strong hint of rose. A good start, because I’m getting a little tired of teas with only a weak flavour in them from this company! And, yes, the rose is definitely noticeable in this one! Not in any overwhelmingly perfumey way, just a “hello! I’m flowery!” in the cup. There’s a nicely sweet lingering aftertaste too which in itself seems slightly more floral than the first taste on the tongue. It’s a little dry, but good… Seems like it might go well with a hint of honey!

A friend sent me a sampler box of tea bags, and this is one of the teas included. I was originally a little put off by how smoky the tea smells, but it doesn’t taste nearly as smoky as it smells. A real treat!

Howdy everyone.

I am finally back up and running after several trials and errors with computer repair. Thanks to a whole slew of friends, this pseudo-writer is back in the proverbial e-saddle. Anyway…back to tea.

This was one I received in a care package from LiberTeas (bless her heart). It’s been awhile since I’ve had me some Assam, and this was an estate that was new to me. Also new to me, it wasn’t an estate with a really Klingon-sounding name. This one was Hazelbank…and that makes me giggle inappropriately for some reason.

This is about as Assam as you can get. It brewed dark copper at only a three minute steep. It’s characteristically bitter on the forefront and malty to the core. I think a few chest hairs poofed! into existence thanks to this. That and I was wide-eyed and alert.

So, good on ya, Hazelbank. giggle

Hi all! Yet another Whittard tea but this time, because I was looking for something to replace my Milky Oolong, and I had the chance to visit a Whittard of Chelsea in Cambridge that stocked this tea. (The staff there are lovely, I recommend a visit!)

Some months ago the gentleman in the Covent Garden Whittard store gave me some of this to smell and it smelt gorgeous, at the time- alas, I wasn’t looking for another oolong for my collection! The leaves are large, a roasted dark brown, whole; again, it’s difficult measuring out quite how much I need of this when the leaves are like that. This time I gave myself a heaped teaspoonful or so, enough to make an acorn-brown brew. And wow… it smells suspiciously like ho-ji cha. I’ve had some bad run-ins with ho-ji cha, as tasty as it is, so already this makes me a little worried…

And… what do you know, it tastes remarkably like ho-ji cha! Thankfully it’s mellower to the end of the sip, a fruitier finish, but the immediate taste is definitely all from roasting. The further I get into this the more flavours are coming clear (slightly floral more than fruity, a mild earthiness like pu-erh, a warming, soft astringency developing)… Sadly, though, I was expecting something a little lighter and the initial ho-ji cha flavour has stuck. I miss my Milky Oolong dearly— I’ll just have to get some next time I’m in London!

Sooo….right now might not be the best time to write this, being that I just got back from a quite rowdy albeit small presidential debate party….drink if they mention middle class! (That alone will get you drunk.) lol. But, I have written some of my best work this way, literature wise, sooo….

I would recommend this tea to any assam lover, as it is of good quality. Sweet and rich, it can hold its own with any coffee.

Another tasting note for work… Are you sick of this yet? :’D

The other day I made this with a big pinch of the leaves directly into the cup but neglected to consider the fact it, uh, gets stronger the longer you leave it so it was gradually turning hazel in the cup… The leaves are wonderfully whole and quality-looking (with a stray twig here and there- is this intentional?) so it tends to be fairly easy to pick just the right amount for a mugful, though I’ve found it takes practice getting it perfect!

It’s brewed to a light, slightly toasted sunny gold in the cup, and is giving off the loveliest fruity/smoky aroma. I love the smell of white tea so much. And that scent is very telling of the taste, very pleasant although much weaker than the aroma – or rather, fruitier than the aroma! It’s slightly dry on the tongue but the body is mellow, tasty, some toasty notes in there to round off a wholesome slightly smoky sip. I could drink this all day if only I figured out how to re-brew the leaves!

Sadly don’t have many other white needle teas to compare this to, but it’s delicious nonetheless!

Again, giving this a try for work “training guide” purposes. I have until the end of the month to complete my tea and coffee workbooks so I am tasting at breakneck speed! For a little while (until next weekend or so, when I’m planning on getting something more interesting) it’ll be this standard Whittard range of loose-leaf tea.

(I have to say, Ysaurella’s Dammann Freres posts make me want to go back to France and try something delicious…)

Onwards! Just a plain and simple tasting like the Sencha the other day. I’ve brewed this Gunpowder several times, at work, and at Tea Society at uni and each time it’s been a marvel to see just how large the leaves unfurl to be in the teapot. They are big! It’s really a great quality gunpowder, and just over a level teaspoon gives this lovely dark gold-hinting-at-orange colour in the cup. Smells a little smoky, too.

It’s smooth, a little fruity, teeny bit floral with just the bare minimum of astringency following the first sip. There’s half of that grassiness that comes with green teas like sencha but thankfully it’s not nearly as strong as that, stopping just to slope off into this mild, again, slightly smoky flavour. I know gunpowder isn’t named after the taste but I have to wonder if this is intentional, sometimes!

All in all, it’s a pleasant gunpowder. Always feel like it should be a staple in anyone’s collection…

An exquisite Assam. Sweet, rich and malty, but also fruity. This Assam seems to meet somewhere between malty Assam and wine-y Assam. Very pleasant. Not bitter, although, I did only steep for 2 minutes so it might get bitter if oversteeped.

But as it is (was, since this is a backlog) … this tastes amazing. Sweet, with the sweetness coming from the fruit notes as well as the caramel-y malty tones, rich and flavorful. Complex and absolutely delightful to sip.

Drinking this right now before bed with a chocolate yoghurt! On Monday I’m doing a shop in London (Covent Garden again, yay!) since I happen to be visiting for other reasons, so hopefully I’ll get some new, intriguing flavours to try. For now, an all-time favourite.

First thing I noticed about this before buying it is the distinct scent of strawberry laces from the rooibos itself, before brewing. I kid you not, it smells EXACTLY like strawberry laces sweets. If that’s what you’re riding on then you may be a little disappointed to find that it does not in fact taste as sweet as a strawberry lace, but if you’re like me and are very keen on finding great fruity combos with rooibos, this is one for you.

The rooibos is very malty and somehow that just works perfectly with the strawberry- rather than overpoweringly sweet the strawberry blends into the rooibos and takes the edge off the original pungency that rooibos tends to have, and the tea definitely makes the strawberry sweetness wind down some. And oh, it’s just so fruity! Leaves a strong taste in your mouth after each sip, and just warms you to the core.

This is beeeeauuuutiful. One of the first rooibos infusions I got from work, the loose tea itself smells like— wait for it— strawberry laces! It’s an amazingly sweet scent, as rooibos takes scents and flavours very well, but of course doesn’t have the same flavour as this incredible first smell.

It’s labelled ‘Strawberry’ but this particular product, I’ve seen, has also been labelled as ‘Strawberries & Cream’ although if there is any creaminess other than the natural rooibos heaviness and body, it’s not getting to me as much as the Vanilla version did. The strawberries complement this in a way I’d never thought possible; very well-rounded, a little dry, completely fresh and fruity and, best of all, naturally sweet; unexpected from a malty rooibos base, to be honest!

One of my favourites, definitely. Always drinking this without milk.

There’s nothing better than spiced tea on a rainy, cold winter day. Or, you know, on a sunny summer afternoon.
Though I actually prefer spiced tea on cold days, I couldn’t resist trying this great gift, especially after opening the tin and immediately getting hit by that lovely aroma. And though it isn’t as good as my favorite “Chá verde Inverno”, which has a stronger citrous flavor, Spice Imperial is a very nice addition to my growing tea collection.

Smell: Fruity but very earthy too
Colour: Medium brown with hints of gold around the edge

My first few sips noted a sweetness that was rather surprising and was followed by a fruity after taste. The black tea is slightly bitter but the sweetness from the mango makes it not as noticeable and there is also a fairly strong earthy taste. The black tea becomes stronger the more you drink and the mango/fruit taste is mostly in the after taste.

I hope this make sense but the earthiness tastes like something you would smell on a farm. It’s strong and thick but not too bad.

Overall it’s not a strong mango flavour which I find a shame but if you want a strong earthy yet sweet black tea then this is worth a try.

At first, this tea has a very strong sweet smell. It can, in fact, be a little overpowering. After steeping, the smell is a bit gentler, but the taste is a little unimpressive. It remains sweet, but the white tea seems to somewhat disappear. Continued steeping just results in it being rather bitter On the whole, it makes a pleasant enough iced tea (the tea flavour sharpens slightly when chilled), but is somewhat lacking as a hot tea.

I have always been a big fan of Oolong tea, but, I like some better than others. I didn’t expect to really like this one as much as I do, because it’s a darker Oolong, and most of the darker Oolong teas that I favor tend to be the Formosa Oolong teas. But this one really surprised me.

It is surprisingly light … and yet rich. It starts out very light, and as the sip progresses the flavor develops, starting out with sweet, subtle fruit notes and then slowly changing to a more roasted, even a charcoal-ish type of taste toward the tail of the sip. There are pleasant nutty tones toward mid-sip, and an undercurrent of honey-esque sweetness throughout.

Very nice, it reminds me of fall, when the weather starts to change and you can smell the aroma of wood and smoke coming out of the chimneys and filling the cool, crisp air. Then again, it could be that I’m just longing for autumn that everything is reminding me of my favorite season.

And speaking of strawberries and cream teas; here’s a new one from Whittards in the revamped range of herbal and fruit infusions.

I was expecting this to be strong, bold, fruity and sweet the way the loose Strawberry Rooibos I already have is. Rooibos tends to work well with wholesome red fruit like this, and it was pleasantly sweet, but this time round I think I may have oversteeped it (3~7 minutes on the packet is a little too wide a scope!).

Bizarrely the vanilla was what let down the overall harmony of strawberry and rooibos by making it sickly instead. It tastes artificial and pungent rather than natural and sweet, the way Twinings does it in their strawberry & vanilla rooibos— I even added milk to the brew to try to cancel it out, but no to avail. I think it might even have made the vanilla worse. More than a touch of vanilla, it’s an unfortunate swamping in an otherwise brilliant combination. Well, I gave it a go, but I’ll stick to the non-vanilla version!

My Milky Oolong, how I’ve missed you. It’s been absolute agony to be wrenched apart from you for so long… but now you’ve returned to me, 100g of you, twice as good as the original 50g that hardly tided me over half a year.

Suffice to say I’ve decided this is now a tea to remain a staple in my collection! Lately it’s been tempting to switch my morning sencha with this (just because it tastes so fab that it starts off my day perfectly); the other day I took a 0.5l flask of this to the library with me while I studied. I am utterly in love with this tea.

Today’s tasting is of a half-mug, leaves directly in the mug as they unfold so large I can just scoop them out with a spoon. Just the scent of the leaves is amazing and… I can’t even think of an english word for this, so “gourmand” will have to work instead! And the aroma of the brew, so rich and milky without being dairy- that’s what I love about this tea.

This time round it’s been left to brew a little longer than usual so the butteriness is washing off and turning it into a greener oolong; fresh and ever so slightly astringent with a sweet end to every sip. Needless to say I love this tea in all its forms… Maybe once I run out of this I’ll try a different company’s milky oolong. For now, I have enough of this to last me a while :D

It slipped my mind to review this the first however many times I tried this; so this last tasting’s from memory!

There’s a little bit of a story behind how I came across this. After I realised I could use my staff discount at /any/ Whittard store I came back to London, to the Covent Garden branch specifically, for some loose-leaf tea shopping (loose-leaf tea caddies aren’t available at our branch). A certain gentleman working the desk on the first floor named Adam served me as I was looking for the strawberries and cream pu-erh they have on the website— and don’t sell in the shops, unfortunately— but instead recommended me this oolong. Later he revealed he drinks it as his breakfast tea with a croissant.

Thing is, it’s called milky but it’s much more /buttery/, so it would complement a buttery croissant very well in my view— not that I’ve tried that combination yet! Brewed lightly, it runs thick and smooth and wholesome through the mouth, brewed more strongly, it’s more akin to green tea with notes of that creaminess in the fresh taste. The scent is incredible, too, plus the leaves are rolled up in such a way that they unfold spectacularly large when brewed and are good for a couple more top-ups.

Last time I had this it turned out more green-y— I have yet to perfect my brewing times for this one!

Essence of bubble gum, not to mention that whittard’s customer service is really lacking. So, this tea is not worth the trouble of ordering, the taste is not worth the bother. I am half way through it, and it’s about to be tossed out. I already threw out the ‘summer pudding’ tea, that was so horrible it didn’t deserve cupboard space.

It might be worth it, if their tea was any good. Which it isn’t. Check out their overall ratings, you’ll see that I’m not the only person who thinks they are mediocre. There is a whole world of tea out there, and I don’t have to put up with bad tea and bad customer service. Sorry England, maybe I’m just a spoiled Yank, but I do expect better, and from where I sit, ‘better’ is not hard to get.

{edited to add}… egads, I threw it out, and the plastic tupperware container I’d had the rolled paper bag in (the way whittard comes packaged) now stinks like artificial apple. That is surely one way to test the authenticity of tea flavoring, is to see how much of their chemically added flavor can be absorbed into a plastic container! Do I really want to drink such a thing? as previously determined— A resounding NO

Quick note; in a hurry. upon smelling this tea I thought it would taste like Christmas ham-clove and cinnamon. I was relieved to find it did not, though both spices were apparent. I’m not a clove fan so I didn’t make it far, though my wife that doesn’t write notes loved it. Moderate astringency (wife didn’t agree) and dry is no good to me either. This is something I may have to work on so as not to miss out on other notable intricacies present in drier teas. Pleasant afterflavor, should work nicely to clear the palate of an oily meal. Not bad, just not a clove person.
tunes playing-America=Tin Man/Ventura Highway/Sister Golden Hair Surprise

I’ve been sipping on this since I woke up, I’m on my second infusion. The tea holds up pretty well in a second infusion … then again, my taste buds are quite impaired so take that for what its worth. At the very least, I find that the spice notes here are enjoyable and warming and soothing for my itchy throat.

When I first opened the package of this tea, I was surprised to smell just how spicy the aroma was. It is almost as pungent as the MarketSpice tea! It isn’t quite as oily in presentation, though, so I didn’t think it would be quite as spicy tasting as the MarketSpice.

And it isn’t. This is actually what I’d call a warmly spiced blend, but not spicy or hot. The black tea is about as strong a flavor as the cinnamon, and the cinnamon is the strongest of the spices, with the cloves appearing about mid-sip. The orange sort of peeks its way through, appearing throughout the sip, but not becoming a really strong flavor. More like a pleasant accent to brighten up the cup. At first, I found myself wishing that there was more vanilla flavor, but as the tea cools slightly, the vanilla flavors begin to come forward.

This is a pleasant enough tea, but the black tea base is a bit on the mellow side, and I found myself wishing for just a bit more roundness. I suspect that this is a Ceylon, and I think this blend would have been even better if there was a little bit of Assam or Nilgiri added to it, to add some roundness and maybe a touch of malt to the cup.

It is good as it is, but, it could be even better, I think!