World Tea House

Sipdown!

Breakfasts will not be the same.

It doesn’t do anything too different from other decent Assam teas, but that’s ok because Assam teas rock in general. Here’s some good raisin and malt flavours, with a robust profile that’s perfect for sleepy mornings, milk & cookies, and appeasing my father who doesn’t see much appeal beyond Red Rose (but he’s out and no one is restocking because.. so much tea).

Final Rating: 78 It was good and easy to drink while it lasted and I’d pick up another good Assam like this in the future. It’s not a top priority, however.

This one is old, although not as old as I thought. My sister brought this one back from Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2018. She also hyped the tea shop, World Tea House, and said the owner was awesome and super helpful. My sister doesn’t know a lot about tea. She likes tea a lot and is equally content to drink a Starbuck’s London Fog as she is to drink a peppermint tea latte, a cup of Yunnan Golden Snail, Milk Oolong, or a Red Rose tea bag, so long as someone else is making it. If it’s milky or milk can be added that’s great, and if it pairs well with a cookie it may as well be perfect.

So in that regard, I do believe World Tea House picked the perfect tea for sis. This Assam is lovely with milk, and makes me reassess my lack of Assam drinking. I don’t mind a nice Earl Grey or robust and full bodied breakfast tea every once in a while either!

Once I drink this up, as well as my ancient tin of Andrews & Dunham’s Tiger Assam (nvm I left that at my old work place so it’s Red-tailed Hawk tea!), I think I will properly revisit Indian teas.

Another from today – reaalllyyyy lovely mug!

Full bodied and complex, but also quite smooth/round and very fruity. Tasted distinctly like red fruits and the port that it was scented with along with syrupy brandy and raisin notes, dates, and sweet leather. Seemed to coat the mouth the same way a good wine will coat the glass.

Delish!

Had this one last night, also during my virtual tea hangout with my instagram friend…

I actually won this one in an instagram contest, but here’s a secret: I was eyeing up this tea (and some of the other alcohol scented ones they carry) before winning and I probably would have ordered it anyway. Free is better, though.

The dry leaf smells wonderful; a little malty with some heavier citrus notes (a common thing I get out of Kenyan teas), a hint of cumin like spice but also quite sweet and boozy from the port – that red wine/red fruit kind of syrupy berry vibe! Really quite enchanting, and impressive how strong the port came through!

I did a sort of “modified” Gongu brew for this one – heavier leaf than I’d use for a Western steeped tea and a little bit less water than one as well, but with shorter steeps more in line with Gongfu brewing. I got three infusions; the first was good, the second was really good, and the third was weak. The leaves smells divine after all three infusions though; just syrupy and boozy with that thick reduced red berry note.

The first steep was more black tea than anything else; malt and grains, baker’s chocolate and a sort of musky leather/umami type note. It had a hint of red fruit sweetness from the port, but it was milder and sort of a whisp in the undertone and finish. It didn’t taste bad, but it lacked some body and intensity. The second steep was the best as it had the same black tea notes, though with a bit of autumnal leaf as well, but a thicker and denser port/boozy red fruit note. I described it to my tea friend at one point as being like the “red flavour” of the wine gum candies, but just less sugary. The third was just weak – similar notes, but the leaves just clearly weren’t cut out for that level of resteeping.

In the future, I have the gut feeling that the best way to enjoy this one might be a straight up Western teapot type of method.

And yet another one from the teaswap with Togo. Thanks!

I started taking tasting notes and quickly figured out by smell and taste that this is probably the same tea as What-Cha’s Indonesia Harendong #12 ‘Jin Xuan’ Dark Roasted Oolong, which I adore and have reviewed.

I’m not sure if this is a different harvest or if leafing it a gram more than the What-Cha tea revealed some differences between the two. With this one, I did pick up on a cinnamon aroma in the dry leaf (think cinnamon sugar wheat toast) and some raisin. I also noticed some astringency which I don’t recall getting in What-Cha’s tea. This one had more defined cream-caramel and red/purple fruit flavors and a really strong returning rock sugar sweetness but less minerality.

I’d say the two teas are equally pleasing and I don’t think I’d rate this one different if I had gone into this blind because the overall theme of the tea is the same: roast/char, toast/grain, wood, berries, stone fruit, cream, light caramel, grass, mineral.

Sipdown (571)!

This ended up being my last tea in Regina before moving to Montreal – it wasn’t supposed to be, but I found myself awake at 2AM waiting to leave for a flight at 4AM and at that point I certainly wasn’t going to go back to sleep. So what else did I have to do other than make myself some tea!?

I steeped this a good twelve or so times, though I did “stack” my infusions in groupings of two so I only drank about six cups of tea for my twelve steeps of it. Most of my teaware was long since packed or sent out to Montreal at that point, so I only had my mom’s large Western teacups to pour into, and they perfectly held two steeps from the one gaiwan that I hadn’t packed yet.

It was a nice tea; I definitely liked it better steeped Gong Fu over the Western cup that I had a few months ago. I’d say that predominantly this was a more nutty and sweet profile with a light roast to it – reminded me at times of a mix between sesame, barley, and peanuts. It’s still not the most robust flavour overall; more subtle and smooth. It was a very nice 2AM kind of tea though, and made me feel a little cozy before the flight, which was important since it was so stressful.

Discovery Tea Box – Tea Fourteen

Second to last tea that I pulled from the box; grabbed it because I’d like to try more purple teas since what I have tried has been pretty random and varied. I steeped this Western, but made sure to leave enough leaf in the pouch for one standard Gong Fu session so I can try it that way at a later date.

This was nice, but I still feel like I still don’t really know what I’m supposed to be “isolating” from the taste that’s so distinct for a purple tea. It mostly, to me, tasted lightly sweet and toasted, a little bit like toasted nuts. Hints of fruit, but not a ton of it. Sort of vaguely autumnal, but just comforting and smooth tasting in general. I’m very excited to see what it might bring to the table when steeped Gong Fu…

This is a dark roasted oolong with sweet woody aroma of tree sap. The taste is also sweet and nutty with no bitterness and dry finish. It seems like a it would be a nice dessert tea. It is quite infusable, but makes for a long gong fu session, since the later steeps have to be pushed a fair bit.

This is an all-time favourite. It’s so incredibly good, and resteeps wonderfully well at least three times. Will definitely buy more.

Chamomile has never really been my thing, but it’s grown on me over the past year. There’s not much to say about this particular one. It’s chamomile. Nice and simple.

I think I need to either use fewer leaves with one, or steep less because my first sample of this was oh my god potent. More rooibos than blueberry, and that is not a good thing in my book. Next time I make this I’ll rate it again and see if the flavour improves – I hope it does, because I was excited to see a blueberry flavour.

I think I put too many leaves in when I made this earlier today – super strong, super earthy and not as much peach flavour as I wanted. Boo. Or maybe it’s just better as an iced blend, which I’ll have to try soon. That said, I did like the taste, once I got used to it. And I love that this is organic and not mass market. A couple of things I’m trying to get into more. Curse living on an island where shipping isn’t so easy to do!

Earthy but sweetly fresh and quenching. Wasn’t what I really wanted but not dissatisfying either.

I only realized after getting home that I actually meant to purchase World Tea House’s Apricot Escape rooibos, but there’s no sense to turning down a good cup of tea!
Smooth and fulfilling with a slight tang of peach. Can’t say I’m in love, but not disappointed either.

Their vanilla rooibos is so great. The flavors are very balanced and there isn’t too much vanilla to overpower the rooibos.

This has a nice flavor palette, naturally mildly sweet… the addition of banana is a nice touch, rounds it out. If it were only less ‘thin’… and I actually brewed it with 50% more tea than WTH advises. If I doubled it (next time) it’d possibly still not be sufficient. Adding a bit of almond milk didn’t help much in this respect, either. So it loses a few points for that. It’s otherwise a very pleasantly flavored gentle tea to wind down with in the evening.

So this is one of the teas my mom brought me back from her trip to the east coast. I can’t fault the woman for trying, even though I detest Rooibos teas.

The dry notes smell mostly of Rooibos with hints of chocolate and banana. Once steeping it smells a little more chocolatey. But oh so Rooibos smelling. Eeek

So this is actually a drinkable Rooibos for me, it probably has to do with the Rooibos honeybush blend of it . The notes of chocolate and banana are there. I do mostly get the rooibos flavour in it. I don’t think I’m gonna keep this one, but I am always glad to try new teas, you never know when you might find a good one.

Look what I found in my sample box. I didn’t even now I had any puerh at all. Puerh seems to be all sorts of fashionable on Steepster these days, so I figured why not.

I’ve got two of these and no clue where they came from. What I haven’t got is the energy and patience to properly try to gong-fu one, so I’m just doing the regular western steeping, although I did, on a whim because I usually never bother, do a rinse first.

The toucha itself doesn’t have much in the way of aroma, but as soon as it gets wet, there’s lots. And suddenly I get what people mean about ‘fishy smells’. Actually this may not even be the first time I’ve made such a discovery, but it’s been so long since I last had a puerh that I had quite lost the ability to imagine that. This one smells like a fishmonger at the initial contact with water.

After a little while of steeping the fishmonger smell goes away, and now I’ve got something earthy and sweet. I won’t rule out the sweetness being from the vanilla and strawberry concoction I had earlier, but I rinsed both pot and cup, so I don’t think so. It’s not a vanilla-y sweetness anyway. It’s more sort of sugar-y and creamy. A bit like a soft ice cream, really. Well, that was unexpected!

It’s both a disappointment and a relief that it doesn’t actually taste like ice cream. That would have been fun, but bizarre. Oh so bizarre.

It seems I have actually managed to make this cup a wee bit on the strong side, so there is some sort of pepper-y/pseudo-smoke-y prickle on the swallow, as if we’re right on the border of astringency here.

Unfortunately, that is also actually the largest flavour here. First there’s just vaguely flavoured hot water followed by the note of ‘oh, how you mistreat me, you wicked person!’

There’s nothing really earthy, nothing that reminds me of the cowstable (not a bad thing. It’s flavour association rather than just flavour, that one) that I expect from puerh. It makes me feel like it lacks depth somewhat. Perhaps in multiple short steepings that would show itself better, but I feel a bit with puerh that I also do with oolongs; if it can’t present itself nicely in a western style, then it’s not living up to my ideals and tastes.

This one was all aroma and very little flavour. Bit of a disappointment.

Black, this is a nice mild chai. Drinking it is like having a surprise hug.

(Backlogging from yesterday)
A nice standard cup of tea. I know I need to rate this, but I feel so underqualified to rate a darjeeling.