Zen Tea

I had to try a new assam offering from Zen! The leaves are mostly dark with a gold leaf here and there. The flavor is classic assam: malty, bold yet sweet, with a kick of caffeine at the end of the sip. The second steep seems lighter and somehow fresher tasting — almost adapting a juicy fruit flavor. I love when a tea balances sweet with briskness and this one does that more than most teas and in a shockingly noticeable way. First steep: more astringent. Second steep: sweeter. This is easily an assam I could choose to represent one assam in my tea collection. It’s everything a good assam should be!
Steep #1 // 1 heaping teaspoon for a full mug// 12 minutes after boiling // 3 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 10 minutes after boiling // 3-4 minute steep

This is a good roasted oolong. It has fruity notes, which the description states is peach, but I am not getting peach specifically. I will have to pay more attention to what fruit I’m tasting next time.
I was too tired this morning to remember much more than that. I will have to write a proper note next time I brew this tea.

I resteeped for 3 minutes. This steep tasted a little more mineral and a little less roasty.

Another sip down of cold brewed green tea

Sencha is definitely not my favourite tea, but it is enjoyable in this blend. The coconut is sweet enough to overpower the vegetal base which is good for me. I have been cold brewing this to take to work lately and it does the trick. I would likely order this again since I don’t have (or like) many greens in my stash.

I really enjoy this coconut green tea. Thr coconut is sweet and creamy, and tastes natural. The green tea is not too vegetal. It was also very good when I put the remainder of my cup in the fridge to chill.
With little kids running around, it seems I only get to drink half a cup of hot tea these days. Unless I guzzle it, but that’s not fun.

I had this today at work and it reminded me of the worst artificially tasting hazelnut creamer for coffee. I couldn’t finish it and decided to get rid of the rest. The flavor doesn’t work. Unfortunately, I bought a lot of this tea. I can’t see myself finishing anymore though. Dropping my rating since it’s become undrinkable.

I decided to try this in my new gaiwan to see if I would get a different flavor profile than when I did it western style. I remember getting a lot of artificial hazelnut flavor.
I did a 5 sec rinse.
10 sec steep – creamy, hint of hazelnut and vanilla
10 s – repeat of 1st
15s – hazelnut, vanilla, creamy mouthfeel
20s – much more hazelnut in this steep
30s- vanilla oolong
45s- tasted good, I forgot to take notes
1 min- vanilla yum
1 min 30s- creamy, flavor’s gone, just left with tea. It’s good tea.
2 min- tea’s done
I like this tea much better in a gaiwan than western style. Using shorter steeps avoided the artificial taste I had the other time. I don’t think I’ll reorder, but I’ll enjoy drinking the rest. :)

Dry leaf smells nutty – hazelnut specifically. Wet I smell hazelnut, vanilla. I don’t smell the oolong base. I get hazelnut from beginning to end of sip with vanilla in the middle. The oolong underneath gives depth to the tea. The flavors appear more as tea cools which is nice. However, I also get more of an artificial taste like hazelnut coffee creamer thing as it cools. A decent desert tea.

I cold brewed this and of course, the hibiscus took over a little bit, but it wasn’t too bad. The cream was mostly nonexistent though. I wonder if it would be creamier if I put a little bit of hot water in first and then add in the cold water for cold brewing.

Ohhh, this is yummy. The base baozhong is a lovely light, sweet, slightly floral/vegetal oolong. The coconut flavour is sweet and creamy and delicious. I’m going to have to try this head to head against the Tao Tea Leaf coconut oolong, because I also love that one and I think they’re pretty similar.

I bought this specifically to have with eggnog as dessert in the evenings during the holiday season. This is a fairly standard chai rooibos. It is a little spicy, sweet, and woodsy. I will likely not be trying this bare because I am not a fan of just straight chai. With eggnog, it makes a nice dessert!

Sipdown

I think the Rose might be throwing me off on this one. It just comes across as a weird taste. It was ok cold brewed but certainly not something I would re-stock.

I cold brewed this but it was fairly tasteless. I think I have to use more leaf

No one else has reviewed this tea? How is that possible? I guess I am the only white tea freak out there — “must try all the white teas!”

Sipdown

Hot, this one is just kinda weird, but cold brewed is a different story, refreshing and delicious!

I cold brewed my leaves from my hot brew the other day. Cold, the fruity currant notes really stand out. I still don’t think I’m getting any champagne but maybe I didn’t shake the bag enough.

I had no idea what cassis was until I tried this tea. I looked it up just now, and Google tells me that it is a currant liqueur.
There is certainly currant notes which were in the forefront. The white tea base was smooth and slightly sweet. I am not sure that I am getting much champagne flavour though. Maybe I was just focused on trying to find the cassis flavour.
I am not entirely sure how to rate this tea yet.

The tea leaves are long and unbroken, a pretty black. I used 1 tbls of leaf.
This is one delicious brew. It is malty and sweet with a fairly smooth and thick mouthfeel. It is a little spicy, cinnamon. There are some fruity notes which I would most associate with plum.
I resteeped for 3 minutes, but didn’t get a chance to really pay attention to the flavours.

So far this is the only one from Zen Tea that’s been a miss for me. It’s not bad, but there are other vanilla black teas I like a lot more. To me both the scent and flavour are a lot more vanilla extract and less vanilla bean, and the base tea is more Ceylon and less Chinese, and apparently my tastes run heavily toward Chinese teas with vanilla bean flavour, so there you go.

Another one from yesterday. I remember being pretty impressed with this – I mean, it’s pretty much what it sounds like: black tea, strawberry and cream flavours, no big surprises there. But I think it’s well-executed. I like that the base is a blend of black teas including some Chinese black – I think that gives it a richer flavour than just the “generic ceylon black tea base” you know? And the strawberry and cream flavours are balanced and don’t taste weird or artificial. A nice dessert-y flavoured black.

I had this yesterday so this is from memory, but I definitely liked it. Roasty toasty oolong base, nutty hazelnut and creamy vanilla flavour. Hard to go wrong with that combination, really. :) I’ve been craving roasted oolongs since the weather got cold, and the flavouring transforms this one into a lovely desserty tea. I can see why this is popular.

This came as a sample with my last herbal tea order from Zen Tea Life. I decided to try it out for breakfast today to test its suitability for serving at tea time today.

I made one steep in my smallest Kamjove, gave a taste, and decided it seemed like a resteepable tea, so I decided to go ahead and combine two steeps. The review is based on the two blended steeps, but you can amp up all the factors for an accurate idea of what the first steep was like.

The company description is pretty spot on. Dian Hong teas usually have a strong sweet potato flavor to me. That is true of this one, but there is a lot more going on. It is heartier and made a great breakfast drink with my scrambled eggs with French thyme and cheese (eggs courtesy of Blondie, my rescue chicken who looks bedraggled but lays like a champ) and Viili with honey. It takes a decently strong tea to go well with all those flavors.

This has a heavy mouthfeel which is why I refer to it as hearty. I take my tea without milk or sugar, and this was smooth enough not to ever need milk to take the edge off, and sweet enough not to require sugar to make it interesting.

I made a third steep as a stand alone and it was delicious. This is a winner.

I must add that I have received excellent customer service from Zen. I ordered a couple of cast iron pots from them as well as a number of teas over the years and have always had a good experience, with reasonable shipping costs, quick arrival of goods, and good communication when I had questions.

Good afternoon for a large cup of Marsala Chai. I have had this in my collection for a little while. I think I have had some of it before, but it didn’t stand out as a favorite. I am enjoying it today, but it definitely isn’t my favorite chai. It is heavy on the anise seed for me. There is a good balance between base tea and spice, but I would like to see a few other spices take the stage more so than the anise seed.

From the Here’s Hoping TTB, R5

I’m trying as many small samples/sipdowns as I can to make the box smaller, lol. (I’m also not doing very well at that task. Plotting how to make it smaller while wanting to add more tea is hard!) Unfortunately there’s not really much that I’m interested in that fits that description. This one I tried purely to compare to the GoldenTeaTips version I’ve tried.

Package instructions says 203F for 3 min. To my defense it was very early in the morning and I was half asleep, but I should have known better than to brew a darjeeling for that hot at that long. I did follow package instructions though, I have enough left to try it at my normal preference for a darjeeling (hopefully for more fragrant results, 195F @ 1.5min). Anyways, the result was surprising not as bad as it could have been, but I think it could have been better.

About medium darkness, but malty, with some honey and bread notes along with the usually floral sweet notes of darjeeling. BUT astringent, pretty astringent, which for now I’m blaming on the brew temperature. Compared to GTT’s version, it’s a teensy bit sweeter, and less floral, but that could be attributed to maybe the sample’s a little older? When I tried GTT’s it was with their subscription and it was pretty fresh. When this is cold (because I set it aside and forgot about it), the astringency isn’t too bad to deal with. If I didn’t know this was a tea I would say it’s my kind of beer with the malty and sweet notes with a little bit of bitterness.

I’ll probably try to brew it again to drink down the sample, but I’m probably not logging it again, there’s maybe 2-3 small cups left. If you’re behind me in this box and want some, drop a comment for me to leave it in the box. =). On the other hand I’m fairly bored with the box already (not many greens or oolongs in here…) and will probably be passing it along soon.

Youngest wanted tea quite late last night and I have a long day of teaching music students today so I knew I had to go caffeine free.

I really like this tisane. I like licorice root. It is miles better than rooibos or hibiscus to me. Herbal blends tend to be heavy on one of those three. I find this to be fresh, sweet, and relaxing. Youngest loved it and drank several cups. If you let it cool a moment, the chamomile and minty flavors come shoulder to shoulder with the licorice root, and I need licorice root for my poor, reflux ravaged throat.

I am sad to see my bag getting low. I hope this blend comes back when Zen Tea starts selling tea again!