Zen Tea

Steepster gobbled up my tasting note on this last night. Many thanks to Zen Tea for their generously sized complimentary samples! This one is definitely darker than the light and medium roasted oolongs I have been drinking. I normally only discard the first short steep (rinse) on pu’er’s, as the are often the sweetest most sparkling infusions and I really enjoy them, but this one smelled, odd.. and was light purplish hue, one taste told me I best treat it as a rinse.

The next infusion and the leaves had a similar smell. It wasn’t fishy like bad pu-er, though perhaps it was a bit metallic, but really I think it was just charcoally from the dark roast, which I suppose I’m just not used to. The third and fourth infusion were quite nice and left a very satisfying cool and filling feeling between the back of my mouth and my throat.

Next time I would like to do a longer rinse and a longer steep, basically follow the western instructions provided on the packet, instead of the gonfu I did. Thankfully the samples provided allow for several sessions. I will update with my observations then.

Thank you Zen Tea for the samples! I decided to go with this one first because I want iced tea, and I assume I picked this one out for that reason. I actually completely forgot about picking out these samples so it was a nice surprise to get them.

I was surprised by the water temperature called for, but went with it, and there is definitely no bitterness to be had! Yay!

The Chinese sencha is the predominant flavor on first sip before it gets super fruity. I added a bit of agave and it made the fruit flavors pop more. Beforehand, it just seemed like I couldn’t even pinpoint that there was cranberry and mango. Now, it’s very apparent that it’s mango, although I think it probably lost a bit of the tartness from the cranberry.

It’s nice and refreshing to drink this one. I love the combination of these two fruit flavors. It makes them taste more exotic than they really are!

This should be great even hot, which I’ll try next. And I definitely need to cold steep it too.

I am perplexed by this tea! It sure smells like other Irishy/Englishy breakfast teas I’ve had, but it doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before. Well, I take that back. It looks like coffee. Coffee grounds. Super weird, but exciting! Used a big-ish teaspoon and boiling water…immediately when the water hit the tea, it darkened up considerably. Like, to a color that I would perceive as done in other teas (I sometimes judge my tea’s doneness by it’s color, which is okay sometimes…but definitely not others. I have a problem overbrewing more delicate teas). Oof, this is a dark, STRONG tea. Definitely will keep me awake for a day of studying! I’m too much of a wuss to drink it without sugar. Hmm, upon poking at the used up leaves, they almost seem to mush together. Like coffee grounds. Mysterious.

Wow, it took me only five days to sip this 1 oz. of tea down. I tried the last of it as a cold brew. It’s better this way than hot, but it has a weird dry undertone like a lot of other Zen teas. Must be that base again. Plus the vanilla flavouring is a little artificial.

Oh hi, Zen teas that I purchased back in April but still haven’t touched yet! As I’m sure everyone knows, I’m always on the hunt for a wonderful vanilla black. Zen’s prices are super sweet so I definitely couldn’t pass this one up.

The dry leaf is quite bland. It smells sweet, but like a watered down sugary vanilla. Like adding a drop of vanilla to corn syrup. It doesn’t quite grab your senses. It’s also not an obvious vanilla. If I were to smell this without knowing what it’s supposed to be, I’d just assume it’s a vaguely sugary black tea.

Without any additives, it’s also very bland. The base itself is on the weaker side even though I steeped it for three minutes as per their directions. While it’s nice to not have an extremely robust or astringent base blocking out the vanilla, I still expected more from the base itself.

The flavouring doesn’t even taste like vanilla to me either. Maybe like a light vanilla caramel, but artificial. I added some soy milk and while I prefer to drink it this way, it’s ultimately underwhelming. Maybe I’m going crazy but after a while, so many of these flavoured teas start to taste the same. You know, like a vaguely sugared up black tea.

I’m trying to try all of the new-to-me teas because I am one person away from getting the tea box! I can’t wait. This seems to be another cut-tear-curl blend but I don’t think Zen mentioned that in their description. I like to have a couple of these on hand, since they are good for 1)caffeine and 2) the strongest flavor possible. It wakes you up! The tiny leaves are black with a bit of gold occasionally. This one is nice for a cut-tear-curl. I steeped for just two minutes both times. The first steep was a bit more astringent than the second steep and I could probably steep these leaves a dozen times and get a nice flavor. The flavor is tough and a bit like rye bread. The dried leaves smelled like a dry field. This is a nice one but there are SO MANY nice teas at Zentealife.com. I think their sale is still running! I’d definitely be buying some more if I wasn’t overrun with teas right now!

I’ve not had this tea hot but lately, as I try to reduce my caffeine consumption, I’ve been drinking this rooibos iced quite often. Very sweet as is so I’ve not needed to add sugar. Makes a nice cold beverage on these summer days. I’m not a real fan of the rooibos taste but in this particular tea, the rooibos flavor is minimized by the sweet buttery caramel flavor.

In between all these caffeinated black teas I’ve been drinking all day, I decided to try another new tea and made a cup of this. I was pretty sceptical after reading the ingredient list and smelling the tea, as it smelled soo darn fruity and there’s just so much in it, I didn’t know how it would taste. I also worried it’d be fairly tart due to the hibiscus. I steeped for 4 minutes in just under boiling water. Ehh, the steeped smell is a bit tart and fruity, not sure if I’m a fan lol. The liquor is also a bright pink, definitely hib in there.

As for the flavor, it is definitely fruity. I’m trying to figure out which one is the most prominent, I think it’s the hibiscus, currants and apples. And also maybe the citric acid? I am getting a tart almost lemony flavor, but more like orange vitamin C tablets haha. Just the aftertaste though, so don’t be too freaked out. It does say there’s vitamin C in it, so maybe it’s a similar flavoring? Haha, not much yogurt flavor, or blueberry for that matter.

Overall, it’s not nearly as scary as I thought it would be from the dry scent, with all the fruits and flowers and blargh, more like potpourri (sp?) than tea. I might use the rest of my sample to make some iced tea to see what that tastes like. Not a bad tisane, but not my favorite.

This is actually the very first oolong I tried. Even though I now prefer the aged and roasted oolongs, it is still quite enjoyable and somehow very comforting. Today I enjoyed two hot infusions and then went for a third to enjoy iced sometime tomorrow or the next day. It’s one tea that will remain in my tea cupboard.

This tea makes me happy! I like coconut very much and I have become quite fond of oolongs so the combination is great for me. The coconut flavoring seems quite authentic (i.e., not at all artificial)in my opinion. The oolong leaves open nicely on the first steep and unfurl completely through the 2nd. I’ve not tried for three because I would not want a flavor any weaker than that resulting from the 2nd infusion. This will be a staple in my tea cupboard – I’ve already reordered.

I found a small plastic bag with one pot’s worth of something labeled “Grandma’s Garden” in one of the cupboards in my parents’ house. In a Christmas themed tin, of all places. If I recall correctly, we got it from a little tea shop in Urbana-Champaign when we visited my sister, so that must have been at /least/ three years ago…

It’s obviously not the freshest, but it still tasted all right — like those Celestial Seasonings fruit zingers, but better, with a better balance of the acidity and sweetness. Not my favorite, but take that with a grain of salt, since I’m not even /entirely/ sure this is the same tea we’re talking about… =P

Violently pretty! I like this tea – it’s not super tart & the strawberries are really out there. Not creamy at all, to me. I’d like to try their black/strawberry next time, I think. Had this one late last night and got side-tracked with the child.. it was lovely cool in the morning, too. If strawberries didn’t trigger K’s oral allergy syndrome, I’d cold brew this with a bit of honey. Nom nom nom.

(It’s funny, looking at my last reviews of this tea, that I used to consider it more tart than I do now.. I wonder if my tastes have changed? Or was I just exaggerating?)

Last night with chocolate cake & strawberry frosting! Yum.

When I was looking up this tea to log it, I saw that they also have a Strawberry Cream that’s a black tea! I should have got that instead. Oh well. This smells amazing and it’s a really beautiful vivid colour and it’s more tart than I expected, but still good! It would be amazing iced, I’m sure. I added a bit of sugar, didn’t really make a big difference.

Tea tea. I have a lot of this tea.

No ratings for this one yet? Too bad!

I love a good smoky tea. But there is a fine line between the good and the bad smoky teas, I think. This one is delightful! I may have let the water cool too much, as the black base didn’t seem very strong. The cup was a very light brown in color. But the smoke is there. It’s also very sweet and silky. My second steep was brewed for a few minutes just after boiling and it is certainly stronger now! But it still isn’t anything astringent. It’s very smoky! Either cup, the black tea itself is hidden behind the smoke, so yeah, definitely smoky. I kind of liked that the first steep was milder and the second steep had such a kick to it. Certainly the blend I wouldn’t mind representing lapsang souchong in my collection. It’s like a BBQ at a bonfire!

I already mentioned it in the forums, but Zentealife.com has a 30% off sale on their wonderful teas with coupon code Summer2013. They also have a nice rewards program.

SIPDOWN! (229) Happy to have made it under 30 before i leave for a week but it sucks that i really don’t have the effort/energy to put in to bringing tea with me and trying to find somewhere to make it. I don’t mind this one, but it’s not a re-order for me. I’m glad i had the chance to try it but that’s as far as i need to take it heh

last tea of the evening as i’m trying to make sure to have a cup or two of some of the samples and smaller sizes that i have in my giant box of TEA! Mostly so that maybe I can manage a few sipdowns on the weekend from tea that will finally be good to be sipped down. Right now i have an abundance of teas that will take 2-3 days to be sipped down. This of course makes it hard to manage my one sipdown a day but i’ll keep trying!

I’m not a huge fan of this one, but i don’t hate it either. It’s for sure a creamy sort of raspberry tea. The one thing i don’t like as much is that i can taste the rooibosy flavour a little more than i like. I much prefer when the rooibos isn’t as distinctive in blends. likely part of the reason i enjoy della terra’s chiffon’s. In any case, this isn’t bad but nothing i feel the need to order.

Thank you Cavocorax for sharing this one with me!

Edit: And if you live in an internet black hole and haven’t visited www.google.com today….just go do it.

This was very fruity and very good.
Backlog from yesterday.

I would buy this again.

I realize that most of my reviews (maybe all of them?) are related to food and /or what I did the day I wrote them. Today won’t be any different, sorry!

In the beautiful region of The Laurentians, where I feel so privileged to be living in, there’s a little shop called Le Moulin aux Épices (it means The Spice Mill). I don’t go very often cause it’s a long drive.

Nathalie, the owner, welcomes you in the small cottage style boutique adjacent to her own house. Entering her shop is like walking the ground of the old world Silk Road. It just transports you to exotic lands. Name any spice, she has it.

Along with tea addiction, I suffer from olfactory obsession. The place is not helping me!

I always pick up something that she recommends. This time I came back with some Indonesian long pepper. Shaped as a mini pinecone, this peppercorn exudes perfumes of liquorice and aniseed. I used it tonight in a moroccan Tajine dish. Mmmmm!

What better tea than moroccan mint to end the meal. This is really good, if your a mint lover of course.

I love that Zen Tea is using spearmint instead of peppermint. My all time favourite mint tea consists of adding hot water to a load of freshly cut spearmint. So simple, you just drink and let the vibrant green leaves swirl around. Beautiful to look at and equally tasty.

In this tea, the spearmint provides a natural sweet finish to this fresh combination. I choose to brew it at only 175F. Over that, I find the gunpowder renders a dusty aftertaste that I dislike very much, a taste of dirt almost. I know it doesn’t sound appealing, but trust that it completely goes away when brewed at a very low temperature.

Now this is nowhere near traditional moroccan tea, which is almost unbearably sweet to me since always loaded with sugar. I much prefer these moroccan mint blends, but I wish I had a bottle of orange blossom water handy to make it closer to tradition. That, I really like and I think I might just try it next time!

Backlog:

A really delightful flavored green. The tart and tangy cranberry contrasts so nicely with the sweet mango notes. A very invigorating green tea – it tastes great iced.

A natural fruit taste here – it doesn’t come across as artificial. The green tea is sweet and creamy.

Just a really good green tea with a rather unexpected flavor combination that really works well. Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/03/11/cranberry-mango-green-tea-from-zen-tea/

Wow smells amazing when I opened the bag! Couldn’t wait for the water to get to the right temp to brew. I brewed according to the instructions 2 tsp per cup. It was a little hard to measure the leaves properly because the leaves were so big.
Brewed it smells just as good. Mmm tastes mildly nutty and sweet. Great balance with the white tea. I haven’t tried a lot of white tea yet but this one is quite nice…
As the tea cools the toffee flavour becomes more pronounced. Mmmm.

I see I like this better than the others who did reviews. It’s not fabulous, but for me it was pretty darn good. The one flavor that stands out is the licorice. In fact, I think I ordered it because of that ingredient. (I’m a black licorice fan, but not a fanatic.) If I disliked licorice, I would say that it seems to overpower the other contents. However, in my opinion the other ingredients do a good job of cushioning the licorice, but you can’t escape the flavor. (I guess I would order this again.)

i have a box of over 100 swap samples now and this morning i dug around in it in the dark until i had a few in my hand that seemed varied. i threw them in my purse and went to work.
this is my first taste from my swap with KallieBoo!
i immediately felt really lucky to have my random pick in the dark to be such a tasty tea! my cup was empty very quickly. i am NOT a gal to turn down hazelnut or vanilla in a tea. and hellyeah this one has both.