Zen Tea

Not very minty, not very pu-ehy. But overall enjoyed it. I’m more a fan of orange pu-erhs though. Will definitely try this again soon though. Sample from KallieBoo!

Teardrop of Peony, is a complex flavoured white with a mao feng base that brews to dark gold and whoose scent and flavour reminds me of late fall or early spring in the forest or countryside.

It smells of smoke, lemon, nuts (walnut) , pine, and peony. It taste rich. The tea has a creamy, nutty base, which leaves a tingling sensation in the mouth at each sip. The lychee/ citrus flavour reminds me of some earl greys, and may make a replacement for those moving away from black teas. It taste a bit of pine and smoke.

The tea generally leaves me feeling really alert whether this is due to lychee, or whether the tea simply has a higher level of caffeine than other whites that I have tried I don’t know.

There is an aftertaste of floral spice from the peony, and nut. The tea tastes more citrusy than sweet. The dry leaf is very beautiful with twisted ropes of light grey (almost white), dark grey and yellow/green leaves interspersed with large dried red peoney flower petals.

The tea rebrews really well with flavour lasting into the fifth infusion. The nuttiness disperses after the second or third. A fairly unique tea and a nice step away from the either the soft and silky or fruity unadulterated whites, or the very soft and flowery, or fruity flavoured whites I’ve had.

I really like this tea and would like to keep it in my cupboard.

As others have already noted this is a really lovely flavoured tea where all the components, both tea and flavouring are allowed to shine through.

It is not heavily sweet, it has a nice creamy flavour and has the soft strawberry tones of a srawberry mousse or yogurt. This is not a tart fruit tea for those who prefer them. The introduction of strawberry leaves adds a touch of bitterness and adds some depth to the base. The tea underneath is fruity and not to heavy but has enough depth to take milk. A nice anytime tea or a light desert tea.

caveat: make sure you shake up the bag a little before taking a scoop out the pieces that create the creamy taste tend to settle to the bottom if the bag has been jostled around!

The dry leaf smell actually reminds me of bitter chocolate. Brewed, the tea base is full bodied and slightly bitter. A faint vanilla scent, makes for a slightly sweet black tea. Tasted with no additives, the flavouring is very light but present, there is no very distinct taste of vanilla when first sipped, the vanilla is lightly present in the aftertaste, almost as a top note to the flavour of the tea base, true vanilla smell, not cloying, artificial, or sweet. I taste vanilla in the back of my mouth. The tea actually reminds me of vanilla scented dark chocolate. Makes for a nice slightly sweet flavoured tea, for those who prefer the taste of tea to be dominant in their flavoured teas and for flavourings to be used to accentate the tea base. I like the base it is strong deep and leaves a tingling on my tongue and the back of my throat like espresso. It resteeps well.

I made this for my evening pot and it sure turned into such a pretty red brew. Unfortunately, that means it’s laced with hibiscus. :|

I did know that going in though. As expected it’s pretty tart, and I’m only getting a bit of creamy strawberry under all that. It’s almost ok though? I bet if I had it iced it would be much better.

Thanks ozli for letting me try this!

Office sipdown!
21 to go and I’m at 100 teas again!

Soooo, this is not a tea for me! Smells amazing (I love the SMELL of chamomile but rarely the taste), but the sweetness is like a punch in the face, augh, but then there’s a really lovely minty aftertaste! But you have to make it through the cloying sweetness first…

Yum! Goood morning steepsters! Steepster-ers? Need caffeine. _ My fluffiest cat woke me up REPEATEDLY this morning, while my oldest/most stubborn cat repeatedly sandwiched my legs in every time I moved. The thing that actually got me out of bed was wondering where smallest cat was? …it was too quiet. Well not QUIET because fluffiest cat. She is the most mournful.

…this has been your morning cat report.

This tea is kinda zingy behind the cream! I like it a lot.

This is a super lovely tea for when you want a black tea that’s way more mellow than EG. Yum. ((not a HINT of curry, wtf, now I kinda really want a curry-ish tea though. I was so sick when that curry taste happened, haha, I want a curry-ish tea without being sick!))

So I’m thankful to zen tea for letting me try this one out. It’s got a nutty, creamy toffee flavour and I can see why people enjoy this. It’s just not for me. :) I really appreciate the sample and I’m glad I got the chance to try it, but its just not a tea flavour that appeals me even though its a nice tea. Leaving a rating off since I think this is more of a personal I don’t like the flavour than a “this is a bad tea” :)

Toffee. White tea. What could go wrong? not much! I’m liking this sample. Thanks to Kittenna/Sil for sharing!
Very smooth and intense on the caramel. I love that it’s so well balanced.
The second infusion wasn’t quite as tasty, a hair plasticky. Making me hesitant to try a third. But… I will gladly finish off the rest of the sample!

At first I thought this was just weird cold, but I kinda really love it now. It’s strange, the mix of “cold” and “buttery” though.

Drinking the last bit of this, very nice & light this time. :D Making the rest into cold-brewed tea; we’ll see how that goes. Trying to drink down my teas from swaps!

I’m working hard to like this tea, because cavocorax likes it so much. :P I actually do like it a lot more today, I don’t know why. Maybe I’m used to the smell of oolong. ALSO, the bowl of strawberries does not hurt. Doctor Who night!!

SO buttery… and no wanting to harf at the smell of oolong anymore! \o/ I enjoy this, but will probably rarely want it.

OK, now I know what people mean when they say a tea is buttery! I love coconut so I kinda had to buy this tea. (AND cavocorax sent me a sample but I ended up buying my own before it got here.. haha.) But I think if I had waited I wouldn’t have bought this. Not yet, anyway. The smell of oolong (?) is nauseating. :s I really didn’t want to try this tea once smelling it after steeping! I put it down and learned some crochet and forgot about til just now… but it’s better than it smells, for sure! I …actually like it. SURPRISED. But the smell is still turning my stomach, so I don’t know how eager I’ll be to make this again. Holding off rating for now, maybe oolong just isn’t for me? Will have to do a plain one soon to compare (since the long life oolong from David’s Tea also went so horribly wrong for me – although I was WAY more careful about temperature and steep time for this one)…. #adventuresinteatime

Thank you Cavocorax for sending me this! I’ve never had an oolong specifically labelled as a Tieguanyin. I’ve wanted to try this since learning about Avalokiteśvara in my Asian religions class and reading the back story on the tea name.

Before this I thought I knew what a floral oolong was. Then I tried these little balls of joy…and the oolong ball soared out of the park! floral tea with a home run! Yeah… Breathtaking.

Truly though, I was shocked by this oolong’s floral body. My roommate said this reminded her of a jasmine tea from Teaopia (interesting). I can’t believe it isn’t flavoured either. It just goes to show I’m still a newbie with tea and there’s still a lot out there to try.

The sweet vanilla notes and milky richness make for a heady experience that would prevent me from drinking this regularly. I can think of a few occasions where I would want to pretend I’m in a gigantic garden filled with heavy bodied flowers, however. Like right now. This is the perfect tea to take my mind off personal bloopers and failings.

A Feast For Crows and Once Upon a Time, on the other hand, are NOT particularly cheery, and are lacking the overzealous flowers I crave for. I clearly need to find more euphoric forms of escapism! (Rumpelstiltskin is entertaining to watch, Cersei is not)

I’m drinking the last of this herbal as a cold brew, and it is very nice. I like the whole sweet/tart mix of flavors. This tea certainly shows off its best side when cold brewed. Something I’ll have to remember if I reorder at a future date.

This is an okay herbal. Its generic berry rather than blueberry, and I don’t taste the yogurt flavor at all. The lemongrass adds a nice zing to the tea. I feel that a lot of times lemongrass is overused, but it’s fairly well balanced here. So, rather than juicy blueberry I taste berry-lemon. As herbals go this one’s alright.

Lots of berry, but nothing that shouts blueberry. I’m also not read tasting the yogurt. Something tells me that both of these flavors will be more pronounced as the tea cools but so will the hibiscus. I’d rather drink it warm and call this a berry blend.

tea #5 of iceday sipdown

I received this one from alphakitty, hmmm yea pretty sure that’s who this one was from.

this smells mostly vanilla like with a hint of mint.
it tastes the opposite mostly mint (although lightly) with a hint of vanilla.
this is a very light puerh, it would be great after a meal, most likely lunch, cause if I drank it after supper I’d be wired all night.
I really like this one, light & delicious. definitely want to add this to my cupboard.

Thanks for this one, Starfevre! With all the great tea companies out there, zentealife.com quickly became one of my favorites. I’d love to try all of their blends. A very nice herbal here! It’s a big and interesting list of ingredients. And it just looks delicious and healthy with big orange pieces. Definitely need those oranges in the winter.. that might be why! After steeping for ten minutes, I could have swore the first thing that hit me was rosemary, but that isn’t actually listed in the ingredients. There are too many other things here to guess what it might be. The flavor is refreshing while not being too tart (it seems to have the right amount of hibiscus, at least in this cup, just a hint.) Otherwise, I can taste orange and lemongrass. I’m not sure why it’s called grapefruit, since there doesn’t seem to be any in the blend. (That’s fine with me though!) Overall, a really nice combination with the right ratios of things. A fresh, bright and tasty cup! Another great tea from Zen.