Zen Tea

GCTTB (round 6) entry

I’ve come to the conclusion I really like peach flavoured things. I also really like ginger and black tea. This is one of my favourite flavour combos of all time.

Brewed 500 mL hot water (just under boiling) for 5 minutes and it was plenty strong. Lots of sweet peach, but not overpoweringly artificial. Some spicy ginger, lots of black tea flavour.

Finally a sipdown. This was my first experience with bamboo leaf, and I’m not inclined to try some more blends that use it. The problem with such a light tea is that you get so much in your sample that it isn’t really just a sample any more. My sample was only 15g I think …this did about 15 pots of tea. Anyway, I didn’t want to get rid of it, it is a lovely tea and all. I’m a bit bored with the flavour right now, but I’m sure I’ll be back.

Overall, very fruity with lots of mellow (not acidic) flavours of lemongrass, bamboo leaf, some sort of berry? (it isn’t generic berry flavour, but I can’t pinpoint which distinct berry it is), goji, and tropical fruits (papaya, pineapple, banana).

I’ve never tasted bamboo leaf before, so this was very interesting.

Flavours of dry corn husk, dried berries/fruit (papaya?, grape, goji, blackberry, pineapple, blueberry), lemongrass, slight bit of floral. I actually really like the blackberry and blueberry in this, it makes the tea sweet and fragrant. Overall, a delightful herbal on a cold day. I’ll be trying this iced when it warms up outside.

Sipdown!

All my ZenTea samples came in today! I made 7 pots of tea this afternoon…it was a bit ridiculous. This was on top of the 8 cups from this morning. I’m going to sipdown all these little samples lying around if it kills me! Now I have 2 herbals and 10 teas from ZenTea on top of that. What am I doing to myself?

The rooibos base is nice. I like the spicy ginger and cardamom. In fact, the whole spice blend is lovely. This is a pretty solid chai blend.

This tea is a meeting between hazelnuts, French vanilla, and light roast oolong. Absolutly delicious. It tastes like I added milk or cream to my tea, but that’s just the flavour of the brewed tea itself. Additionally, the natural sweetness of the oolong brings everything together. Dessert in a cup!

I’m normally not a big fan of hazelnut flavourings in coffee/tea (just a bit picky with them) but I adore this flavoured oolong blend.

A few interesting notes come from the oolong itself. I think I taste tobacco and leaves (like dry maple and elm leaves), maybe in a storage/fermented kind of way? I’m digging it though, whatever it is.
The oolong is a bit toasty, the hazelnut and vanilla combo are nutty and fragrant. This just wow’d me a lot. It almost tastes like there are some spices and whatnot in there too, but I’m not sure what. So much nutty, creamy, sweetness. This will be perfect as a latte some morning.

hmm, I’m not sure I like this. It does stay true to its name “honey orchid” though. Slight sweetness, charcoal or something roasted, smells like a mixture of tobacco ash and orchid blossoms. I find it smells and tastes very strongly or marijuana smoke. It has that ashy mineral flavour, and the leathery herbal flavour.

This tea is so mmm, yeah, I can’t even tell you. It’s in the direction of honey black, but stops just before reaching the outer edge of sweetness, and with so much more depth and layering to it. So smooth with the ever so slight bit of smoke.

The cinnamon that others have mentioned eludes me. This does not trouble me.