Zen Tea

This is a decent keemun. While it’s not my favourite of those that I’ve tried I do like the way that this one tastes. There’s a heartiness to it that is really nice. I don’t get the plum but it is a nice mellow tea. It will be a good morning tea to have :)

Thank you Zen Tea for your samples! I’m glad I got to try this one!

Sample from evol ving ness I’m’ trying to use this weekend to get through a chunk of the samples that i have from various tea friends so that i can gt organised for the rest of the month in terms of hitting my tea weight goal :) this one smells lovely. I’ve had it before but that was 2? years ago so it was nice to revisit. I rather enjoyed that this one wasn’t a total strawberry mess. the black base is present and adds to the flavour, strengthening it somehow so that it’s a “heartier” strawberry taste. thanks evol!

SIP DOWN! YAY for another tea out of my cupboard for now. Tomorrow should also be a good day for trying samples and seeing what i like or don’t from a bunch of my new teas since i’ve finally organized my tea cupboard…shelves…boxes… lol

This was a tasty tea, and as long as you steep it at a bit lower temperature i really dig the strawberry and creaminess of the tea :)

mmmm a tea for braving the mall. Sad to say but I found a pair of rubber boots on sale that i’ve been trying to find for an eternity at less than 90$ a pop. They’re not the colour that I’d prefer but i can pick them up for 40$ and have a 20$ gift certiicate for the mall…so really? Rubber boots in a great bright colour (though not the on i’d prefer) for 20$? yes please!

But that also means i’ve got to leave the house…two days before christmas to go to a mall. You’d better believe that i’m bringing tea with me! haha

I typically drink tea straight. No milk, cream or sweetener. But tonight, since we had some extra cream in teh house from making tea, I added a dash of it to this tea. Lt me tell you about how it brings out the delicious creamy notes of the tea. Mmmmmm soooooo good.

Mmmmmm tasty for this evenings relaxing. Just trying to stay up a bit longer so I sleep through the night. Really appreciate the free samples from zen tea. A few more came my way so ill have to try those out soon before I place an order :)

Inspired by Azzrian’s post a few days ago, I’m trying to get to the last two samples of I have from Zen Tea. While it’s not my fault that they didn’t get here for 2 months, I still feel bad that I haven’t yet had a chance to finish off the reviews.

As soon as the water hit the tea I can smell the creaminess. Mmm this is really good. It’s smiliar to 52 teas strawberry zabaglione but different too. It’s more creamy than strawberry but delicious nonetheless. I’ll have to try this again sometime with a bit of milk :)

Am I one of the first to try the NEW Zen Phoenix Pearls? Well, here’s a tasting note. Neither of the Zen pearls have really been the traditional “pearls”, the leaves rolled into half inch size spheres. Both versions of Zen’s pearls seem to me more like what the tea world calls snails. The old version had more gold and were fuzzier. The new version has a slicker sheen and darker color, like some Fujian teas I have seen (Laoshan). The photo on the site needs to be updated. After tasting, I love them both and wish Zen would sell both! The flavor here is less dark chocolate like the older pearls and more like the molasses caramel that a Fujian tea would have, while having a much deeper flavor than I usually taste with Fujian leaves (the site still says Yunnan but I’m not sure if they have to update the info for this tea.) There is also something crisper and tangier in the flavor. Unique from most black teas, I’d say. It’s delicious! I will miss the old Phoenix Pearls though, as those were a different sort of delicious. Happy to have these snails around though!
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons for a full mug// 10 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 minute steep

Edited to add: After new info from Zen, the new Phoenix Pearls is actually from Hunan and not Yunnan or Fujian (my guess.) I don’t think I’ve tried Hunan teas that I’m aware of!

I may have thought “this is my favorite tea” while I was sipping this one… I’m not sure! I was captivated by how delicious this is! It is DEFINITELY my favorite unflavored black tea. (Though I must admit, I don’t think I’ve tried many unflavored black teas yet.) The dried leaves are little bundles, black with hints of gold in color. The leaves smell like a perfect black tea and this tastes perfect. I may have used a bit more than a teaspoon. I steeped for four minutes. The flavor is amazing. The first to note is the unbelievable sweetness. How does a black tea taste like this? It’s almost like sugar was added. No, the description says it is naturally sweet. I made sure to taste the tea before biting into my breakfast of coconut custard pie.. and then I just wanted to enjoy the tea without the pie. The flavor is amazing: deep, earthy, smooth and full. NO bitterness. Even as it cools, the flavor might be getting sweeter. It’s not brisk or the strongest black tea, but I’d say it has more flavor than the two Teavivre black teas I’ve tried. (I love those as well. I’m just using them as a comparison for unflavored black teas. And I guess it reminds me of the Teavive, just with a stronger flavor.) I wish I could convey the flavor profile better! The second steep is just as good (5 min). I’m going to try getting a third cup later. I could drink this every day! Add this to the list of Zen Teas I must order. They know what they are doing giving out free samples! zentealife.com

Thanks to Zen Tea for a sample.

Toffee tastes great, but isn’t so great for my teeth. Plus all those nasty bits get left in your mouth and just.. ick. So I mostly stick to toffee flavored things, if I can help it.

When I saw this white tea I was very intrigued. You really don’t see too many candy flavored whites. I’ve seen berries and fruit flavors for whites, but this is definitely the first toffee I’ve seen. I was curious how it would go.

And you know what? It works. The white base really gives a nice smoothness to the toffee flavoring. It’s delicious without sweetener, although I bet the flavors would pop even more if I added some sweetener or milk (which I didn’t). I drank this hot, but as it cools off, it’s nice as a cool tea too. Overall it’s a nice solid white tea that’s good for anyone, as long as they like toffee flavoring. It also makes a great desert tea, especially for people who are not fond of black base.

The previous writers have already described the appearance. I want to emphasize the aroma- it really hits you when brewing with an awesome “green”, vegetal aroma much like my very favorite greens. I was surprised that the flavor was much more muted than the aroma suggested. As the tea cooled, however, I was able to detect more and more flavor. This was a very enjoyable experience of a lighter green tea.

Thanks again to Zen Tea for the generous sample! I have always adored the scent of almond extract. My mom always puts it in the batter when she makes french toast, and I recall just putting my face over the bowl and deeply inhaling as a child. Intoxicating scent. This tea smells exactly like that. I had an eyes roll back in my head moment. I definitely get cherry notes, sort of like a cherry vanilla scent. There’s a weird flower in my cup, which at first I thought was a stray tea leaf, but apparently is a mallow flower ( I have no idea what those are). Anyway, the tea? SO. GOOD. Ermahgerd. It tastes like a little almond cake, and actually somehow has the same feeling in my mouth as marzipan. It’s amazing! I drank this cup so fast. I seriously feel like I just ate a piece of marzipan. Swoon. Best almond tea I’ve ever had.

I can’t say whether I favor Oolong over Puerh. A good oolong is hard to beat. Of course, unlike Puerh, oolong spans a wide range of flavor profiles. Personally, I prefer highly oxidized, heavily roasted oolongs. Because of my own preferences, most of my favorites come out of Fujian, and not Taiwan. Most tea experts find Taiwan high mountain teas superior because of their floral bouquet and complex, light flavor. I don’t doubt that they are correct, and maybe my palate will one day evolve to expert status. However, right now, I like this.

Opening this bountiful sample from Zen Tea, the aroma was warm and roasty. The tea is dark; fully oxidized. After a quick wash, the brilliant aroma of Fall in the north comes to mind. Leaves, spices, apple cider, a fire in the fireplace.
The taste is just as pleasant as the aroma. There are a lot of flavors in this tea, and all of them are welcome. This tea possesses high notes mostly of spice, maybe nutmeg or hints of cinnamon. There is a sweetness in the taste, especially after the roastiness subsides. The sweetness is that of corn or tomatoes not sugar or flowers. I think this tea is loaded with umami-like flavors, both overt and subtle. This makes me want to drink more. The more times I steep, the roasted qualities fade and the sweeter aspects prevail. This tea has very nice body, depth and a clean finish.

I like oxidized oolongs in general, and I very much like this specific TieGuanYin from Zen Tea.

This has made it to my top 10 all time best strawberry teas!
It is SO creamy SO sweet SO YUM!!!!
Its a lot like 52Teas Strawberry Zabaglione.
When you want something to convert your non tea drinking friends, serve to the younger folk, or curb a serious sweet tooth – this is your tea!
NOM NOM NOM
Full review on http://sororiteasisters.com/ Nov 26th

Mmmm, tasty (The fiancé didn’t think so, “like drinking alfalfa”. Well, he’s not really an un-flavored tea drinker, or anything in the remotely green category.) I’m trying to get through some samples today since it’s my day off, plus Zen Tea is sending out more so I can’t get behind!

This is really nice, one of my favorite unflavored oolongs I’ve had so far. Definitely like the darker ones. The dry leaf on this smells fantastic, oolong with a bit of raisin. Lovely golden color when brewed. It’s got a nice, light fruit note to it. Really good! I stink at describing oolongs, but I know when I like one!

Tea: 2 tsp
Water: 16 oz, filtered
Additives: None
Infusions: 1st @ 1:30, 2 @ …

This was an impulse buy after seeing the great reviews here, no regrets at all. Zen Tea could very well be a contender among my favorite online tea retailers.

The bergamot is a bit mild, which works well with the creaminess of it. Need to be careful though, as with my second cup I accidentally oversteeped it and it became unpleasantly bitter. But so long as you don’t get sidetracked as easily as I do…! It is an amazing, well balanced tea.

Finally getting around to trying this sample from Zen Tea. I am sorry it took me so long to try it! But I’m really thrilled to be trying it now.

This is really tasty. The white tea is soft and vegetative, reminding me a bit of the taste of the air around the hay and alfalfa fields after they’ve been cut. Sweet and green with notes of hay. The warmth of the hay really complements the flavor of the sweet toffee flavor in a very pleasant way.

A really lovely cup. My full-length review will be published on SororiTea Sisters on the 12th of November: http://sororiteasisters.com

I love coconut and am always on the lookout for a nice coconut green tea. Key word being green. I’ve had a few coconut oolongs and pouchongs which are all fine and dandy, and some red rooibos which aren’t for me, but I wanted a green tea. Now Teavana came out with a green coconut cream tea that’s exclusive to their website, you can’t get it in the store. I bought some thinking I was going to like it, I didn’t. It was sencha with coconut and white chocolate pieces…I don’t like white chocolate and I certainly don’t like it in my tea and it was too much and too creamy for me.

So, I go to Zen Tea and find this gorgeous little yixing teapot that grabs my heart and I don’t find too many teas that grab my attention. Then I see this coconut green tea, again coconut with sencha and figure why not. I thought of grabbing just a sample but did 50g instead. Glad I got 50g instead of a sample! The yixing pot is too cute at 3.72 oz which will be dedicated to dancongs.

And this tea is so simple and delicious! It’s a nice sencha base with dried coconut pieces and apparently some flavoring which I can only imagine to be more coconut. Upon opening the bag I smell the sweet grassy sencha and the sweet coconut. This coconut is different from oolong or pouchong in that it is much lighter. It reminds me of sweetened shredded coconut used for baking, the kind that I will sit down and eat straight out of the bag…I like coconut :) But the greatest thing about this tea is that it was green tea and coconut and that’s it, no extra anything! No pineapple, no lemongrass, no rhubarb, no mango, nothing! It’s great I love it! The sencha is the perfect base for the coconut and the neither the coconut nor the sencha overpowered the other, well balanced. If you like coconut and green tea go try some!

Pics of new yixing! You can see my cup of the coconut green tea on the table.

http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/s410/feralanima/Yixingteapot005.jpg

http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/s410/feralanima/Yixingteapot002.jpg

http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/s410/feralanima/Yixingteapot003.jpg

So I have to say, this is a tea for cold brewing. It still doesn’t have the intense flavour that i’d prefer but in cold brewing this a lot more of the blood orange flavour came out. It’s also got a beautiful orange colour to it that makes me smile. I’ll be using the last of my sample to do another cold brew of this sometime for sure! Adding a touch of sweetner also helped. heh

This tea has certainly made a trip! It somehow took 2? months to get from BC to ON but here it is! This tea comes with a suggesting on the packaging that it makes a great iced tea. I decided to try it hot first and I’m inclined to agree that iced may work better to draw out the flavours. This is a nice tea…but it’s hard to find the blood orange in this.

Oooh!! Alphakitty sent me this without my even asking..how did she know I would fall in love? Before I even opened her package, I smelled this one. I was like a tea addict sniffing at the box. It smells amazing…all tangy grapefruit with subdued orange flavoring. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about such a tea, but I’m excited. I followed her directions to brew at boiling for 5 to 10 minutes. Chose the longer time limit of 10 minutes. The smell is amazing and rejuvenating. A nice citrus scent that reminds me of lemonade and summer days, which is odd since it did snow in Jersey last night.

The taste is lightly tangy with an underlying hint of orange and apple. I absolutely love it and the smell alone refreshed me before drinking it. I never would have bought this on my own, so I’m so happy that I had a sample!

After being held by customs for 3 weeks, my Zen Tea order is finally here! I loved my free samples so much that I wanted to stock them in large quantities, and I got a few extra samples thrown in as well. I know customer service isn’t part of the rating number, but I’d like to mention how awesome my shopping experience was there. Super fast communication, tons of samples, they even threw in a gorgeous wooden tea spoon for me!

This is definitely different from what I expected. I was thinking it’d be brightly minty with just a hint of vanilla, but there’s cinnamon too! The vanilla, cinnamon and the earthy, warm notes from the pu-erh make this a very warming, bake-y blend. Kind of like coffee cake, actually! The mint brightens it up and adds a nice cooking quality, so it’s an interesting mix of hot and warm elements. There’s a nice smooth, creaminess as well from the vanilla. The baked notes were a big surprise—I honesty was kind of expecting to only like this and wound up loving it. It’s like a mint cupcake!

Thank you Zen Tea for this very nice sample! It is much appreciated.

This tea combo of Genmaicha and Matcha is a very nice treat,when looking for something more than the traditional green or oolong tea. There are faint toasty notes from the puffed rice (which would satisfy the longing for an oolong:), however there is much more complexity than most teas in this class.

There is a fresher, more fuller taste to the tea than other Sencha grades that are usually coupled in the Genmaicha. Zen Tea’s claim of “made from only Ichibancha (tea from the first harvest of the year)”, seems to hold up to its claim. The brew tastes more like a smoothie of some sort, which may be attributed to the addition of the matcha. Whatever may be the case here, it is really good and stands alone in the Genmaicha category.

You can really taste the green tea, yet with a creaminess and very smooth, non-bitter sip. The quality of the leaves are not disguised behind an extra dose of roasted puffed rice, intended to hide it’s shortcoming. I like the fact that you can evaluate the tea, well – for its leaves.

This tea may not be for everyone, especially if you do not normally like the taste of greener teas – this is certainly a GREEN tea and that’s what you get. If however, you love perfecting the lower water temp to ensure the sweeter, buttery and creamy characteristics of a green tea – don’t pass this one up! You can really play with this one quite a bit. I actually used about twice as much as normal in my gaiwan and shorten the steep time and found great success. Very tasty!

Thank you to Zen Tea for the nice sized sample!

I’m no oolong expert, but this oolong is very nice. I haven’t had too many other coconut flavored oolongs, but this does compare to Mandarin Silk from Persimmon Tree Tea.

This flavor is smooth, very rich, and definitely coconut-y, but not overly so. This is a great oolong for people, like me, who might be a little underwhelmed with oolongs and want a little kick. It’s still a delicious treat even without any sweetener in it!