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I have so many delicious teas right now! I’ve been in a real black tea mood this past week so I brewed this up today with lunch.

This is a beautiful tea to look at, with bright yellow pineapple pieces and flecks of white coconut standing out against the black tea. The dry leaf and the brewed tea smell just like pineapple! I took the first sip and tasted lots of coconut, which I love. As it cools the pineapple has really been coming to the forefront. In addition, this tea is not bitter or astringent in the slightest, and I think it would make a fantastic iced tea. I’m really impressed by the flavor of this, as I tend to dislike teas that taste “artificial” to me, and this does not.

I am also thinking about my dad today, who lives on the south west coast of Kauai. They had an emergency weather alert last night but he is fine now and at home. I’d send him some of this delicious tea but I think he actually gets sick of Hawaiian food!

Lupicia is amazing. Why don’t I go there more often? Because it’s in the mall!

I couldn’t resist taking some of this home after I smelled it. It has a warm aroma of strawberry and rose layered nicely on top of the black tea. I love the tiny roses mixed into this tea, it’s so beautiful! Combined with the tin they have for this I felt like I was buying some tea art.
Brewed up the liquor is a deep red color. It’s slightly sweet with a light strawberry flavor that doesn’t taste artificial. Then there’s a hint of vanilla and lingering flavor and scent of rose. This is so delicious that I almost regret not going to the mall more often.

Woah! I feel I should preface this review by stating that I really like whisky – especially smokey, peaty whisky. So when I opened the packet the first thing I thought was WHISKY!

This really does smell like a campfire when you open it – lots of smoke and peat smell right up front. Brewed, the liquor still smells smokey with an undertone of rich black tea. A few sips in and I can taste a bit of sweetness and there’s a bite at the back of my throat. This honestly feels like sitting in the woods around a big campfire, and that is what you are drinking. The wood, the smoke, a bit of earth.

I think I may need to try more lapsang souchongs!

Today was one of THOSE days. The kind where things keep going wrong and you start wondering what you did to piss off the universe. So it was clear that I would need two things when I got home: a piece of dark chocolate, and some good green tea.

1/3 of the cup in and I already feel so much better and relaxed. I love Japanese green tea. This sencha is a gorgeous dark green similar to the color of a gyokuro. I put two teaspoons in my steeper, filled it with water and watched all the beautiful leaves float up to the top. The liquor came out an almost dark olive green with a strong grassy scent. The tea tastes vegetal with a bit of sweetness and is getting more bitter as it cools. Mmmm.

Tonight is a tea review and story night!

First, story: where I live in San Francisco, parking one’s car is a real pain in the butt, so I take the bus to and from school/work. Some days taking the bus can be a real pain in the butt too! But today MUNI (the bus/train system in SF) gave everyone on my bus a special Halloween preview show, albeit unintentionally.
It was about 7:50 when the bus pulled up, we all filed on and it lurched forward to the next stop. And then stays stopped for about five minutes. Suddenly, the lights start turning off and then on again at random, and people start getting spooked and whispering to each other. The bus driver calls out that she thinks the bus may be dead, but she is going to try restarting it. So she turns the bus off, lets it sit for a few minutes, and turns it on again. Right as the engine coughs and sputters as it attempts to LIVE (Frankenstein cackle) the back door opens and closes several times in fast succession, and a few girls standing by it scream in surprise.
Sadly the bus stayed dead and our Halloween show ended, as we were directed to get off and wait for a new bus to pick us up in about ten minutes. By the time I got home I was really in the mood for some good TEA!

Second, tea: This smells sooo good. I think now I may not have used enough tea in my steeper, but this still has a lot of flavor. At first all I could taste was cinnamon – for some reason I can really tolerate hot beverages, so that may be a product of my sipping right away before it cooled. As the tea started to cool I could taste brown sugar, and then the sweet raisins. Yummy dessert tea! I think I am still a bigger fan of straight teas than I am flavored, but I like this and it was a nice cuppa after my spooky bus ride. ;)

Had a cup of this tonight while I finished up some homework. Again, I am struck by the beauty of the leaves. What started out as 2 small teaspoons of rolled leaves floated to the top of the water, and unfurled to fill my steeper with whole, dark green leaves.
The flavor is refreshingly sweet, slightly crisp, very floral, and buttery. This is oolong heaven for me. I’ve pre-ordered an ounce of the autumn tieguanyin from Verdant and I am so excited to try it based on this summer harvest. This is a fantastic oolong.

And as an example of how different two people’s tastes can be, I am including Rayn’s (my partner’s) “review”: he asked for a cup of tea and said he would love whatever I was drinking, so I brewed him up a cup of this oolong as I dreamily sipped away. When he took his first sip, I asked him what he thought. He said “flowers,” and then frowned. I asked, “you don’t like it?” He said, “I feel like I’m going to have allergies any minute now”.

I’ve drank this a few more times since my last note, and I have a few more thoughts! This is a strongly floral and sweet tea, and it’s a little astringent and nutty which I think is what reminded me of Lipton. The liquor itself smells really floral and malty at the same time, and is a deep gold color. I’m also getting more bitterness as the tea cools. This is an interesting tea and really beautiful to watch steep. Deep green curled oolong leaves unfold with tiny osmanthus flower pieces.

I decided to give this another chance tonight, since I have a little bit left in my sample bag. This time I tried steeping it for 2 minutes at 175, instead of the usual time I give greens (about a minute).
The leaves for this tea are really beautiful and live up to their description, dark green, long, and slightly curled. I just wish they had some flavor. I’m not sure if there’s something I’m doing wrong or if this is just an incredibly mellow variety of green tea. I get a little vegetal and grassy flavor out of it, but even that is barely there. The tea gets a little bitter as it cools.

Brewed this up for my to go mug this morning. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a Darjeeling, maybe a few months? Or longer? JasonCT’s review of this inspired me to have some again!
The leaves after brewing were a beautiful light brown that unfolded nicely. I thought this was slightly malty and a little astringent, but mostly it tasted very floral and I got a little bit of the toast flavor I noticed yesterday in the Laoshan Black. I tend to like black teas on the maltier more “robust” side, but this was very good!

Note from drinking this in the morning:
Today I tasted things that I didn’t taste the last time I had this tea. First, I got hit with the flavor of honey. Then, the cocoa I remembered from last time. And finally, TOAST. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been gluten free for quite awhile and I may have forgotten the taste of toast a bit, but this tasted just like really good toast. So delicious that I chugged all of it in my first class, then thought to myself, perhaps I should order some more Laoshan black…