Featured & Popular Tasting Notes

Say what I may about Teavana’s customer service, their Masala Chai is good staple.

This is a very full-flavoured, bright tisane. The hibiscus gives it a tang and combined with the fruits and lemongrass, it tastes almost berry-ish. I always make sure I have a container of this one around.

Been a while since I’ve had this but remember it as a very fine oolong. Delicate but complex.

I’m typing this up as I wait for the first trick-or-treaters to ring the doorbell and I figured I’d make myself something autumn-y to get in the spirit.

I love the strong, ‘real’ apple flavouring of this tea but the black tea base is just so flat that it takes away from the whole thing. Oh well.

The best attempt of this tea yet! YAY!

This blend is so good… it smells like a flower bed after the rain. It’s fresh, flowery and with a tiny bit of tartness from hibiscus. Very smooth tea, none of the ingredients is overpowering, they all work together flawlessly.
Absolutely delicious and totally refreshing either hot or cold.

To cut the sourness of the Very Berry I recently reviewed I thought I would pair with a black tea. It helps a lot but is still not very good…oh well…at least I tried. Looks like I will be throwing away the Very Berry from Teavana…

Without sugar, the Creme of this still is enough to take away the acidity that can ruin Earl Grey on a bad day. Mmmmm.

First time that I’m trying this tea. It was OK, I was a little bit surprised by the lack of flavour, but it’s usually like that when I first try a tea. We’ll see next time.

While this is currently not available on their web site, this SpecialTeas tea is a favorite assam I have found that is excellent value. I look for malty assams that are bold but not astringent. I steep for 2 min to avoid bitterness. I drink it without milk or cream usually.

I like the mild flavor of the tea. It’s forgiving if you brew it too long, but flavorful and not overpowering.

Got 2 steeps out of this at about 2 and 3 minutes. I didn’t really know what to expect here, thought it would be sort of boring but it’s definitely not. Both infusions are really good – slightly vegetal and slightly fruity. The leaves are very good quality with lots of golden tips.

This is quite nice – White Peony with a kick.
Smokey, with a hint of spices but still on the mellow side.
Holds two infusions easily.

I was craving a dirty chai misto, so I grabbed my chocolate chai.

3oz double strength premade coffee, boiled used to steep 2.25 g of tea for 5 min. Instead of placing my ingenuiTEA right on top of the cup I was going to drink out of, I placed the tea concentrate in a pan, added 3oz cold fat free milk and heated it up again and then poured the dirty chai misto in my cup and enjoyed!

remarkably sweet and soft. Mix with half a teaspoon of honey and a dash of cinnamon and enjoy

Shorter steeping times are the key to good 1st flush Darjeeling brews!! I was unaware of this at first, creating very bitter brews, but since I corrected my prep methods, I’ve found a new love for them. This one is excellent. For all of you who know the taste of 1F Darjeelings, this one has all the right characteristics in the right quantities…the sweet floral hints (different than those of light oolongs) light mouth feel, light astringency, not bitter at all, with that lovely Darjeeling “trademark.”

Overnight Fridge Tea at it’s best!!!

My Overnight Coca Tea technique is what I use for Maté. In Seattle there isn’t much sun, outside of the summer, to make sun porch tea, so I came up with a overnight fridge tech.

Just fill a Gallon or more jug with cold water, immerse stainless steel ball with 4 (four) Tablespoons of Maté, (used two roasted, two raw), place in fridge and try to sleep with the anticipation of tomorrow mornings brew.

This process also is amazing with coffee.

~paganbuddha

I like this version of Pi Lo Chun. It’s not the fancy highest AAA grade but costs not even the half of it and tastes very good.
The fragrance of the dry leaves is very intensive flovery and fruity. The leaves look very good for a medium quality tea. Very even, quite small (if the leaves of the pi lo chun are big it means the quality is not very good) a nice green in color with lots of white “hair” (old guy :)).
I always love the first infusion – it has the best mixture of fuit, flover and lightly pan fried green tea. The liquor is full and quite creamy. If you keep the steep time under one minute it shouldn’t be bitter ( i move between 45-50 seconds).
Now we have good quality for a good price…what else? It can take quite many infusions..like 5-6. Also you can get more flavour by prepearing this tea using the gong fu cha method. I like the classic preparation too – it’s easy and good for all-day-long-drinking. Just pre-heat the tea pot, put like 5mm layer of tea leaves on the bottom and steep with something like 80-85C water. This works out for most the pi lo chun’s i’ve had.
I’ll continue to buy type regullary. Unfortunately teatrade.sk only ships to Slovakia and i dunno what’s the source or the name of the chinese producer :<

Opened a new bag today and found it (based on the first sampling of it) to be disappointing. If I were blindfolded I’d say it wasn’t the same tea. I’m not sure what happened but it wasn’t a great taste, the maltiness I’m used to in this tea wasn’t there. I’ll hope for better results next steeping.

This has black tea with carmel pieces. You can see the carmel pieces in the black tea. I steeped I’t up. I smell the black tea and a buttery carmel note. This tastes like a nice black tea with some buttery carmel. This I’s pretty good.

This smells citrus and peppermint to my nose. I steeped I’t for a few minutes. This taste like citrus more then anything with some peppermint. Good.

Not bad, but it seems like it has too much going on. Here are the ingredients: red clover, peppermint, green tea, eleuthero, alfalfa, cranberry flavor, nettle leaf, and lemon flavor. The peppermint is overpowers just about everything else.

Surprisingly good, mostly Jasmine with just a hint of orange. Loosely rolled green tea in a pyramid bag.

Even though this isn’t an option, I typically steep this tea at 140 degrees for about 2 minutes. I find this tea to be a great example of a fukamushi sencha, and I typically enjoy everything that I buy from yuuki-cha