Featured & New Tasting Notes

I had a decently sized, well thought out comment on this tea. But then I got distracted, ate dinner, did some work, watch a little South Park, and realized I never finished or posted the note. And then we had a system update, so it was lost.
All in all it boiled down to this tea tastes like sesame seeds and it was delicious in that sense. But I’m not a huge fan of sesame, so I won’t drink it often.
Also, the dried leaves smell exactly like soy sauce, and maybe a little bit of peanut butter if you stick your nose in there deep and good. They look super oily too. Very odd.

I love this tea! It brews up a very light color, and can handle multiple steepings. It’s a very light flavor, more lemon than strawberry, and it is my current favorite evening tea.

Since time has dragged by kicking and screaming to my 40th birthday, I decided to console myself by getting 2 teas from Bag Ladies’ on recommendation from Jillian. The package arrived the day before my birthday. I unopened it and pulled out the lovely canister and noticed there was a tea bag tag and string dangling outside the canister. The tea bag contained a quote from Peter Gabriel, my favorite guy. Inside, the other bags were all sealed in a plastic pouch. Nice touch - and, quite possibly, the nearest thing I’ll ever get to getting a B-day greeting from Peter Gabriel.

Anyway, what about the tea? I made myself wait until my birthday to have a cup. It’s Ceylon black tea and is really smooth and flavorful. It’s the kind of flavor that goes all the way down into your toes. Rock on!

Delicate, but with a lovely scent and taste. Probably the nicest rose-flavoured tea I’ve tasted.

This was sitting in my fridge for a couple of days. Oops. Drinking the second steep iced. I can taste more of the purple flower and rose compared to when the tea hot. Might actually be better iced. Not that it does me any good to discover this now as is it discontinued. Boo.

I got my new teas! And this one for some reason has been nagging me to drink it. I used two balls for a decently sized cup, but decided against using my tea ball so I could watch them unfurl. So cool, but then I realized that this is probably why I over steep everything.
This is the darkest liquor I’ve encounter. When I went to scoop out the leaves, after about an inch I lost sight of my spoon. The leaves are long and very a chocolaty brown. When dried the definite smelt like cocoa.

Funny story, I opened my package at the start of my Entomology class out of pure excitement, and let my friends and professor smell the tins. Everyone immediately jumped to chocolate at this one and was highly confused at the artichoke. I do believe I made a few converts, even if their in it just so I bump their grade up. Thus is the power of being the TA with the grade book.

The tea smells bittersweet and a touch cocoa like, but very clearly black. The taste is strong and bold, but smooth. The feel is more coffee-like to me with that (good)acidic/tangy bite. The complexity is fun to mill over, and I feel predominately its earthy with that strange not-quite-sweetness edging in.

Now that its cooled down, I definitely tasting chocolate notes. That aside, it tastes like most black teas and isn’t quite distinctive for me to re-buy, but I will throughly enjoy my sample size.

Great earthy smell. Full-bodied and lots of deep earthy flavors! This is probably the darkest tea I have seen. Looks like a cup of coffee. If placed next to drip coffee I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. A very excellent puerh tea. I would definitely buy this one again.

This was yummy. Added milk and sugar. Really comforting and great as dessert. I was unsure before trying (I’m not a huge caramel fan) but i was pleasantly surprised. Very enjoyable.

Snowbud makes a good cup of white tea with a subtle, yet distinctive taste. It’s a bit grassy and a bit minerally, but very smooth and with just a hint of tea aroma. The color is a barely there yellow, which reinforces the subtlety of the tea in general. If you’re looking for a smooth, mellow tea that’s hard no to like, this is it.

I don’t quite get the “froot loops” smell that others have mentioned—Earl Grey Bravo smells more like that to me. Regardless, this does have a very strong lemon-lime scent. As usual, I expected the tea to be overwhelmed by the flavor, but I found the citrus to balance quite nicely. A tasty tea that makes me feel summery.

I even resteeped for five minutes and it made a good, while noticeably weaker, cup.

Very nice, wine-y, tea. Not too astringent. Best with gong fu preparation.

Steeped for 12 minutes, 3rd steep is as good as the first 2. Going to try to get to 5 steepings.

Well I’m impressed. A balance of earthy pu-erh, mixed with chrysanthemum that adds a not-quite-oily heft. Energizing and relaxing. Pretty awesome.

Every time I find the bottom of a mug of this, I feel disappointed. Must buy larger mugs. Or maybe, just add milk and honey and drink it straight from the pot?

This was only a good tea. Wanted to try it simply because of a licorice craving. The licorice flavor was subdued by the black tea and needed longer steeping to bring it out. Of course, by then, the tea was too bitter.

Need to experiment with steeping times. At 2:30 minutes the licorice taste was too week. At 3:30 minutes it was stronger, but often black tea starts to get bitter right around then.

Not the best licorice tea out there – doesn’t really satisfy the craving for it. Otherwise, it is an ordinary tea. It seemed to taste better with a good chocolate bar than it did with a cookie. Licorice is too refined a taste to accompany a cookie.

This is pretty true to it’s description. It’s smells like plum and cinnamon…plain and simple. It brews quickly. You can primarily taste the black tea with cinnamon first and then plum and it ends with cinnamon too. It’s not overly cinnamon but the cinnamon taste does seem to morph as you sip. And the cinnamon isn’t a candy-like cinnamon it’s a true cinnamon spice flavor but the plum cuts it down to size and it blends well. This tea surprised me with it’s taste. Fairly bold for a cheap bagged tea.

Yummm. This is the perfect dessert tea. The sweet/tartness of the strawberry with the richness of the chocolate is amazing. I can get two good steepings out of it. It’s a new favorite I’ve had 4 cups in the last 24 hours.

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

Chris and I share a pot of Blood Orange Black this morning.

I’ve had this tea for awhile and did not like it. I had been trying to drink through it so not to waste tea because it wasn’t awful. The blood orange had just been coming out so bitter and astringent that I had been picking the pieces of orange peel out. I was left was an okay orange-y black tea.

Since Steepster, I’ve been experimenting more with tea steeping times, water temperature – which dramatically changed my liking for different types of teas, and amount of tea used. I tried brewing the Blood Orange Black at only 3 minutes instead of 5 – I used to think I liked really “strong”, longer brewed tea before the above experimentation – and it was like drinking a different tea. It’s still not a favorite but it’s immensely more drinkable and one of the few blacks that remains in my tea cabinet. I have been hinting to my husband that I’d like the Damn Fine Tea duo that has gotten some rave postings here for our “dating” anniversary on the 17th.

Cold, wet, rainy, and mopey….feeling low enough I really could’ve used a cup of coffee (sorry, sacrilege!) but a cup buzzes me clear to the ceiling these days. So this is a fair substitute with a little half-and-half. The chicory has a nice chocolately sort of feel.

Good lord this is delicious! No bitterness for miles.
Uh oh, dangerous that I’ve discovered it now _ watch out, office tea supply.

Well, this tea is especially exquisite, a first-place competition grade tea. Definitely one of, if not the finest green tea I’ve experienced. While I’m not too much of a green tea enthusiast, as my tastes lay more in the realm of the broad boldness of Oolongs rather than the more piquant flavor of its less oxidized cousin, there’s nothing I don’t adore about this tea. A very full flavor, while remaining light – airy rather than watery, if you get what I’m saying. Not astringent, very mellow, and… well, I have little more to say. It’s one of those teas you don’t just enjoy, you completely embrace it, and it affects you with tea’s intoxication. Simply, Elegance (with the capital ‘E’) in a cup.

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

Sweet and nutty and a little salty. I’m really enjoying this tea. It’s got a lot of depth to the flavor. Lots of things going on in a sip, but not so much that I feel bludgeoned with contrasting tastes. It goes from an initial sweet grass/seaweed taste into a sweet/tart nutty then into a slight salty for the finish.

Last time DH only smelled the tea. This time, I made him his own cup. He gives it 4 out of 5 stars, which is pretty good for him… he usually gives everything a 3.