Featured & New Tasting Notes

I cannot say that I hate chamomile tea, but my past experiences have been limited. I’ve had chamomiles that tasted like hot water with a faint spritz of hay seed. Back when I was in college there was the dreaded proffering of Celestial Seasonings Chamomile by those who took their earthy, hippy status seriously. Fortunately, tea has come a long way since then.

Mighty Leaf has me jonesing for more.

I just got a variety pack of Might Leaf tea-bags and decided to accompany “The Amazing Race” with a nice soothing tea. I decided, quite staunchly, that I was going to get the chamomile out of the way—the way I occasionally make myself do an unpleasant chore first thing in the day and spend the next 6 months using this one burst of virtue to justify my inherent sloth.

First I had to admire the tea bag. I imagined an artisan lovingly crocheting the string with a tiny crochet hook. As the tea brewed, citrus emerged. The typical old hayseed odor never appeared.

I was starting to get alert and to pay attention to this tea. I had regarded it as a chore to be endured and I now felt that I had arrived at the “sens de la visite” as French signs point out tourist attractions.

Mighty Leaf has concocted an impressive mélange of flavors to support whatever the essence of chamomile is. I still remain uncertain what was the chamomile–maybe the supporting cast is the star here. The citrus is strong, vibrant, but not a bit brash.

I made an immediate note to promote this Chamomile Citrus to full-time status at my house and to adopt it as a favorite evening child. I know that I really like this tea because I’m already slightly nervous that I only have one tea-bag left and the stores do not open for another 7 hours. I’m a convert!

Oversteeped on purpose. Still LOVE it. YUM! Getting a little low on this…hum…

I’ve officially run out of this Lichee tea. This time around, I did not add any milk or sugar. It tastes just fine, but if I had oversteeped it, I would have considered adding it. Dry, there is a vague hint of lichee. I smell mostly the black tea, which is how I like flavored teas to smell like. After steeping, it smells rich, and the lichee is very faint. The color is of very dark honey. When I swish the tea in my mouth, I can appreciate the lichee flavor, which is nice. It tastes a little bitter, which in my opinion, it doesn’t ruin the experience. The aftertaste is pleasant but left my mouth a little dry. I suppose that happens with some black teas I’ve had. Overall, I like this tea. I wouldn’t buy it again, but it was worth trying for sure.

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 :<

Say, isn’t it ‘passion fruit’ in two words? Anyway, I’ve been awake for hours and hours and we’re moving rather quickly towards noon actually. And I haven’t had a drop yet. Not because I didn’t want any, I just didn’t know what to pick. And then in a convoluted sort of thought patterns that I couldn’t trace even if I wanted to, one Arnold J. Rimmer makes the choice for me when the following quote popped into my head. “You are the fruit of their forbidden passion. You’re forbidden passion fruit.” (Red Dwarf S3E6 The Last Day) And I thought, hey why not? (Again with the setting, self! What gives???)

Smells sweet and kind of floral and with a note of something that kind of reminds me of yoghurt, strangely enough. It has a sort of dusty taste to me that makes me wonder if it’s fading and at the same time it tastes more ‘real’ than your average cheap flavoured bags. I think it’s the lack of syntheticness that does it.

Unfortunately I accidentally oversteeped it a little bit and the fruity flavours have drowned somewhat. The tea as such hasn’t turned unpleasant at all, it’s just not really all that sweet and fruity anymore. However, a smidgen of cane sugar, and we are back in business. Very nice.

I have been looking for a bagged tea like this. For whatever reason, green tea and pomegranate is delightful, though I can’t say it tastes strongly of either, so the blend is pretty decent. Unlike a lot of flavored teas, there’s very little indication of some cheap, chemical flavoring. Keep some sugar handy.

Not too bitter, not too sweet; don’t steep it too long, or I fear the green tea will hiss at you from your teacup (am I the only one that uses teacups anymore?!). If you must use just-boiled water (as I do), steep it for a shorter period than you’d expect. The tea should turn a lovely russet-purple (pomegranate!) color. Perfect for fall, and I bet it’s delicious iced!

Not even a tea, more like candy. Really really good.

First, even though this is listed as an oolong, it is actually a black tea. Secondly, I think that Shang sells some of the finest tea in the world, including this tea.

This is the tea you want when a hurricane is bearing down on your dwelling – sweet, light and soothing.

I don’t detect a lot of pear flavor, but I suspect that is what is adding the sweetness.

The package recommendation for steeping was 2-3 minutes. My first try on this was 4 minutes. The color was a little stronger than other white teas I’ve tried, which may be due to the longer steep.

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’m slamming a pitcher of iced blueberry at the moment and it is so good and refreshing! Its obligatory at this point to pound a lot of white tea so I can get over this H1N1 virus more quickly. Yes, I got the swine flu …but I have hope this white tea and all of its wonderful antioxidants will help with the longevity and reduce the symptoms. I’ll let you know!

My first try of this kind of tea, they say you either hate it or love it. I love it. The smoky flavor mellows when you brew it. It stays with you after you drink it, the aroma sticking around in you nose. Very smooth finish, which from what I’ve read makes a difference in these teas. If you smoke cigars, you will probably love this tea.

This is such a good oolong. Really, it’s just Mmmm. I want all my oolongs like this. Simple, smooth, mellow, rich. Sooo good AND it holds up to multiple steeps very well. I believe one can only drink this tea hot…to ice it would cheapen it. (But it would probably still be delicious.) I’m raising my initial rating. Damn good.

The initial smell is peachy and the taste is peachy but not as sweet as the smell. Pretty smooth. A little smoky from the oolong, I think. I think the white peach only comes out in the aftertaste – it seems sweeter/fruitier than the peach oolong on its own has when I’ve had it before. The sweeter white seems to balance the smokier, dark flavor and it’s all wrapped up in a peachy bow. All in all, a pretty good peach tea.

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.”

This Assam is a CTC BOP second flush and it is very suddenly apparent when you see, smell, and taste this tea. To start off, it has a deep brown, chocolate liquor (similar to coffee). It has a robust malty aroma that is unilateral in that it is strongly simple and flat. When you drink this tea, you really don’t taste much. There is a certain briskness to it (2.5 of 5) that is apparent on the sides of the palate; however the strength of the tea overshadows the briskness that would accompany the rear of the palate (and quite possibly mellows out the bit as well). The Numalighur is very full bodied and provides a powerfully clean finish. In addition to this, lingering on this tea is intense to the point that it feels like it coats the tongue. TeaGschwendner is right when they say that this tea handles cream and sugar well (for the purpose of tasting, I did not use any additives). My consensus, this tea makes a great post-meal tea if you’re in the need for pick me up. Keep in mind that it is strong.

Post-N.B.:
This tea will leave your taste buds shot. Not in a bad way; however, this should be the last tea one should try if you’re going through more than one.

Meh. Maybe I didn’t steep this long enough? It just tastes like hot cigars. And if I want that I drink Tea Spot’s Red Rocks. I’m really disappointed in Adagio’s Rooibos Sampler. I’ll give this another shot with a longer, stronger steep and add some milk & sweetener.

I’ve been drinking so much coffee lately I figured it was time to switch back to tea for a bit. This one is an old favorite and has the body (and chocolatey goodness!) to stand up to all the coffee. Drank it along side home made banana oatmeal brulee. Yum!

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

This has got to be the lightest tea I’ve ever drunk. The first time I brewed it, following the guidelines for the tea, I could hardly believe I was drinking tea. I get very little floral quality and just a nip of pungent grassy character. Turning up the heat and increasing the time added depth, but it also added astringency. I’m not sure I’ll be pursuing too many more yellow teas. The post-steeping buds were very beautiful and fresh-looking.

Fantastic, deep color and fruity scent. Perfect nighttime tea – a little sweet with a full, fruity flavor. 1st Steep water:180 degrees, and steeped for just over 8 min.

All of you people posting about peach teas reminded me that I haven’t had any of this since I got back from my trip. I’ve now fixed that state of affairs.

This is still really good, still one of my favourite flavoured teas. There’s something about the combination of peach and oolong that works really well together, more so than many other fruit flavoured teas I’ve tried, and something about this peach oolong in particular that especially works for me. This really does taste like peach rather than peach flavouring, and the balance of the flavour and the tea is just right.

I got a bit overenthusiastic and used a little too much leaf this time, and used boiling water instead of water at just slightly below boiling point, so I ended up with a slightly stronger flavour and just a little more astringency than I prefer. Will make sure to go back to my usual method with this tea next time.

This is possibly the best masala chai I’ve ever had. The coconut and lemongrass blend perfectly with the other spices. Great both plain and mixed with coconut milk.

The smell of this tea is delightfully peachy and conjures up images of sweet, ripe fruit, that’s dripping with juice when you bite into it on a hot summer day. Mmmm…

The taste was surprisingly light and delicate without any of the biscuity/baked flavour I’m used to tasting in oolongs. But then again, I’m not exactly an expert with this type of tea – if there was a ‘Oolongs For Dummies’ I’d totally be there! Suffice to say I have no idea what a Wuyi oolong is supposed to be like, so I’ll skip that and just evaluate it on it’s own.

The flavour is smooth, sweet and fruity and the peach isn’t overwhleming. It tastes very natural unlike some flavoured teas which taste like someone dumped in a bottle of perfume. I’d say this is probably my favorite Stash tea to date.