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These pearls are huge! I used just 4 and they unfurled to a massive amount of tea. It’s fun to watch :) I’m still developing my palette as far as unflavored blacks go, so I couldn’t really pick up on all the flavor notes other reviewers have detected (leather?) but this is a very rich malty black tea, perfect for the morning.

Woohoo! Three Teavivre samplers came in the mail today. I decided to cash in all my Teavivre reward points and try some of the things I’ve been hearing so much about :) This has been sort of of a rough day for me, as I had a bit of headache and nausea, so I made a cup of this milk oolong because it sounded the most soothing. I’ve never had a milk oolong before, and I was surprised by just how creamy it really is. Also, peachy. I don’t know if my tastebuds are whacked out right now (I’ll do another review when I’m feeling better) but this is like Breyer’s peach ice cream in tea form. Very natural and very delicious. My one caveat is that it was a bit on the astringent side for an oolong. I think this was because I used boiling water, per the directions. I generally try to brew oolong at about 190, and I’ll probably try that next time. It may just be a matter of taste.

Ech, getting ready for gallery shows is so stressful. Thank Teavivre for this calming tea, even though, true to scatterbrained form, I left it steeping for like ten minutes while I hunted down bubble wrap.

Finally tried a cold steep of this and it did come out sweeter and more flavorful than steeping it at 180 degrees. Still, it was nothing to rave about, and over all I have to say this has been a finicky tea that is just not worth the extra trouble. Glad this is the last of the sample.

I steeped this up with the idea of comparing it to TeaVivre’s dragon well, as when I first tried the dragon well it reminded me a lot of the phoenix bud. But now that I’m drinking it I realize there is no comparison because they’re just completely different teas. Now that I’ve gotten used to the dragon well, the phoenix bud tastes quite sweet and floral. They’re both pleasant, just in different ways.

A lovely dragon well. Right now I can’t tell much difference between this one and the premium dragon well long jing that also came in the TeaVivre sample pack, but I’ll give them both another few tries and maybe it will come to me.

So this is the last of the sample, and I realized as soon as I steeped it that I ought to have saved it until I get the TeaVivre golden monkey so I could compare them side by side. Oh well.

A smokey green tea. Who’d’ve thought? It actually reminded me of bacon at first sip. That probably doesn’t sound appealing, but I really like it. It’s surprising what can be good sometimes.

WAY oversteeped this because I was mixing colors and, as usual, lost track of time. Fortunately the water was on the cool side and it’s still good.

Last of the sample. I can’t say this is everything I want out of a vanilla tea, but it’s in the right direction. It’s creamy, it DOES have some vanilla flavor (which seems like a given, but really, so many of them don’t), I just want it to be stronger. I don’t know, is vanilla a difficult flavor to infuse in tea? I’ve tried a few different blenders now and they all seem to find it challenging.

The search for the ultimate vanilla tea continues.