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Thank you to Nicole for this sample.

This tastes a little sweet with honey notes. I get a little bit of smokiness. It is slightly astringent as well. And it gets even more astringent as it cools. So drink it quick!

Thanks to Amanda and tattooed_tea for the samples. I combined what I had left of my samples for a cold brew.

This is really good cold brewed as well. I am getting chocolate most of all, then strawberry, then vanilla. The vanilla is the lightest note here.

I made a tea smoothie with this tea using frozen strawberries and vanilla greek yogurt. It was SOOO good!

I will certainly be ordering this tea one day when my 52teas stash is a little less!

Thanks to Batrachoid for this sample

This tea is really light in jasmine. So this would be good for people who would like a lighter jasmine taste. For me, I thought it was pretty good, but I usually like stronger jasmine. It wasn’t quite as sweet as lots of other jamsine teas I have tried.

It was good for a relaxing Sunday afternoon!

Time for my weekend tea treat!

I made this one the stove today, not sure if I did it right because this is the first time I tried it, but it turned out really good. Milk, water, tea, and a teaspoon of brown sugar in the pan, simmering for 10minutes.

I put a dollop of light cool-whip on it as well. A real treat, and it was delicious!!!! This is such a comforting tea! Such a good mood now! Have a WONDERFUL Sunday everyone!

Huge pieces of fruit in this one! It smells delicious.

But the taste is a little disappointing. I think there was lots of apple pieces so I am not really getting that much cranberry pear taste. Don’t get me wrong, it is still there, but I am also getting an artificial taste to it. I will have to see where future cups take me with different amounts of fruit.

But hey, I only got a 20gram sample. I will still drink it but I won’t re-stock.

Thank you to David and Verdant Tea for this sample. And what wonderful customer service to hand-write a note!! It really shows that you care about your tea!

I steeped 8 steeps per the website’s directions at 20,15,25,25,25,30,35,40s.

Ah silver needle, I have missed you. I am sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore you like this. I feel like I should be wearing a pretty dress, big hat, and white gloves to drink this tea. It is just so delicate and romantic.

It is sweet and floral with not an ounce of astingency. It is just the slightest tad malty. Like a fine wine, this is aged to perfection.

First of all, I was surprised when I opened up this bag and found long leaves that resembled black tea. It wasn’t rolled like I was expecting like other oolongs.

The brewed tea is a nice light yellow and smells like honey.

I did a quick rinse and did 8 steepings at 2seconds, then 8 steepings at 4seconds.

The most prominent note for me is sandalwood. There is some honey notes in the beginning. The tea then changes to more of a citrus note, especially grapefruit, since it is slightly sour tasting.

This isn’t my favourite offering from Verdant but I certainly wouldn’t turn down a cuppa (or 2!)

Thanks to Stacy for this sample!

These leaves are long and beautiful. They open up completely and are huge! It smells really sweet in the mug.

It is nice and smooth, a little malty. I am definitely getting a sweet fruity note here. Stacy describes this as raisin and it is fairly close. In the middle of the sip, I begin to pick up a slight cinnamon note that isn’t too strong, just mildly present. As for the cloves in the description, I am not sure that I am getting that. But maybe it is mixed in with the cinnamon and I can not distinguish the two.

No additions are needed to enjoy this cuppa.

Out of curiosity sake, I brewed up the Organic Assam to compare. The leaves are about half the size. The smell in the bag is much stronger than this premium assam. The premium assam is sweeter and smoother. They are both malty. The Premium Assam can be enjoyed without additions, but I feel that I have to add milk to the Organic Assam to bring out its best qualities. In conclusion, they are both good teas, but the premium is better IMO (I guess that is why she called it premium hey!).

I have drunk a lot of tea today! Can anyone say tea drunk…..lol

Apples are delicious in tea. This one is no exception to that rule. The pistachio adds a nice flavour, a sweet nuttiness (haha, nutty like me!). But then wait for it……rose?……hmmm, don’t like that as much. I think this would be better without roses but I guess it might also be not quite as sweet.

Anyway, this isn’t my fav apple tea but it is still very tasty. I don’t know if I would get more when my 20g sample is finished or not. I will have to see when I sipdown.

I put some in the fridge to chill, and it does redeem itself a little there. Because it is very refreshing.

And it resteeps fairly well.

Teavivre black teas gongfu experiment day!

I drank 3 black teas from Teavivre today. I was curious how the gongfu method would impact the notes in the teas.

I did 5 steeps: rinse, 30s, 50s, 70s, 1.5min, 2min

The colour of the brew is very interesting. I poured all these in quick succession and have each steep lined up in front of me. It starts off a light yellow/amber and shifts to a deep autumn amber.

It takes longer for the malty, sweet, chocolate flavour to develop with short steepings. It doesn’t show up until about the 3rd steep. This is still sweet, malty, with those wonderful dark cocoa notes.

Surprisingly, I think I prefer the Western brewing method in the case of this tea. It really gives the sweet and cocoa notes more time to develop.

I am increasing the rating because this tea is even better than I remember!

And that concludes my Teavivre black teas gongfu experiment for now…..thank goodness I don’t have more of their black teas at the moment! (but there are more on their way ;0)