Metropolitan Tea Company

Sipdown & Backlog

Another sample acquired by Ohio Tea Co ages ago.

Yesterday was a full day of cups of tea and oddball errands. I sipped this iced on the way to a tea exchange. I verbally recorded, “Boring, tart. Not much to commend on the blend.” I will note that this may have been one of those blends that needed sweetener added to enhance the peachy notes. While it was moderately refreshing as an iced tea (probably because it was cold and my thirst was unreal yesterday), it was bland.

Sipdown

The owner of Ohio Tea Co gave me 1 oz of this blend a long while ago. He noted that they were looking for peach teas for the shop…to my surprise, this was when I understood that they don’t make their blends, as I assumed.

Notes: I made this iced. It has a very light peachy note, but I’m not tasting much of anything. I used 6 tsp for 18 ounces, so maybe it’s the tea. Whenever I imagine “ice cream,” I’d imagine it to be sweet; which this isn’t.

It’s hard to get this tea since they only sell to retailers! We get it from Pirosky & Crepes bakery in Everett, WA.

A dramatic Earl Grey. I don’t tend to go for Earl Grey as too much bergamot drowns out the tea flavor, but this one is delicious. Been a while since I had it, perhaps I’ll update next time.

Teabag from a TTB. It tastes mostly like a harsh, stale black tea. I guess maybe I can taste a hint of flavoring, but really not a lot. I didn’t bother finishing the cup.

Tourist tea…. a gift from my parents last trip to Canada. Granted we have this in the New England area as well. It came in a neat little wooden box with a vacuum sealed bag containing 12 tea bags. Since today is Canadian Thanksgiving, it seemed appropriate.
The tea bags look like typical cheap, fine powered tea and remind me of Red Rose or Lipton. I grabbed my favorite mug and steeped for just under 5 minutes. It’s a nice clear light brown color and smells like any other black tea. Then I ran up to get laundry as it cooled some. I don’t find it super sweet, which I was surprised by. I don’t equate this tea with maple syrup but definintely with the scents of a maple sugaring off. I didn’t add anything to it but I do have some maple sugar in the house. I might experiment with that.
I liked this and while I know it’s a touristy thing, I probably would pick it up again especially for any maple gift baskets I put together. I’m sure it’s found in all the local maple sugar shacks in the area

I didn’t need to buy more tea, but I wanted another strong straight black tea to start my mornings. There’s a shop not too far from my house that sells only Metropolitan tea company teas, and honestly, I’m finding I like most of them that I pick up. I’m sure they aren’t the highest quality, but I’m not too worried about that when I usually just want something to wake me up in the mornings.
This is actually my second cup this morning. I’m so happy I picked this one up. It’s exactly what I was looking for in a straight black tea: malty, strong, and bold. Yum

This wasn’t quite what I was expecting. The label says “full of flavour, deep coppery brightness and excellent maltiness with delicate hints of oakiness.” It says nothing about it having rose petals on the label. So, when I opened it and it smelt floral and had rose petals in it, I was honestly very disappointed. I was expecting it to smell woody.

Steeped it up though 4mins with probably too much leaf as it’s crazy strong.

I do get a slight bit of the floral, but mostly it’s more oaky. It’s not bad, but it’s a bit confusing for me. I don’t think I would get this one again. I only got about 50g, so I’m going to try and drink this one up, but I know I won’t be grabbing it very often.

Oh boy! I got this one based on smell alone. It smells SO good. It’s just like real eggnog.

Taste, totally tastes like eggnog. I added a bit of sugar and milk, but I’m sure it would be fine without it. I got a bag that’s probably about 100g, but I will have to go back and get more. It’s SO good.

Tried a bag from the tea box. It could always be improper steeping, but this one was really boring for me. I had it cold, and it sort of tasted like nothing? Maybe black tea with flavoring, but basically nothing. All the other reviews say the complete opposite thing, so it must be age/storage/user error. Oh well!

April Sipdown Alphabet Challenge: “M” Tea
This is one of the “M” teas I chose since it’s one of the older teas in my cupboard. I had 4oz of this to start with and probably have about half left? still to finish off.
It was definitely one of the nicer cups of this that I’ve had recently. I didn’t oversteep it and it was just a nice somewhat mindless cup I sipped on while working on papers. I had the worst procrastination week that I’ve had in a long time this past week. I’ll be happy when this is gone though and I can pick up a higher quality milky oolong that checks all the boxes.

This was a tea that was accidentally sent instead of the caffeine-free one that my mom ordered. Since she doesn’t drink caffeinated teas she gave it to me. It’s a 4oz bag so I have quite a bit of it. This tea came from Beantown Tea but it looks VERY similar to this Metropolitan Chai so I decided to just review it here.
I drank this cup with soymilk. The spices tickle your throat a bit and linger, The powdered ginger is the main flavor throughout the cup. I think next time I’d add a bit of maple syrup but the soymilk helped tone down the ginger. There were a lot of powdered spices in my teaspoon for this cup so the bottom of the mug is quite powdery. It’s not really what I look for in a chai typically but would probably be really good as a latte (with frothed milk)

This was one of the first flavoured teas I ever tried as a teenager. There were no looseleaf tea shops around, and I really didn’t know there was much else out there yet beyond Orange Pekoe, Earl Grey, English Breakfast or Peppermint tea. At a market downtown I saw the little wooden cartons of these and thought, “Hmm. I like Earl Grey. But I also like delicious things. Like cream. Is this something I’d like?” I might’ve asked the shop keeper what it meant that it said “cream” on it (oh, I was so young!) and, from what I took away, I remember she told me it was sweeter and creamier tasting than a typical earl grey. Well, okay, I was sold. I think I also bought a carton of Irish Cream Tea that day.

I quickly fell in love with it. It was the first time I’d ever tried buying myself a box of any tea, and I was, mercifully, not disappointed. But eventually it became difficult for me to find it anymore – this Christmas my mum was putting in an order from a British Imports shop and they happened to carry it. I mentioned to her how I used to love that tea, and, lo and behold, a little wooden carton appeared at my door soon after.

Opening it for the first time in what must be close to ten years or more was quite an experience, as you may imagine. It was such a blast of memories and nostalgia to my teenage years. It was also much more aromatic than I remembered. In the years since that first purchase, I’ve tried a number of Earl Grey Cream teas, and all of them have been so different. I worried, before it arrived, that this would taste just like one of the others and I wouldn’t even be able to tell it apart from, say, a Tetley or a Twinings or even a David’s Tea version. But this was different as could be.

In some ways I can understand those who say it’s too perfumey. I kind of agree. I can usually let a tea bag sit in my cup until I get to the bottom, but I’ve been mindful to pull this one out. Even so, sometimes I think to myself that I’ve overdone it. It’s so strongly… floral? Sweet? Whatever the “cream” flavouring is, it might be just a titch too strong for me sometimes in a way my teenage self really didn’t notice. I occasionally have to wince after a particularly concentrated sip. But even so, I still love it.

I think if one controls the strength of one’s steep, it might be manageable. Maybe I just need to add more milk- I used to take more when I was younger and never found fault with it. I haven’t quite been able to bring myself to bother yet, however. I kind of keep convincing myself that even when it’s a bit too strong, it’s just right. It kicks me back to the past, to a time where I was just beginning to “experiment” with tea and venture out beyond my mum’s tea cupboard of 200% Earl Grey, when venturing “downtown” was a pretty big deal. (Ironically, now in 2021, venturing out just about anywhere kind of feels similarly significant!)

In summary, this is a fun, aromatic tea that will fill your mouth with scent and flavour. Sometimes maybe too much, with too much gusto and teenage enthusiasm. It’s a little floral, a little fruity, a lot of energy, and I think somewhere in there there’s Earl Grey too. It’s like an excited puppy, jumping up to lick your face the second you walk in the door. It comes on a little too strongly sometimes, but it’s sweet, endearing, and familiar, too. With a little training, I feel certain I can get it to behave – but sometimes I’d rather not.

not doing it for me.

My last teabag of this one. I hope I can find again. This was delightful every time I enjoyed it.

Just as good the next time I tasted it! So enjoyable!

Wow! This one really surprised me this morning, and it fully did what I describe as my “90s” for tea ratings – stopped me in my tracks and made me sit down and just enjoy the cup of tea. This is why I enjoy doing a traveling teabox, not just to learn about different teas specifically, but also to learn – or pay attention to – different tea companies. Once I looked this tea up, it doesn’t look very readily available here in the US, but I’m quite sure I saw this in many shops in my travels in Canada and didn’t even think about buying it – lots of wooden box and special edition tins that read as tourist traps to me. I’ll be taking a second look at them the next time I travel up north!

What a delightful cup of tea. Not as strong as I generally like, but very pleasing. The “cream” element does make for delightful mouthfeel, without adding milk. And the flavor was light and enjoyable and not in the least bit bitter or harsh.

I would leap at the chance to buy this if I saw it in a store!

This was such a great tea and now I can’t find it anywhere. :( It’s medium boldness, rich and aromatic but not astringent. It also doesn’t have a lot of caffeine. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is but it definitely has a unique taste that I imagine comes from being grown in Africa. You don’t want to use water that’s too hot as the tea is fine, else you’ll mostly just taste the dark bold flavor and miss the more delicate notes. Also, I wouldn’t use the tea bag as that keeps the flavor from diffusing into the water.

I’m trying to put all my Strand Tea orders to the forefront due to age, so I made a cup of this for my work thermos this morning. They call it “Pu-erh Mocha” but it is obvious from the ingredients that it is wholesaled from Metropolitan Tea Company and is their Ethiopian Mocha Pu-erh blend.

Don’t like coffee? Then you won’t like this tea. I think this is one of those “gateway” blends, as the coffee element is very strong. I haven’t had coffee in quite some time now, so I imagine the caffeine is going to hit me hard; this actually has ground coffee in the blend, not just whole beans to give it a “coffee flavor”, so it will pack a jolt. I used to drink coffee quite a bit back in the day, but my stomach is a lot more sensitive these days, and even mixed with the pu-erh, I’m not sure if I can handle something like this anymore, even though I don’t mind the taste. It’s just a might too acidic-feeling when I deal with a lot of nausea/IBS with my migraines and the pu-erh doesn’t seem to be cutting that feeling in my gut down enough. I get some subtle earthy notes, and the mild hint of burnt sugar from the butterscotch is nice, but I wouldn’t mind that being a bit stronger, just to add a touch more sweetness to the cup to counter how bitter it is coming off… perhaps next time I should try this latte-style with some almond milk? That may make all the difference. Otherwise, I’m not sure if I can possibly sip down this much leaf of this tea. It’s just too wrought-iron strong for how sensitive my stomach has become.

Repost. I bought this tea from Strand Tea under the name “Niagara Frost ‘Ice Wine’ Black Tea” and have been working on sipping it down (one serving left!) but have recently discovered this blend is wholesaled from Metropolitan Tea Company, so I’m moving my original review under the wholesaler because that is just how I like to jive.

Autumn Harvest! This is one of my oldest teas; I bought it in a Strand Tea order in the summer of 2017. It’s a black tea with some Bai Mu Dan white tea leaves, ice wine grape flavoring, and raisins. The dry leaf does smell sweet and grapey, but also a bit like black currant, and also has some floral notes.

I have a pitcher of this icing in the fridge, but right now just have a warm thermos to sip at work. Originally I prepared the tea at 205F and steeped for four minutes, but this produced a bit more bitterness and astringency than I prefer; I wasn’t sure if that was because I steeped a little longer than I usually prefer to steep black teas, or if I didn’t take into account that this blend includes some Bai Mu Dan which may have reacted poorly to me using the typical water temperature I use for black tea bases. So on my lunch break, I prepared another thermos using 190F water and steeped for three minutes, and the tea seemed to be much more to my tastes this way. There was still some astringency after the sip, but it wasn’t nearly as potent, and I also found there was a sort of pear-flavored note coming through in the flavor prepared this way as well. The base is Ceylon, so it likely is a quite brisk black, and I do tend to respond more favorably to stronger blacks with shorter steeps, so I imagine that had a lot to do with it.

The flavoring is quite nice; there is a floral touch here that I like, slightly rosy and sweet like honeysuckle, which I also noticed in the Honey Mead tea I had recently. Beneath the floral notes is a strong grape note, but it doesn’t taste particularly raisiny. The end of the sip brings out some subtle pear and citrus notes. It’s a fairly pleasant tea, with perhaps a hint more astringency than I tend to favor due to the Ceylon base. Certainly not enough to keep me from drinking, and I’m looking forward to seeing how my iced tea turns out, since I think this flavor is going to work well for that.

Sipdown from VariaTEA! Trying to get one in every day that i’m at home. I pulled this one out as i was fairly certain i’d enjoy the cup. I was right. While i’m not a huge fan of oolongs, there are some that just work for me, and it’s usually either a good milk oolong or one that is combined with fruity flavours like watermelon and pineapple :) Thoroughly enjoyed this one – very much watermelon, though not too sweet. I think this one brewed and then cooled would probably make a really good cold tea as well.

Alright – I’ve been casually working on tasting notes since landing in Montreal but I think it’s time to put more of a serious dent into the queue that I’m accumulating: I don’t know how busy I might be throughout the week since I have my very first day at the new office tomorrow (squeee!) so this might be my best chance before the weekend hits…

This was almost the last tea that I had in Regina; I had intended for it to be the last tea but I ended up doing a spontaneous Gong Fu session at like 2AM while I was waiting to leave for the plane – but more on that session in a different tasting note. I had originally selected this as my “last tea” because I had it during a really, really lovely afternoon tea with my parents at the British Style tea room less than a block from my house. This isn’t a tea that they carry year round; it only makes an appearance at the tea room in the winter so I wanted to seize the opportunity to have a pot of it before leaving. It’s very rich and decadent; basically just two main tasting notes – chocolate and vanilla. It’s perhaps not the flavour profile that I usually go for, but I just think it pairs so nicely with all of the lovely dessert items that this tea room carries. So, it seemed like a special moment to end things on in Regina: tea shared with family, at my favourite local tea room.

I know I’ve written about this tea room before – but I can’t for the life of me remember in what tasting note(s). But basically it’s a family owned business run by a husband/wife who immigrated to Regina from London. In addition to being a very traditional style British tea room they have a rotating menu of tea and food items in addition to year round staples and everything is made from in house. They also import lots of British food items, and so serve as a grocery store in some ways too. It was quite LITERALLY less than two blocks from my house; for a while I was going there for tea REALLY regularly, but in the last year I stopped going as frequently (money…) and so it become more of a special occasion sort of thing.

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bqs71VsFpGL/

Of course, for my last visit to this tea room in what will likely be a LONG time I went all out and got a full meal; something I don’t usually do. So in addition to my pot of Swiss Hot Chocolate tea I also got my favourite sandwich that they carry – cucumber cranberry cream cheese, with a side of slaw. It’s just such light, airy finger food but still sweet and crisp and flavourful. Then, for dessert, something far richer and more decadent: English Toffee cake!! Honestly, paired with a tea that’s already insanely rich this might have been a bit over kill/too decadent, but it was also soooooo good! I mean, I’m already a sucker for toffee/caramel so I would probably be won over if I was just served a bowl of toffee. The cake itself is very good though; kind of a burnt sugar/molasses thing going on. Best when you take a LARGE bite then a big swig of tea and let it all mingle around in your mouth.

Yum!

I will miss this tea room a lot, though I’m sure I’ll also find some new favourites here in Montreal too.