Metropolitan Tea Company

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Recent Tasting Notes

71

Autumn Harvest! This is one of my oldest teas, that I bought way back when I was first getting into tea tasting and collecting, back at the end of 2016 (can you believe I’ve amassed this much in pretty much just two years? So sad…) I got it at the tea shop Steepers in Campbell, California. Wasn’t too hard to hunt down the wholesale source of the blend, which is Metropolitan Tea Company (of course, you’ll find this same blend under a multitude of independant tea shops in Steepster’s listings as a result since this is such a widely used wholesale source and teas are rarely cataloged under the wholesaler).

Since it’s one of my oldest, I want to sip it down (pretty much anything I got right at the tail end of 2016 when I first started this hobby I’m trying to quickly sip down due to its age!) So I’ll probably be working on this one as my nightly herbal for a bit. Like my Creme au Caramel Rooibos which I also got there at the same time (and which also took me a bit to sip down!) I’m expecting this tea to have lost some flavor, but it shouldn’t be undrinkable.

The leaf still has a nice fruity pear aroma, and the tea steeps up a nice vibrant red rooibos color. The flavor of the tea does, as I expected from the aforementioned tea I bought at the same time, show a bit of its age, though, as it does taste a little weaker than I remember when it was fresh, but it certainly doesn’t taste off-putting and won’t effect sipping it down (while I don’t usually add sweeteners to my tea on principal, I may add a little honey to this one just to help give the fruitiness some extra sweetness/definition to make up for the flavor being a little weaker than when the leaf was fresher). There is a noticable pear flavor to the tea, but it isn’t the nicest pear I’ve ever tasted in tea; something about it is reminding me more of the flavor of Juicy Fruit gum, and it might just be because it is paired with the honey-sweet rooibos base. The rooibos is quite distinct here as well, with a slightly woody note beneath the fruity pear flavor.

It’s nice enough, as a simple pear-flavored rooibos. While the pear does taste nice with the honeyed taste of the red rooibos, personally I think it would’ve paired better against the soft vegetal flavor of green rooibos.

Flavors: Fruity, Honey, Pear, Rooibos, Sweet, Wood

Preparation
Boiling 6 min, 0 sec 6 g 17 OZ / 500 ML

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100

I got this one from Cameron B, and I love it! It’s probably the most authentic melon taste I’ve experienced in tea before. The oolong doesn’t contribute much flavor, it’s just the tastiest melon. I can never buy DavidsTea sour watermelon again after this tea!

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70

Thank you for sharing Cameron B! I am sipping on this next to my burning watermelon candle. I guess it is a watermelon sort of day.

This tea is certainly very sweet. And floral from the oolong. It is also slightly creamy which was unexpected. It has a lot of watermelon candy qualities to it.

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87

Has a very creamy, inviting smell to it.
If I could walk around smelling it all day, I’d be in absolute heaven.
Flavor wise, it’s very robust. I think I will step it a flat 3 minutes, instead of almost 4.
Very happy with this tea, all said and done.
A happy addition to my already overflowing cabinet.

Flavors: Creamy

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 45 sec 2 g 6 OZ / 177 ML

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87

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75

Sipdown! (3 | 13)

This is a perfectly pleasant melon oolong. It does remind me somewhat of watermelon Jolly Ranchers, but not necessarily in a bad way. The oolong is nondescript, but smooth and nice enough.

Too bad for this tea, it could never hope to compete with my beloved Melon Oolong. Ah well, they can’t all be Lupicia teas. ;)

Flavors: Candy, Melon, Smooth, Sweet, Thick

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML

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75

Work – 3:00 PM

My bag of this is actually from “Birch Fine Tea”, but it’s the same tea and even has the same description. The flower petals are quite attractive, especially the bright red ones.

I would call this more of a generic “melon” flavored oolong than a watermelon-flavored one. The oolong has little flavor, mostly it contributes body and a silky mouthfeel. There’s perhaps a touch of grassiness. Mostly it’s the melon flavoring, which reminds me of honeydew. It’s a bit creamy-tasting as well, making me think of a honeydew smoothie.

Overall I would call it a good melon-flavored oolong.

Too bad I already have a favorite one of those from Lupicia. ;) So I’ll likely be re-homing this one.

Flavors: Candy, Creamy, Grass, Melon, Sweet

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 3 min, 0 sec 3 tsp 16 OZ / 473 ML

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Sipdown!
I will have to get some more of this at some point, as I found it very interesting, but would have liked to have longer to work out my opinions on it.
Hmm. Well, I’ll keep an eye out for it!

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So this tea is an experiment in a way, as I have never had Ice Wine, so have nothing to compare it to.
Its initial steeping gives me something with a faint fruitiness to it, but not distinctly grape.
Pleasant, but I’ll need several more cups to really get an opinion.
Fortunatly, I just so happen to have some more!

gmathis

Been years since I had this, but I liked it!

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86

June Wedding! Something old! This tea is one of the first I bought when I started collecting teas… which would have been from the fall of 2016? I remember I got it from a shop in Campbell, California called Steepers, but with a little research the blend appears to be Metropolitan Tea Co.‘s Cranberry Apple. I’m a little upset that Steepers appears to have embellished on their ingredients a bit, because they claimed elderberries and lingonberries are in the blend (and the lingonberries is what sold me on it, as I’m a big fan of those!) but neither of those more “rare” ingredients are actually listed as being in the blend from Metropolitan. Steepers is definitely the kind of independent shop to source their teas and has tons of Metro blends in their line-up, so I’m pretty sure they don’t just happen to have a different tea with the same name from a different source with slightly different ingredients, either. I think they did dirty on their repackaging… and with a steep price upmark, too (maybe that is why their shop is called Steepers, eh? Eh?)

I wanted to use this up (sipdown!) so I made a nice, strong iced tea batch with what I had left of this. I’ve always liked this one, but it would be a nightmare for the majority of you out there: yup, it’s a hibi-hip tea (and I just happen to like those). A very strong hibi-hip, with a very, fruity base, with lots of refreshing tart and tanginess. It actually doesn’t come off quite as fruit punchy to me as I usually taste a nice chilled hibiscus, but I think that is because the cranberry flavor here is pretty distinct, so it is making me think more of succulent, tart, cranberry juice, though it does have a thicker mouthfeel, and the sweetness from the apple comes off a bit differently than all the sweetners in actual cranberry juice.

There is a lot of red berry sweet-tartness that I like here with cranberry as the defining flavor, and since that is a flavor I really love, this has always been one of my favorite iced teas. I already miss it… I’ll have to restock it sometime. Especially as I’d like to steep it in lemonade sometime.

Flavors: Berry, Cranberry, Fruity, Hibiscus, Tangy, Tart

Preparation
Iced 8 min or more 4 tsp 32 OZ / 946 ML

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Stole some of this from my mom’s stash tonight since I just needed something without any frills to it; no point wasting good tea when I can’t taste it/fully appreciate it. In an attempt to bring some character to this one I added coconut milk and chocolate agave. I tasted none of the additions, nor really the tea itself. I just feel frustrated with how sick I am and my inability to taste anything right now; it’s just disheartening making a tea and having it literally taste like water. Or, in this case, astringent water.

I just want to not be sick.

VariaTEA

I feel you. The sad thing is other than a lingering cough and a crackle in my chest, I feel fine. Regardless of that, my taste is still off. It’s like there is a void in the flavors :(

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58

May Flowers! I was a little disappointed that the Spi Chai sampler by T2 I tried the other night, which was supposed to have rose and jasmine petals, ended up not having any, so here is my second try at a floral chai! This blend is the Kama Sutra blend by tea wholesaler Metropolitan Tea Company, which means it’ll be in tea shops across the country. I purchased mine from The American House in San Diego, California, during a vacation. This particular chai blends Indian and Kenya black teas with chai spices and rose petals, jasmine blossoms, and lavender buds.

Unlike my sad Spi Chai sampler, I do have ample flower petals in this tea, and a pronounced floral scent from the bag! It’s actually a very interest aroma, a little like cardamom and clove mixed with lavender, and I actually find the combination of aromas oddly pleasant! The base tea steep up very strongly, and it actually wasn’t as bitter as I was expecting (I think the floral notes actually helped a lot in this regard), but it did have a fair bit of astringency following the sip.

This is a chai that needs to be well shaken, and preferably scooped from down inside the bag rather than from off the top to get a good flavor, since the spices are ground up and tend to sink/settle easily. When I took the tea from the top I got a very weak flavor that was like some slightly cardamom-flavored black tea, but when I shook the bag and then dipped the teaspoon down into the center of the bag, my second cup actually had a very full, spicy flavor. This was a strong chai, with the cardamom, ginger, and black pepper leaving a strong impression on my tongue. I think the floral notes got a little lost by how strong the spices and how astringent the black tea was; I could make out a hint of lavender toward the end of the sip when the spices were starting to die down a bit, but wasn’t tasting any rose or jasmine in my cup.

Since this chai has such a strong black base, I tried it latte style as well, and it was much nicer taken that way. That tamed the black pepper notes and the astringency, and the sweetened milk helped bring more of the floral notes to the forefront, as well; the lavender finish suddenly really popped! If I ever make this again, I will only make this as a latte in the future.

This is actually pretty nice as a latte, since I do like the way the spices and lavender play against each other, but on the whole I think the blend still needs a little balancing between the spice notes and the floral to more fully bring out all the flavors. I would’ve liked to be able to taste the other florals in the blend, to have a bit more balance between all the spices, and just a better balance between the spice and floral so they aren’t competing. I really do think it could be done!

Flavors: Astringent, Black Pepper, Cardamom, Ginger, Lavender, Malt, Spicy

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 12 OZ / 354 ML

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Not a tasting note…:
So I pulled the paper bag of this out of my tea cupboard since I haven’t had this in a while. I measured the leaf out into the strainer and while the water was boiling. I noticed a worm inside the bag and some webbing stuff. This seriously grossed me out of course and I dumped the tea and stuff out. I’m just thankful I noticed it before I finished making the cup and drank it. Ugh I’m pretty sure all my other tea is worm free as everything else is in airtight containers. I’m going to check everything just to be safe though tomorrow.

When I cash my next check I’m definitely going to start looking for some containers to store my small amounts of tea in. So this doesn’t happen again EVER!. Hopefully I didn’t gross anyone out too bad. I mean I noticed it before even adding water to the cup. If anyone has any small storage container recommendations for little amounts of tea please let me know!

Mastress Alita

I buy tons of these off Amazon, since they are cheaper than tins and pretty similar already to what lots of tea companies ship their tea in. I find I have to repackage the tea I get from tea companies into these immediately if they come in paper bags, plastic bags, or a bag that doesn’t have a resealable top, just so storage will last longer. They are food-safe aluminum with zip tops. The smallest size is great for about an ounce of tea or less (also awesome for sampler tea swaps), while the next size up is what I use when I have around 1-2.5 ounces of tea (though because white tea is so light and fluffy, even 2 ounces of that I typically have to put into two of the 4.7×7 bags). I always keep a package of each on hand and reorder when I get low.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XG3QR1Z/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

tea-sipper

Yep, I do much the same as Mastress Alita. If I don’t like the packaging of a tea, it immediately gets put into pouches similar to those. I’m always worried about things getting into tea, which I don’t think I’ve ever found from how I store tea. But sometimes the occasional spider on the wall will make me hope they at least avoid the tea! With that sort of packaging though, I don’t really have to worry about it.

Mastress Alita

I have found spiders crawling around my tea shelves and cupboards… but then… spiders can get on anything, evil things! I’ve never found them inside any of my tea, though!

Lexie Aleah

Thanks Guys! and Spiders? never seen any in my tea cupboard or near it thank goodness for that!

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Warning: mini rant below
I’m pretty sure that this is the right source since the leaf looks the same and the other tea’s from the company are from here or Culinary Teas.
I got this tea down at the beach and couldn’t decide between this one or the Irish Cream. I asked a family member which one I should go with and of course my impatient grandfather just said go with that one while pointing to the Caramel Pu-erh. So I went with this one. I’m the type of person who weighs the pros and cons and found that they were tied when picking between these two teas. I definitely need someone to come into my life who has great reasoning and can make these types of decisions for me.

Prep: I used one Teavana perfect spoonful. Steeped this western style using 9 oz of boiling water to be exact for 3:15 minutes covered. I used no additives as this tea is best without any milk or sweetener in my opinion.
Steep #2: 6 oz of water for maybe 7 minutes
Steep #3: 4 oz of water for maybe 12 minutes

Taste Wise- This is sweet in a burnt sugar sort of way. It definitely has a syrupy sweetness of sorts to it but I wouldn’t necessarily identify it as caramel. The Pu-erh base is earthy, mineral-y and perhaps slightly fishy but that might just be because the dry leaf smelled somewhat fishy. It’s an interesting tea for sure. I didn’t pay a ton of attention to it while drinking it so this tasting note will be expanded on in the future.
I definitely would like to explore some higher grade pu-erhs but unfortunately western steeping is often more convenient for me. I’m holding off on rating this for now until I try it again. I enjoyed it but it was a bit bizarre and I’m not in love with it.

Flavors: Burnt Sugar, Mineral, Sweet, Wet Earth

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 15 sec 1 tsp 9 OZ / 266 ML
52Teas

I believe that most of the teas from Culinary Teas are also Metropolitan Teas. Metropolitan Teas is a wholesale company – that is, they don’t sell retail. They sell retail products – wholesale – to retailers that will sell their products but they do not have a retail outlet of their own. (At least that’s been my understanding over the course of the many years that I’ve been involved in the tea business.)

Lexie Aleah

That makes sense. Thanks for the information. (:

Mastress Alita

So, I have a confession to make, as for the decision-making. My online friends and I hang out in an old IRC (Internet Relay Chat) server. One of them has a bot on our chatroom that can do misc. things using commands. One thing she programmed Silvie (the bot) to do for me is decide my tea. If I use the !tea command, I get a response like, “Silvie runs to the cupboard and fumbles around with many different bags. She bounds back and presents a bag of Oolong” (with the choices being “black” “green” “white” “chai” “oolong” “yerba mate” “pu-erh” “rooibos” “herbal” “bagged tea” “mixed blends” and “Silvie’s Special Blend”). That narrows my collection of over 400 teas down to a category, and sometimes if I really want to narrow down my choice, I’ll put the teas into an Excel sheet, and use her random number command to select one from the sheet for me, too. I hate to admit how often I do that to select my tea choices! But you aren’t the only indecisive one!

Lexie Aleah

That sounds amazing! We definitely need a feature on Steepster like that, that picks a random tea from our cupboard.

Todd

I found an online spinning wheel that picks things and populated it with common types of tea. You can customize it however you like and save the URL. Note that it makes noise when you click to spin the wheel, but you can turn that off. http://wheeldecide.com/index.php?c1=black&c2=green&c3=white&c4=oolong&c5=pu%27er&c6=herbal&c7=rooibos&c8=yerba+m%C3%A1te&c9=chai&t=Tea&time=5

Lexie Aleah

Thanks! (:

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56

Ah, Scottish Caramel Pu-erh. I think nearly every independant teashop I’ve visited has had this on the line-up, and if you search it here on Steepster, you’ll probably get a good twenty iterations of it because of that, but I’m fairly positive they are all wholesaling it from the same popular teashop wholesaler — Metropolitan Tea Company. What I find most fascinating is how many of these teashops put butterscotch or caramel (or both) on the ingredients list (the one I purchased it from did!) yet inspecting the leaf, there isn’t a trace of caramel or butterscotch pieces in it (only chopped almond), meaning these are flavorings. That makes a big difference to those with dietary restrictions, preferences, or allergies; my BFF is Vegan and the difference between caramel flavoring (often non-dairy) and caramel pieces (typically dairy) is huge, and simply listing “caramel” on the ingredients list is not very helpful! The consumer shouldn’t have to dig through their leaf to figure out what is in their tea, especially after buying… /end rant

In any event, I picked up my go at this blend from Shakespeare’s Corner Shoppe and Afternoon Tea last year when I was on vacation in San Diego. The leaf does have a bit of the “fishy” smell I find tends to be a problem with the bases in flavored pu-erh blends, but thankfully it mellows out in the brewed cup, and doesn’t leave any lingering flavors (at least that I notice, and that can’t be said for some other flavored pu-erhs in my collection). The tea brews up very thick and dark as coffee, has a damp earth flavor with a bit of a mineral finish, but is very sweet. The pu-erh base is a bit strong so I don’t get a heavy caramel note, but more of a sweet, burnt sugar finish, with a slight caramely taste left lingering on my tongue afterwards. During the sip, something about the sweet flavorings and the earthiness of the base gives me this coconut flavor on my tongue… I realize there is nothing in the tea to produce a coconut flavor, but the caramel notes read to my palate that way more than caramel. (That isn’t exactly a bad thing, I like coconut, but I find it interesting). I’m not sure what the diced almonds are doing for the blend, since I don’t get any nutty notes from the tea. The tea comes off as a cheap pu-erh that uses its flavoring to pre-sweeten the leaf and hide the unappealing notes that typically come with a cheap pu-erh. It’s drinkable, but not something I’m going to miss once I manage to finish it off.

Flavors: Burnt Sugar, Caramel, Coconut, Mineral, Sweet, Thick, Wet Earth

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 5 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 10 OZ / 295 ML

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90

I purchased this tea from Steepers, a tea shop in Campbell, California, and am fairly sure they source several of their tea blends from Metropolitan Tea Company, including this one.

This is one of my favorite dessert teas, though I admittedly have to use a lot of leaf to get the sort of nice, rich flavor that I really love. At a tablespoon of rooibos, the tea has this lovely toffee flavor with some subtle caramel notes, while managing to not be overly sweet and allowing just a bit of the rooibos base to come through. I also found that, unlike many of my flavored rooibos, this one resteeped for me fairly well with an increased steep time, perhaps from the increased use of leaf, and I can manage to squeeze a few extra cups out of it while still getting a pretty decent flavor. This is a nice tea to hit a sweet-tooth craving around bedtime, since it is caffeine-free.

Full review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/tea06/

Flavors: Caramel, Nutty, Sweet, Toffee

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec 3 tsp 10 OZ / 295 ML

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72

A friend who had taken a short holiday in Miami returned home with this present (I love presents, and I love tea, so it really made my day the day I received it some time last week). Metropolitan Tea Company seems to be a Canadian company known – at least by me – for its “souvenir wooden tea boxes”, and I read online these are only available in North America. The print is really nice, but unfortunately the box itself sort of “colapsed” after I first opened it. Inside was a pack with 12 tea bags, individually tagged. A nice citrusy aroma could be observed, nothing too overwhelming, nor too artificial, which really left a good impression. I brewed the tea according to the indications on the box, and the brew was very fragrant as well, although it had lost a bit in comparison to the tea bags. But when drinking the tea, there´s – surprisingly – little left from the lime fragrances, and the taste is even a bit wood-like. Now, I´m not the biggest citrusy tea fan, so it´s certainly no disaster for me that the lime aroma has only a subtle presence in the final tea. Before writing this review, I made myself another cup this morning, with the same observations. Enjoyable, but probably a huge disappointment for the fans of lemon and lime.

Flavors: Lime, Wood

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 4 min, 0 sec

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70

So, earlier in the week I went to the Vintage Tea Room with my mom for afternoon tea as like an early Easter thing since I wouldn’t be spending Easter with my family this year. I actually ordered a pot of Decaf Margaret’s Hope and my mom ordered this tea but we ended up liking each other’s more so we swapped.

I definitely didn’t expect to like this one, but I think it worked better for me because the jasmine was stronger than the Earl Grey so it was like a really full bodied, robust jasmine black tea that took cream really well, because of the EG component. Plus, it complimented the lemon curd angel food cake we ordered quite nicely too which was a win. Also it was just nice to break out of my normal routine at the tea room, which is to order flowering tea.

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80

No notes yet. Add one?

Flavors: Grenadine

Preparation
Boiling 2 min, 0 sec

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75

Mild black tea with a hint of honey.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 0 sec 2 g 12 OZ / 354 ML

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89

I really liked this one, but seem to be in the minority. My friend sent me the small box of tea bags, not the loose tea. I loved the maple smell and think it was a pleasant black base with a nice maple undertaste. Already went through the box and finished all the tea.

Flavors: Maple Syrup

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 5 min, 0 sec

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70

ok so I’m learning to not hate this one. Now that I’m expecting smokiness and a cuppa nothing like dark chocolate. Still haven’t found anything to blend it with other than chai sugar. I’m having one of those “astringency is ok” days.

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70

I was making a cuppa this, when Mum stepped into the room and looked alarmed. “do you smell smoke? something is burning!”
She was standing next to my tea. I told her to take a sniff. She looked a little sheepish :P

Anyhow. I find this tea far too plain and astringent. Adding milk and chai sugar helps perk things up! One of those teas I’ll go through quickly as I can experiment with it. This should be fun

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