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The brew smells malty and sweet. There are sweet roasted undertones to the smell.

The tea has lightly roasted overtones. You can almost taste the ceder smoke in the tea. There are malty undertones, but not as intense as the smell initially suggested. It is also not as sweet as the smell initially suggested. The tea in fact has a little bit of a kick to it. It is not a bitter taste, but more like a hint of salt behind each sip. Sometimes it even reminds me of salted nuts because of the roasted salt flavor.

For the rest of the tasting notes, please check my blog.
http://teasnobbery.com/2010/09/10/tea-review-malty-assam-from-tao-of-tea/

Making the tea, the cup of tea is much darker green than I have seen matcha get. It is a sweet smelling tea.

The tea is not as bitter as some matchas that I have had. The Acai berry that has been added to the tea makes it a little sweeter. The tea is sweeter sort of with a tangy after taste to it. It doesn’t taste astringent like it usually does. It is still caulky and has a vegital middle tone to it. There are hints at a dark, almost bakers chocolate undertone that sits with you after you are done drinking the tea. There are some larger chunks of the matcha still in the cup, and I suppose I should next time sift the tea through a strainer to break up those chunks, or remove the chunks that are a little too big.

Although this is most of the review, please still check out my blog post on this tea: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/08/06/acai-matcha-from-shanti-tea/

The tea is a bright orange color, typical of Hoijcha.

The smell is a light roast, comforting and warm and slightly nutty.

The taste is rich and roasted, not quite nutty. Slightly astringent, but not quite bitter. It doesn’t have a very complex flavor profile. The flavor doesn’t really come out until you slurp it however. Caramelized and sweet, there are hints of strawberry.

For a more complete review go here: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/07/30/tea-review-hoijicha-made-from-kukicha/

As you can see it is a beautiful orange color that is not too far off from the color of the table we have in the living room. Warm and inviting, the Ti Kuan Yin is somewhere between a green tea and and a black tea.

It smells brisk and strong with musky undertones. After the tea has been poured out of the aroma cup the cup still smells kind of bitter. I’m a little worried I may let it brew a little too long. As the bitter smell quickly fades away, a fruit smell replaces it. If I close my eyes I can see myself in the middle of a fruit orchard. There are green apples, pears, red grapes and it smells like there might also be lychee. Coming back to it one more time, the smells have once more dissipated and changed and the aroma cup now smells like fresh baked apple pie, with lots of butter and no cinnamon or other spices to muss up the taste of the pie. I could probably keep this up all night on the one brew, so I am going to stop here and move on to the actual tea, but remember when drinking this to regularly check in on the smell of the tea as the smells in the cup will change.

The tea is rather brisk and sharp, but not necessarily in an unpleasant way. Next time I will let it brew for a little less time. This tea has a distinct taste of baked red apples. If anyone has ever done this before, some of the apple caramelizes as it bakes and makes it a little sweeter than normal, there are definitely caramel undertones to this tea. Taking a large mouthful gives a slightly different taste. It has a rich, nutty taste.

For the full review go to my blog: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/07/23/tea-review-foojoy-monkey-picked-ti-kuan-yin/

The tea tastes and smells exactly like the leaves did. It is dark and rich with intense earthy tones. It is like mixing dark hot chocolate with espresso, taking the sweet and the bitter out of both.What is left is comforting and caffeinated. This is a great morning tea because it wakes you up a lot like coffee with less caffeine and a better flavor.

For a more detailed tasting note check out my blog: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/07/09/tea-review-puer-tuocha-from-tao-of-tea/

It is a sort of orangy red. It is a very rich looking liqueur. It smells intoxicating. It is not too strong, but it does smell a lot like the orange flavoring. The tea shines through that though and smells vegital.

The tea is very interesting. It tastes sort of like Swiss chard with bergamot orange dripped over it. It is velvety and sweet, although I think I steeped it a little too high, a little too long. It is far more bitter than I was expecting it to be. It tastes like the bergamot flavor, not like the tea sort of bitterness, so I’m not too worried about having over steeped it, but the flavor profile seems to be a lot stronger than I was expecting. As I get to the bottom of the cup the flavor has changed a little bit, and there is a bitter sweetness there that isn’t in the rest of the cup. It is sort of like the bitter green grapes, and it makes my mouth pucker a little bit, but the sweetness compliments the orange flavor well. At this stage I like sipping it better because slurping it seems to wash out the flavor too much.

Find a more detailed review of this tea here: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/07/02/tea-review-earl-gray-from-chakra-4-herb/

The color is a golden red brown with emphasis on the brown. Almost like a translucent brick red.

I love the smell of this tea. You can really smell the lychee and the raspberry, but not the black tea all that much. The color sort of indicates that it’s not a very strong black tea. Most of the flavor looks like it comes from the fruits while the color comes from the black tea.

The first taste is a strong taste of lychee. The fruit is very strong and is almost over powering to the other two tastes. The black tea is soft and comforting and by far over powers the raspberry. I have always found lychees to be a little sour. What this means is that the tea is a little sour. I want to make it clear that it isn’t bitter though. It is also sweet. The black tea is a little milky to the taste. They have definitely added extra lychee and raspberry taste to the tea. I’m generally not a fan of extracts.

It smells sweet and soothing. Sweet floral undertones. I’m a little disappointed the fact that the tea seems to overpower the smells of the flowers. It is a great grassy, smokey aroma. Along with the floral undertone is a sweet syrupy smell sort of like caramelized sugar. It also has a hint of fresh rain as I find more jasmine teas smell like. The color of the tea is a deep golden.

It has a light weak body. I put quite a bit of tea in there, so I don’t think it is weak just because of the amount of tea. Although it smells fairly grassy it tastes vegetal, dark and smokey. It is incredibly sweet although the floral tones are not very present.

It smells sour with a complex flowery undertone. The taste is mildly sour but incredibly sweet. There are hints of a rose taste with overtone of a flower that I can not identify.

More detailed notes can be found here: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/05/28/tea-review-tao-of-tea-keemun-hao-ya/

The initial taste is spiced and bitter. The spiced is new, but the bitter is exactly like the dried tea only not as strong. The thing to note here is that yes, some teas get bitter when they are steeped, but this was bitter before it was steeped so it is safe to assume that the bitter is not from being steeped, but rather from the tea itself. After a little bit it starts to taste a little like dandelion, but with a splash of spice. It has the same type of bitterness of a fresh dandelion, mixed with a similar sweet aftertaste. If you don’t know what that tastes like it is light and flowery, with a rich bitter undertone.

If you would like to full tasting notes go to: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/05/21/tea-review-tao-of-tea-licorice/