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Came on here to remove this from my cupboard and saw that my last review of it said I wasn’t going to add it to my cupboard because we were going through it so fast. Well, it took about four months after all because I started going for hard sipdowns of my oldest tea to clear them out and have made satisfying progress.

At the beach, this tasted great. My first pitcher at home seemed to lose the peach flavor quickly. I made a gallon pitcher iced and sweetened today and I find the level of peach flavor very satisfying and not overwhelming. I know at least one reviewer had found it to be too perfumed and artificial peachy but so far, everyone who has tried it here – hot or iced – has liked it a lot.

Sipdown! And my shelves and baskets are looking much more organized!

Another tea I had failed to add to my cupboard, so here it is added in and I am hoping to have some more sipdowns to celebrate soon.

I had a couple of students today – two sisters who take both piano and voice. Both had colds and decided to just do piano lessons today so we had spare time before their mom picked them up. I offered them tea for their sore throats and let them pick from my cupboard. I ket them rummage through my cookie stash and make a cookie plate as well. The youngest is not allowed to have caffeine and chose Vanilla Comoro (spoiler – she loved it) and the older girl chose this because she loves Earl Grey and had never tried a white one.

She was really happy with this, saying that some white tea disappoints her because she can not detect much flavor but this was very flavorful indeed. She added milk and sugar, I drank it plain.

I concur that it has tons of flavor. The base is nice and smooth and the bergamot doesn’t get sour/puckery. I really really dislike Earl Grey with a Ceylon base because the lemony notes in the tea plus the bergamot just equal big yucky SOUR taste to me. And heartburn. Not so with the white tea base.

This was in sachets because that was what the store had available, but these tear very easily along the heat sealed line and I just pour the loose tea into an infuser.

Their mom came in and saw the tea table set and joined us for a few Coconut and Chocolate Milano cookies and tea. More on Vanilla Comoro to come….

This is a sample I found last night as I was making supper. We were having Japanese eggplant and red sweet pepper (from our garden) with carrot and onion tossed with Asian noodles and a lightly creamy sauce made with beef broth, soy sauce, and mayo. Since the meal had an Asian vibe even though it wasn’t strictly Asian, I thought I would pair it with a green tea rather than serving the sweet hibiscus tea already iced in the fridge.

Wow. This was amazing with the meal. When a green tea has some astringency or briskness, you can eat a fairly heavy or flavorful food and still REALLY taste the tea. This one came across as super sweet vegetal. Think of ultra sweet sugar snap peas. It also put me in mind of some raw corn on the cob that an old farmer at the state farmer’s market would entice people to try. It was so sweet, some people preferred it uncooked. THAT was what this tea reminded me of.

Once the food was gone, I kept sipping. Now the briskness is apparent, but not unpleasant. The flavor has a real mouth-filling richness.

I told my husband that my affection for this tea has tied it with my love for HuangShan Mao Feng. Alas, it is no longer available. Good thing I just got a big pouch of HuangShan in the mail….

I came on here this morning to remove a couple of teas that I have finished lately…only to discover that I had never added them to cupboard. Sigh.

I have actually been icing this one because it is so blasted hot and sticky here still and I thought the orange aspect would be refreshing and would take sugar well. It does, indeed.
Although I have enough left to drink this one more time, I am going to be cheeky and remove it from my cupboard so I can bask in the glow of a sipdown.

I did order two teas recently but they were desert island teas. My tea shelves are starting to look a lot less messy and I am loving it.

I came on here looking forward to clicking the old “Remove from Cupboard”, but apparently never added it in the first place. This is a great tea so it isn’t as if I am glad to see it go. I AM glad to be clearing out some of my oldest teas, and I am happy – no, ECSTATIC, to say that my tea shelves are not looking as messy. A lot of tea is a blessing. Too much tea is a guilt trip. And yes, I have given away tea over and over again! Sometimes by the boxful!

This is heavy on the vanilla and it always tastes a bit like root beer to me, although sometimes I think it is more like cream soda. Make it strong, sweeten and add spoarkling water and you have a lovely summer refresher.

I will rebuy it one day when I have cleared out the cupboard a bit more, probably.

Midnight front porch gongfu! Tonight we are getting a break from the blasted miserable heat and I wanted to really enjoy it. It rained a little while, and when I opened the front door to see if it was still raining it was so cool. Only 65F! There were still raindrops dripping off the roof and crickets are chirping everywhere. The mosquitos have gone to bed apparently. So I suggested tea on the porch!

I used my yixing to prepare this and we each had a little white chocolate Godiva bonbon. I almost made a cheese plate, but the last time I did that it was a really strong cheese and it didn’t play nicely with the tea. My husband kept saying “perfect, perfect” when he had his bonbon. He loved the white chocolate with this tea.

Tonight it was extra floral and had really nice body with a lightly creamy mouthfeel. This tin is pretty fresh and I hope I have learned my lesson about letting really good tea sit around past its prime. No more. The first tin I ever bought sat around because I had way more tea than I could drink in a reasonable of time and it really lost its shine. It is worth every penny paid for it, as long as I drink it in a reasonable amount of time.

I hadn’t had this tea in about 8 years, and I got another sample of it not long ago. After these two very positive experiences with it, I really should order some, but my tea wall is groaning under the weight of the tea I already have!

I reviewed it for Sororitea Sisters and here is the link: http://sororiteasisters.com/2019/07/22/gong-fu-black-zhi-tea/

But since I don’t like to click on links, here is the review!

Really wanting to use my new gaiwan tonight, I pawed through my tea samples and my eye fell on this. Perfect! I don’t have to wonder if it is a good candidate for the gaiwan. The name tells me so!

The leaves are thin and twisted, and very dark. They have that heady chocolate aroma you find in black and oolong tea sometimes. After warming the gaiwan and allowing the leaves to rest in it for a moment, the scent is now much nuttier.

I experimented a bit and found that I like this one to have a little more time than I would give some teas. It didn’t become bitter – the main incentive for keeping a steep short would be to prevent bitterness – so I let those warm, rich flavors develop over a few extra seconds. The darkest steep was my favorite.

The tea is creamy, nutty, with a little hint of cocoa. It is so smooth that even a black tea phobe drinking with me liked it plain. Although there is virtually no astringency, there is the slightest briskness that develops over time in a very pleasant way. Walnut is the flavor that I most notice lingering.

I lost count but my guess is that we had about seven or eight steeps from this session. Overall, a very pleasant tea. I definitely want to have a look at this company’s other offerings, as well!

Steepster isn’t letting me send messages, so

Kawaii: My package arrived today! Many, many thanks!

HaChaChaCha: I will reply as soon as I can!

This is a sample I ordered to revisit all the Keemuns Teavivre sells. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. With my everything bagel, it was a great breakfast tea. I still prefer Premium Keemun Hao Ya for breakfast, but this one was nice and would be a great economy tea.

It is lightly brisk, moderately bread and cocoa-y, with a hint of smoke in the aroma. Not far from Queen Catherine but without the extra layers blending gives her. We actually had it yesterday for tea time and I had the leftover tea reheated for breakfast – two cups. It was great for either application, and both were with food. Yesterday we had tomato soup (tomatoes from my garden) and peach dumplings in puff pastry with caramel inside. So with a lot of strongly flavored food like that, you don’t need to waste your expensive and highly nuanced tea.

This is sadly good-bye to Nature’s Tea Leaf, both this tea and the company. This is the last little scrap of leaves from the last bag of all the tea I have ordered from them. I just looked at the reviews for this tea and almost everyone had received it as a free sample from the company. I drank my free sample and ordered more.

This is old. I was looking forward to clicking “Remove From Cupboard” just to celebrate a sipdown but saw that I had never added it to my cupboard. That happens a lot.

As old as it was, it was very good. It seems strange to say but my first impressions if this tea were the same tea-sipper was getting from a Yunnan Dian Hong. After I warmed the gaiwan and added the leaves, I literally held it to my husband and said smell it! It smells like chocolate! Not cacao nibs this time, but real chocolate, like a candy bar. After the rinse,mit was chocolate and SMOKE. But the taste was neither!

The taste was warm, sweet hay. It was fresh and light, but not weak. My husband said he really loved this one. He is trying to describe the tea now, whereas he used to joke and say “it is hot and has tea-like qualities.” For this one, he said, “I would say it is very soothing to my throat, but that implies that I had an ache and I didn’t.” I asked if it was the complete lack of astringency and briskness that he liked, and he thought that was it.

I was on a mailing list, so I am a bit sad that the company didn’t let us know they were closing, but it must be very hard to shut down a company that you believed in and worked to make successful. I wish them the best in their next endeavors.

This was a sipdown! Today was tea party day (yes, that is still happening!) and this was our tea for the sweets part. Lunch was black bean soup and sweet cornbread muffins paired with Queen Catherine. I felt I needed a somewhat hardy black tea to go with a bold lunch. Since I have made notes on QC about fifty times, I will just review this one!

For afters, we had Oreo Thins in coconut flavor, lemon Oreos, and Bounty bars, which is like an Almond Joy minus the almonds for all the Americans who have never heard of it! There were also Reese’s Chips Ahoy cookies. There was a lot of coconut going on and this went really well with it.

I may have overleafed a little since I was using up the very last of the bag but I made up for it by adding a little extra hot water to the pot when I transferred it. (Sometimes I make the tea in one pot and move it to another, especially if I am combining steeps.)

This is a wonderfully aromatic tea and I am shocked that I am finishing it and there are no reviews posted from me on it. The black tea base really comes through nice and strong and doesn’t need milk or sugar but could deffo handle it. The flavorings don’t make the tea flavor but they are prominent, not wimpy. This is a little malty and also a little creamy. A good bit of almond and coconut flavor, and I feel like I taste hazelnut (Nutella style) as well.