Art of Tea

Inkling Advent Day 3. This was pretty refreshing cold! It was light and fruity, and I didn’t taste much white tea, but the peach wasn’t overpowering either. I’d say it was pretty well-balanced.

A rose flavored black tea. Tasted like a champagne flavored rose tea, the black tea base wasn’t very strong. I once accidentally oversteeped the tea and I think I tasted mint? That might be one of the natural flavors they added. Wouldn’t say this is my favorite rose flavored tea but it is a good one. People would be happy to receive this.

sold for $21/4oz

https://www.artoftea.com/products/rose-black-tea

When I first tried this, the rooibos was too prominent and not very delicious. I added some milk, and then it was drinkable, but I wouldn’t say it was very good. It was just sort of murky and weirdly flavored. Not a favorite from the TTB.

I taste a lot of pear, but I’d call it fresh and not cooked. I really only taste the rooibos base, pear flavoring, and a twang of something fake. I don’t see enough pear teas, so I’m having fun, but I don’t think I like it enough to keep any from the TTB. Unfortunately, the fake note lingers a bit.

A floral, fruity tea. I don’t know if I got a bad batch, but I couldn’t tell this was supposed to be passionfruit and definitely couldn’t tell the jasmine was there until much later. The mix of black and green tea sort of mimic a oolong tea flavor but not really. The tea doesn’t taste bad, but I really don’t think this taste like its namesake.

sold for $11/4 pouches

https://www.artoftea.com/products/2qt-iced-tea-pouches-passionfruit-jasmine-award-winning

Ordered a cup of this one at a local coffee shop while meeting a friend. One of the staff was really nice and actually brought my cup to our table. He told me to wait 4 or so minutes to drink it but if I wait longer it shouldn’t get bitter. I was like yes! those are all things I want to hear. I wasn’t paying too much attention to my cup but it was a very smooth oolong, buttery even, with some citrus notes.

I got a sample of this tea along with many others, and forgot how much I enjoy it. The cinnamon flavor is pronounced but not overpowering, and while the fig isn’t strongly figgy (possibly that’s because I associate “fig” with “crunching seeds between my teeth” instead of “drinking a pleasant tea”) it does a fine job of being a fruit undertone that lends a depth to the flavor of the cinnamon that can otherwise be lacking. (I’m looking at you, overpowered chais.)

I would probably buy this again and keep it on the shelf of “occasional” teas, if it were still available. Oh well.

Another part of my group buy with Sara.

Oh wow, nothing has tasted this much like butterscotch, since those candies I liked as a kid! What’s funny is, the other main notes I get are fair food: buttered popcorn and cotton candy, lol. I get just a hint of cinnamon at the end of the sip.

This is really a party in my mouth, and a bit of a stroll along the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, back in the days when people would go outside for that sort of thing. Delicious!

Another part of my group buy with Sara. Ooh, smells like vanilla, with a hint of mandarin orange.

The flavor is orange, vanilla, and orange zest, mmm. Near the end of the sip I’m getting floral notes and something almost perfumy… but not in a bad way, which is odd to me. Oh, now I’m getting a rose note.

I will drink this again. It’s a well-tended garden of flavors.

Wow, the brewed tea smells amazing! Part of an Art of Tea group buy with Sara.

It tastes like the holidays! I can pick out cinnamon, clove, and I think cardamom, and there’s plenty more dancing in the background. There’s a faint licorice note too. This would be great while walking around Christmas in the Park in San Jose, instead of that rehydrated powdered cocoa mix they sell. It’s very festive.

Part of my group buy from Art of Tea with Sara!

The leaf smells amazing! I like Lychee, and I love sweet things, and this tea tastes plenty sweet on its own. It’s really nice, and I’ll bet it would be good iced too!

Odd, I must have read the bag wrong. I originally posted this under Lychee. I’m not picking up a lot of peach flavor… but I swear it’s there a tiny bit now. Power of suggestion? I don’t know. Or it could be coming out more in the second steep.

Sipdown! (18)

Finishing off this little mini tin that a friend gave me. So cute! And the tea is delish…

Really, this tastes like a Taiwanese black tea to me. I’ve had similar teas before, that were somewhere between oolong and black tea and rolled into little pearls. This has a lovely cinnamon honey-slathered toast flavor with some syrupy dried fruit notes, like fig or golden raisin. Malty, bready, thick, yummy!

I certainly wouldn’t order this, as they only sell 4 ounce bags and it’s quite overpriced compared to similar teas. But I was certainly happy to sip it down! :D

This is another tea that I don’t have a date for in my spreadsheet. It was a gift from a friend – she regularly orders one specific tea from Art of Tea and I think this was included as a sample, so she gave it to me. It’s in an adorable little mini tin!

This is pretty scrumptious. Lovely thick and sweet cinnamon honey notes that remind me of a Taiwanese black tea, though this is from Fujian. Perhaps the tiniest bit of a syrupy dried fruit, like fig or date. There’s chewy thick bread and malt, backed by some dry autumn leaf and tobacco. I also taste a touch of molasses, especially at the end of the sip. There’s also a woodiness that makes me think of whiskey barrels. A floral note appears in the aftertaste and lingers long on the tongue.

This is really reminding me of a Taiwanese black tea, and given it’s 90% oxidized, I suppose it’s not far off. I’ll happily sip down this small amount, but wouldn’t reorder this one given the exorbitant price. Plus I tend to order straight teas from more specialized vendors…

This was a free sample sachet that came with a recent order. Way back in the day Art of Tea used to sell sampler size pouches, but now they don’t… and their smallest offering is 4 oz. bags. Which I hate. I got hooked on some specific teas years ago from the samplers I had bought, and have wanted to restock for ages, but because of their freaking huge bag sizes, simply haven’t. During Black Friday when their stock was 25% off, I talked my friend Todd (he doing a homemade advent from me over here, btw: https://www.steepster.com/ashi ) into splitting the bags 50g/50g with me. Box arrived, and this was the only sampler — a single sachet — in the box. I haven’t had this tea before and am keeping it as my “repacking/reboxing” fee. :-P

Steeped the single sachet in 350ml (12 oz) of 205F water for 3 minutes. Getting a stronger bergamot aroma off this cup than I did from the Cream of Earl Grey sampler from DAVIDsTEA I tried recently; it’s waxing a bit toward the lime area of citrus to my nose. I can also smell notes of the vanilla/cream. On sip, the bergamot is much stronger as well! It’s a rather rich, full EG flavor, with a strong citrusy bergamot flavor (still reading lime notes from it, pleasant!), with a vanilla/cream flavor filling in late in the sip. I seem to be getting the hit of bergamot first, and the cream second. The tea itself it bold and smooth, though I can’t really pick out any defining flavor notes from it against the flavorings.

A satisfying morning cuppa.

I think I have finally entered an acceptance with myself that I will never be a “proper” tea-drinker because I simply can’t find “enjoyment” in pu-erh; I never taste all the “nuances” one should taste in these expensive, fermented tea leaves, other than dirt or swamp water. Every. Single. Time. And I don’t enjoy either flavor note. Sue me. So after a week of not particularly looking forward to my morning cup of swamp water-flavored beverage (as that is the category this particular tea fell in for me; an earthy, yet marshy/vegetal taste, like something distinctly pond-scummy, which I taste very often in pu-erh) I have finally sipped this sample down (which I think came from Ost’s August 2018 cupboard sale, thanks for sharing!), and am quite pleased to have one less pu taking up space in my house.

Saved a single tea bag of this from a previous tea box. It’s a light tea, but the flavor is pretty good. The spices are mild enough that I’ve decided to not add milk since I don’t want to overpower them. Though mild, they’re pretty balanced, and I enjoyed my cup!