Capital Tea Ltd.

Also got a sample from Capital Teas Ltd of this tea. The description on steepster says:
“Cherry, Cocoa, Honey, Malt, Molasses, Plums”
I wasn’t too thrilled when this tea smelled only of wood while steeping. But as I began drinking it, I discovered cherry and cocoa notes among the wood flavors.
While wood is the main flavor in this tea, the cocoa and cherry flavors make it much more drinkable.
It’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be while it steeped, But I probably won’t drink the rest of it. I’ll find someone to pass it off to, I’m sure! This one isn’t for me!

Sorry all, I haven’t been around much lately. Missing everyone!!! Between the turmoil in my life and the issues with steepster – I haven’t been posting much.

I’m a huge black tea fan, but I’m a bit snobbish about it. I like China blacks, but in truth I’ve only tried a few of the others and haven’t really explored them. I was quite excited when yyz sent me a care package with teas outside my comfort zone. Thank you so much.
In that package was this one. What do I know about Ceylon? Not much so I don’t really have a point of reference.
This tea brews up a beautiful copper red color. It seems light, with lots of high notes, and a bit fruity. This will not lure me away from my beloved China blacks, but it wasn’t offensive either. Really happy to have tried it.

This is a solidly enjoyable, and enjoyably solid, no-nonsense SF Darjeeling. Nicely muscatel, with moderate tannins and astringency, and the usual Darjeeling fruit-like tartness.

First infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz water, 90 deg., 2:00 min.

Second infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz. water, 90 deg., 7:00 min.

Third infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz. water, 90 deg., 10:00+ min.

This one was pretty floral, but…even when I steeped it for over the steeping time it still wasn’t very strong. It was nice for a very light, floral tea. But I wouldn’t buy it when I finally order from Capital Teas Ltd.
Was nice for this afternoon though. Thank you, Mandy! :D

Seriously get so excited when I get to try something from Capital Teas Ltd. Need to get enough samples to make one big order so I can get free shipping! xD That’s the end all goal. :P
Anyway, thanks to the Lovely Mandy for this tea!
The best way to describe this tea is a roasted floral oolong. xD
I haven’t been into roasty oolongs lately, but the floral makes it better for me right now!
Enjoying this one today! (: Thanks, Mandy! You sent SO many oolongs-it’s crazy! Can’t wait to try all of them!

Soooo close to finishing this one off. Probably another cup or two left. Once this is done, I’ll use the tin to store the pack of “Sun Cloud and Mist” tea that I ordered from 52Teas, which is still incoming.

This is a pretty inoffensive green tea, but I’ve gotten over it. There’s not a lot of there there.

Backlog from yesterday.

Yesterday evening I had a really bad time of things. I was feeling all tired after walking around, but I decided to do a hot yoga class in the afternoon, as I figured that maybe my fatigue was because I hadn’t done any yoga in a few weeks.

Oh boy.

I came home from that class feeling all achy, worried that I was coming down with a fever – I wasn’t nearly as hydrated during the class as I should have been. I spent the rest of the evening kind of being an invalid: sitting on the couch, eating rice, with a bunch of ibuprofen in my system. And then there was this tea.

I made two steeps of it yesterday – one before I left for yoga, to get myself hydrated (not enough, it appears!) and one when I was all fucked-up in the evening, because I knew that if I just laid back and didn’t do anything, I’d fall asleep and mess up my sleep schedule.

This tea was pretty okay both times, but I have a feeling that I overleafed it, as it tasted a bit smoky, which I generally dislike in my green teas. I thought the second steep would be sweeter, but it was more vegetal.

In any event, tea is a good thing, and I was in need of good things last night.

Backlog note 8 of 13.

This was yet another sample I had at the Canadian Coffee and Tea Show on Sunday. And I loved it. The taste was like a softer, less savoury version of Bi Luo Chun. It was sweet and gentle, but still somewhat savoury. I much preferred this over the Yunnan Green FOP I tasted at the same time.

Again, this one is totally on my wishlist – I’m looking forward to buying it when Black Friday comes. (And of course, now I’ve got the song by Steely Dan in my head. Curses!)

Backlog note 7 of 13.

This was another tea that I sampled when I was at the Canadian Coffee and Tea show on Sunday. And the nice thing was that there was another tea enthusiast there called TJ. He runs a tea podcast – that sounds so neat! I need to email him about that.

Anyways, Joel at the booth was kind enough to let us sample a variety of green teas, and I was intrigued by this one since I have some Yunnan blacks at home that I quite enjoy.

After trying this tea, I think I’m going to stick with the Yunnan blacks and avoid greens, because while the smokiness works in black tea, I find I don’t like smoky flavours in green tea. I could taste the similarity, though, and the liquor was a beautiful yellow-green.

I think I’ve finally found some parameters that work for this tea. The leaf is very long and wiry, so using about 2-3 tsp for 12 oz of water is ideal. Also, I’m using 90C water rather than boiling.

This time I got that nice camphor note I was looking for, though there was still a bit of earthiness in the back. Interesting.

Backlog from whenever.

Ahh, this tea is turning out to be more finicky than I expected. First I underleafed it so it was weak. Then I overleafed it and made it too astringent. How will I steep this just so I can get that eucalyptus note I liked so much? Bumping the rating down into the mid 70s.

Backlog from a few days ago.

The leaves on this are quite fluffy, which means that I underleafed this when I brewed it a few days ago. It was really weak tasting. Considering how well this tasted when I had a sample back in September, I was really sad!

I’ll have to be a bit more generous with the leaf on this one.

Backlog note 5 of 13: And it’s note 500!

I went to the Canadian Coffee and Tea Show on Sunday, and had this as well as a few other samples that Joel was kind enough to offer.

Unfortunately, since the show was mainly an internal one for the industry, very few vendors were actually selling tea at the event. If Joel had this on sale on Saturday, I would totally have bought a package despite the price tag.

Going in, I knew this was a Nilgiri tea, but it definitely doesn’t taste like one. I don’t remember a whole lot of that taste now, but I remember it being sweet, like nectar almost, with none of the wet earthiness that I remember tasting the first time I tried a Nilgiri.

Joel said that this is a unique tea, as he bought up pretty much the entire harvest from this estate. This is going near the top of my wishlist now – I hope that there’s still some of this in stock when Black Friday rolls around.

The dry leaf of this tea smells of vanilla custard and chocolate and is composed of large pieces of broken leaf orange pekoe and occasional short pieces of vanilla bean. The leaves are thin and tightly folded blades.

I breweed this tea for the recommended 3 minutes at 95°C. The tea brews up to a rich golden red with a gold ring around the edge of the cup. It smells of vanilla custard with a warm sweet vanilla note behind it with a touch of caramel and cream, a hint of malt and tarter fruit is peaking out behind the vanilla.

The first sip is a blend of a cooler vanilla taste, a bit like that found in good ice cream, mixed and balanced with a light bitterness from malt. It leaves a cooling sensation in the mouth. Underneath is a faintly vegetal note mixed with slightly tart stone fruit. There is a hint of an almost eucalyptus note and there is a caramel note up front that mixes with the vanilla. Best drunk slowly to fully appreciate the warm vanilla notes dissipating in the mouth and opening up first through malt, fruit and ahint of wood and cocoa, then finalling to a cooling eucalyptus. The vanilla is up front in the flavour and is distinct. Their are hints of it in the aftertaste but the aftertaste is more a blend of fruit, eucalyptus and bitter malt tones with the vanilla to temper them and smooth them out. Quite a nice vanilla tea. The vanilla is quite natural tasting and distinct, but does not overpower the tea itself which is quite robust. I could easily restock this in the future.

This is another Ceylon from Capital Tea Ltd. The description of raisins, malt and caramel, left me expecting a rich, warm sweet tea, however I would describe it more as a bright, sweet, brisk tea. Its still very nice, just not quite what I was anticipating. This makes a nice morning or afternoon tea, it’s lively and has a nice dose of caffeine.

The dry leaves are long, thin and wiry lightly twisted blades that smells like rye bread. After steeping for 3.5 minutes at 95°C they produce a clear copper coloured tea with a sweet scent of caramel over sweet potato with fruit.

The tea tastes of spice (a hint of nutmeg with cinnamon), mixed with a dry hay note that is followed with a hint of aged cedar, over a bright sweet fruit note of grapes drying on the vine that are not quite raisins, or very fresh yellow Sultanas. There are hints of malt and barley underneath mixed with notes of caramel. The overall impression is of a bright and fruity tea with a light bitterness underneath it to give it depth. There is a light astringency which contributes to this impression. The resteep is a deeper red gold colour and is slightly sweeter and rounder tasting and is very faintly floral with a hint of rose and is distinctly more malty, with caramel in the aftertaste.

Although I still prefer the Lumbini estate tea, this is a nice light and bright tea that offers a nice contrast and is quite enjoyable.

http://instagram.com/p/taqG-lmK9N/

Xiang Luo roughly translates into fragrant snail and is a tea that combines the processing methods of traditional keemun and biluochun. It is produced from whole bud first flush tea and yields a rich and fragrant tea deserving of its name.

This tea has fairly long tightly wound glossy black leaves that are loosely coiled into corkscrews. Occasional golden brown tips are seen among the dark coils.
The dry leaf smells of chocolate, caramel and grainy notes.

The tea smells complex and spicy with chocolate and caramel rising first from the cup, and with light longan mixed with plum and other stone fruits underneath mixed with bright spicy notes of cinnamon mixed with a tone resembling bay leaves and some upper tones of malt.

I used a TSP (@ 1.5g of tea)/225 ml in just off boiling water steeped for 3.5 minutes.
The resulting tea has light longan mixed with honey and spice flavour notes up front that are blended with buttery caramel. The spice is lightly floral and is pleasant and bright. Cocoa is underneath mixed with a tone that is a slightly bitter sweet but mixed with cooked barley mash. The overall effect is a creamy, sweet and bright tea, that is well balanced with deeper lightly bitter notes. There is a light astringency but this is countered by the the body and creaminess of the tea. The tea produces a cooling effect in the mouth. There is no determineable smokiness.

The Resteep at 4.5min is similar in flavour in colour, but is slightly more tart, with more apparent malt and grain tones. The tea remains spicy and sweet though with chocolate, spicy floral and fruit tones. It is peppery and cool on the tongue, yet remains very smooth. The tea is still very flavourful suggesting it may yield another resteep. Altogether it is a really tasty cup, with a nice dose of caffeine and is suitable for all day drinking.

http://instagram.com/p/tIeqQFGK-3/

Thanks Capital Tea Ltd for the sample. I would definitely consider repurchasing this tea in the future!

One more review of the teas I drank earlier today. :P
So got a sample of this one from Capital Teas Ltd. Holy Shanghai you guys-they give big samples. 20g. Can’t believe it still! :O
Onto the tea though…
They really should rename this one to “Malty Vanilla Black Tea”. “Vanilla Black Tea” is just too generic for this one.
It doesn’t really appeal as just vanilla black…doesn’t really indicate that this tea is any different from everyone else’s vanilla teas. And this one definitely is different.
It’s so malty and strong. The vanilla and malt blend perfectly in this one.
Seriously one of the best vanilla teas I’ve ever had! It’s amazing! I can’t wait to get more!

Finished the last of this sample today…a sad sample sipdown.
I wasn’t super sure of it at first. But a few more cups of it, and it made me consider really buying it again. I really dig the malt in this one.
Malt and vanilla. It’s just such a good combo.
I really like it in this one.
Might have to get more of this one.
Thanks to Mandy for this sample again! ^^

Got a sample of this from Mandy. Have wanted to try teas from Capital Tea LTD so badly, and finally I get to! So excited! :D
Mostly it just tastes like a normal black tea, with a slight hint of malt to it. Not anything super special. But as a lover of vanilla teas, I thoroughly enjoyed the cup. ^^
Thank you for the sample, Mandy!

This tea was sent to me as a sample with my Capital Tea order. I was excited as I have been interested in trying some of their African teas. This tea has beautiful dry leaves that are tightly wound dark needles that smell floral and spicy and citrusy. The first time I steeped this tea I used a sugar spoon from a tea set to measure the leaves and I realise I under leafed it. It is a testimant to the quality of this tea that even these first steeps were very good and rich in flavour as I used only about 1g of leaf. Later I used 2g of tea. The broth in both cases is a clear medium orange-red.

First steeping:

3 min. Scent: Molasses, citrus notes, sweet potato, cocoa, spice, stone fruit.
Taste: Cocoa, sweet potato and roasted skins, brown sugar, darker tones of malt, a touch of molasses, roasted notes, dried stone fruit.

As it cools, it tastes lighter in the tongue and becomes spicy and cooling with hints of pepper and herbs with touches of rosemary and tthyme, over the other notes.
Sweet, rich and savoury. The tea itself is very smooth on the tongue.

4.2min The resteep is spicy with herbacious, floral, spice and pepper notes over sugar/molasses, sweet potato and sweet red fruits with cherry and plum. This steep is still rich but feels much lighter on the tongue. There is a touch of butter.

6min. Scent: weet, more citrusy and spicy
Taste: Malt, spice, butter, fruit, cocoa

2g. 3 min. With more leaf the scent is similar but with stronger malt tones and more distinct cocoa, fruit, and roasted tones and spice notes.

Sweet potato notes are stronger and more biscuit, with a bit of briskness, and a deeper malt tone. Along with spice and fruit.

Altogether this is a rich sweet tea with savoury, spicy, fruity tea with cocoa and malt notes. Both lighter and heavier leaved options are excellent. Thank you so much for giving me the chance to try this tea!

From the Round 3 Here’s Hoping TTB

This is a nice chai, but it’s not my favoritte. The base tea is really, really good. It has body and a touch of malt. The spice blend is pretty weak though. There’s ginger and cardamon with some cinnamon. I’m sure there are other spices as well. The spice blend is so light that there were times I didn’t taste it at all. So, not the best chai, but still a nice tea.

This was my last tea of the night last night, but I forgot to write down any notes on it so I’m having it again tonight. The leaves are spindly and wavy/curly, and smell malty and bread like.

The aroma is also malty and bread like. The taste is malty, cocoa, bread, and a little browned caramel (and maybe a wisp of smoke in the end of the sip). This, like all of the other teas I’ve tried from Capital Tea Ltd., is delicious. I think if I had to chose, I’d go with Etambagahawila Estate Ceylon, but they’re both great teas that I will restock.