Chi of Tea

Now that I’ve had time to contemplate my feelings about this one, I must say that I LOVE IT. It is amazing. Quite possibly the best yellow tea I’ve had.

My full-length review of this one will be publishing in a little while on SororiTea Sisters.

This is a rather unusual yellow tea – it tastes like a cross between yellow and green teas. It is unlike any tea I’ve tasted.

I think I need to spend some time with this one before I offer it a rating.

Wow! This is really good. It’s the first darker oolong I’ve been so drawn to. Dry it smelled like dry wood (actually it reminded me of my grandmother’s wicker furniture), and the liquor came out quite dark so I was worried. But it’s really clean-tasting, with a hint of floral. Astringent but not at all bitter. Really smooth and pleasant. Also, the huge leathery leaves are really cool!

We are continuing with Sample Week and after nearly forgetting it yesterday, I’m starting early today. :)

Today’s choice is a yellow tea, and I’m not very experienced with the type. I remember having had one relatively recently, but I can’t recall what it was that made it ‘yellow’ other than a process to make it less something than green teas. Grassy, I think. I can’t recall which tea it was either or even where it came from. I can’t even remember what I thought of it other than I found it fairly nice. But wether that was 60 points worth of nice or 95 points worth of nice, I have no idea.

Which is just as well because it means I can assess this one on its own merits, seeing as I still have very little idea of what to expect. Chi of Tea is another one of those companies that I’ve had a good experience with so far. I’ve liked what I have tried from them, some more than others of course, and shopping with them has been completely without problems. And they USED TO HAVE the best vanilla tea I’ve ever met. (If you’re looking, Chi of Tea, that’s a great big hint there!)

Now, this one has the same sort of aroma as the one I had yesterday. Yellowish green is the colour, my brain says. The Chinese colour. It’s thick and buttery, slightly salty and grassy and with an almost sticky quality to it. It’s the sort of aroma that gets into the nostrils and then clings on for dear life. A sort of ‘after-smell’ if you will. :)

It’s not the sort of aroma that would lead you to believe you were about to have a sip of something refreshing, and at first taste you find that it is indeed a quite buttery cup. As mentioned yesterday it takes a lot of butteryness before I think it’s properly buttery, butteryness not necessarily being a wished for quality, and this one is getting closer to it than the green tea I had yesterday, although it’s still not quite there. I do get that feeling of the palate going sort of round, but it could definitely be a lot worse.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that the flavour experience is twofold here, it probably would be. That round buttery note is one part. The other part is cleaner and crisper. It’s like a single clear-sounding little bell striking out in a murky, silent darkness. A very small sound but still heard far and wide. I like this note a lot better than the former. It tastes like hay and spring and it leaves a cool, almost minty aftertaste. which doesn’t seem to be turning sour. It just goes on and on being there, being minty, refreshing me and making me think I have nice breath as a result.

That freshness is what really makes the deal for me and seals the score. It’s not something for me to invest in, but it’s very pleasant to get to try. It’s rare for me to find a tea so awesome that I must keep it around always and have it NOT be one of the darker types of tea.

I made a large pot of this to relax with this morning. I think it was an excellent choice. Although I really like this tea, I don’t think it is one that I could actually drink that often – I have to be in the right mood for it. One thing I noticed this morning is that while it was very hot, the smoke was extremely strong and I didn’t get any other notes, though as it cooled a little bit, it got that underlying sweetness which makes me love this tea. It is so suprising that such a harsh, savoury tea has that sweet note.

This is my first lapsang souchong! I have always been hesitant to try them because they smell sort of intimidating. But I’m glad I got the courage to try this one! The dry leaf scent was VERY smoky. Steeped, it wasn’t as strongly smoky as I had feared. The taste is incredible – the smoke was very prominent but I do get the sweetness Angrboda talks about under that.

The leaves look different than I’m used to seeing Dragonwells; a bit darker, and more irregularly shaped though still cool and flat. It smelled very mildly woody dry.

It’s toasty, a bit nutty, and both sweet and astringent on the end of the sip. Very satisfying.

Got around to drinking some herbal stuff, this was from the memorial day sale.. $2 of 1oz! And what, do I see there’s saffron inside? STEAL! Anyways, drinking this hot. Plenty of a mix inside as it seems. It smells like stride gum. Literally. Orange colour, slightly tart citrus and minty and maybe a slight floral quality to it. I like it, and at this price was certainly worth throwing in with my order, hell I might even get more next time. I think this might even be good cold. For those of you worrying, the hibiscus doesn’t really overpower here, it’s been awhile since I had the urge to have a herbal tea, this one didn’t disappoint.

I was a little worried that this would taste overwhelmingly of mint, because dry, mint is all I can really smell. I made this as a chai tea latte and suprisingly the mint wasn’t dominant! The spices are warming, but the mint (which appears right on the back of the sip) is cooling. It is a strange sensation! Suprisingly good!

Chi of Tea sent me a free sample of this with my last order. The noni leaf (I assume it is the noni leaf) is HUGE! The rest of the sample is made up of quite finely ground herbs and whole berries.

The dry tisane smells like sage, I don’t get much of the other herbs – I can smell them, but only together, I couldn’t pick out any individual scent other than the sage. Dry, it looks really good – very vivid green herbs against the bright red berries. The taste is unremarkable, though. It has a very mild flavour and although I get a nice juicy note from the berries somewhere near the front of the sip, there isn’t much to back it up. It is quite flavourless, really.

I love how refreshing this one is! It’s my first green oolong, that I can recall, and while the base tea is delicious and crisp, it’s the orange and ginger awesomeness I love! Each sip is refreshing and delicious, crisp and citrusy. Can’t wait to try this one iced! I agree that the ginger is subtle, it enhances the citrus orange. But it’s refreshing and taste bud pleasing. A new cupboard essential!

This is a sample I received with my order, I decided that I need to dispatch this one as fast as possible as it smells like perfume, and literally was changing the smell of all the teas around it! I’ve had rosebuds with green tea before with some degree of success but it has never smelled as strong as this! In fact, when i opened up the package I received from Chi of Tea, this was the only smell I got.

Tea appearance is broken sencha pieces, safflowers and rose petals, and some rosehips i think. It tastes literally like perfume. I don’t taste anything but rose, with a sweet aftertaste. I’m sure there is someone out there that would like something like this, but this is fringe undrinkable. I don’t think adding sweetener will help, it’s already pretty sweet. I don’t see this working as an iced tea either. Again, there are ways to get rose and green tea to work nicely, but not when it smells and taste like perfume. (You might ask, well how do you know what perfume taste like?) I’ll leave that to you to figure out :)

I like flavored black teas when they are done right. Unfortunately, I’ve tasted many inferior flavored teas that have an artificial twang to them, or which have so much flavoring the taste of the black tea is obscured.

I’m happy to report that Vanilla Bean Cream is an example of a flavored black done right. I brewed this for four minutes, and the flavors all came out beautifully. I can taste the tea and the vanilla — the cream note seems to add another layer of richness to the tea drinking experience. This is a rich, flavorful vanilla black. It would make for a delicious ice cream. It’s not overly sweet, though. It’s bold and strong without being harsh or bitter.

I’ll be interested to see how well the flavors hold up through a second steeping, but for now, I am impressed.

This is so reliable. So soothing on stressful mornings. Yum!

I am really loving my samples of this, and wish I had more. It comes out so incredibly dark after just two minutes steeping, it looks like coffee. But it’s incredibly smooth to the point I couldn’t imagine putting milk in it even though it is my morning tea today. It tastes a little minerally, and subtly sweet.

This sample had been floating about forever in my tea corner, and was perfect for this morning. Deep, dark, rich, smooth.

This is another tea that I received as a sample with a recent order… Chi of Tea is certainly very generous with their free samples when you place an order! I like that!

This chai is much more finely ground than the picture would suggest. It has quite a strong black tea base, in fact, I didn’t really notice the mint notes until about mid-cup, because the black tea dominates. But now, with all the flavors present, this is an incredibly refreshing chai – I love this one as a latte. Smooth and rich, warmly spiced but not too overwhelmingly spicy. The mint is a lovely addition to this one.

Very nice.

I received a sample of this with my last order to Chi of Tea. I was thrilled to receive it as I love Tai Ping. These leaves are gorgeous: large, flat, green leaves. Beautiful.

The flavor is so sweet and light and fresh. While I have not had a lot of Tai Ping tea, this is easily the best that I have ever had the opportunity to try.

I did not see this tea on their website, so I do hope they decide to start carrying it.

I seemed to like this more than the others who tasted it.
There wasn’t a strong flavor, but it did not taste watery. I could find myself really downing this one if need be – sometimes teas don’t taste so well in big gulps =P
There wasn’t a huge rooibos flavor either, which was good.

I have this one a few times now, from the generous sample included in my order from about a month ago. The smell was very intense, and incredibly orangey – but a good orange, not that sickly sweet orange that some teas can carry.

I steeped this a little longer than my usual oolong, and I really wasn’t getting oolong at all, just ginger and orange as the water slowly garnered a luscious amber tone. It was a very enjoyable cup, stimulating and tastey. The orange and ginger were well balanced, but the oolong was overpowered. I didn’t mind, however, as I really enjoyed this and appreciated the clear tisane-like notes.