Remedy Teas

I drank a cup of this on the way to work yesterday. I was expecting a big bang of licorice flavor, but was slightly disappointed. Yes, it has a nice, mild licorice spice mix with a nice sweet after taste, but I can find a stronger licorice taste in the Stash Licorice Spice tea. (I absolutely love licorice, if you couldn’t tell) I think I will use a higher tea to water ratio next time….

Not as spicy and bold as some other chai teas I have had, but still good. I actually prefer my chai’s on the milder side. I sweetened it a bit and added a dash of milk; perfect cup for a sunny, winter afternoon…

Having my first cup of this herbal, fruity concoction. I find it quite tangy. It reminds me a bit of Evening in Missoula with a kick! I would tend to drink this in the morning as a wake up cuppa. Overall, not too bad…

This is an amazing tea! I am an Earl Grey drinker, and this was a find. Remedy teas is a great little shop. definitely go there. . .

Picked this up a few weeks ago. My first impressions were that it was pretty subtle…too subtle for my tastes, but after several trials, I found that I was steeping it at too low of a temperature. Once I did this, the flavors really came out. VERY strong floral aromas (Lilac, orchid), light body, and a subtle floral, slightly-sweet taste. Overall, a good, balanced tea, but would prefer it to be a touch bolder.

My first non-floral flavored white. The coconut is definitely the main flavor; I didn’t really taste any vanilla, but it may have been the underlying bit that tied it all together. Overall a nice tea, the flavor didn’t dominate to the point where I couldn’t taste the tea. Has more body than a straight white tea, but not bitter. I didn’t follow the steep instructions on the label because 4-5 minutes seemed a long time for a white tea.

Interesting green. It smells wonderful! Lovely toasty white chocolate/vanilla aroma, both dry & steeped. At first I thought the green tea taste was oddly separated from the rest, but as I finished the cup it blended together nicely. Sweet, slightly creamy, but I might try this with creamer next time to bump it up. However, it was fine without any additions.

Very minty, not tasting much cocoa in this. I could smell the honeybush more than I could taste it, but the blend is nice. A bit creamy, but also “clean” feeling, which I think is due to the mint.

Favorite tea.

Love this tea. On my rotation list.

A nice spice profile. Very different blend from say, a Chai.

Not used to greens myself. Used about the recommended tsp to 8 oz ratio. It brewed up very light and seemed to lose the incredibly fragrant quality the blend itself had, but still smelled just enough. The taste itself was perfect; not overrun by cloying flavorings, and not bitter at all from the green. I’m really quite pleased with this, it’s a delightful treat! No need for sweetener.

Well I’m going on a very last minute backpacking trip this weekend, the good news is I didn’t have to run to the store and got my gear packed in just over an hour, not bad. Now I sit here decompressing with my dinner of pita bread, hummus and a shou puerh. This is sad given the fact that I have some delicious greek stuffed chicken sitting in my fridge that I made the other day, but there are some days that you are just too lazy to use the microwave. Yeah, I’m that guy.

I’m debating about continuing the story of everyone’s favorite traveling tgy, but its late, I’m getting up early and I’m not sure that anyone besides me reads it. Good thing I like to hear the sound of my own … keystroke? So tgy shall wait till next week.

…

Oh right I’m supposed to be reviewing a tea, I knew there was a reason I was here. So I love pu. Yeah I just said that. While I generally prefer sheng, there is something enchanting about shou’s. Delicious earthy flavor, rich deep intoxicating smell, and sultry good looks. Yeah I think they may be some of the most beautiful teas I’ve had. A deep rich almost purple color. Sometimes I forget how much I like puerh and since this is the only loose one I have its the easiest for my lazy butt to brew. Therefore when I haven’t had pu for a while this is usually the one that reminds me, “Hey moron, remember me, I’m kinda awesome.”

I wouldn’t say this is a particularly stellar shou, but then again I haven’t had that many that I would say are. It does however have that amazing rich earthy flavor profile and an incredible nose. Plus as my first pu, it holds a warm fuzzy spot in my heart.

Well now I saw stick some fresh leaves in my gaiwan and retire with my book. Goodnight addicts.

4 grams leaf. 120 ml water. 10 to 60 second steeps. 205 F.

This is what gives pu-erh a bad name. I bought these really not expecting much but more a a gimic gift for some friends that I am trying to convert to tea. And they suceeded in being just that, a gimic. This is a perfect example of what many mini toucha’s are, dust that has been sweep up off the floor. These are shu so you can’t screw them up as easily as a sheng but still.

They are fun to introduce new people to tea but other than that really not worth your time.

205F. 1gram tea per 30ml. start with 15 sec infusions.

This Nam Lahn is really a very nice smooth afternoon tea, not one of the best teas Vietnam has to offer but a good example of what can come from their jungles.

Dried leaves: Somewhat unremarkable, very few tips and also it looked very twiggy which made me unduly nervous.

Wet leaves: Smell woody which is to be expected and I detect hints of chocolate other than that the scent is actually fairly tame.

Liquor: A beautiful and quite vibrant golden amber, the unadulterated clarity was the first thing I noticed, if their was such a thing as a mountain tea spring this is what it would look like. The taste did not disappoint, it is a ridiculously smooth tea, almost too smooth if that makes any sense. Not even a hint of astringency and the tea seemed to dance across the tongue while tickling the individual taste buds. There are some subtle chocolate notes, and if definitely has an underlying woody theme but that does not dominate, rather this tea strikes a perfect balance of sweet and smooth and earthy. Perhaps because of the geographical closeness to the Yunnan province or other factors unknown, but this Nam Lahn is remarkably similar to a nice Dian Hong.

In fact this tea reminds me of going out with your girlfriends twin sister, they look a lot alike, they smell, feel and taste similar. And the sister may even be smoother, and better polished, yet their isn’t the familiarity. In fact the sister may remind you to much of the original girlfriend to enjoy yourself.

Yes in my case while this is really a lovely tea it is to similar to a dian hong and lacks the soul that the Chinese black has. However if a tea from yunnan is a bit to harsh for you I encourage you to give its twin sister a whirl, you just may like it.

I am very excited now that I have discovered Vietnamese tea, and look forward to seeing what else this small country has to offer.

3g tea, 8 oz water, 4 min, 205F.

Had this yesterday, and it was really lovely. It wasn’t the usual green tea blend, that’s for sure. I could see the little white chocolate bits in the tea, and there were quite a few of them, but it just added to the flavour of the blend and didn’t really stand out/distract like I usually feel regular chocolate does in a tea blend. I didn’t get any marshmallow notes from it, per se, but overall the vanilla/white chocolate just smoothed out the green tea flavour and it was a nicely balanced, slightly sweet cup of tea. Glad I got a couple of ounces of this! I am not normally a huge green tea fan so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

My sister gave me the rest of her bag of this blend, and I didn’t know what to expect, having never had pu-erh. I followed the recommendations on the bag to brew only 2-3 minutes, and it turned out very light. The spices are noticeable but not as strong as I’d like so next time I will definitely steep it longer. Overall, I like it quite a bit, but I’m still curious about what pu-erh actually tastes like since I don’t feel like I can tell here with the added spices.

This is another new-to-me-blend from my recent trip to Seattle, and for some reason I decided to only buy an ounce of it. I was trying to restrain myself a bit, but after tasting it I think I should’ve gone with 2 oz.

I feel like I’m fairly predictable when it comes to coconut (especially in tea)… I love it. This is a really smooth, unsweet black blend with lovely cornflowers and an obvious coconut note. It’s really nicely balanced, though, so there’s not too much coconut (ah ha ha, as if there is such a thing) overpowering the whole blend. I steeped it a minute longer than I meant to, and it didn’t even start to get bitter. Next time I will definitely steep it closer to 3 minutes (in a small teacup) because I think it would be really great when brewed a bit more delicately.

Lovely!

I bought a bunch of tea from Remedy Teas on a recent trip to Seattle (and drank a lot while I was there!), so I’ll probably be posting a lot of reviews in the next few days. Remedy Teas has a wall of little test tubes filled with each blend so you can smell them and see the leaves, which I really like. I went in there with a “wish list” and ended up not really being interested in a couple I’d thought I’d like, and buying some that weren’t even on my radar before.

Back to Black Joy, though, this blend intrigued me because of the peppery notes and clove. There is something very slightly sweet in the background but it’s just a nice black blend with a tiny bit of pepper. I didn’t use much for my first cup because I wasn’t sure how peppery it would be, so it actually brewed a bit weak for my taste. I’ll use more of a heaping teaspoon next time (I don’t really think I want to brew it too much longer than 4 minutes though).

Overall, it wasn’t quite as “special” as I was hoping for but it’s a different blend and I love black tea so I think it’ll make a nice morning/afternoon tea. I’ll have more thoughts next time I try it, but on to the other new ones first!

Perhaps your individual who thought the “cold war unicorn play set” was a good idea, or maybe you lean more along the lines of thinking kids should have the “cat acupuncture model” or maybe you went out and bought an iPad. If you fit into one of the above categories then you too probably thought Brown Rice Tea was a good idea.

But don’t feel bad who of us at one time or another hasn’t been duped by a wily sales man selling popcorn tea? But whats not to love about Genmaicha you ask? Well if cheap and inferior Sencha leaves paired with toasted brown rice that has a flavor reminiscent of Chex cereal is your cup of tea then you should promptly disregard this review and your self esteem and run out to buy several kilograms. However if you don’t have the overwhelming urge to drink Chex cereal, and who of us hasn’t at times, then I suggest skipping this one.

In all fairness and seriousness however there is something special about drinking this tea. As the old wise tell relates, this tea was developed by poor peasants who didn’t have enough money for tea, therefore in order to stretch their meager supply they cut it with rice, therefore it become a kind of “peoples tea”. Nowadays its more of a novelty, and of course as such not the cheap tea it was developed to be. However while slightly more expensive then cheap green tea it still does come with a low price tag.

As far as Remedy’s Brown Rice Tea is concerned there is nothing to complain about, you can expect a rather fine representation of Genmaicha.

So if are trying you recreate what it would be like to be a poor Japanese peasant without enough money to buy tea, then you should probably get off the internet, or want to impress your friends on how authentic you are by drinking cereal flavored tea then buy a couple ounces. But after that please do me a favor and have a cup of long stemed Sencha or a nice Gyokuro to cleanse your palate.

Side note if you insist on drinking Genmaicha, look into Matcha-iri genmaicha, I personally haven’t tried it but it intrigues me.

In a world where men are men, woman are men and little girls are FBI agents its nice to have something to count on. While this is not the best Yunnan there is, it will always be in my cupboard because its reliable. From time to time your car won’t start, your lights won’t work and your mom will call down evil upon you. But this tea will always be there ready to step in when life lets you down. If only one of Job’s three friends would have offered him a cup of Yunnan Red.

A relatively forgiving cup of tea, and by relatively I mean providing your not a complete moron and had to Google Yunnan to know what it is, then you should have no problem creating a cup that will sooth the nerves of a balloon in a knitting shop.

This Yunnan is a fairly bold tea, with a mildly astringent middle and a silky buttery after taste. Which when run over your palette creates a very smooth tea. Slightly sweet to compliment the earthy nature of Yunnan’s.

You know your loud obnoxious Uncle Jack that doesn’t care what anyone thinks and just does what he wants as to proudly exclaim this is who I am and you can piss off? Well this tea is nothing like him, its more like your Grandpa Stan, he may not be loud, showy and flashy, he is always there for you. And after basking in his quiet strength and spending a little relaxing one on one time with him you feel ready to face the world that called you a pansy and lit your underwear on fire today.

Tasting Notes: 2.5 grams, 4 min, 212F water, 1 infusion (if you trying to infuse it a second time snakes will grow in your belly)

Now this is the kind of pu-erh I love.

The taste of this tea is composed of a really complex web of earthy flavors. It reminds me of being in the forest after is rains. It’s always tough to unravel the flavors, but I get a peat-iness, a weakly smokiness, and a underlying thread of umami.

It brews up to this rich maroon color. I’ve basically been tossing the first infusion that I steep for maybe 30 seconds. Then I usually have 3 good steeps left that I do for 2 min, 4 min, and 6 min respectively.