New Tasting Notes
Yum. The description is right about the buttery mouth feel. This is some very light, delicate tea. I think I’m getting a bit of honey in the aftertaste, but it’s hard to tell for sure. The overall taste is so simple and harmonious.
As it cools down, I’m tasting a hint of some sort of very light fruit. This is probably my favorite unflavored white tea.
Grossness. Hot hibisicus sourness that completely masks the flavor of green tea. Was a bit better when it cooled down and I added Splenda and honey. Otherwise, I won’t bother with this tea.
I can’t figure out why so many blenders insist on messing up fruit flavors with hibiscus. If I wanted a floral tea, I’d get it.
Seriously! I hate hibiscus. Actually, I don’t mind it in small quantities in fruit teas that I expect to be tangy, but the two teas I tried from Zhena’s said green tea on it, and the hibiscus totally ruins the flavor! UGH!!!
I forgot to add, I understand adding hibiscus to tangy fruit teas, like cranberry or raspberry or something, but in peach or kiwi? Those are not tangy flavors, just sweet ones! Grr.
Just like the other reviewers are posting, this tea tastes just like buttered cinnamon raisin toast! I drink mine just plain and hot. My first cup was a little over-steeped, but the second cup was perfect. The cup itself is wonderfully aromatic, only making the experience better. I highly recommend this if you like flavored black teas!
Preparation
My first MILK OOLONG.
Dun dun dun!
Actually, more of a wheeeee!
I am so super-caffeinated right now. Seriously. BWAHAAAA.
Anyway, I bought this at the Coffee & Tea Festival (for those that didn’t read, I did a huge write-up of the funness: http://steepster.com/teaplz/posts/29743 and yay!) from SerendipiTea on a bit discount. They were so nice at the booth! I didn’t taste this one there, but I couldn’t resist a milk oolong for $9 (special price for the festival) that wasn’t artificially flavored.
Anyway, the leaves are very pretty, green nubby things. Very rolled oolong. The smell coming off of the leaves isn’t very special. A bit green/floral maybe? But nothing super-interesting.
Anyway, the packaging didn’t have any steeping parameters, so I went by what other people have done on other milk oolongs on Steepster. I only did 1 tsp of this in 8 oz. I’ll have to try SerendipiTea’s recommendation on their website when I can… I’ve got 4 oz. of this, so there’s plenty to play around with!
Anyway, the infusion steeps up to a beautiful creamy yellow color that makes me want to eat it all up. And the smell. Homygawd can we talk about the aroma here for a second. Deliciously buttery and creamy and floral and wonderful. Seriously heavenly.
The taste… mmmmm. So light, but packed full of flavor! It’s mostly a floral flavor, very soft but assertive and inviting. Sort of light a tight hug. And then there’s this wonderful milky/creamy note that lingers on the tongue for a bit, enveloped in the floralness. It’s really smooth and nice and mmmmm. It’s definitely more floral than I thought it would be, but not in a rose-like way. More of in a general pollen-y way.
It tastes like spring in a cup, which is awesome, because I’m just about ready to see it coming. I’m sick of this snow.
My mom did not get this tea. She said it smelled like cabbage. WAT. And she said it tasted gross. Whatever, Mom. You are wrong about this.
Anyway, I’m off to make a second steep!
Annnnd the Second Steep (4:00, 190 degrees) was pretty much a success! It was definitely not as wonderful as the first cup, but…
Can I pause for a second to talk about how absolutely gorgeous the leaves are when unfurled? Beautiful. They’re some of the broadest leaves I’ve seen in any tea. SerendipiTea, I love your quality. I love that you’re local. You are awesome.
The color was a bit darker than before, with some rogue sediment on the bottom. At peak, the taste here was kind of “hai, I don’t want to be made into tea anymore.” Once it cooled down a bit, the tea got into more of a happy groove. The milkiness is still there, but it’s a bit subdued. The floral tastes are still very much in the forefront of the flavor. It still tastes pretty damn awesome, and the cup is as fragrant as the first.
YUM! Maybe I’ll do a third steep, we shall see…
Preparation
I sympathise on the issue of your mother. Mine thought my Tie Guan Yin, favourite oolong of ALL TIME was stinky…
Oh dear – I am a mom and have a very verbal mother, too, so I can see both points of view! When Mom says something, I am so rolling my eyes, but when I say something, I am right and my kids better listen to me … haha!
But this tea smells nothing like cabbage! :( It smells like creamy buttery notes with flowers! Silly mommeh.
Aww, Angry Body, that stinks. I’m sure it smelled wonderful!
And Lauren, we’ll see what happens when I have kids! Hehe, I’m sure I’ll be just like my mom. Which is sort of a scary thought.
In other news, second steepage is up!
My mom did not get this tea. She said it smelled like cabbage. WAT. And she said it tasted gross. Whatever, Mom. You are wrong about this. LOL Did you show her this?
I admit the one thing I don’t need in the pantry is more tea. Actually I think filling it with more food would be most appropriate. But its a guilty pleasure, and as I was visiting a friend in Lincoln today, I braved my shyness of entering the mecca of tea and went inside (well I couldn’t really chicken out since Jo was the one opening the door).
Lovely place with tea cannisters lining the walls and the most amazing tea pots known to the human eye. The gentleman working behind the counter was fab (esp. when I asked if its ok to smell the tea ;) ). He opened all the cannisters that had caught my fancy and I wandered away tea dazed with 3 news teas to try.
First is the Cherry Banana. Jo thought I was kidding about this being a tea flavor. I don’t kid. Well not about cool sounding teas. And this one had piqued my interest from the start. The base is black tea, so rest assured that it isn’t another mouth rotting sweet tea (which to be honest if you liquized candy floss, I could probably drink it…maybe even add sugar to it) but the gentleman did defend some sugar usage, if only to accentuate the natural sweetness of the fruit.
Cherry Banana Black Tea.
Oh, I feel too amateur to really review this tea the way it should be. Its mellow and full bodied and has a sweetness from the cherry/banana pieces that astound the mind. I think it actually blew my mind and reconstructed it from the bottom back up again.
Needless to say, damn good tea. :)
Valentine’s again! I smell it a lot when the leaf was dry. After I had steeped it, the chocolate and coconut smell and taste were overwhelming, in a good way. I added milk and sugar, which helped calm the mixture. I usually am not a fan of coconut tea, but this one was done very well. The cinnamon added a touch of spice. Valentine’s didn’t stand out so much to me, but there was a slight strawberry aftertaste, which was tasty.
Overall, this is my favorite Twilight SB so far. :) My fav coconut blend!
Preparation
Tea bag version. Smells really good. Very caramel-y and rich smelling. I poured the water into my cup and let it sit for however long it took me to refill the kettle and take the cup to my desk, then I put the bag in the cooled water. Not sure on the exact temperature so I’m guessing. I did realize though that I probably need to descale my electric kettle here at work. Yuck.
Anyway, decreasing the steep time and temp makes the tea less biting in this. It’s more of an accent on the caramel. It’s not quite caramel chew but close – more like unsweetened caramel chew blended 50/50 with tea. There is a burnt caramel aftertaste that is a little bitter but in a nice way. I could see this easily being a caramel and tea flavored chew.
Overall very enjoyable and supereasy with the whole tea bag thing – it works out very nicely for work (though every time I say ‘tea bag’ I think not so tea-related things… I blame my husband’s old fraternity). I might have to get more Lupicia bagged teas (ah, much better) for a work stash.
ETA: Second steep at 5:00 and it’s pretty light. The taste is still consistent with the first steep but it is much lighter in color and flavor. I was tempted to do it another minute but I’d rather have it light than bitter. But the first steep was really quite nice so I’ve upped the rating a bit. At a lower temp and shorter steep time, this is a tea I’d buy again.
Preparation
Okay… comment fail.
The comment I was trying to make was that I love Lupicia’s bags. That’s sounds weird, but I’m leaving it.
Okay, I snorted when reading that, especially considering where ‘tea bag’ makes my mind go. Hehe! But yes, they have great bags. (I need to stop laughing).
Call them tea sachets – you will think of…lingerie drawers. Sigh. It all leads back to sex in some way, doesn’t it!
Freud certainly thought so. But then, he was fond of a good cigar.
For some reason this was not as strong as I had expected it to be. Perhaps it has been touched by air for quite some time. I’m not sure. But it smells spicy. The taste is of a very mild sweet and spice, just like the name. It tastes almost like regular black tea with a hint of spices. It is a comfort tea, and it is great for cozy-ing up at home during a winter storm. I didn’t try it with sugar or milk, which is great! This tea isn’t bitter. Overall a good cuppa.
Preparation
This is another tea-in-the-work-kitchen experiment. At least it lives up to expectation. A good solid gunpowder! Slightly smoky. I think I brewed it a little on the hot side, I generally like my greens done with water that’s not quite so hot, but being fussy about water temperature at work is fussier than I usually feel like dealing with. It survived the hot-hot water so hoorah!
Preparation
This is very different from other golden Yunnans I’ve had. The leaves are a lot smaller and darker. The tea brews up much darker as well – a deep reddish brown. The smell is woodsy and honeysuckle. The taste is oak and dark chocolate. Moderately bitter without any noticeable sweetness. The astringency is much more pronounced than other Yunnans.
Preparation
Hm.
Hm…..
So. The dry leaf smells a little artificial and like they added cough syrup to the base. But, as we know, the smell and the taste are often very different.
But I dunno.. I’m still deciding if this tastes like cough syrup or not. I think if my cough syrup tasted like this, I’d really like the syrup. But.. that’s really not a reccomendation for a tea, is it? For me, it’s also getting a little more chemical and artifical as it cools down.
Yeah, I don’t really like this.
Ah well. Worth giving it’s a shot.
Preparation
Adagio’s flavored blacks never impressed me, accept for Strawberry.
Sadness. I agree w/ Erin about Adagio’s blacks…the only ones that have ended up okay for me were Caramel and Cream, and then maybe Strawberry, Mango, and Valentines…
are their flavored teas flavored with artificial flavors or actual bits and pieces of fruit herbs and stuff? Most of the pictures looked like just black tea leaves, is that how many companies do it?
So I brought the water temp down and lengthened the steep time a bit and all I can say is WOW! It’s like a whole new tea. With just those few small changes, this has gone from ho-hum tea to the apple tea that I would create if I had the skill to.
The apple flavor is crisp but not overwhelming, with just a touch of sourness to bite your tongue. It also has a pleasant sweetness that’s not too sugary, and a spicy aroma that’s inviting and invigorating.
In short: When made correctly, this tea is a winner!
Preparation
Another new tea. I hoped to like this one as much as I liked White Blueberry by Adagio, but something about this doesn’t thrill me. It is good, tasty, and fruity, but it also just tastes slightly… off. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Even though the taste wasn’t mind-blowing, the color of the tea was! It was by far the most beautiful tea I have seen to date. Check it out:
looks like white zin!
Looks gorgeous – wait, I think I have this tea in my cupboard and now, I am going to have some because your photo is so enticing.
i was looking for the same thing and thought the same thing after trying it. It’s good but not what I was looking for.
this sounds.. really good.
I can’t wait – I just ordered some (darn today’s special!)