Black Dragon Pearls

i enjoy black tea. this is another one i would get again

A kind friend gave me a bag of these for Christmas. She was so intrigued by them that I invited her over for tea and steeped a nice big pot. She seemed to enjoy it even though she’s more of a coffee drinker. She was surprised by the chocolate-y flavor of the tea and how well it paired with shortbread. Her child like joy over it made my day. Tea and cookies are indeed fabulous together! It was nice to sit and relax with a friend for a little while. Sometimes I get so caught up in the holiday hype that I forget to stop and enjoy the people in my life.

Another one from the generous Stephen Cook!
So, this one I expected to be a lot more earthy and stuff, instead of the Golden Monkey. But I’m really surprised by this one. It’s so light and smooth. It’s a little fruity, without a touch of earth or wood. I think I’d prefer if this tea were stronger, but it’s really not all that bad. Wouldn’t buy it, but it’s a cool looking tea and nice to try once! :P
Thanks again for the sample, Stephen Cook!

These mini gum ball-size pearls smell like cherry-chocolate.
Now being from Teavana, I’m not sure if that’s a storage issue or how the tea actually smells bc they have lots of flavored teas with strong essences there. I got this as a gift from Starbucks club so I didn’t care.
Used three pearls in my 4 ounce gaiwan and 200F water.
Did a good rinse on them to loosen them up a bit.
I have some pearls that look just like this from another tea company but they smell nothing like this so I think that these have been sitting next to a cherry-chocolate flavored something at Teavana. Still, I want it to taste like cherry-chocolate now.
Liquor is a light orange color and smells like the cherry-chocolate. The flavor is smoky, chocolatey with a hint of cherry.
With my second steeping, the pearls have really loosened up and revealed large twisty leaves. Liquor is a deeper auburn orange color now and smells more smoky with still that hint of chocolate-cherry but doesn’t quite taste like it. It’s more of just a scent. It tastes more on the smoky tobacco end. Tastes ok.
Did one more steeping and I think that three is all I would do on these in the gaiwan, because the flavor started being very one note in tobacco taste and just flat so I stopped there.

So I had a $15 Starbucks gift card that was sitting unused since I don’t drink coffee anymore. Yesterday was The first home game of the year for UCF, and my dad had gotten tickets, but had to work and couldn’t go. I’m a student so I get in for free, but my boyfriend needed a ticket, so it worked out perfectly. On the way to pick the tickets up from his house, I decided to stop at the Teavana by his house.

I’ve only had pearls like this one other time, and I knew I had to try these. I used 6 pearls in 8 oz of 205F water. 2,2.5,3,4 minute steeps.

First steep is medium reddish brown. Flavor is a little malty, a little chocolatey, and a little honey. The second steep is darker in color. The flavor is also a bit darker. Darker honeyed, cocoa, malty, and a touch smokey at the end of the sip.

I combined the third and forth steeps. They are weaker than the second steep, more like honey, less like chocolate. And more smoke appears, especially as it cools down. Over all, not a bad tea, but still over priced.

I enjoyed every sip of my large glass of Teavana Black Dragon Pearls. Once again, it is becoming clear that the single-origin teas are carefully “curated” by this company. (There I go using the fantastically fashionable but ultimately vacuous mot du jour…)

Apparently, ordering the holiday collection on clearance was not the best way to approach this company’s wares. I disliked nearly everything in that set, and some of the blends achieved the distinction of being not just meh but positively repellent. If you have not tried the “chunks o’ food” line, and you are a true tea aficionado, I encourage you to focus only on the single-origin teas (and I mean TEAS) chez Teavana. The chunk o’ food blends are best avoided, in my view, along with the pushy sales associates. I have only met a couple SAs who did not make me want to run full speed out of the store. So my best advice is: order single-origin teas online, preferably on sale!

Back to Black Dragon Pearls. Gosh this was good. Smooth, creamy, deep and naturally sweet with a bittersweet chocolate finish. I cannot wait to reinfuse these beautiful leaves once again! The pearls are quite large, so for three grams I used only five balls in a 10 ounce glass. I hate to say this, but as they began to unravel they looked a bit like turds—this coming from someone who cared for a neuropathic cat (HRH Emperor Oliver) who required hands-on bathroom assistance at least twice a day during the final years of his life. May He rest in peace:

http://salondeparfum-sherapop.blogspot.com/2013/09/rip-hrh-emperor-oliver.html

This tea is very good!

(Blazing New Rating #38)

So I used to work with a friend that loved tea almost as much as I do, and we would share teas and talk about them all the time. Unfortunately, she was just a term and a lady that used to work in my office 6 years ago came back and kicked her out of her position (stupid government jobs). It ended up being a great thing because I work better with this new lady and she is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. And somehow I have gotten her obsessed with tea as well! We made a Butiki order together the other week and she was even online shopping for teas on her own, and unfortunately for her, she found Teavana online and made an order before I was able to tell her any of my horror stories about Teavana. She ended up hating most of her teas and she has 100g+ of some of them!

So this was one of the ones she purchased and it was REALLY good! It was just such a great strait black tea, malty and delicious! I think I might pick some up from the store when I go down to Vancouver next month. I guess it’s just Teavana blends that I don’t like!

My my my its been a long while since I’ve been on here. Still an avid tea drinker, but not so much a social networker……Mmmmm, this is so smooth just as other have described. I put about 6 pearls in my 16oz perfecta maker, but to make things a bit different, I added 1tsp of honeybush vanilla. No german rock sugar like I’m used to but a teaspoon of white honey. This is almost too smooth. But is definitely appreciated on a stressful day as today.

Good. Not great. Might try again in the future, but not top of the list.

I really enjoy this tea first thing in the morning with a little bit of table sugar added to it.