Ailaoshan Black Tea

I love this review Mandy…me and Aila have a very special relationship as you may or may not know :-)
If you like them, try eating fresh cherries with it….divine!!

Oh I can’t help but notice all of your favorite little tea babies. You’re definitely one of the reasons I have such a hard time not placing more orders for more tea!

I really need to get some cherries! Seeing you mention them all the time has got me craving some!

Heehee!!

Cherries are the best. EVER. :)

It is cherry season…..

I have the same relationship with straight blacks, although not because I thought of McD’s sweet tea…but I have avoided them, but I’m working slowly on changing that. Mostly because people write all these amazing tasting notes.

Oh my gosh, you need to introduce those McDs iced tea fans to actual tea!!

WHOOHOO!! sounds fun!

Are you just watching or participating? Have fun!!

Have fun!

I came in 3rd place

Woot! Nicely done :)

What is a ticket to ride tourney?

It’s a board game :)

Ahhh:) fun!

Hey I played that one for the first time just a couple of weeks ago! Nice!

They are both registered Teacret Agents. That is all I can say on that subject, the rest is entirely confidential :P

Laughing extremely hard

I KNEW it! I look forward to the day when I am recruited into the Teacret Society as a Teacret Agent. Wait, I mean, no. Not interested. You keep your Teacret Societies to yourselves. wink wink

All these people blaming my totally innocent self for their tea addictions. TeaTiff blamed me for her Golden Monkey problem this morning too.

I call shenanigans on your innocent act! :p

In all seriousness, I think we all love you and TTF and your passion for awesome tea. My bank account doesn’t appreciate it, but I know I do. :)

You two make excellent Teacret Agents. I hope you’re well-paid! With extra tea hazard pay!

Well the thing is there is awesome all over the place. The one thing you won’t ever see is me being passionate about tea that isn’t spectacular IMO. So whether it’s this or the Golden Monkey or Special Dark or Golden Orchid or Wee Snaily Yums (I mean Golden Snail) or Wild Monk or Laoshan Black (etc, etc, etc) I will assault you with superlatives – but I will also share amazing tea :D

No one will ever accuse you of being blasé about tea while I am around! Or else!

Hahaha! Too bad i missed this post this morning :-)
Oh, this is so hilarious.

Thank god me and MzPriss have some kind of credibility here…at least I’d like to think we do:-) (we’ve both been steepster members for 3 and more years)

I have tried and seen many companies through the years, I’ve also been approached by a few to get “involved” with them. I can tell you that WP is at the top right now with just a few other places I order from, and I would NEVER say this if he was paying me to say it. I buy and pay my tea (except for the occasional teacret samples:-)) and the day I try one of his tea I DON’T like, I will not be afraid to say so (but really, I doubt that this will ever happen!!)

Like MzPriss said, if the passion isn’t au rendez-vous, than you will never read a raving review from me.

(Sarsonator, I will strongly recommend your recruitment!!! You seem to be teacret worthy…or i never said that…wink, wink,)

I think it’s wonderful that you give totally honest opinions. And I know they are honest because when I later try those teas, they’re just as amazing as you said they would be!!!

Oh and thanks so much, TTF!!! I really want to learn the teacret handshake! :p

Haha! Will be working on that :-)
And I forgot to say, I’m really glad you liked the tea…I start my day with this one almost every morning!

I can see why! It’s really impressive. I may try this with a little maple syrup next time. Somehow I think it might be good that way!

Maple syrup gets the seal of approval in EVERYTHING!!

Yes, I have noticed that it seems to be the holy elixir of steepster! I assume that it is the official sweetener of the teacret society.

I call maple syrup in tea “Terri-style”

Does that mean I get to be a teacret agent too? ;)

Absolutely. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if a tea technique is named after you, you won’t even need to do the interview portion. Lucky!

Teacret Terri-style

I didn’t go mad over it either, though I did enjoy it! ’Twas no Golden Orchid though. Nor north winds.

It just makes me sad when I feel like I’m somehow not getting the full potential. Maybe my concept of chocolate is just too ingrained in sweetness, I don’t know. :/

I’ve noticed that the flavor of this tea changes DRAMATICALLY based on the quality of water you’re using. What kind of water are you using?

Brenden, that’s a good idea. I generally just use tap water, but I’ve never had issues before. I can definitely try this one again tomorrow using bottled water and see if that makes the difference. I really want to love it! :(

I know how that goes. I feel the same with about Laoshan Black. haha.

I have also noticed that sometimes when I have this tea, I don’t get any of the notes either. To me, it seems that this tea needs everything to be just right (mood, water, etc) for the best taste. I’d also recommend drinking this outdoors. :)

(Cameron – I’m probably going to get pelted too, but sometimes I find that a lower steep temp and long steep time will bring out the chocolate notes in back tea – I haven’t actually tried THIS ONE – but when I’m having problems “finding” the chocolate, I try about 85-90 for 5-6 minutes. If the bottled water doesn’t help, that would be my suggestion – or at least that’s what I would do….) Good Luck – hope you find steeping parameters that work for you….

Thanks for the helpful advice, everyone! I’ll be sure to try this one again in the morning and see if I can’t get it to taste like chocolate somehow. You’ve definitely cheered me up at least. :)

:) You might also have luck trying to find the salted caramel and going from there. Search for the salt and then for the cocoa :P

Cameron, nothing to feel bad about. You just need to find your sweet spot, like everybody said, try different ways. And maybe it just won’t work for you, it happens.

For me personally, the water makes a huge difference, I never use tap. I agree with Dexter about the lower temp. I’ve had it almost every morning for the last couple of weeks and my favourite way to brew is 5 min at 190F. The first thing I smell and taste is salted caramel, and it’s very sweet. The cocoa notes are there but not as dominant, at least not to me. I think everyone gave good advices, good luck on your next attempt :-)

Cameron, if it makes you feel better no chocolate for me either. It’s more fruity to me, even grapes or longan,plums. Let’s blame it on NY tap water which is very good by all reports. We have perfect alkali

I’m gonna chime in on water. Next week I’ll be going to visit my folks in FL, & although I usually avoid bottled water, I’ll go through a case or 2 while I’m there, because the tap water is so disgusting to taste & smell, plus it makes me swell up. I’m sorry to say this, but most bottled waters also suck, I never feel hydrated by it, & it tends to make tea taste flat, but better than having them taste like sulphur.

Terri you know FL water is bad when you go on a cruise and the water on the ship does wonders for your poor torchered hair. The first night I didn’t understand why my hair suddenly felt so much softer. I’ve also had family from New York complain about the water in Florida ruining their hair. As far as bottled water, I so agree. I can’t stand Dasani, especially. Zephyrhills is pretty decent though.

CameronB I found that with some teas with cocoa notes, loudly slurping a sip almost like your gargling it helps to draw out the cocoa note. This sort of aerates the tea and something about causing molecules going up the back of the nasal canal and improving the aroma and flavor or something. I don’t know I read something about it once a while back and it seems to help me.

I don’t think you’ll get pelted with anything. You like what you like and nothing tastes the same to anyone as it does to anyone else. Play around with it and see, but if you don’t love it in the end, you just don’t love it – not a thing in the world wrong with that. I feel the same way about several teas that get lots of rave reviews. There’s lots of tea out there to love :)

I completely agree with MzPriss. I have my favorites and they seem to be hit or miss with Steepster favorites. No pelting with tomatoes ever on here. For instance LB and Golden Fleece… I can’t rave over these like others can, but my favorites seem to be hit or miss with others. I really like this tea but I didn’t get chocolate out of it at all, it was more of a creamy malty taste for me and it seemed to be a mood tea for me. The first time I had it, it was eh, the second time it was really good. We will see what the third time brings.

Great Tea!!!

We are morning tea twins today :)

Yay tea twins! Too bad we couldn’t have a Sunday morning tea party

We can, in the future :)

I got a sample of this finally! dances around can’t wait to try!

We can totally have a Sunday morning tea party. I may have to insist on chocolate croissants though * dies Sarsy’s eyes *

Mmmmm croissants.

I’m down for a sunday morning tea party with chocolate croissants! Oh, twist my arm :-P

HIDES. dang! There is just no reason NOT to have a Sunday morning tea party.

Oh the Cookies were Pilsbury Melts Smores, Like chocolate chip cookiieswith a white sweet creamy melted filling and some chocolate drizzle to go on top. they were not bad, really good actually but I couldn’t even eat a whole 2 of them because of the sweetness. I guess too much a a Good thing is a Bad thing sometimes.

Haven’t tried those but based on how you described them, I can see how they would be mega sweet!

grats on hitting 400!

Yay 400! Another one I may consider sending you haha!

Yay 400! :)

Thanks guys!

Courtney you didn’t like it?

I did, just I can’t decide if I like enough to keep it.

Aw. I guess the question is do you dislike it enough to get rid of it?

Guess i really need to place a WP order soooooon…