96 Tasting Notes
It smells like perfume, but in a good way!
There is something very delicate about this tea. It reminds me of David’s Orchid Oolong in the way that, once again, you can taste the flowers but they aren’t overpowering. I’m not a big fan of green tea, as I’ve said on more than one of these reviews, but I’m beginning to think that I’m just not a fan of BAD green tea, because this is just smooth and delicious.
It tastes like it was made with love.
Preparation
This tea smelled like discount, vanilla scented shampoo and tasted a bit like sweetened bathwater. I was really disappointed and completely unimpressed. It was stale and had a very weak flavour, even though I let the tea bag sit in the water the entire time.
I thought it was all right, but right after I finished it I had a cup of Twining’s Earl Grey and it reminded me what tea bags were supposed to taste like.
Preparation
Tetley always disappoints me. Every now and then I’ll try a new blend, but invariably I say ‘Bleah.’
Hee hee — love ‘sweetened bathwater.’
I feel exactly the same way! I mean, I think the first tea I had in my life was Tetley, so I always feel like I’m just becoming a bit of a snob if I don’t like it any more, but for real! This tea was terrible!
Tetley is incredibly popular here in Newfoundland, and I always feel like such a snot when I ask for tea as a restauarnt / cafe and immediately make sure it’s not Tetley. But there we go. Had a small pot of Twining’s bagged English Breakfast yesterday, but the water wasn’t boiling. AUGH! Quite hot, out of one of those hot water dispensers with the red handles, but not boiling. With black tea, boiling water makes all the difference. I’d already made my ‘Anything but Tetley’ fuss, so I held back on the water. I doubt they had a proper kettle anyway.
I would rather wait the three minutes for a kettle to boil than to just have hot water out of a dispenser. I think Tetley is a pretty popular brand in Canada, period. It’s always the one I come across. A lot of places here have a little bowl with a bunch of different brands stuck in it and let you choose…
Usually it’s a choice between Red Rose, Tetley, some green tea, but Stash or Twinings show up on occassion…
Three whole minutes, imagine that. :)
I dunno, part of the big change I;ve made in my life over the past year has been learning to slow down. Not gulp coffee for the sake of caffeine, but sip tea for the sake of the many nuances of tea. (I still drink coffee, just nowhere near as much as I used to.) Boiling the kettle, measuring the leaves, timing the steep — it’s all part of that general slowing down which, in the end, makes me more productive. The TeaFiend’s Paradox.
Red Rose is generally better than Tetley. Well, I like it better. And PG Tips better than both of them.
I’ve been hospitalized several times over the past ten years, and tea has often been a major comfort. However, the best you can get on a hospittal tray is warm water in a covered plastic mug with a Tetley bag tossed into a little caddy next to it. So one of the reasons I don’t care for Tetley is that it immediately brings smells and sounds of a hospital to mind.
My Dad has that with Jell-o. When he had his appendix out he had Jell-o in the hospital and he never ate it again, couldn’t stomach it. His operation was in the 1960s.
I had a lot of insomnia problems for years and years. Like Edward Norton in Fight Club insomnia problems, so I gave up coffee and switched to tea and it made all the difference in the world. I also realised that I never really liked coffee to begin with, I’d just been raised on Tim Hortons because my parents are addicts.
I like what you said about slowing down and appreciating the process of making tea. In a way, there is almost a ritual (or routine, if the word ‘ritual’ seems too spiritual) to preparing tea that involves the person making the tea moreso than coffee which is just…tossed in a machine and drunk. Tea seems more…personal?
More personal, more intimate. You can easily show love for another person by making them tea.
Now, I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, but I want to be honest when I say that I don’t really know much about green tea because I don’t really like it that much. I keep trying, but I always end up leaving half my cup filled and abandoned with whatever green tea blend I try.
But that changed tonight.
I tried some Taffy Terror with a little bit of organic sugar and was completely floored! All I can taste is the taffy. Honestly, it’s almost creamy! Not a flavour I would expect from a green tea at all.
If you’re a green-tea-skeptic like me I would really recommend this!
Preparation
Good to know. I’d been eyeballing that one. It’s available year-round under the name ‘Gunpowder Taffy,’ too.
Yes! It is, but I’ll be honest, I was a bit seduced by the Halloween themed label!
I hear that.
Have you ever tried green tea w/ jasmine before? That is the one blend that “sold” me on green tea. Wish I could send you a sample but I drank all of mine!
Ooo, is it really good? I think I’ll try it. Would DavidsTea’s Butterfly Jasmine be a good pick, do you think?
The one I tried was from the Tea Emporium (Imperial Jasmine). But David’s is probably the same thing.
Oh my … jasmine green tea is exquisite! But you also get what you pay for. There are what, 19 grades of quality? I wonder is jasmine flowers don’t have a slightly narcotic effect; after two cups, I start feeling happy and a bit giggly.
I’ve tried Stash’s basic one, ‘Jasmine Blossom’ — even in bags, it’s quite good. A local teashop here in St John’s sells some Dragon Jasmine Pearls that are just … oh, bliss. The teashop owner warned me I would not be able to go back to lesser grades after trying the Pearls, and she was right.
I just placed an order with DavidsTea right before reading this note. I’m glad I included this one. It sounds perfect for the Fall.
Delicious! I can really taste the flowers. A remarkable flavour in a tea. This tea changed what I think about oolong.
What sort of green teas did you not like? Just curious.
Not sure of the names, but just some generic loose leaf gunpower green teas, and the teas that I’ve gotten over the years in various restaurants or boxes of tea bags that I’ve bought whenever I’m reminded that green tea is supposed to be good for me…bland, vaguely fishy tasting green teas.
I know that at restaurants they can use the wrong water temperature (boiling, lol). Have you tried any loose leaf green tea that was gross?
One Gunpowder blend that I think my old roommate made, I remember it just because the leaves opened super big and were a pain to get out of my tea pot, but I’m thinking it might be a water temperature thing more than anything else.