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This tea really grew on me as worked my way through the sample packets. The balance of strawberry and oolong is just perfect, and it’s a very inoffensive green oolong with no floral grossness. I will definitely be repurchasing this one with my next TeaVivre order, whenever that is. Yum!

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It’s been a long time since I’ve had this one. I pulled it out of the cupboard so I could send a sample to Dinosara, and I ended up only having one serving’s worth left over, so I figured I might as well sip it down!

Yummy rich sweet potato and wheat bread, om nom nom. Gotta love those full-bud Yunnans! :D

I purchased this from a stash sale quite a few weeks ago (I don’t remember whose sale it was). Not sure what I was thinking, since I haven’t really liked milk oolong or green oolong in general in the past. So it’s been sitting around, taking up one of my tins for some time now. I decided I might as well try it before I automatically move it to the rehoming box. The leaves are tightly rolled and in a variety of sizes, and the color is somewhere in the green/yellow/brown spectrum. Dry scent is grassy and vegetal with sweetened condensed milk and peaches. I brewed about 1.5 teaspoons of leaf for 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

The brewed aroma is pretty much what I’d expect from this type of oolong – buttery vegetal green with cream and some peach notes. And the taste is pretty much along those lines, too. I do appreciate that there’s not really much floral here, even in the aftertaste. It is definitely too light in flavor for my tastes. I will say that this tea tastes creamier and more milky than any other milk oolong I’ve tried, so that’s nice. But it’s still a “no” for me. :)

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This was a sample from Stephanie, also known as “Lover of Dancongs”. I’ve been trying to get some more experience with these teas, so I requested this one in our recent swap. The leaves are beautiful – they’re very long and straight, and tightly twisted. Very dark in color. I asked Stephanie for her Western-style brewing parameters and I ended up doing 190 degree for 5 minutes.

Brewed aroma is very strongly apricot. And it’s a rather tart-smelling apricot! Yum. There’s also the ubiquitous roastiness and a bit of floral. Whoa, the taste! Very strong due to the long steep, and the stonefruit flavor is very strong and lovely. There’s also a darker dried fruit flavor, maybe prune or raisin. It’s roasty and there’s a bit of autumn leaf, but it’s in the background which is unusual in my experience. My only issue with this tea is that the floral element is fairly strong, and it almost borders on being soapy near the end. And that kind of prevents me from wanting to drink this again. Curse you, floral! Not rating because of the bias, lul. :D

This sample was provided for free in exchange for review. You can find this tea here: http://www.teasenz.com/da-hong-pao-oolong-tea#.U_ZTaPldXX8

I’m using the gong fu parameters suggested by boychik for this one. The dry leaves are large and loosely twisted. They look so brittle and fragile! Very dark in color, almost black. Dry scent is autumn leaves but there’s also a honey sweetness and dried fruits. I did a 10s rinse and then 10/10/15/15s steeps. The water was 200 degrees.

The brewed aroma was pretty similar across all steeps – mostly autumn leaves and roastiness with a touch of honey and sometimes fruit. I found that the flavor also didn’t seem to change much, except for one steep which was unexpectedly heavy on the earth and mineral tastes. The overall flavor was fairly roasty with that familiar dry leaf taste along with some sweet and somewhat floral honey notes. I also got some elements that reminded me of white tea – namely grain and hay flavors. There was some dried fruit that poked its head in once in a while, and a nice baked bread and creamy nut (cashew?) aftertaste.

Overall, this seems to be of good quality compared to other similar teas I’ve tried, but I am by no means an expert. I did enjoy the experience, but I think this genre of teas may not be for me. :P

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So I’m trying this new thing where I never add sweetener to teas unless they really need it and/or aren’t drinkable without. I figured I should try to shake my dependence on flavored teas being sweet and try to enjoy them more sans additions. Just because!

This one isn’t too bad unsweetened. It’s not as tart as I would expect considering it contains both hibiscus and rose hips. But overall, this is not a great tea either – it’s just kind of blah tasting and doesn’t have much of a flavor. There’s something kind of roasty about it, I guess it must be the green tea? Not sure.

I have two of these straws, I believe they came from TeaTiff originally. I guess I’d just forgotten I had them because this is the first time I’ve tried one. There is no English on the packet, so I read the Steepster description to find out how much water I was supposed to use. I mixed it up in a glass with 16 ounces of water. I must say, the powder did not want to dissolve easily – I often have the same problem with Crystal Light mixes and that sort of thing. It would probably work better if it was done in a water bottle so it could be shaken. Eventually, it dissolved, but there is definitely a little layer of sediment at the bottom of the glass that settles after you stop stirring it.

The flavor is actually quite good. It tastes similar to a mild sencha – vegetal and somewhat grassy but with a little bit of natural sweetness. I could definitely see myself drinking these straws if I had a busier lifestyle and was out running errands or going to school a lot. They would be very convenient!

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I think I’m just really picky when it comes to chocolate-flavored teas. I’ve only found one so far that I’ve really loved, and that’s Three Friends from Butiki. In all of the others I’ve tried, the chocolate flavoring is weird or it’s just thin and watery, like drinking a really watery hot chocolate. Not a fan.

That being said, the hazelnut is nice in here. Drinking this last cup with hazelnut coffee creamer, yums. :)

I bought this from someone’s stash sale (VariaTEA I think?). I’ve been sitting on it for a while now. The first time I tried to make some, it came out inexplicably bitter, and I was sort of afraid to try it again. So I tried it today with the same parameters and it came out with only a tiny bit of bitterness. Go figure. Anyway, the leaves are rather small and dark, and there are rose petals mixed in with them. It smells very strong and perfumey, with a sweet fruit element. I added some sugar to help tone done that little bit of bitterness.

This tea isn’t bad, considering I’m not the biggest fan of rose. The rose is definitely the most present flavor here, unfortunately. There’s some apple there too, and it’s a kind of tart green apple flavor. And there’s a bit of black tea taste, but it’s overall very submissive and mellow in the background. I thought this would be more similar to Fauchon’s apple tea, but this is more of a rose tea with a bit of apple, while that one is all apple.

Not going to rate this since I don’t like rose, but I would definitely recommend it for people who do. Into the rehoming box it goes.

I ordered a sample of this from TeaVivre during their 3rd Anniversary Sale, just because I was curious. I’ve been experimenting a little bit with oxidized and roasted oolongs lately, mostly due to my love of GTT’s Eastern Beauty. I haven’t really loved them so far, I find that they mostly taste like autumn leaves to me with a little bit of something else mixed in. But still, the curiosity has its way! These leaves are very large and brittle, and quite twisty. They’re very dark in color, and they’re closer to being grey than brown. Dry scent is autumn leaves with hay and some vegetal notes. I did a 2 minute steep at 200 degrees.

Brewed, it still smells quite leafy. There’s definitely a bit of bread there as well, along with some honey sweetness and lovely fruit notes. Hmm… I’m beginning to think these teas may not be for me. This one also tastes like dry autumn leaves, which I guess is because of the roasting done to it. There’s a little bit of bread or grain, along with an earthy wood flavor. I get a tad bit of fruit and some creaminess near the end and in the aftertaste, but I wish these were more present throughout the sip.

I find that this genre of teas tends to bore me a bit, if that makes sense? I’ll probably try this tea gong fu style as well, but I found that it tasted rather the same with the dancong I tried that way. I’ll still try it though, just to give it a chance!

Any recommendations on the best way to brew dancong and da hong pao teas would be lovely. :D