Cameron B. select Send Message

The first of my three free samples from Nina’s Paris. Thanks to Laurent and Dorian for sending these my way! :) These samples came in the most adorably tiny zipper bags… I knew I wanted to try one of the zodiac rooibos blends and this one seemed like it was well-liked on Steepster. My sample didn’t have any dried strawberry pieces in it, which makes sense because it’s a small amount. It just looks like plain rooibos. The smell is delicious though! There’s a very tart, bright strawberry scent coupled with a sweet, candylike strawberry scent, in addition to sumptuous vanilla and cream aromas. My sample doesn’t really have enough for two cups, but I didn’t want to risk overleafing when I only get to try this once, so I didn’t use the whole thing. I used a slightly heaping teaspoon and brewed it for 5 minutes.

The brewed tea smells quite lovely. There’s a very juicy strawberry scent – like natural strawberry flavor that has been pumped up with a bit of artificial candy flavor. I also get vanilla and a bit of rooibos in the background. Tasting this, the strawberry flavoring reminds me of Kusmi’s Strawberry Green. It’s a somewhat “jammy” strawberry flavor, meaning it tastes deep and almost cooked with a natural sweetness. Although I don’t really get cream from this, the vanilla is a nice substitute and produces a similar effect. Then there’s that tart, interesting strawberry aftertaste, which is exactly the same as in the aforementioned Kusmi tea.

I very much enjoyed this tea, being a liker of red rooibos and strawberry things in general. I feel like milk would go well, but I was afraid it would overpower the flavors. I’m really interested in trying all of the Nina’s zodiac teas, and I wish they offered a sampler… As it is, I’ll probably just buy one of them, then when I drink it all replace it with another, and so on. :P

Oh, the infamous Tower of London, much beloved around these parts. I had high hopes for this one after hearing its praise sung in many a tasting note. The dry leaf pretty much looks like a “generic” black tea – very dark, short, slightly twisty leaves. However, the smell is not at all generic. It’s a powerful and tart-smelling combination of peach, vanilla, and bergamot. I actually brewed this twice.

The first time, I did a teaspoon for 4 minutes (which was the average steep time according to Steepster). It came out quite bitter and I couldn’t finish the cup, even with sugar. I’ve had the exact same problem with Paris before.

The second time, I did a 5 minute steep instead (which seemed to solve the problem in the past). It came out much better at these parameters. It has a sweet and tantalizing aroma with a lot of vanilla, accented by peach, plum, and honey fragrances. The taste is similar but a bit more complex. The vanilla hits my tongue first, followed by the bergamot, then a jumble of peaches and dark sweet cherries. Finally, the honey comes in at the end, right before a slightly unpleasant bitterness. Not sure what I’m doing wrong there. I found this tea to be quite similar to Paris, perhaps with a touch more bergamot and with a slightly brighter fruit flavor compared to Paris’s more jammy one. A tasty tea with a bit of sugar added.

First Chinese green tea! I’m mostly focusing on trying Japanese greens right now, but I figured I’d grab a sample of this and a dragonwell from H&S just the same. The dry leaf is quite distinctive. The leaves are formed into very dark olive green pellets. These pellets are very unevenly rolled – sort of like a smaller version of green oolong. They smell chiefly of alfalfa – similar to hay but with a greener and grassier tinge. H&S suggested 3 minutes in general for Chinese green teas, so I figured I’d give that a shot.

The brewed tea’s aroma is quite vegetal, but also dry-smelling. It reminds me of dried autumn leaves. This dry leafy scent carries over into the taste as well. I can also taste the alfalfa that I detected in the dry leaf. There’s definitely a very subtle and pleasant smokiness alongside a nice grounding earthy note. This tea leaves a strange dusty feeling in my mouth, similar to the houjicha I recently tried. I’m unsure if this suggests that I should be rinsing these teas beforehand or if it’s just an element of the taste.

I haven’t tried gunpowder before on my own, but I suspect this is the green tea that I’ve had in Chinese buffets before. It tastes very similar if my memory is correct. I could see this making a good everyday tea.

The first tea to try from my Harney & Sons order! :D They had a few different sencha teas, I had to get this one because of the name. I know, that’s not really a good selection method, but too bad! :D The leaves look similar to the other senchas I’ve tried – very thin, dark green leaves about three-quarters of an inch long at most. This tea has a powerful smell! It has the same strong sweet and grassy/vegetal scent, but for some reason it conjures up images of mango for me. I brewed it for 1 minute.

The aroma is very sencha-y – steamed spinach and grass with some butternut squash. My boyfriend claimed it reminded him of some form of meat stew (what?). This tea tastes quite similar to Den’s Sencha Shin-ryoku that I tried a few days ago. On Harney’s website, it says that this is a medium-steamed sencha. The taste is sweet, strong steamed spinach melded with squash and a slight grassiness. The flavor here is quite deep. It has a buttery spinach aftertaste that lingers for a long time, and is my favorite part of this tea. Quite tasty. And hooray, Steepster added “butternut squash” to the flavor list after I emailed them! :)

This is actually my third tea of the day. I also drank the second half of my S’mores sample from Ost and then a second steeping of Golden Orchid (I had the first steeping last night, I shared it with my boyfriend, who isn’t a tea drinker but he was excited at the notion of chocolate tea). So I brewed this up for four minutes. I usually do 3, but I knew I would add milk so I figured a bit stronger would be good. I then added some sweetened condensed milk (oh boychik…). It was still too hot to drink so I went downstairs to check the mail, hopeful that I would have some new samples to try. Well, no samples, but I did get my July issue of Bon Appetit! I love food magazines!

Needless to say, this tea is delicious with the condensed milk. It’s amazingly creamy and delicious but I can still taste a lot of blueberry. It’s like blueberries swimming in sweetened cream! Yum! If anyone reading this has a suggestion for a really good blueberry tea, I would love to hear it! I love blueberry.

Backlog from last night! I got this tea as a swap from Ost. I wanted to purchase it when I made my order, but they were sold out of the 1 ounce packages and I didn’t want to buy a larger quantity not knowing if I would like it. The dry tea looks like mostly rooibos with some flower petals (Della Terra loves those) and some dried citrus peel. I have no idea what the leaf smells like because the resealable bag that it’s in smells strongly of S’mores (the other tea Ost sent me). I brewed 1.5 tsp for 3 minutes.

The brewed tea smelled lovely – like sweet lemon pudding and meringue. Yum yum yum! The taste followed suit. It’s light, sweet lemon at first, with the lovely addition of vanilla. There’s definitely a creaminess that I could associate with pudding and the vanilla kind of translates to meringue for me. The one thing I didn’t get from this was crust, but that’s okay with me. There was a nice lemony aftertaste. Honestly, the flavors were all nice, but this tea came out a bit weak for me. I have enough for a small cup so I’ll try it with a longer steep time for me, and see if that helps. Holding off on the rating until then!

Yum yum yum. Drinking this with my pizza and it’s so tasty. I actually tried a second infusion this time around (I did 45s compared to 1m for the first) and it’s still delicious. Tastes very similar to the first as far as I can tell, although I’m not sure I trust myself when I’m eating while drinking it. Also, this was my first time using my new Finium brew basket and it’s amazing.

Yay, happy place. Pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, and olives, and my tasty, tasty sencha. Nothing better!

I got a sample of this tea in my swap with Ost. It was one that I have no idea why I didn’t choose when I made my Della Terra order – I guess because I’m kind of wary of chocolate teas. The dry leaf is generic small black tea leaves mixed with mini chocolate chips and little pieces of marshmallow that look like they’re covered in graham cracker crumbs. It smells yummy – like sugary sweet marshmallows mixed with carob and a touch of graham cracker. I brewed a very heaping teaspoon for 4 minutes.

This is one of those teas that smells far better than it actually tastes. The aroma is all melty sweet marshmallows with just a touch of cocoa. I can also smell the black tea in the background. Sipping this, I taste the sweet marshmallow taste, but it comes nowhere close to the smell. It’s a more transparent marshmallow, closer almost to vanilla than actual marshmallows. I definitely get a bit of the cocoa flavor and it also shows up as an aftertaste. For some reason, I get a definite tang out of the black tea base and it’s not at all harmonious with the flavoring. Even using more tea than is recommended, this tea is a bit weak for my tastes. Not bad, but not great.

The last tea from my swap with Arshness. The dry leaf is a mixture of rooibos, chamomile, and crushed dried peppermint leaves. It smells mostly like peppermint, with a bit of chamomile. I brewed 2 tsp for 5 minutes.

The brewed tea smells strongly of mint, with notes of vanilla and chamomile. The taste is also quite minty. The peppermint definitely dominates the other flavors in this tea. I can taste a bit of chamomile but I’m not getting any vanilla or even the rooibos base at all. I’m not a huge fan of peppermint, and for this reason I’m kind of disappointed with this one… :(

Yay this is the last tea from my Den’s novice sampler. Gotta try ‘em all! I was pretty excited for this one since I really liked the tea bag version that was also included. The dry tea is a mixture of long, rough-looking, flat leaves with toasted rice and all of it is coated in matcha. The popped rice visually reminds me of Nerds candy and there was one huge piece that I totally considered eating, and I would have if it hadn’t been covered in matcha. The smell is not nearly as strong as I suspected it would be. It’s a light matcha scent and little hint of hay. I brewed it at 175 degrees for one minute.

The aroma of this tea is fantastic! It’s super toasty-smelling. On a short sniff, I don’t get any other smell. If I take a long sniff, I start to get the vegetal scent at the end. Smelling this tea made my mouth water. When I taste it, I get a lot of toasted rice flavor which is amazing. In the middle of the sip, there’s that slightly spinachy green tea taste along with a slightly sweeter hint from the matcha. The aftertaste is all amazing roastiness with a touch of spinach. This tea is very savory, it’s almost like eating instead of drinking. I love it so much!

Based on this, I think I really need to try some bancha! Sooooooon.