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I think I may have nabbed the last of this, and I’m glad I got a chance to try it. :-)

I am about to start a chocolate tea frenzy. I have a number of different varieties that have arrived in the last couple of days, and I am sorely tempted to lock myself in a room and drink them seriatim until I achieve a state of enlightenment or pop, whichever comes first. But given the realities of reality, and the fact that I’ve become more caffeine sensitive over the years, that’s not happening.

Since I don’t yet have anything to compare this to I am not going to give a numerical rating at this time, but I will say that this is an adorable little tea — the rose petals give it a very sweet and cuddly look and are soothing to watch as they drift placidly in the water while they steep. They seem to contribute a slight sweetness and softness to this blend, though they aren’t something I can distinguish by taste individually. But that’s ok, because the main attraction here is the chocolate, and that is present in spades. Nice job, LIBER Teas.

In my book, anything with the name ecstasy in it can either be discounted immediately as puffery or has a very high level of living up to do. Ecstasy is, after all, not just a run of the mill, mild feeling. It’s sheer rapture.

The fact that I have had a four for four success rate with my Samovar samples thus far (I am intending to order more of all of the ones I’ve tried, something unsurpassed in my admittedly limited experience) left me doubtful this name could be discounted fully, so I had very high hopes for this one. And I haven’t been disappointed. Though I wouldn’t go so far as to state that drinking this left me ecstatic (wouldn’t that be cool, though? maybe one day I’ll find a tea that really does leave me ecstatic and then I’ll know all the secrets of the universe and more), I can say that I’m now five for five.

My only pu erh experience before this has been the Numi bags. They’ve all been varying degrees of enjoyable with the chocolate out in front. But because they’re bags, there’s a visual component to the experience that is missing. I’m finding more and more that I really enjoy examining the dry leaves of the tea I’m about to drink, and watching how they change after they’ve had their steep.

The Maiden’s Ecstasy leaves are brownish green, dark and pretty. A little on the small side, and not overly curly. Dry, they smelled to me as they smelled to Auggy after rinsing — like sweet tobacco, right from the pouch, with notes of leather and earth.

After rinsing, the leather aroma came to the fore. This, I think, is what I smell where others might smell fish. There is something slightly fishy, but not in an unpleasant way, about the smell of certain kinds of warm, pliant leather. I’ve had belts and shoes that have had a fishy note to them that body heat brings out and I know I’ve smelled this in horse saddles. It’s not always the case, but common enough. The smell of this steep makes me think of a new, buttery smooth, black leather English saddle.

My first steep at 2 minutes delivered a beautiful mahogany colored liquor.

The taste. It has that Samovar thing going on for me, an almost preternatural smoothness that makes their teas taste like velvet feels. I love that. To me, it is the difference between something that is nice and well made, like a shoe or a car, that you wouldn’t mind having, and the same thing delivered by a luxury brand. There’s a little luxury in every sip.

Within the smoothness, there is also a flavor that verges on leather — but is kept from being a stark leather flavor by its sweetness. I’m not getting raisin here, but perhaps a pre-raisin (i.e., grape) fermented sweetness, as though the tiniest drop of a fine port has been dropped into the tea.

The second steep at 2:30 yielded a similar flavor. The nose became more sugary, more carmelized.

OK. I’m about ready for my third steep and I am going to stop now and just go enjoy this for a while. I want to sit with it and see how it changes. I have all kinds of time for this tea.

This isn’t a bad choice as a decaf as it turns out. When I tried it the first few times, I drank it plain and it was fairly harsh and peppery — and had that something is missing decaf thing going on. BUT. After having a latte at Starbucks the other day I tried to approximate the flavor with low fat milk and splenda, and was able to get pretty close. Close enough for it to be yum. The only reason it doesn’t make it into a higher bracket for decaf is this: if I’m looking to drink a decaf it’s probably late at night and chances are I’m really looking for something less meal-like than this is with milk and sweetener — it really is borderline chewy!

I’m breaking out the Jade Teapot samples I received the other day. I thought it would be interesting to compare another pineapple green tea to the one I had from The NecessiTeas.

This tea is visually lovely in a heartwarming way. There are pretty red-tipped gold dried blossoms which I would guess are the safflowers, and blue dried blossoms which I would guess are the cornflowers, mixed in among the green tea. The dried leaves smell slightly pineapply, but oddly, the aroma I get from them mostly is rather like cough syrup. This does not, however, play out in the steeped aroma, which is very subtly fruity but green at the same time.

The rating I’m giving here reflects several things. First, and perhaps most importantly though obviously most subjectively, I am enjoying this more than I did either the tropical green or the pineapple upside down cake from The NecessiTeas. The reason is, I think, primarily because of the green tea. It is mild, slightly sweet, and slightly vegetal, with not even the slightest bitterness. The fruit flavors are subtle, as they were with the other tropical green, but the blend is harmonious. There’s nothing forced about it, there are no gaps to it, and though the taste is subtle it has some substance to it. It doesn’t feel pale.

I have enough for one more cup and I’m going to try steeping a bit longer next time to see whether the flavors will come out a bit more. Even if they don’t, it’s a very nice blend.

G’day mate. ;-)

I am a babe in the mate woods. The only ones I’ve tried are this and the Tazo lemon. I have no idea what mate tastes like on its own, but my experience of these two drinks leads me to believe that the analogy mate-is-to-tea as chicory root-is-to-coffee may be apt. Or veggie burger-is-to-hamburger. If this is the case, I expect I am not destined to become a mate drinker. I am too much of a purist, and I tend to fixate on the thought that I’m drinking something that is ersatz something else, rather than something to be appreciated in its own right. This won’t keep me from trying mates, but it may keep me from cultivating a taste for them.

In any case, this one also has lemon myrtle, which is my bane. The Tazo has lemongrass, which I find more pleasing as a lemon flavoring. That said, this has a certain smoothness that feels creamy in the mouth and the green tea adds some “green” flavor as well. I have had this one several times and though it isn’t bad, I don’t expect it to grow on me.

This is the third sample I got with the earliest green tea of 2010. And this is the end of the sample. It seemed appropriate to have it today because I’m in that oolong frame of mind (and now I’m going to have Billy Joel in my head for the rest of the day, unfortunately).

I have to admit to a bone-headed mistake the first time I tasted this. I was working at home and in a rush to get a cup ready before my next phone call, so I misread the package; I had it in my head that this was a green tea for some reason and I completely screwed up the steeping. Now I find that I don’t have enough tea left to steep a full cup. Under these circumstances, I don’t feel comfortable doing a rate-by-numbers on this one.

I will say, however, that having just come off of tasting another oolong that was essentially “meh”, this has a lot going on. Even with less than perfect brewing conditions both times I steeped this, its delicious, roasty flavor came through. There’s a white wine-like fruitiness in addition to the toasty flavor. And I want to say there’s something that’s an almost coffee-like note as well. That might be a hint of the smokiness Cait mentioned (but since I had Samovar’s Russian Blend earlier today my smoky radar may be a bit jammed right now for anything subtle).

I’d like to try this again, as I expect there’s a lot more to discover here.

The leaves are dark green and fairly straight with little yellow flowers mixed in. There’s a characteristically toasty smell about the dry leaves, though it is somewhat less pronounced than in the other oolongs I’ve sampled. The aroma of the tea is also toasty, and quite buttery, with a subtle floral note. It brews to a yellow, champagne-like color.

I used 2.5g of tea in about 7 oz of water, about what I’ve done for other oolongs I’ve tried, and with 4 minutes for the initial steep I expected a deeper flavor. I’m not getting a “deep, rich” flavor. It’s not that it doesn’t taste good, it’s just a bit on the weak side. The osthmanthus does give it a sweet, nectar-like note, which is nice, and which has something in common with honey. I can pick up on a hint of apricot if I concentrate, but although I can smell something slightly chocolatey, I am not tasting chocolate.

I added a minute for the second steep. The flavors are similar, but have become more buttery and floral-tasting, though not deeper. Six minutes for the third steep and seven for the fourth. I was looking for further development in these, but they were fairly similar to each other, and each a bit weaker in taste than the last.

As oolongs go in my limited experience, it’s reasonably tasty. And it’s not that I don’t appreciate subtlety. But this one lacks a certain depth that I’ve experienced in others, and that I’m finding I prefer.

This is the fourth Samovar sample I’ve tried and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever run across something of theirs I don’t like.

As a recent inductee to the smoky fan club, I was delighted with the smell of the dry leaves, which reminded me of how my dad’s pipes smelled after he’d smoked them. I realize that this may not sound that appealing, but I’ve always loved the smell of really good pipe tobacco. It’s a smell one doesn’t run across that much anymore now that the health dangers of pipe smoking are so well documented, but to me it’s reminiscent of an era of narrow ties, Fedoras, and big honking cars with fins.

The aroma is smoky as well, with that campfire thing going on, but I can also smell the fruit. I didn’t make the preparations necessary to taste this the traditional way — I’m drinking it straight up, but it is quite enjoyable without any additives at all and I am eager to give it a try the traditional way.

This is a beautiful, sophisticated tea. There’s a smoothness to it that I’ve come to expect from Samovar’s blends, and which I really adore. As with the others I’ve tasted, all of the flavors work together harmoniously; the piney/smokiness, the fruity/nutty upswing from the lychee, the sweet finish with an extremely interesting warm/cool after-effect on the tongue. I feel a foresty coolness in my mouth, but there’s a little heat and bite there as well.

I don’t need a crystal ball to see a very large Samovar order in my future…

It doesn’t have the natural sweetness of the red version; the sweetness here, such that it is, comes from the honeybush that is added in. The taste is decribed as woody on the box, but it seems to lean more toward reedy/grassy/twiggy to me. It has the taste of something that is supposed to be good for you (and this is supposed to be good for you). By that I don’t mean medicinal so much as health-foody. Though the taste isn’t the same, it’s the same sort of feeling I get from drinking wheatgrass or eating carob — virtuous as opposed to decadent, and I guess I’m looking for my tea adventures to be more Dionysian.

Although I’ll give it a few more tries to give it a fair shake, I don’t think I’m going to find this is for me, at least by itself. Good to know what it tastes like without additives (except for the honeybush), though, in case I come across green rooibos blends in the future.

For tonight’s dessert, I dug into my sample of this.

The dry leaves smell delicious, like those of all The NecessiTeas flavored teas I’ve tried. There’s strawberry, and something cookie-like about the smell. After steeping, the smell opens up to something more sponge-cake and cream scented. It really does smell just like a strawberry shortcake. Enough to make your mouth start watering if you have a sweet tooth as I do.

The liquor is a clear, golden yellow. The taste is lovely. Subtle, as others have said, but it definitely tastes just like it smells and I’m giving it high marks for that. There’s a sweetness to the strawberry, like the juice of a ripe, fresh berry. The cream and cake tastes are in the background, just like they would be in an actual cake. Even the tea is there, though it’s taking the role of the canvas on which the rest of the flavors are painted. There isn’t even a hint of the bitterness that troubled those of their flavored green teas I’ve sampled the past few nights.

I’m going to steep even longer next time and see what happens. The main improvements I’ll be looking for in steeping longer are for the tea to come more to the forefront and for the flavors to deepen a bit. If I can get those to happen, I’ll put this on my shopping list with all due haste.