Capital Tea Ltd.

Bought this to tie me over until i get my other vanilla black from the US. It’s a nice smooth vanilla. nothing too fabulous but still delicious.

Sample from Evol Ving Ness and while i’ve had this one before ages ago it was nice to revisit it. I still prefer the subtle differences that you find with fancy french vanilla teas. On the other hand, this one is certainly more readily available to have. thanks a bunch evol!

Another from Anlina and one from my wishlist. While dexter and I are experimenting with blending vanilla teas, it’s nice to continue looking for that perfect vanilla tea. This one is pretty darn tasty. I like the base tea here and the vanilla comes across very clearly. Even cooled it was still a really pleasant vanilla cup of tea. Thanks Anlina!

Final Count: 116

S-s-s-sipdown!
I thought it’d shake things up and gongfu the last bit of this guy. What could go wrong?

Word to the wise: don’t. The first couple of sips were definitely a bumpy ride. I measured up what I thought was going to be way under my usual, but woahh, it came out strong, and not unlike strong chicory coffee.

I ended up steeping it for 4 short sessions and put the resulting liquid into a mason jar to cool overnight in the fridge. In the morning, it turned out to be a great ice cold black tea!

Hooray for experimentation?

Got this a while back from Ost’s stash sale. I have had it a couple times before reviewing this, and I quite like it! It is meatier than the Meleng Assam that I got as well, and this is my preferred tea for making chai with. It has a sort of spiciness to itself that lends a wonderfully helping hand to my own personal chai mix. It’s perfectly good as an iced brew as well, especially if I have some leftover chai already made. Which almost never happens :P

This was a sipdown! I have been having it for breakfast to whittle down my older stock of Keemun teas. This is good, lighter than Zen Tea’s Keemun Finest, and I have enjoyed, but I do prefer the Zen Tea one.

Keemun teas are funny. There is such an incredible variety of flavor and strength, and you can change it so much just by how you steep and how much leaf you add – true of any tea but really can be a saving grace or complete damnation with Keemun, IMO.

They can be refined or hefty, smokey or cocoa-y, light or strong, wine-y or chocolate-y, brash or smooth. I like mine somewhere in the middle. Afternoons are great for the super refined, smooth, wine-y, lighter fellas, but for mornings I like that scrape of dark cocoa!

I liked this one a great deal, but youngest and our guest said it was good, but not a stellar favorite for them. I love keemuns, though, so it was delightful for me. It has nice body, malty, smooth, with a hint of smoke and a bit of raisin.

This was the first tea served with tea party today and therefore was served with the dessert, which was fresh whole wheat brownies with strawberries and homemade viili, a type of yogurt-like cultured milk from Finland that goes great with fruit. The black tea was a great pairing because it isn’t overwhelmed by the sweetness of the dessert but rather complements it. It cuts the sweetness, I think, and keeps it from getting too heavy or too rich.

I got tea for my birthday Saturday. Lots and lots of tea. One of them was this one!

I had this for breakfast, steeped it at full temp and for the maximum recommended time and was surprised at how light the color was. I didn’t worry because the aroma told me it was plenty strong enough.

This won’t kick your backside like a morning Assam, but I never go for that anyway. You don’t need it when you know you have to get outside and feed the chickens before they wake the whole neighborhood moo-ing for their breakfast. I don’t consider myself a morning person, but I have never wanted strong morning tea.

Though it isn’t a cup to slap you awake, it is one to pique your interest so that you find yourself fully awake to delve into the mysteries of the cup. It is nice and complex without being super strong. I noted a fruity, muscatel scent and flavor like Winey Keemun from Grace Rare Tea, but the classic keemun light smoke was on the end of the sip, too. This is nice for morning or afternoon.

You will get a hint of all those flavors listed in the main description, incredible as that sounds.

I’ve had this tea as both a cold hot brew and have come to the conclusion that it’s more savoury than my preferred greens.

The dry tea smells of mint, fruit and smoke. It is a blue spruce tinged green with silver green buds.

I steeped 1.5tsp in 200ml of 80°C water.

The first flavour notes are savoury with cooked peas and bitter greens. These open up to peach with a crisp green pea note and a chestnut note. The tea has a thick present mouth feel and a faint hint of smoke. As it cools that taste is slightly grainy, with mint coming into the flavour as it cools. The mint and smoke notes become most distinct as it cools.

As a cold brew (steeped 3.5hrs), the tea has a thick creamy texture and a savoury mix of smoke cantelope, hints of plum and the texture of chestnuts.

Interesting but not a favourite. Thanks for the sample Capital Tea Ltd!

Umami, vegetables, slight sweetness; very green liquor. First time trying Kabusecha and its remarkably similar to Gyokuro – like a toned down version. Did a bit of quick research and it seems that Gyokura, Kabusecha, and Sencha just vary on the amount of shading before harvest. More shading = more theanin (an amino acid) = more umami flavour. Would recommend trying this.

I read some of the reviews for this tea and honestly I had to double check the packaging to make sure it was the same one. People mention it being sweet or having cocoa notes and I am getting NONE of that. To me, this is earthy, bordering on astringent and has a flavor reminiscent of raisins. It’s not bad or anything like that but it’s also not what I look for when reaching for a black tea. Nonetheless, I really appreciate the chance to try it out so thank you Dexter for sharing!

Dexter sent this to me a while back and it got lost in my cupboard and forgotten until Ost brought it to my attention when I asked if there was anything in my cupboard she wanted to try. As a result, I decided I should finally give this a try and I’m glad I did. It is a quite lovely cup of tea. Some amazing cocoa notes are in here making for a sweet and malty dessert tea that’s pwrfect for after dinner. Thank you so much for sharing Dexter and I hope Ost enjoys this like I did.

Sipdown!

I finished this off last night. It’s got a strong sweet potato note when it first steeps, but if you let it oversteep it’s still pretty good. Gets a bit of a smoky note. However, it didn’t really knock my socks off.

Backlog from last night!

I just got this tea as part of a huge swap/care package from Dexter. Thanks so much, Dex! I asked her if she could recommend some smoky/leathery black teas to replace my much-beloved (and now unavailable) Golden Yunnan from RiverTea. She sent me at least half a dozen different teas to try!

This is the only tea I’ve tried from the swap package so far. However, I didn’t get a lot of smoke. I sensed a teensy bit of smoke/leather at the back, but the biggest notes I remember were sweet potato, menthol, cocoa, and a bit of fruit. Definitely sweet potato, at least.

So much tea! I’ll never be able to finish it all!