Charleston Tea Plantation

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Recent Tasting Notes

95

Love this Rockville Raspbery just sweeted a little and served over ice. You still taste the tea itself with a backnote of Raspberries. Yummy!

Flavors: Caramel, Fruity

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65

Brewed this up this afternoon, seems like a fairly basic green, it was decent – not super or otherwise memorable – just a decent cup of green. Had bought a few Charleston tins visiting my sister in South Carolina – was surprised to see this is the only USA grown te company and plantation :)

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80

Brewed this up this morning, decent black tea with gentl hint of raspberry. I don’t like overpowering red fruits and this tea keeps the red fruit under control by using it as a nice under-the-radar accent.

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85

I bought a tin of 2014 harvest last year and am just getting around to drinking it now.

The leaf is dark, very chopped and thin compared to Chinese leaf tea, like tea leaf flakes. I’m drinking it gong fu in a gaiwan, but with every pour my inner logic keeps saying “get out the kyusu,” because I keep losing too many bits into the cup. However, I’m lazy and a kyusu just says spring and right now the winter is holding fast. This tea definitely needs a strainer. That is the bad part.

The good is the taste is very unique. The tea brews up golden brown rather than red, and has something of a maple syrup, burnt oak and ginger taste profile. Recently I’ve also been drinking a black tea beeng cake from Yunnan Sourcing which tastes more like Tetley or ordinary black tea, but this Charleston tea has nothing of that usual black tea taste I’m familiar with. It doesn’t have the thickness, but lasts a good six flash steeps or more.

It is, however, kind of like a bag of snacks I keep eating long past what I really need or want. After I get my six or seven steeps, I dump the leaves and start again fresh. I can go three sessions a night on this stuff compared to one or two of the Chinese counterpart. A good tea for lightweights or newbies, an interesting taste profile for the regular tea drunk who usually drinks a whiskey sheng and is now making do with Pabst. Crumple the can, throw it in the bucket and grab another and whoops, I guess that twelve pack is history.

The tin is cool and I plan to keep it. This tea is sold out from last year and you have a couple months window maybe to get one. Bought mine right from the company website. I have the green also left to taste.

Edit: this tea is really growing on me over the past couple of weeks. Drinking it frequently. The caffeine level and qi in the middle of my back is awesome, I’m loving the mental clarity. Raised the rating by 5 points.

Flavors: Ginger, Maple Syrup, Oak

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 3 tsp 4 OZ / 118 ML

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80

iced and milk made it perfect for a visit to the Americans only tea plantation :)

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40

This was a pretty basic bagged black peach tea. The base was nondescript. The peach flavor was slightly artificial, but not unpleasantly so. It’s not something I would purchase, but I would drink it again if it was offered to me.

Flavors: Artificial, Peach, Smooth

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 3 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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Teabag version. 2min at 175 degrees. Bright, grassy, clean flavor. Slightly but pleasantly astringent. “Fresh” is the best word I have to describe it. Would buy if I drank more green tea. Then again, would probably drink more green tea if I bought it…

gmathis

:) Didn’t know Charleston did a green tea. I really like their plain American Breakfast for a cheapie steep.

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77

I brewed this tea a little differently and it is much better than last time. I used less leaf in the hopes of tastier tea and got better but not incredible tea. This is another one I bought for the novelty factor of USA grown tea.

It is slightly sweet with some but not a lot of raspberry flavor. It is not too bitter but a little. Not bad but I would not buy it again.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 2 tsp leaf and 200 degree water for 3min.

Flavors: Raspberry

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 18 OZ / 532 ML

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67

Bought this a while ago and am just now getting to trying it. I was better than I expected, but then again I expected something absolutely horrific. This tea is overly floral with an slightly unpleasant grassy aftertaste. I admit I bought it purely for the novelty factor of an American green tea. They need to improve this at the Charleston Tea Plantation. They have about 1600 years of catching up to do before they are equal to the Chinese.

I brewed this western style for 3 min with 3 tsp leaf in an 18 oz teapot with 175 degree water.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 3 min, 0 sec 3 tsp 18 OZ / 532 ML

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Found this tea and had to try it as an iced tea. When it arrived I opened it to spell the dried tea leaves and felt like I was in a Peach orchard. Brewed my first batch and tried it hot because I could not wait to taste the peaches, was disappointed. Then I wanted for it to cool down. After loading a tall glass with ice and trying it cold I was well pleased with the flavor profile. The mix of malty black tea and peaches made one of my favorite new iced tea for summer. I would highly recommend it for a backyard B-B-Q.

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33

I was excited to try this tea because its from America! I am proud to be an American and try to buy American as much as I can. As for this tea I was dissapointed. I bought this in a 2 ounce tin and it was a loose green tea. This tea basically tastes like green tea in bags. It lacked much flavor, it was no different than brewing a bigalow green tea bag. I have added chai spice to this so I can get through the tin. I would say the black tea version of this would be much better. If your going to go with American Classic I would probably say buy the black tea version!

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82

Light, sweet, well-balanced mint and tea flavors (in other words, the mint did not overpower the delicate green tea). Very good!

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Boiling water? For a green? Well, I have seen that once or twice before, so I gave it a go. I was expecting an awful lot of this, and braced myself for a sour or astringent cup of tea.

Surprise number one was that when the water hit the leaves it smelled like matcha! The tea came out smooth and bright, not sour at all, and not astringent. This was a very pleasant green to end the tea party with!

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I got a teabag of this one from Erin also. Thank you very much. Backlogging. I smell mostly the black tea with a little peach when this is dry. Steeped I smell a natural peach smell and the black tea. This tastes like a natural medium peach taste and a medium strength black tea. I added some sugar. This tastes pretty good. And I really like the peach in this. And the black tea is nice to.

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I am not going to rate this as I didn’t prepare it and it was mostly ice. What I do want to comment on is how nice the mint in this tasted. I am not a big mint fan but this did not overpower the tea. The ice however gave me brain freeze.

SimpliciTEA

oooh, brain freeze! That brings back memories of Slurpees in the summer!

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I needed a new pitcher of iced tea, and raspberry sounded like a good choice for a nice glass of refreshment. I made this hot, poured a small amount into a cup for me to sample, and poured the rest over 2 TBL sugar in a glass pitcher.

The unsweetened hot tea was fine, but I didn’t taste much raspberry. The base was ice and smooth. The very last bit of tea in the cup had a more fruity taste than the rest, so maybe I just needed to let it cool a bit more. I tasted a little of it sweetened and I think the sugar did bring out a little more of the fruit flavor.

Since my pitcher wasn’t as full as I wanted and I had only had two bags of this, I made another teabag of their American Classic tea, which I know will further dilute the raspberry flavor, but I can already tell it has upped the “oomph” factor of the black tea. We’ll see if this was a big mistake when the tea is fully chilled, but i sampled a bit and so far it is a decent iced tea and should be really good with a meal.

Bigelow Tea

Thanks for sharing with us, we hope the flavor was just what you were looking for once chilled, enjoy!
Kathy for Bigelow Tea

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Peaches! oh yes, peaches in droves. So good! Muchos thanks to Ashmanra for the sample!!
Very similar to the same tea blend from Tsaa. I’m not sure which I prefer. When I first tried it, the peach overwhelmed me. Then in later steeps(I had three), it balanced out with the tea base.
In comparing it to the Tsaa version, I think this version is less “fuzzy” and sweet but I need to try a side by side to be sure.
Sooo… which do I prefer? throws up hands I really don’t know!
Thanks again Ashmanra!

ashmanra

Glad you liked it! I thought it was great iced, and was pleased to discover yesterday that Whole Foods carries a number of their loose leaf teas.

Indigobloom

I tried the Tsaa blend iced, I personally prefer it hot!

Indigobloom

hehe peaches make me happy :P

Indigobloom

Bonnie: yes pls do! purty horse…

Indigobloom

ahh I just realized, this was my 600th note! not a big milestone, but its something to smile about :)

Missy

Yay for 600!!!

Bonnie

Wow! Beeeeep beeeeeep! (Blowing of horn!)

Indigobloom

hehe thanks Missy and Bonnie! :)

Bonnie

Fires here again (larimer county, 10,000 acres already the air is like Lapsang Souchong) . Ugh! And high winds!

CHAroma

600th tasting note and not a big milestone?! That’s huge!!! Congrats!!

Indigobloom

Bonnie: hope those fires are doused soon :(
CHAroma: hehe thx :P

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Quoting a tasting note from JacquelineM directly:

“This is another one that I think people with “bergamot problems” would like. :)”

Bingo. I am often bergamot-avoidant (bergamotley challenged?), though I stand by my statement that all good tea drinkers need to have an Earl Grey variety in their repertoire. Had this pyramid sample from ashmanra handy at work, had my little liquid creamer pack at the ready to tone down the flavor, and surprise! I didn’t need it. This is good black tea foremost; bergamot hindmost. I’d drink more, and that’s saying something for an EG.

Bonnie

I’d like to present you with this good spelling award (A) and well done!

gmathis

Winner of the 7th and 8th grade spelling bees, Lamar Junior High, circa … well, never mind.

K S

Those who embrace the bergamot will like this one as well

ashmanra

LOL! I sent it to you and I haven’t even tried it yet! I must remedy that ASAP. I have liked all their tea, though!

gmathis

Haven’t hit a bad one yet with Charleston Tea. I think I still haven’t tried their raspberry one; it’s in the stash of emergency bags I keep in my purse.

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