Dr. Tea's Tea Garden

White teas seem to vary a lot in quality. Some of them are n’importe quoi harvested from n’importe où. That’s clearly the case for my dr. tea’s Snow Buds, which look nothing like the beautiful fuzzy and delicate tips in the illustration!

Instead, the leaves are of all shapes and sizes, mainly brown and brittle, and there are a fair amount of twigs thrown in as well. This tea looks like the same one used in a variety of “white tea” flavored blends, so I am assuming that it is quite inexpensive. It tastes okay. The liquor is predictably brownish (given the color of the dried leaves), and it tastes like the base of an average white tea blend.

I found this tea at Amazon for a pittance, and though it has not expired quite yet, my factfinding mission about dr. tea’s led to a dead end. Apparently the company is now defunct.

(Blazing New Rating #42)

Thank you DJ Booth! This is really tasty! Of course I added rock sugar and bailey’s to this for dessert and it was decadent! My husband was pining for ice cream but this seemed to quell his cravings. :)

The rooibos seems to be really good quality. It’s smooth and rich without that yucky sour wood flavor some rooiboses get. And the flavor! Yum! Well done! It was like a melted sticky caramel. I have to try it tonight without additions. I’ll be needing to get more somehow. Great dessert tea!

This (and the caramel one) came today so I’m having it for dessert.

The aroma of the dry leaf unfortunately has little chocolate scent. It’s primarily the roastyness of the oolong and the creme.

I pretty much ignored the steeping suggestion as always- or at least the generic ones on the tin. Luckily there was a card giving more a more appropriate suggestion. Up to 10 min? Wow. I’ll start w/ 5.

1 heaping tsp (about 3g)/6oz water.

Wow… the liquor is so light compared to the regular coffee oolong- almost like a dark cider. And unfortunately the flavor matches. It has neither a coffee or strong mocha flavor… just a roasty, but smooth, oolong. I’ll wait til I try a 10 min steep to rate it.

Left over BBQ tea spice rub chicken breast.

Used in Dr. Tea’s BBQ spice rub on chicken breast.

I really wanted to add this to the data base this the way I had it, in their Chicken Spice Rub… but I don’t want to get in trouble. Had tea crusted chicken tonite (make sure you put the spice in a spice mill before applying it). There was something very spicy, but as I don’t normally drink it, and when I do only drink it w/ whiskey added, I couldn’t tell if it was the tea, a spice that’s in the rub, or just because my mom put too much on (it was completely black on both sides of the breast). It was VERY good though. I give the rub a 100, but I’ll wait to rate it til I can rate it as the actual rub.

Strong black tea with the banana and the bitter cocoa I’s just not dessert like at all to me sadly.

smells yummy

I have had this a few times this semester and it compliments the dreary weather here quite well.

The heavy smoke smell of this lingers in my dorm for hours afterwards. Which isn’t a bad smell or thing but it is probably a good thing that I do not have a roommate to complain about the “campfire”. I really enjoy how smokey and piney this tea is and it reminds me of the summer when we have campfires on the site of an abandoned Christmas tree farm. The smoke is rich, thick, and cloying with the drying pine peaking out every few sips.

Steepster is acting crazy tonight. Anyway i’ll try this again. I added an oolong to this one tonight to see how it would taste and i pretty much tasted just that oolong cuz it overpowered this one, it was a no name oolong(in a glass container marked Oolong) from my local heath food store, very good heavy roasted, rich oolong taste with nice sized dark twisted leaves, i’m not sure but i think it maybe a wuyi oolong there is no way of knowing the people at the store don’t know anything about their teas at all.

I really like this one, not sure what else to say about it other than its just really good.

Very good Tea! I thought at first from looking at this tea that it was a green tea but I see it’s called a yellow tea. I didn’t follow steeping instructions on this one and I just used the gaiwan with steeps less than one minute and it is wonderful and not weak at all from such a short steep, reminds me of some of the oolongs I’ve had and feels great in the mouth makes ya just want to swish it around a little. Maybe I’ll try following the directions to see what happens :)

DJ Booth threw this in as a bonus sample in our swap (Black Dragon for Wild Yunnan Black).

I went with a two minute steep as I’ve found that even my beloved black dragon doesn’t hold up so well to gongfu style short steeps (they quickly become sharp and acerbic).

I like the particular smoke flavor this tea has, but the tea itself is a bit thin. That may simply be because I only have a small amount to work with and I ought to have gone with a smaller mug, I dunno.

Certainly a marvelous lapsang. Not bacon-y or pork rind-y as some of them can be and not all smoke either. I think with a steady supply I could dial in parameters to make this provide an excellent cup, but I’ll stick with my black dragon, I think :-)

Steeped this is my new gaiwan, with a quick flush and then a 2 minute brew at 185. The aroma is very smokey, much like a campfire that everyone is describing. The infusion is thankfully less intense with a bodied smokey taste with a bit of pine at the end. The second infusion was more to my liking as the flavors are toned down enough to drink rather than sip. I must say sticking my nose into the bag of this tea isn’t exactly the most pleasant experience due to the strength of the armoa of the tea leaves.
However, I am convinced I need to roast a duck or hen and add this tea as part of a rub, perhaps even added to a pork tenderloin schweinebraten, that would be some very awesome eats.
I usually very thoroughly enjoy a good oak/wood aged stout or ale, and wanted to equate this tea to those tastes, but it was not the similar experience I was expecting.

If only it snowed in Texas, I’d like to sit out and sip a small cup of this.

I don’t know what to make of this tea… it’s not really my cup of tea :p (see what I did there?) anyways… it’s too smokey for me.. reminded me for a second of smokey bacon haha… I might swap this on.

Thanks to TheDJBooth for a sample of this one.

I wasn’t sure about this because my one other experience with Ginseng Oolong (Rishi’s) was not such a positive one.

I did steep this one up and noticed the leaves smelling very roasted which of course is an intriguing sign. I know some king’s tea is charcoal roasted but the Dr. Tea website does not any information about it whatsoever, why I have no idea. That seems kind of strange!

I think perhaps the ginseng is throwing me off a bit here but it isn’t as prominent in the Rishi tea, you can hardly taste it at all, which is a good thing. This isn’t a very flowery or buttery tea at all. It’s more nutty and roasty with a slight ginseng aftertaste.

I think the third steep was my favorite here which often seems to be the case with oolongs. I also let my water cool down a bit which is helping to bring out a bit more sweetness.

I’m not really sure if I need ginseng in my oolong tea, aside from the supposed health properties it has. This is fairly stimulating as well, would be good for when you need an energy boost so I think I’ll save the rest of my sample for a day when I need a kick in the pants. Glad I got to try it, definitely better than I thought it would be.

What an interesting tea! I didn’t expect it to be brown when brewed because the unbrewed leaves were so green! I love the little bits of shaved white chocolate. I’m very tempted to just eat one. Matcha covered white chocolate…mmmmm… My wedding cake was white chocolate covered matcha. Is this wedding cake tea? If it tasted like almond, it would be, but it tastes like hazelnuts instead.
I love the toasty nutty flavor. The matcha is in the background, but it adds a smooth rich flavor to an otherwise, one dimensional flavor. The white chocolate gives it a sweetness. It’s very tasty even though I totally over steeped it.
Thanks DJBooth!

Is this review kinda discombobulated? I’m sleepy. :)

I have been a fan of lapsang souchong for many years now. The first time I made Dr. Tea’s lapsang souchong, I was at my office working through some difficult code that was giving me trouble. The smoky aroma and flavor put me in the zone, and this tea has become my go to for tough days at the office. This tea presents a very strong smoky aroma, but the tea is not so smoky that it is overpowering.

Thank you The DJBooth for swapping this with me!

When I first looked at the dry leaves, I couldn’t tell what it was. Was it oolong? black? pu-erh? The leaves were wavy and dark brown/black. I couldn’t smell anything… perhaps my nose wasn’t working this morning ?? Anyhow, I wasn’t sure how to brew it up either, so I steeped it for 2 minutes Western style.

Upon sniffing the murky dark brown/black liquor, I knew there was Pu Erh in there! It was earthy, sweet, malty, and roasty. It was a dark tea! Delicious! I took a sip, and there was no bitterness! I was happy. This is a good tea. I read the description after and saw that it is a blended tea. I don’t know which Black Tea this is mixed with, but it is good. There was a tiny hint of smokiness. I added some sugar and milk just to try it out that way, and it was delicious! Lovely tea.