foojoy

So I am going out the door this morning and I notice my wife has a box of International Delights Almond Joy non-dairy coffee creamer cups sitting on the counter. Well who doesn’t like Almond Joy? So I grabbed one and tried to decide what tea will go with this. I started to use puerh and I still may have to try that one next week. I settled on this wuyi oolong thinking the roastiness would work well. I poured the whole container in the cup and it turned this dark tea almost white. This is obviously coconut but not really milk chocolate and only a little almond. I’m a bit disappointed not to get those flavors. I do think half the creamer would have been better. Still it was a fun way to start my work day.

I brewed a cup of this bagged tea with 5 chocolate mint leaves. The result was very good. The oolong is a dark wuyi oolong and is roasty. The mint is a light peppermint taste with a hint of chocolate. The combination really worked for me this morning.

I think I usually use boiling water. Today I used cooler water and a 3 minute steep. Cooler water makes this tea. The roastiness is milder and the sip is milky. Delicious. Upping the rating.

I keep a couple different $2 boxes of bagged oolong around for the convenience of when I am too lazy to use the press. Measuring out the tea would add a whole 5 seconds to the process. As cheap as they are, the bags aren’t really a bargain, when you consider how many times loose leaf can be resteeped, unless you are a steep once and throw out kind of person. I digress. Here I am, bag in hand. On the black end of the oolong scale. This is roasty and toasty. You can almost taste campfire in the sip. One of these days I will try a loose version and never look back. I’m pretty sure I am missing a big chunk of the flavor this type tea is capable of delivering. For now, this was a good choice to begin my day. Better than I remembered.

I bought this because it was $2 a box. It is bagged tea. I also bought it because it claims on the box it can be steeped 2 – 3 times, something very few bag teas would even attempt to claim. The bags are sealed in paper envelopes :( The bag smells of generic black tea. Steeped for 3 minutes. The brew is very dark. I like the aroma but my friends who hate all oolongs tell me it stinks. First sip is similar to Yamamotoyama Oolong but has a more earthy quality. It won’t blow your socks off, still this isn’t bad. I use a 10-12 oz mug and I did get a second cup out of the bag. It was lighter in flavor but it was possible. That pretty much makes this tea a bargain at a nickel a cup.

I wasn’t expecting too terribly much from this tea since the international grocery store I go to can be a hit or miss when it comes to tea (and this was a lot of tea for the price)…but I was still kind of disappointed with this one. The overall flavor is really weak, and the cups I have had so far have either been tasteless or bitter. I really want to give this tea the benefit of the doubt so I should probably try it at home to better control the steeping conditions. I got this to be an “at work” tea since I didn’t have any Chinese greens at work, so I’m not too picky about it, but it could be a lot better. While steeping, it smelled a little like the Bi Lo Chun I have, but the taste just isn’t there…it’s kind of like the ghost of a good green tea.

I was pleasantly surprised from this tea. It reminded me at first sip of an Earl Grey (I must admit, I DO NOT like Bergamot oil), so Earl Greys are my least favorite teas. However, upon finishing my cuppa, I really enjoyed drinking this tea and can’t wait until my next mug.

The aroma is of a nice, mild black tea with a soothing, sweet fruity character.

The taste profile, is as the aroma describes; it is a nice mild black tea which is complimented discernibly by the lichee/lychee/litchi fruit; neither taste facet overwhelms the other, the lichee/lychee/litchi fruit nicely compliments the black tea and the black tea is not too strong as to overtake the palate. Foojoy never mentions what type or blend of black tea(s) they use for this offering but it is exemplary and delicious!

The aftertaste is not much. There is no lingering of any kind, just a sweet whisper of the fruit and a mild reminder of the tea. There is no mouth feel, tartness or bitterness that is leftover.

Since venturing into lichee tea and pleasantly surprised by it, I will be trying this brand’s loose leaf version as well as other brand’s version of lichee tea(s).

I highly recommend this tea…a fun, delicious finding!

Having a cup of this before sending the rest to Azz.
I forgot how much I enjoyed this!

I LOVE the color of this cup! A lovely bronze/orange/brown! The pre-infusion aroma is woodsy and charcoal but post infusion more of a sweet wood. The taste is a very sweet-woodsy yet strong and sturdy oolong! This is VERY nice!!!!

I am quite surprised at how good this tea is. I picked up a 7 ounce tin at a local store for 8 dollars and wasn’t expecting much. Tastes just as good as more expensive versions I’ve tried and at a fraction of the cost. It has the usual caramel and fig undertones this type of tea offers and re-steeps well. In a gaiwan the 2nd infusion is the best (the 3rd if you count the rinse).

All I can say is that for 4 dollars this is some flipping amazing Pu-erh. The liquor is dark like coffee. Smooth. Earthy. Almost cacao like. If you combine this with a carmel rooibos it is heavenly.!

As you can see it is a beautiful orange color that is not too far off from the color of the table we have in the living room. Warm and inviting, the Ti Kuan Yin is somewhere between a green tea and and a black tea.

It smells brisk and strong with musky undertones. After the tea has been poured out of the aroma cup the cup still smells kind of bitter. I’m a little worried I may let it brew a little too long. As the bitter smell quickly fades away, a fruit smell replaces it. If I close my eyes I can see myself in the middle of a fruit orchard. There are green apples, pears, red grapes and it smells like there might also be lychee. Coming back to it one more time, the smells have once more dissipated and changed and the aroma cup now smells like fresh baked apple pie, with lots of butter and no cinnamon or other spices to muss up the taste of the pie. I could probably keep this up all night on the one brew, so I am going to stop here and move on to the actual tea, but remember when drinking this to regularly check in on the smell of the tea as the smells in the cup will change.

The tea is rather brisk and sharp, but not necessarily in an unpleasant way. Next time I will let it brew for a little less time. This tea has a distinct taste of baked red apples. If anyone has ever done this before, some of the apple caramelizes as it bakes and makes it a little sweeter than normal, there are definitely caramel undertones to this tea. Taking a large mouthful gives a slightly different taste. It has a rich, nutty taste.

For the full review go to my blog: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/07/23/tea-review-foojoy-monkey-picked-ti-kuan-yin/

It smells sweet and soothing. Sweet floral undertones. I’m a little disappointed the fact that the tea seems to overpower the smells of the flowers. It is a great grassy, smokey aroma. Along with the floral undertone is a sweet syrupy smell sort of like caramelized sugar. It also has a hint of fresh rain as I find more jasmine teas smell like. The color of the tea is a deep golden.

It has a light weak body. I put quite a bit of tea in there, so I don’t think it is weak just because of the amount of tea. Although it smells fairly grassy it tastes vegetal, dark and smokey. It is incredibly sweet although the floral tones are not very present.

Last cup of this tea. Very strong black tea, syrupy lichee flavor. Not sure I’ll be investing in it again, but it was good while it lasted!

This was an impulse buy at Jungle Jim’s. If you’ve not been there, and live anywhere close to it, it’s well worth the drive. Yes, I sometimes drive nearly 2 hours to go to a grocery store. If you saw their selection (and not just of tea), you would, too.

This is a strong, black tea with a subtle lichee taste. The taste is more like that of canned lichees rather than fresh: a bit syrupy, as though they were plucked off the Chinese buffet and dropped into the tea. I suppose that’s why this tea reminds me of Chinese restaurants. It’s also a very good accompaniment to cold, leftover egg rolls.