Joy's Teaspoon

I am a pu erh beginner and tried this from the sample. From the first sip I was addicted. I haven’t had pure pu erh so I’m rating this a bit ignorantly. Or naively.

I love the flavors of this one – light and tasty… and it tastes like sunshine! Weird, I know. But if you tasted it you’d know what I mean!

I will try again once I’ve had more pu erh. :)

After the chocolate disaster, I needed something spicy and this fits the bill! This has chocolate chips in it, but combined with other flavors, mainly my favorite winter flavor: star anise!

My mom makes these awesome anise cut-out cookies in the winter (Christmas and Valentine’s Day) and this tea reminds me of them. (My mom, sister-in-law, grandma, and I consume so many anise cookies during the holidays; I think they would appreciate this low-cal version.)

I taste anise, cinnamon, clove and a hint of orange. Absolutely delicious! :)

I wanted a black tea this morning that wasn’t Earl Grey or chocolate, and I didn’t feel like rose, which limited my options, so I decided to try this lavender tea again. It’s amazing how much the aroma of the dried leaves and the fresh brewed tea is powerfully lavender. The brewed tea is much more mellow as far as that’s concerned. I do think I like lavender in teas cut with other things (lavender and jasmine is a winning combo), but this one is pleasant too. It’s just more herby than most other florals, so it’s a different taste profile.

I love lavender, so I had to get this tea for my third free sample from Joy’s Teaspoon. When I opened the package, the scent of herby lavender was really quite strong. There’s not any inherant sweetness behind this, it’s true lavender. Brewed up the lavender aroma decreased but was still a major note. Mainly, though, the aroma of a good black tea came through.

This tea is really quite tasty. The main flavor is really that of a solid black tea with a lovely overlay of lavender over all. The lavender isn’t too strong, but not too faint either. It has a completey different character than the lavender EG I drank a couple of days ago; lavender is an interesting herb whose flavor changes depending on what you combine it with. Unsweetened and uncombined with fruitier notes, the lavender is more herby and vegetale. This is a great floral tea, but it’s not too perfumy. It’s actually a nice morning tea because the black tea wakes you up while the lavender calms, so you are alert but relaxed. Nice! If you like lavender in foods and drink, you’ll probably enjoy this tea, which is very well blended.

Another free sample from Joy’s Teaspoon was this tisane, which I had to try because I love all thing almond. The instructions for this brew called for a lot of tea per water (2 tsp/6oz), so I ended up using the whole sample for my 12oz Kati cup. During the long steep of 10 minutes, my office started smelling like a bakerie. Wow does this tea smell mind blowingly good. Like a cinnamon bun, or a snickerdoodle, or those sugar encrusted almonds they sell at fairs, or just a bunch of sugary, cinnamony goodness. Yum. The brewed liquor is bright red, which was surprising, although I guess that’s the beetroot.

So what does it taste like? Sweet, and a little fruity-tart, like a cinnamon-covered dehydrated apple ring. Yeah, I’m getting a lot of apple out of it. It’s certainly delicious, and the aroma of roasted sugar-covered almonds is present, but it doesn’t seem like the main event for me. Would I order it? There’s a good chance of that, but as delicious sweet apple cinnamon baked good tisane, not so much as an almond tea.

I didn’t plan on doing cups this back-to-back with the Earl Greys, but now that I started I want to try them like that! I really wanted to try this one again since it was one of my very favorites from the tasting. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of leaf left, so let’s hope this one goes well. I tried to guestimate the right amount of water based on the odd amount of leaf I had (very slightly less than a perfect teaspoon [i.e., 1.5 regular teaspoons]).

It’s amazing how different even just the aroma is on this one from the last one. Where teapod’s Earl Grey was bright, this one is warm, which I feel like is unusual for bergamot. The black tea base seems richer, adding some kind of note to the scent that reminds me of creme Earl Greys, somehow, but definitely not a cream note. That same smoothness richness is still present in the taste, and it makes for a really delicious Earl. Definitely one to reorder.

Another tea from the first round of my Earl Grey taste test. I’m doing 5 at a time, each tea brewed under the same parameters: in a tea filter bag, for 3 minutes with 205°F water. I dunked the tea filters around to make sure they were getting enough water flow since I don’t usually use them.

This is probably my favorite from this round. The bergamot flavor was strong but not astringent, and citrusy without tasting like other fruits. It has a warm, rich flavor that integrates nicely with it’s base tea, which is smooth and tasty. I don’t have much of this left, so my next cup will not be a full cup unfortunately, but hopefully it’s enough to get a good sense of in in comparison to my other favorites from the test.

Sampling this one again… and I’m amazed at how good it is! Not bitter, not too astringent this time, with a warm, almost spiced flavor at the end. It’s different from the Tavalon EG I had yesterday; they’re both smooth and well, blended, but they have different flavor profiles. Tavalon was bright and very citrusy, whereas this one is warm and more floral (though still with distinct bergamot-fruit notes). I have just about enough of the sample to make another cup for an Earl Grey side-by-side comparison with a bunch of EGs from different companies. I think this one will come out as one that I’d like to have a stock of, though!

I got a package of free samples from Joy’s Teaspoon, which is totally awesome! And as I am on my quest for the perfect Earl Grey, I of course had to request theirs to try. I feel like I’ve been getting all kinds of fancy Earl Greys lately, and this one is just a pure, simple, straight up Earl Grey.

It certainly has a strong bergamot smell in the dry leaves, and the brewed tea is quite nice! At first I was concerned about bitterness, which I am so sensative to, and thought maybe I’d have to brew at a slightly lower temperature next time, but as I am drinking the flavors have sorted themselves out into the astringent, strong, but not bitter bergamot, and a bold black tea with a lot of body and depth of flavor. This is quite a nice Earl Grey!

yummy! This tea was so good it made me get back on Steepster after a social networking vacation! I think the chocolate is rich but does not overpower the tea. I added a little vanilla sugar and a small splash of milk…oh my worth a few repeats! I tried this sans sweetner and milk and it is good but the creamy chocolate is helped by the milk.

Second steeping: not as chocolatey as the first, but that’s to be expected since there is chocolate in it. I was also afraid after overbrewing my black Cha Yen Thai Tea from Teavana that all blacks would oversteep as quickly so I don’t think I steeped as long as I should have and it ended up on the weaker side. I’ll have to smell the leaves when I get home to see if I think I can get a third.

My husband suggested adding chocolate chips to regain the chocolatey goodness but in my head I protested thinking, ‘if I add chocolate chips then I KNOW it’s not calorie free but if they add them I can pretend.’ I’m such a girl!

In a word? A-MAZING! This is the closests I’ve come to finding a substitute for hot chocolate without the calories. If it was available in decaf I’d be all over it for night too. I’m very sad I only have enough of my sample left for a cup. Hope it resteeps well.

I wanted something bright and happy. It’s cold and rainy and I am dead tired. I stuck my nose in my sample of this and it fit the bill perfectly! I really appreciate these samples. It’s great to be able to try a couple cups to justify buying more tea.

This is a great, fruity white. I haven’t had a lot of luck with those, but this is nicely balanced and subtle while flavourful. The tropical flavours are perfect for today. And the scent is incredible!

I was relieved to find a rooibos in my little baggy of teas while I’m at work. It’s a hectic night and I wanted something that I could dump into my glass with boiled water and forget about. This is one of my generous samples from Joy’s Teaspoon, and the first I’ve got around to trying.

I’ve gone a bit off red rooibos recently, but the citrus and tropical flavours actually work really well with it here. It’s really fresh-tasting and refreshing, which is good as I am feeling drowsy and run down.

Enjoyed a cuppa with my breakfast this morning. I really do enjoy this tea…it’s pretty easy to deal with, nice flavours and not too assertive. The tea is definitely there, but muted by the berry flavours. It is not super sweet as some berry teas can be, so I think maybe the tartness of cranberry rounds it out. That said, if I didn’t know the ingredients, I wouldn’t say it was cranberry, necessarily. Just berry. I guess that’s what happens when you have three delicious fruity flavours! I really enjoy it, nonetheless! : )

Backlog:

Had a pot of this with the beau last night before going out for dinner and a movie. Still really yummy, with a good fruity taste, but the tea flavour in there as well. Not overpowering – A good balance!

Will write a proper tasting note later. Tried this tonight (first Joy’s Teaspoon tea I tried without having tasted or smelled). It was delicious – the black tea was definitely there, but a background to complement the cranberry, etc. Yum!

I’m already a huge fan of Joy’s Teaspoon, but this tea puts my devotion over the top! I love the taste of pear and this tea is it! Two infusions down and I taste the ripe pear flavor with spices – cinnamon, cardamom, allspice, possibly nutmeg. The combo of spices matches the pear flavor perfectly!

Delicious iced as well. A new cupboard staple!

Oh, and thanks to Jude for supplying me with this wonder!

Additional notes: How did I confuse this for a black tea before? Maybe it said that at the top of the description before someone changed it? It doesn’t taste like an oolong anyway. The other flavors stand out more. I could definitely taste the basil and a bit of lemon this time. The steep color was a darker yellow. And it still had a golden raisin flavor! Is that possibly the oolong? With my new oolong flavor rating where 1 is light and 5 has a stronger flavor, I’d give this a 1. Pretty tasty especially because my sample package isn’t too young now. It’s odd that the description calls this a dessert or after dinner tea though, since the name is ‘sunrise’!

Trying this again, I somehow made it completely different. It now tastes like raisins! But still tasty!

Summer sunrise – sure, it isn’t summer yet. But hey, the three feet of snow on the ground is melting! It’s the first time it has been over 40 degrees in a while. But maybe it is more important to drink this tea when you WISH it was summer (or anything other than winter). Basil is my FAVORITE. Especially the purple basil. I can put that on anything, when I have it. (Whole leaves on a pizza? Why not?) I’m not a tea expert, but this is different from any tea I’ve tried. The color isn’t quite black, it’s more of an amber. The flavor isn’t a strong black either. The lemon isn’t too much lemon at all. Maybe I’m used to overdoing basil, but I don’t smell or taste much of it here. It is a nice sweet and light flavor though… just like summer.

I was so anxious about brewing this tea. I don’t brew loose leaf white tea very often. If you get the water too hot it’ll scorch the leaves, but of course you don’t want a bunch of leaves floating in lukewarm water. The Joy’s Teaspoon website recommended a 2-3 minute brewing time, but I’ve usually read that white tea needs a longer than average steeping time, so I let it go for around 8.

I’ll never really know whether I butchered it, because I found it very enjoyable. It gets better as it cools. A bit of sweet grape with some very lovely floral notes on a white tea base. Smooth, light, and lovely to sip. I’m very curious as to how this would taste iced, even though I almost always prefer hot tea.

I will also add that the dry leaves smell like candied grapes (not artificial grape flavor, but like real grapes covered in sugar). I’m glad that the super sweetness of the smell wasn’t in the taste, but I have to admit that I enjoyed sniffing it.

Got this as a sample thanks to Naomi at Joy’s Teaspoon. It smells a lot like Teavana’s Tiramisu Treviso but is a little more subtle in terms of taste. Good both with and without sweetener. Perfect dessert cup.