New Mexico Tea Company

Another sample from Alphakitty :) Azzrian & Alphakitty’s boxes are the most conveniently located right now, so I’m making good progress on them! Have to get to everyone else’s stuff soon!

The aroma is very subtly of grape/plum, and a woody oolong base. The flavour follows; fairly light, with a bit of fruitiness and a light base. Very smooth. I’d like to try this with a longer infusion; I hurriedly looked up brewing parameters and probably confused some things (I think this amount of leaf was for 3 or so min, and I should have used more for 1 min). But I’m tired and stressed and this is what happened. At least it isn’t way oversteeped!

This does seem very sophisticated. Very ladies-who-don’t-need-jobs-and-who-do-charity-works-instead. And that isn’t a bad thing. It is a very delicate, high class tea. It reminds me of my grandmother. Totally not like me at all. I’m not a delicate lady. :)

The rose is very present, as is the lavender. The bergamot is underneath, but not as strong as the florals, by far. The tea base is somewhat overshadowed by the florals but again, I don’t consider that especially bad.

On smelling the dry leaf, I was about knocked out by the rose and I had my doubts. I am not a huge rose or lavender fan. My mom really likes lavender teas but she isn’t a huge fan of rose. I got this thinking maybe the rose would be faint enough that it might appeal to her. And, I’ll admit it – the advertising art swayed me. :)

All the not-fans-of aside, I like this tea, which does surprise me. Smelling it, both dry and steeped, would make me think this would be one that would be given to others. I am undecided at this point about purchasing again – that may depend on what Mom and the other tea party ladies think as well.

Because of the strong rose smell, I did err on the side of caution and steep this for half the recommended time. I think I’m glad I did but I’ll try it again with the full recommended time just to see what happens.

Made up a small pot of this tonight since the hub is out for the evening learning Russian. That means I can sit with the cats in one place and read long enough to do a whole pot justice. :)

Still very good. I brought down a bit of fat free half-and-half in case I thought I might want to experiment. I’m very glad I did. The milk ups the creamy factor a lot and mellows out the jasmine. It was good before, now it’s really, really good. I have sugar on the tea tray as well, but haven’t felt a need to use it.

I like jasmine but have some issues most times. I am more a black tea person and it seems that normally jasmine is paired with green or white teas. Also, sometimes jasmine is too bitter.

This blend solves both of my problems. I like the black tea base and the addition of the vanilla mellows the whole thing out. It does feel almost creamy and heavy. The jasmine smells very strongly of jasmine flowers when you smell the dry leaves. Not really perfumey, which is what I get a lot of times when smelling jasmine tea. Instead this blend is definitely more floral smelling. The taste is not overpowering to my palate but I would say that if you are so-so on jasmine, this blend will push you over the edge one way or the other. I love the combination of jasmine and vanilla. Pairing it with a predominately black tea makes this a win for me.

If you are looking for the green tea here, I’m not sure you’ll find it very present. My palate may simply not be trained enough to find it, but this seems pretty much like a very black tea. Good but the only place I find green is seeing a few green leaves in the dry mix.

Update: Best hot. I do notice astringency subtly hiding in the background as this cools off.

The package actually says “Peach Apricot Indian Black.” Not sure if that means the tea is an Indian base or what but the leaves are small and curled up in squigglies like the Nilgiri I’ve had has been (and I do lumme some Nilgiri). Smells very, very strongly of peach when dry. I can see some of the dried fruit bits as well.

The tea base isn’t omnipresent but the overall flavor is great. Excellent and strong peach taste and undertones of apricot. Good warm, but as the company notes, tremendous iced. I would think this might be a good gateway tea to serve to people who think they don’t like tea.

Second steep is still good but obviously weaker. Don’t think it will handle more than two steeps. But it is pretty reasonably priced (at least comparable with the other places I get most of my tea). I’d keep this in the cupboard for sure.

This was my first experience with NM Tea Co. Shipping was super fast and I’m pleased with the experience. They are going on the list of companies to do business with again. Thanks to Jubjubs for posting on their shipping deal. I would never have found them otherwise!

Finally getting to the last tea from my NMTC order (the pu’erh doesn’t count until my gaiwan arrives!). This was an impulse buy, and when I opened them all up to smell them this one seemed the least appealing—I love the taste of fresh plums, but this seemed… artificial. On somewhat of a whim today I decided to brew this up along with some chai spices, sugar plum style!

The earthy oolong and fruity plum flavors balance well, but they’re not overly exciting by themselves, and I think the chai gave them a much-needed kick in the butt. With the spices this is a pretty tasty cup, though more holiday-themed than the current weather really calls for. The plum is a bit on the artificial side, and isn’t really… plum-tasting. It’s more of a generic, juicy fruit taste. It’s not bad, but I was hoping that it would taste like a freshly cut plum. The oolong base is innocuous enough: I like greener oolongs more than their darker counterparts, but the earthy tones definitely work better with the flavoring here. I think I am going to be using this mostly for blending, as on its own nothing really stands out or makes me think “oh, I want more of that!”

I don’t want to jinx it, but Steepster is finally loading a bit faster for me today after two days of painful slowness. Crossing my fingers it keeps it up.

Yet another sample from the lovely SimplyJenW! I am excited to try this because two of my favorite flavors are bergamot and rose, and I love Teas Etc.‘s Rosy Earl Grey sooo much. I am currently out of that one, so I hope this one helps fill that gap (since I know it takes me forever to get through samples). In the bag I didn’t get a much rose aroma from the dry leaf and it smelled like a fairly standard Earl. Steeped, there’s definitely something going on here in the aroma but I can’t tell what. I don’t get a distinct rose smell, but maybe it’s hiding behind the bergamot? There is an almost floral note, I just don’t really identify it as rose.

At first while still hot this tea didn’t seem to offer a lot to me. The flavors were surprisingly weak, and mostly an decent but not great bergamot. As it cools, definitely more is coming out. I do get a burst of rose right at the beginning of the sip, which is joined and replaced by a bright, bright, fairly citrusy bergamot, though it lacks those sweetish lower notes you can get sometimes. The Keemun base is in there rounding things out and it tastes pretty good, but I don’t think it’s quite as nice as the Keemun base on the Lupicia Earl.

Overall I get kind of a general decent-but-not-great vibe from thsi tea. I didn’t actually get much rose flavor in my cup despite other tasting notes saying they did get a lot of rose, so I don’t know what’s going on there. It’s tasty enough but I vastly prefer Teas Etc.’s Rosy Earl Grey, which actually also includes jasmine as well. Glad I got to try this one though.

I absolutely murdered this tea the first go-round. It was so bad I just poured the cup down the drain, but it was really my own fault. This is a green/black blend, but it doesn’t look like there is any green in there (though it is one of the prettiest blends I’ve ever seen!) and the instructions from NMTC say to brew it at 212 for 4-5 minutes. So, boiling water, 5 minutes, and no milk/sugar it was—and the results were horrifically bitter.

So for the second steep I cooled the water down a lot (perhaps too much, but I was nervous!), steeped for 3 minutes and added a tiny splash of milk to cut the astringency. And, like magic, an entirely different tea appeared in my cup. This tasted much more like a green than I thought it would—the hint of milk cuts the astringent of the black down to basically nothing, leaving behind a soft, sweet, floral tea. You can taste the jasmine the most, but the rose & lavender are there as well, with the vanilla adding a hint of creaminess. A great afternoon tea if you like floral blends (which I most definitely do).

I love chai and I love floral blends, so this seems like a match made in heaven for me. (Another match made in heaven: pretzel sticks and Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter, which I am eating in combination with this tea) Brewed, it’s pretty much exactly what I expected: a medium-strong chai blend with a seductive undertone of rose, jasmine & lavender notes. The spices are definitely more prominent than the floral note, which is what you want in a chai! They’re not TOO strong though, even though I added an extra teaspoon to my teapot after my weak chai experience a few days ago.

This is not the strongest chai, but I think if the spices were any bolder it would really overpower the rose. For me, this is a perfect everyday tea—I think it would pair really well with Indian food, I’m almost tempted to get takeout just to try it out!

I’ve been pretty much drinking the same few teas in rotation the past few days. I haven’t been to my apartment in a week and a half, I just know there are at least 3 boxes of tea there and it’s torture not being able to open them ;~; To make myself feel better, I just ordered some tea to come to my parents’ house, which of course is not the best solution but hey, I want new tea! I maaaay have a problem.

I’ve had this a few times before, but always the same way—hot, with milk & sugar. I’ve found that I really like floral teas cold, so I iced this one with a pinch of sugar and it’s fabulous! Light, sweet, the bergamot seems to come through more this way as it’s bright and citrusy with a floral undercurrent. Iced Earl Greys are quite nice, more so than I expected. Sadly this tea isn’t mine, it’s my mom’s, and I think she’d get annoyed if I burned through her whole stash while I am here!

It’s Mother’s Day, and I am making my mom a lemon loaf. It’s her favorite baked good but she usually gets it at Starbucks, which is good if you’re in a rush but good lord do they overload it with sugar and also use lemon “flavoring” instead of the actual, well… lemon! So I decided to make her the real stuff with much less sugar, heaps of lemon zest, and cream instead of oil. Well, I ended up with a ton of extra cream for some reason even though I only got one of those teeny containers so of course I decided to put some in tea! I never put cream in my tea (milk or nothing) so I thought it would be a decadent treat perfect for Mother’s Day!

This is (fittingly) my mom’s tea—I also placed an order at NMTC but passed up this blend even though I love rose because I thought it would be too similar to my Princess Grey. Sadly, I was wrong—but not so sadly, they still have free shipping until May 31st so I feel like some of this will be coming home to me. I thought this would be a good “converter” for my mom—you can have it with milk & sugar and it’s pretty strong. She’s a coffee person but is trying to switch to tea to cut down on both caffeine and sugar (she puts in so much!).

When I opened the bag I was hit by a very, very strong rose flavor—it was almost overwhelming. I love perfume-y teas but not when they taste like perfume (if that makes any sense)-and this really had an “essential oil, gonna rub it on my wrists” kind of smell. Thankfully it mellowed out a lot once it was brewed, and is nice and richly floral. The rose actually isn’t nearly as prominent as I thought it would be, and there’s still the bergamont flavor from the “earl grey” part of this tea. The base is nice and gentle—I like assertive teas, but not for a soft tea like this. It’s so… ladylike! It makes me feel like a fancy British lady, though I am not at all British. The cream makes it soooo good, even though I used a teeny bit. I already have a straight-up rose tea so I don’t really NEED this one, but it’s good enough that I want to get it anyway.

Tea of the afternoon….(SRP #24)

I added this one to my order because it is an Earl Grey with a Keemun base and one of my favorite Earl Greys is similar. I also love rose teas, so I figured it was worth a shot. I am definitely not disappointed! This is super yummy. The notes of rose and bergamot are a little on the strong side, but it really works with the slightly chocolatey and subtly smokey tea base. Such a perfect afternoon tea! It is a little heavier of a tea than the Rosy Earl Grey from Teas Etc. and I really like them both. If I had to pick one of the two…..well, I don’t, so I won’t go there! I may have to order more of this one and the Earl Grey Jasmine Monkey King…… Not sure how soon that will be, but it is looking like it might be May 31st-ish….. If I still like it by then, I will probably cave.

Usual mug method.

Edit to add…..after a few cups, I decided that I like my other Earl Grey rose blend better. There is not enough cupboard space for two versions!

Second tea of the morning….. (SRP #22)

This is pretty good. I love coconut teas. I can tell this has a different tea base to the Black Jasmine Cream. This tea base complements the flavor rather than competing with it. I will definitely enjoy what I have in this sample. Sweet and slightly nutty.

Usual mug method.

Tea of the afternoon….. (SRP #20)

Yes, new tea samples from a new company for me. New Mexico Tea Company is currently having a free shipping offer until May 31, 2012. I decided to jump on that and try a few things, so I got this, Black Jasmine Cream, Rosie Earl Grey, and a free sample of Coconut Dream. Since I am on a jasmine and Earl Grey kick, these seemed fitting. They offer their teas in 1 oz amounts for sampling, plus 4 ,8, and 16 oz amounts, and they send a free sample that is probably a half ounce of your request. The service was prompt and shipping turnaround was very fast. The samples are packaged in a silver cello bag with a resealable zip closure. So far, I am impressed. I also ordered a round latch tin that will hold about 4 oz. of tea. I like the tin, too.

This tea is Springtime in a cup. There are jasmine notes intermingled with a light bergamot. It is definitely light and airy, floral and lightly citrusy. I definitely like it!

Brewed at about 160 for 2 minutes by the mug method.

Roasted anything will win points for me. I’m loving the flavor of this one. Prior to receiving this sample I had yet to experience a twig-like tea, so I was excited to open the little pouch. Even the scent of the tea itself is lovely; a somewhat smoky, nutty fragrance. Yum.

I steeped it a little too long, because I forgot to put on my timer, but it’s still great. It’s not bitter at all, despite the oversteep, and it’s smooth and nutty. I see here that it can be mixed with juice? I must try it.

Tastes like heaven. Or better.

I steeped this for one minute to take off some caffeine and to get a great flavor. I’m never disappointed. This tea is smooth with a nice toasted flavor and a touch of malt and leaves behind a very light aftertaste of toasty-goodness. It’s an ultimate oolong in my book. Organic too? Can’t be beat.

I opted for the unusual today, so I cracked open the green and let it fly. I gave it a minute to steep to leech out as much caffeine as I could, then let it sit for a good three minutes. Very light toasty flavor, very smooth overall, and a pleasingly “green” aroma. Not bad at all.

I’m not a big drinker of black teas, but this one is absolutely wonderful. It’s smooth and has just the slightest hint of coconut. Dry, the smell will fool you into thinking you’re about to eat coconut flakes, but after the brewing – it’s heavenly. If you look at the surface of the tea, you will see little dots of coconut oil – almost like a starry evening right in your cup. It’s a very nice tea.

A fruity African assam with the muskiness I’ve come to expect from African teas.