Tavalon Tea

great tea. I brewed it in a cool tea maker, the Tea Control of finum

Thanks go to Katiek for sending me this in her mystery box and introducing me to another new tea company.

The lilies in front of my house are finally blooming and because of this my allergies are absolutely killing me today. I’ve decided to stick with a plain tea for a change, this has been a rare occurrence lately, and hot tea should make my itchy throat feel better.

I’ve been mulling it over trying to figure out if I have had Darjeeling before and I’m not really sure that I have, or perhaps it just wasn’t a memorable experience for me. My first impression of this was that it tasted somewhat similar to an oolong and had just a tinge of astringency to it. Over all the color was on the lighter side and I was surprised by the low steep temperature. I’ll need to go do some reading up on Darjeeling later, I really know next to nothing about it.

I’ll need to be careful of this one in the future since I’m prone to getting sidetracked and oversteeping things. I could see how this could turn bitter fast. Overall, this was a pretty nice cup of tea and it made my throat feel better.

I think this is the distributor my tea is from. I do like this as an afternoon tea. Golden liquor, strong pepper notes, although either the tea has some metallic notes or it EASILY picks up the taste from the brew ball I have. Not my favorite tea, but good.

Found it to be more sweet than sour. Great mix of flavors. We think we might try it iced for a summery drink.

Yummy! This is delicious. Nice apricot flavor, but not overly fruity. The green tea prevails. It is grassy and light and bright in flavor. Will make a great iced tea tomorrow … but I am enjoying it hot right now.

Mmm, the fruit and floral flavors blend well with the white tea. I was worried at first, because the smell is heavily fruity, but the flavors balance well.

This was the other tea I got with my Tavalon Tea of the Month Club. I am having a nice cup after my morning class. It is very fresh and clean tasting. It is a lovely tea. It reminds me of spring :)

For some reason I got another shipment of my Tavalon Tea of the month club on Saturday. Its only every other month and I got one at the end of January. It must have just come early this month, but I’m not complaining :)

I decided to try this one out last night after a nice dinner out with my boyfriend (mmm…Ethiopian food). I made a little pot of it and it was quite delicious. It was a very nice after-dinner tea. It is soothing and has a nice hint of vanilla that isn’t overwhelming but is definitely present.

Well the maté wasn’t as helpful as I would have liked, and I’m still feeling really sluggish. I have to lecture today, though, so I have to find some energy somewhere. I thought a nice, brisk Earl might give me the kick in the pants I need. I’ve always liked this tea a lot but I don’t turn to it all that often because I’m always trying something new and complicated. This definitely qualifies as a “brisk” Earl Grey… the bergamot is really bright and almost sharp, but it’s not bitter or astringent. A pretty good choice to get me going, I think.

It’s the great Earl Grey tasting! I’ve been hanging on to small samples of various Earl Greys for a while now, intending to do a side-by-side tasting of them in the attempt to determine my favorite traditional Earl Grey that I have to keep around. On this rainy day it seemed like the perfect opportunity sit down and taste 10 different Earls. 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. All things considered tasting conditions weren’t optimal since I wanted only small amounts of each tea so I didn’t have too much, and as such they cooled really quickly. I think I’d like to take the top teas from this tasting and have full cups of tea under my normal conditions relatively back-to-back to really see how they play out.

Of the teas in this round, this one had the brightest bergamot flavor. It was crisp and clean and light, and the Ceylon base complements the bergamot well. It’s interesting that the Ceylon doesn’t give this one as much warmth and richness that I feel like it often brings. This and the Earl Grey from Joy’s Teaspoon had the truest, most unadultered bergamot flavor. I think this one is still near the top of the list when compared directly to others.

I like going back to teas from the beginning of my tea journey and tasting them now. This tea is really so uncomplex, and so good because of it. The dry leaf just smells like bergamot, that’s it! And brewed it’s just a nice, well-blended mix of the bright, citrusy bergamot and the smooth ceylon. Is it my favorite tea? Well I’m really getting into the more complex blends, so no. But whenever I want to go back to a nice, classic EG, it’s nice to have this one in my cupboard to turn to.

I opened my container of this tea today and it looked like I had never taken anything out of it before. Magically regenerating tea!

I still want to do a side-by-side taste test with my traditional EGs, but I have a feeling this one would be near the top. Whenever I have it I really enjoy the cup, with it’s bright bergamot over the warm Ceylon base.

Bumping this one up a bit. I’ve had a number of traditional Earl Greys now, and I wanted to try this one again. Definitely tasty; I think I like a Ceylon base, which this has. It’s not bitter, not much astringency, and it has a lovely smooth bergamot taste. At the very end there’s a hint of bright citrus that gives it a little lift. This is pleasant Earl Grey that I could drink regularly.

Another purchase from the CTF. The dried leaves have a super pungent bergamot aroma, which made me a little nervous because I was afraid it might brew up bitter tasting to me.

I went ahead and only brewed it 3 minutes, not the 5 as instructed, and I think it was a good move. The liquor is a deep-dark reddish brown and the aroma is of bergamot and… something else I can’t place. Perhaps its the base teas coming through. It’s not unpleasant, and I feel like if I knew more about straight black teas I might be able to pin it down. Surprisingly the bergamot isn’t overwhelming in the aroma, but is the main flavor in the taste. I got no bitterness in this cup, just a nice strong flavor. I enjoy this Earl Grey, and look forward to drinking through the cannister I got at the show!

Thank you LiberTea for sending me some of this chai. It is a lighter chai, I like the almond background. I would loved more almond to it! The green tea base was hard to taste. The blend of spice were different and nice. I brewed it in 1/2 milk and 1/2 water, and later added sugar and honey. Overall, a nice chai tea.

Having a cup of this tea for breakfast today. Unfortunately I think it may be my last cup. I went through this tea pretty quickly. It is a very nice strong breakfast tea. It holds up well with most breakfast foods.

Sunday morning breakfast tea is soooo much better when I know I don’t have to do homework for the rest of the day! This tea is a delicious, malty and strong. The perfect morning wake up call.

By the way did any else not know it was daylight savings today. Thought I was waking up at 11 and it was actually noon – whoops.