Tea Palace

Pale in the cup, rich and fruity scent. There are definite muscatel notes here. I can tell this is a really lovely Darjeeling, but as so often happens with Darjeelings, it made my tummy really MAD. A lot of Assams do that as well. Sigh.

Oooooh am I ever a sucker for things with words like toffee in them! And when it also has vanilla in it, I’m just about ready to swoon before I’ve even got the leaf in hand.

This was my first order from Tea Palace and it came about via a swap with Scheherazade who introduced me to the company and made me aware that it was well within my reach. I’m so glad that happened because they have a large selection and I spent a lot of money. Everything I bought, I received in tins. Six samples (of 40g each!) in their own little tins with Tea Palace logo on the tin and the lid and a removable sticker with the name of the tea. And when I say removable I mean removable. Not those irritating paper stickers that come off in bits and leave a lot of glue behind (although I have recently been told of a tip to remove those effectively by warming them up with a hair dryer to soften the glue. Haven’t tested it yet). Also three other things that I got in 100g tins. You could get either a tin with a bag in it or just the refill bag, but the option with the tin was only a couple of pounds more, so I opted for the tin. I’m glad I did! I really like these tins, they’re very attractive. And the Queen of Berries blend is in a specially designed tin with green leaves and red berries on it. On the whole I’m getting a rather luxurious vibe from this which I find entirely in line with the name of the company.

I’m very impressed and I haven’t even tasted any of them yet (except the one that Scheherazade shared with me previously). Seriously, it’s been a long time since I’ve received a parcel and immediately gone WOW! at the presentation of the product. It made my day! I’m really looking forward to trying some of these on my own and with Husband.

So, first up is vanilla toffee treat. Basically I just got some of just about every vanilla-y black tea that I came across on the site, really. The only reason I didn’t do the same with every caramel one I could find was that the smooth caramel was sold out. That is to say, I think it was at the time when I ordered it because otherwise I can’t think what held me back. So either it was sold out or I wasn’t looking properly. Whichever one you think is more likely.

This particular one is a tea that I’m hoping will give me the same sort of experience that I got with the toffee flavoured black from Les Palais des Thes, which was something along the line of drinking liquid fudge. It was so awesome. Aroma-wise this one definitely delivers on that front again. It smells like a sweetie shop of caramel and vanilla and sugar. The smell alone is worth at least 95 points here!

To my delight I can actually find the base blend here. There’s Ceylon in it which I think is why I can find it. I’ve had a fair bit of high-grown Ceylon lately. There are some grassy hints here so a fairly high-grown one too, I think. The rest of the base is an unspecified Chinese black, and I’ve found that whenever a flavoured tea uses a Chinese base, then I can never really work out what I think it is. I would dearly love to one day be allowed to taste such a base blend on its own as a sort of control. (Or is that a work-related wish, when we have positive controls along side a large amount of patient specimins to ensure a correct procedure?)

The flavouring strikes me as rather subtle. It’s not a mouthful of toffee and vanilla which judging by the aroma I must admit I had rather been hoping. It is there, though, especially as it cools, but it sort of hovers above the flavour of the base and it feels like it never really unfolds properly.

If you are a person who likes sweetener in your tea then it’s possible that you can coerce it a bit, but I’m a person who strongly dislikes sweetener (apart, obviously, from the flavouring) so I’m not going to attempt any such thing. I don’t like the way the sweetener interacts with the tea. For me it only enhances astringency.

As it cools a little more it develops a rather nutty sort of flavour which I’m also quite enjoying, but it loses more and more of the caramel-y and vanilla-y notes, so that’s a bit of a shame.

All in all, though, I’m quite pleased with this and will greatly enjoy emptying the tin, even though the flavour couldn’t quite live up to the aroma.

One of my favorites flavored green tea. Smells nice and tastes even better its a comfort for nose and mouth.

This is one I absolutely would have bought for myself based on scent alone – it has a caramel-sweet (without being cloying) apple compotey (without being artificial) roundness to it, which is very comforting all on its own. The dry tea itself is quite nice, too, full of large pieces of dried apple.

Steeped, the scent morphs into a brown sugar/calvados cake I sometimes make with my own apples in autumn. The caramel element really kicks in here, and it smells like sweet, gorgeous, baking pie crust. It would have been absolutely lethal if the slight booziness and the pastry scents carried through into the flavour, but they remain elusive throughout the sip.

This is all very ambiguous – I either want to like this a little more than I do, because the scent profile is so appealing, or I want to like it a little less than I do, because it’s not readily available to me. But I’m at a loss – I hate when I outfox myself.

What I do know, though, is that I wish this were a green tea. The base tea doesn’t really get to shine in this blend anyway, and the flavour profile as a whole seems so much better adapted to a green tea base.

Thanks for sharing, whoever put this in!

[Sample from the EU Travelling Box, autumn 2013.]

This is also from my recent Tea Palace order. I have to admit that while I am very attracted to berry flavoured things, I may or may not have purchased this one primarily for the tin. Look at the picture! Isn’t that just lovely? The other tins from Tea Palace or purple. Attractive as well, but this one is just lovely. (I think Husband finds it (the tin) fairly awful, but then again, he’s not a girl so what does he know?)

The tea itself, I’m pleased to report is also rather lovely. It smells strongly of berries, strawberries especially, both in the leaf and after steeping. It has that juicy note that reminds me of warm strawberry jam.

The flavour is the same as well. Strongly berry-ed and juicy, but not only strawberry here. I can pick up a hint of raspberry as well, but not really any black currant. Still it’s primarily a strawberry tea, which one might have guessed from the tin.

I find it aptly named. I can’t help feeling slightly posh when I drink it. Very lovely, this.

I’m drinking this right now. A real post about it will follow later.

Just… HELLO, CAN ANYBODY ACTUALLY SEE THIS???

I feel like sometimes my posts aren’t showing up. I’m not used to getting a total of NO LIKES AT ALL on something I post, so it rather makes me suspicious, you know?

IF YOU CAN SEE THIS, CAN YOU LIKE OR COMMENT PLEASE?

THANK YOU!

Thank you Scheherazade for this sample.

My husband is a fan of apple teas so this one was chosen with him in mind.

This smells super sweet and appley with a hint of spice..cinnamon perhaps but just a pinch. The apple pieces are soft and squidgy.

The black tea is thick and malty but the apple sweetens it up amazingly well without being too much or too little. The apple tastes fresh and juicy, also natural. The black tea actually tones itself down the more I drink.

I may have to add this one to my shopping list and buy some after Christmas. My husband is not such a fan, he says it tastes bland but the after taste is pleasant.

I found a little bit of this tea tucked in the back of my cupboard and it is turning out to be a delightful morning tea. There is a fair amount of malt and heft which I love in a breakfast blend, but there is also a fair amount of astringency – even after adding milk. Hmmm, its good, but I like some of my other breakfast teas better.

This was a present from my daughters who just returned from Europe. I love that I get tea when they travel!

This is a beautiful blend when dry – black tea, broken mint leaves, and tons and tons of blue flowers! This is one that should be displayed in a tea dish before steeping as part of the whole tea experience, and would be wonderful to serve to guests after dinner.

The mint is strong but never overpowering. The tea base is smooth, mild, and sweet, not astringent at all. There is a little something….oolong-y?…about the base, a round sweetness that blossoms shyly and briefly at the end of the sip.

Thank you, Superanna! I won’t root through yours and your sister’s luggage looking for my Christmas present tea TOO much. LOL!

One cup of this today. I forgot about it while I answered the phone, so it was relatively bitter by the time I fished the leaves out. Not terribly so, but…you know. I promptly returned to Mariage Freres Earl Grey French Blue. It’s more forgiving of my sluggish back-to-work brain. Maybe next week I can go back to green teas.

Decided to stick with the Tea Palace greens this morning! These are the only two left in my stash, although there are a couple I’d like to try now for winter. I can feel an order coming on!

I was careful with the time and temparature here, because I’ve had a couple of disasterous experiences with Dragonwell teas. My favourite to date is probably 52 Teas Smaug (also residing in my desk drawer at the moment), but I have to be in the mood for that. Today wasn’t the day, so plain it is.

Clearly I’ve been drinking the wrong Dragonwells in the past, because the liquor here is a very pale yellow-green. It smells very savoury, putting me in mind of green vegetables, or something along those lines. The leaves are lovely — flat and broad, and a fresh-looking medium green. So far, so impressed.

The taste is very subtle and delicate. I actually think I could leave this to brew a little longer, which I’ll try next time. I like to go careful to start with, but the scent suggests these have a lot more flavour to impart than I’m currently experiencing. This is light, delicate and slightly floral. There’s a definite green vegetable taste to the initial sip, which develops into an almost orchid like flavour in the aftertaste. It’s not overpowering, though. If anything, it’s actually one of the more refreshing green teas I’ve come across. I’m in the mood for savoury things today, because yesterday was a bit of a sugar overload for me. Perhaps this just really suits how I’m feeling at the moment, but if green teas can be this good I’d genuinely consider drinking a lot more of them. Maybe my tastes have changed? I don’t know. What I do know for this minute is that this is a really wonderful tea! Yum yum!

I neglected to pick up any milk on my way into work this morning, so I’ve been drinking green tea for most of the day. It was probably good not to rely on my black tea stash, because it made me dig out some of the neglected teas in my drawer and actually give them fair consideration. I’ve only tried a couple of mao fengs, but I do like this one. The liquor is more green than brown, and it’s sweet, a little grassy/hay-like, and really, genuinely pleasant. A lovely cup for an afternoon!

I wasn’t all that impressed with the last Mao Feng I tried, which was from Teapigs. A box I’d had previously was seriously nice — pale green liquor, very grassy flavour. The more recent box was yellow-brown and very bitter, without a hint of the tea I remembered so vividly. That’s why I bought this, in an attempt to rediscover a variety of tea I used to love.

First impressions with this one are much better. The dry leaf smells sweet and almost hay-like. Brewed, the liquor is a very pale yellow-green. I waited for the water to cool, and gave it a carefully watched 2 minutes. It was worth the attention, because I feel I’ve been rewarded with a palatable green tea.

The taste here is sweet, wonderfully nutty, with a vegetal note lurking in the background. It’s one of the nicer green teas I’ve tried recently, and there’s not the slightest hint of bitterness or astringency. This surprised me a little, given that the leaves are more grey-black than green, but there you go. The nuttiness becomes more prominent as the tea cools, which is nice. That’s a characteristic of green tea I can really get behind. All told, a really pleasing tea. I only have a sample tin, but that’ll be enough to be getting along with. I only really wanted to reaffirm my feelings about Mao Feng, and I’ve certainly done that!

Today I received an envelope full of yummy things from Scheherazade and I decided to start with this one. It wasn’t one of the ones I asked about but when I’m reading the description I’m rather wondering why I didn’t.

I’m fairly attracted to apple flavoured teas as it is, but this one has apple AND caramel, and I think it’s a well established fact that I’m very attracted to caramel-y teas. I’ve had great results just mixing Kusmi’s apple and caramel flavoured teas for myself before. (That reminds me, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a tin of Kusmi’s lovely caramel.) I really don’t know why this didn’t catch my eye.

The leaves smell lovely. I can definitely smell the caramel and also something which I’d probably say was just generally fruity. Really, it smells rather like a sweetie shop. After steeping the fruity note smells definitely apple-y. It’s all tart and fresh. The caramel seems to be more in the background, all mellowed out and sweet.

I’m really excited about tasting this now!

Whoa! This stuff is fantastic on an epic scale!

First I get some fresh and slightly tart apple that actually tastes like apple. After that the sweetness from the caramel comes in along with what I assume is the strawberry leaf. It’s sort of fruity-sweet and reminds me of summer. Apple tea has always been an autumnal flavour to me so I can only describe this on the whole as a bit of Indian summer in a cup.

It tastes enormously rich and yet at the same time the flavourings aren’t actually that strong. They’re easily discernable but they’re nowhere near the point where your tastebuds are completely drowned in flavour. That’s the balance I like the very best in my flavoured teas.

I’ve never heard about this company before, but I’ll be making a note of it. I had a brief look at their site and spotted at least three things right away that I definitely want to try. Shipping to Denmark seems acceptable as well. What an awesome discovery and what an excellent choice Scheherazade made for me! :D

sipdown! I’m trying to offset all the black and oolongs i’m drinking today with a few other teas (and water!) lol today is a great day for not leaving the house…a)it means i’m close to the bathroom and b) my other half is sick and i am fighting whatever he has. So i’m drinking LOTS of fluid and resting…which means watching bad tv shows and also doing a bit of work.

This is a light tea, slightly floral but not enough to push it over to the category that i don’t like, Thanks for the sample terri!

Ooft. So I was really intrigued because I noticed a typo in Tea Palace. They call this tea an Uva region, but then on the packaging it calls it a Dimbula.

Definitely tastes more like a Dimbula. I was really disappointed in this tea, the majority of it was stem and twig. Left to brew, it really didn’t develop, just was bitter with no flavor.

Another Sipdown from NofarS
This is a nice Dragonwell, which I was sipping on while thinly slicing homegrown beets. This will be my first time fermenting beets, so we’ll see how they turn out! They are in a brine with orange peel, ginger, & caraway. Back to the tea, I really enjoyed the first cup, a nice contrast to the black teas I’ve had so far today, but I’m sorry to say I really oversteeped the 2nd cup…does anybody know how to spell astringent? ;)

My mom brought this from England for me. It’s an absolutely lovely tea! I’d make it a touch weaker next time, though. Brewed 4 minutes at 70 C.

I like spearmint, a lot more so than peppermint. Until now, I’d only really tried this in blends, but I liked the flavour and deicded to pick this up with my last Tea Palace order. I’m in clearing again today, so I cold-brewed a litre of this overnight to sip on today while I work in the call centre. It’s a lot more mild and delicate than I was expecting — possibly I underleafed a little — but it’s still really refreshing and enjoyable. The mint is sweet and cooling, not as sweet as I was expecting. Neither is it as bitter as I sometimes find peppermint. Overall, I’m happy enough with this. I’ll increase the amount of leaf next time to try and get a bit more flavour, but I can see myself drinking this cold for the rest of the summer, and possibly even hot in the winter. Spearmint is definitely my mint nirvana, and I’m glad it’s something I realised before deciding against “mint” tea forever!