The Tao of Tea

Malty with a touch of sweetness! Not bitter at all! This is MARVY! I really like this! YUM! It’s medium brown in color and of medium strength for a black tea. A nice sweet-smooth finish. YUM!

My assumptions:
This tea would be darker than dark! A pure black brew! Stronger than strong…almost coffee-like.

I was wrong!

The color was a light brown. The taste was strong but not a thick black chewy tea taste is was astringent and almost darjeeling tasting.

This was quite good just much different from what I was expecting!

We tasted the two varieties of Tao of Tea jasmine pearls side by side at the shop. Both are delicious! But, I favor the cheaper ones. It’s a more earthy flavor. The expensive ones are sweeter and have a stronger floral scent.

This is decent. The earthy qualities are not overpowering. The cup is smooth and sweet with a molasses-y kind of sweetness and a woodsy undertone. A very solid, smooth Pu-erh.

I don’t usually like my oolongs on the lighter greener side, rather preferring them to be the roasty dark chinese restaurant type variety, but I like this one. I went out to lunch today and ordered the oolong tea. It came in a super cute cast iron teapot (now I want one of those and I want this tea). The tea was very light in color and had a floral jasmine like flavor to it. I think I drank 3 cups of it. Very nice tea.

Note – I’m not entirely sure it was from The Tao of Tea. It was about this color (in the pic) and it the description sounds right. The name of the tea is definitely Bamboo Mountain so odds are I’ve made a correct guess about the company.

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending me a sampling of this tea!

This is a tasty cup. The black tea is strong and robust, and the warmth of the spices slowly develops. There is also a very pleasing sweetness to the cup.

I just finished writing my full-length review for this tea on the Tea Review Blog, it should be published soon!

Personally I like this better than Jing Tea Shop’s Mi Lan Dan Cong. Maybe they’re not exactly the same kind of tea though. This one had a lot more flavor!

Thanks LiberTeas!

This is tart and double the floral…you have chamomile AND rose! The tartiness is from the hibiscus. I’m not much of a fan of either Hibiscus or Chamomile but this isn’t too shabby considering it has both. I think it would be better cold, however.

Backlogging from yesterday…
slightly fresh veggie-esque! Smooth! Very nice!

The black tea tastes awesome! The bergamot is lovely and juicy. I’m a fan of this EG that is for sure! Nicely done! Another winner from Tao of Tea!

★★★

(Detailed Review Coming Soon)

Notes:
Interesting, this is an Indian grown Oolong tea, one of the first authentic style Oolongs from India. To me it’s very similar in flavor to some Monkey Picked Oolongs (Ti Kuan Yin) I’ve tried, with that distinct toasty aroma and taste, but a bit more acidic—tangier if you will.

Final thought:
It’s a good tea. But I’d rather buy a Monkey Picked Oolong.

My Ratings…
★ = Didn’t Hate It.
★★ = Not Bad.
★★★ = Me Likey.
★★★★ = Impressive!
★★★★★ = AwesomeSauce!

★★★

(Detailed Review Coming Soon)

My Ratings…
★ = Didn’t Hate It.
★★ = Not Bad.
★★★ = Me Likey.
★★★★ = Impressive!
★★★★★ = AwesomeSauce!

★★★★

(Detailed Review Coming Soon)

Notes:
I don’t normally buy/drink Black Teas, but this has me interested. Pretty dang delicious. I’d buy it again for sure.

My Ratings…
★ = Didn’t Hate It.
★★ = Not Bad.
★★★ = Me Likey.
★★★★ = Impressive!
★★★★★ = AwesomeSauce!

I got this tea for Christmas from my brother, who has a The Tao of Tea store within walking distance or something ridiculous like that. He’s not a huge fan of really crazy teas (like I am) so he tends a bit more towards the subtle side or even the non-flavored side, but he knows I like neat flavors.

I admit, I was a tad disappointed when I saw what this tea was because I am just not that big of a fan of mango. That is to say the actual fruit, which is probably why my brother doesn’t really know that I’m not a huge fan, because how often do you eat mango fruit as opposed to something mango flavored? This point is important because anyone stalking my tea notes would probably notice that the phrase “now, I do not like X thing that this tea is flavored with normally” comes up surprisingly often. People might start to think that I have some strange masochistic tea drinking streak which they absolutely do not want to hear any more about. This is not the case! The fact is that most of my food dislikes are texture related: nuts are too firm and it annoys me, mangoes are too squishy while also stringy and it creeps me out, cauliflower is just disgusting, oh wait that doesn’t really fit. ANYWAY, I digress. Basically, I am generally unopposed to mango flavoring, which is good because otherwise this would have been a terrible present.

Thankfully it is not. In fact, it is SUPER DELICIOUS. Just the right amount of mango and tea flavor, making it a perfect fruity tea for when I am in the mood for that. Also, it’s gorgeous! I have no idea what the long yellow things are, but they are really aesthetically pleasing along the backdrop of the tea. It’s also one of those nice teas that you can’t oversteep, so making big pots of it is totally viable. I am DEFINITELY making my brother get me more of this when it runs out (unfortunately soooooon, since it requires 2 tsp per cup of tea.)