The Tea House - Covent Garden

Edit Company

Recent Tasting Notes

83

Another cup backlogged from yesterday. I really need to take the time to properly review this tea…

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

83

Smooth creamy tea with no astringency or bitter tones

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

83

Peppery tones, no astringency, very unique tea.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

89

Thank you Dinosara for this yummy tea!
Its sort of chai like but berry too – very yummy and soothing after what has been a MEH day.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

82

These came from a friend of mine who lives in the UK (and unfortunately is not on Steepster). The blossom held together well despite its trip through the mail and unfurled nicely without shedding too many bits in the process. The tea was an interesting one – a mix of vegetal and nutty notes with a hint of smokiness. The floral jasmine was in there too, but it was light and restrained which I appreciate as there’s nothing I hate worse than feeling like I’m drinking a cup of jasmine perfume.

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

94

This is a sipdown, sadly. I mixed the remaining of this tea with some Organic Vietnam Nam Lanh from Arbor Teas this morning and it’s a nice mix. I will miss this Russian tea!

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 30 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

94

This is a very nice tea my boyfriend brought back from England and unfortunately we do not know a lot about it…

It’s a really nice blend of black teas, not smoky at all like some Russian Caravans and not flavored like some of Kusmi’s. There is definitely some assam in here as well as some keemum perhaps. It isn’t really smoky but there might be a slight aftertaste of tobacco and pepper. A very thick and full-bodied tea, perfect for breakfast time. I will see if I can find something similar elsewhere since I really liked this!

Itsyknits

I go here all the time!! I can buy you this if you ever need it :)

TeaBrat

oooh, next time you go see if you can find out what kinds of tea re in this. :)

Itsyknits

Thdee are tons in the shop!!! I have a few I have to swap… there are others though..

http://steepster.com/discuss/641-swaps-lets-swap-some-tea?page=14

TeaBrat

sorry I don’t swap with people overseas as international shipping is $4 and up & especially as the last person I swapped with in England seems to have disappeared from Steepster and I never got their package.

Itsyknits

oh goodness!!! well.. I can send it to you nevertheless.. :)

Barb

Could it be this place? http://www.covent-garden.co.uk/SITES/theteahouse/
They do mail order… and special blends. Wish I was there, but I’m about 5K air miles away.

TeaBrat

yes, I am fairly certain that was the place.

Barb

Go for it — or send the boyfriend back and make sure he buys more next time!

TeaBrat

I’m not really that anxious to have more…

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

100

re-writing this review seeing as the last one was at about 4 in the morning and I was so tired… plus it was rude to run away from entertaining my guests (at such an hour, I know :p) to writing this review, I needed to remind myself of writing this.. so here goes!

First of all the smell.. from the bag.. I get the sweet smell from it, the bakewell tart is clearly the smell of it.. after steeping for about 4 minutes I notice that the sweet smell changed to a more pastry type smell… the sweet smell was subtle.. and now the tea was more creamy, I could really smell the tart in this, coming from this cup, I could detect a little bit of almond and cherry in this, plus the little almond pieces in this tea are such a perfect thing for it..

taking my first sip… the tea is more of a reddy brown than golden, and I was so blown away about the texture, which was the first thing I noticed.. I have never before tried a tea that was as smooth as this!! This even comes up to ‘Paris’ – Harney & Sons consistency!! I was very shocked because at such an affordable price I wasn’t expecting such a tea to be like this!!! The taste – In my personal opinion, I don’t like hugely sweet teas, and I was so relieved to know that this tea doesnt taste like what it smells like from the bag, the taste is a rich creamy, almond, cherry flavour… which I can easily tell that this IS marzipan tea! I gave the tea to my friends and they knew exactly this had to be a marzipan tea, so I’m glad that when you drink it, you know that it is marzipan tea. The empty cup smells like bakewell tarts, the sweetness has come back again so maybe while its hot the creamy pastry smell comes out more… My advice is to try it on its own.. I genuinely think that no milk or sugar is needed,,, I will be trying this tea out again with milk to see if this helps with the creamy smoothness of this.. If anyone loves sweet tea, then go for the sugar but for me.. it’s my perfect sweet creamy tea, I will be buying atleast 5 bags of this… only because it’s a limited edition from christmas,, and they are selling that last few bags, so I need to get down there quick before they go!!!

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 4 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

74

Generally speaking I try to reuse my tea tins so if I have a tea that’s sitting in an envelope and an empty tin, I will move it over. I emptied my Rishi Ginger Pu-erh this morning and decided to put this tea in it, but also realized I’ve never logged it or rated it. Heavens!!! My boyfriend brought this back from London last fall.

The dry leaf is dark and twisted in the style of a formosa oolong and I can see bits of flower petals and orange peel in this blend. I have done a few short steeps in the gaiwan this morning.

The tea steeps up to be a very light amber color and the orange element is very strong in this blend. I am also getting the flowers but I am not sure what they are, orange blossom flowers, perhaps? It’s difficult to tell what role the oolong is playing here but I believe it is lending a few roasty peach notes which are nice and pleasant. This has a very sweet aftertaste, which is a little bit too much for me unfortunately. It almost seems like there’s sugar already in it… I think I could have done with a little more oolong and a little less flavoring in this one.

I think I will have to try this cold brewed, and perhaps it would be nice with a touch of lemon to offset the sweetness a bit.

Angrboda

I’ve bought a number of different tins, but I also always keep the tins if a tea is sold in one, so sometimes I really have more tins than I know what to do with. Small tins are super-practical for swapping, though. It confuses the boyfriend sometimes, because he sometimes don’t feel he can trust what it contains is what it says on the tin. Apparently the paper labels I stick in between the tin and the lid can be really hard to see, even if they are always turned so that they point forwards… :p I tend not to tin stuff that comes in ziplock pouches though, but I’ve been wondering if I ought to. It seems unnecessary, but I just kinda prefer a tin to a pouch.

TeaBrat

I usually just tape the label from the envelope onto the old tin, but I don’t have any that are super small either…

Angrboda

I tend to just squeeze a piece of paper in, because I don’t want to deal with the glue, at least not on my larger tins. When swapping with the small ones (the little sickly green ones from Adagio samples) I usually use glue-y labels so that it can’t fall off in shipping.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

90

This is an AMAZING tea!!
With sugar and milk.. it tastes like chocolate truffles.

The smoothness of this tea aswell.. I can almost taste the chocolate powder on the truffles, it’s so perfect. I can’t detect as much of the coconut as I had wished but nevertheless it was delicious! It tastes more like dark chocolate rich tea, a rich tea but don’t think that this tea is bitter, it’s not that type of dark chocolate taste.

the aroma in the bag is much much sweeter than the taste, it smells a little bit like irish cream tea, which I must admit made me a little worried about this tea.. but! I can’t taste any irish cream when I actually brew the tea.

The price for this tea is really quite cheap for the quality of it, which is great!! This is the easter collection from The Covent Garden Tea House – so I bought 2 bags of it!! And now having some, I might even buy more!! I can compare this tea with the caramel sweetheart from yumchaa.. this choco truffle is the perfect chocolate tea that is a rich truffle treat, the yumchaa one is sweeter, just a heads up!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

62

These are not exactly a favorite of mine in the world of tuo chas… After brewing this was impossible to unfurl and once it did it was full of tiny particles which makes me suspicious that this was something sweeped up off the shop floor and glued together. These are pretty unremarkable aside from the level of camphor and the odor of a murky pond, I even am getting a trace of bitterness this afternoon. I still have about 12 of these so I’m trying to finish them off, albeit slowly. They may accidentally find their way into the compost bin someday…. just sayin’… I didn’t love them when I first got them and it seems as though I am liking them less and less over time. I want my Menghai – bluh.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

62

Are my taste buds off? Even though I prepared this myself it still tastes like it was steeped in a dirty sock. There is no water kettle where I am staying so I’ve been heating my water up in the microwave like everyone else. I can only assume this is putting a damper on my experience. :-?

ScottTeaMan

I think it is. I refuse to use microwave (unless it’s my only option of course). Either that, or your tastebuds are off due to drinking teabagged tea! Speaking of socks, I ordered a Danish tea sock many years ago. I never used it because I didn’t like the idea of my tea leaves being in a sock. I also thought it would be impossible to clean due to the tea stains, and thoughts of inadequete leaf expansion came to mind-so I never used it.

TeaBrat

weird, I’ve never even heard of a tea sock before.

K S

I am finding that if I hold the heated water up high and pour into the steeping pot or pour through a strainer it aerates (sp?) the water and tends to help.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

62

My stomach still hurts this morning so I’m having a pu-erh which is supposedly known for its’ stomach soothing properties. This is one my boyfriend picked up in London. Rest assured it looks like most other mini touchas you have seen and it appears to be a shu.

I steeped this for around 3 minutes in the western style this morning. It is very dark, earthy and brothy now. I might try to do this one day with shorter infusions. It has a lot of camphor in it which makes me wonder. I hear often times it is put there artifically with shus. It does obscure the taste of the tea a bit for me. I am not a huge fan of the camphor.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec
Jim Marks

I would be shocked if anyone was producing mini tuocha sheng.

TeaBrat

I just had a green tuo cha from Arbor teas. would this be considered a sheng? It definitely was not a shu. Also I just googled sheng mini tuo cha and came up with a lot. :)

Jim Marks

Hmmm… are any of them any good? Aging that rapid with a sheng seems completely contrary to the whole point of sheng. I mean, there’s a reason why they pack good pu-erh into much larger shapes.

As an aside, yes, sheng, raw and green are the same thing. By contrast, shu, fermented and ripe are the same thing.

TeaBrat

The one I had was more like a sweet green tea than anything else, it’s in my tea log. It wasn’t too bad. I can’t speak to any of the others.

Spoonvonstup

Yes- people do make mini tuocha sheng. Rishi has one that quite a metallic/dry kick in the teeth for me, but I’m spoiled, so there you go. I also have a bunch of sheng tuocha’s (not mini) from China that I’m aging that are very juicy and yummy- so the form of the leaves is always indicator of quality.

I haven’t heard of people putting camphor flavor in artificially. Most of the time, I’ve come across it in bricks (disclaimer.. I am terrible at tasting camphor, but my husband is a fiend for it.. “zhang” flavor in Chinese). I think naturally it often comes from wild-picked leaves that are grown near cedars/pines and other evergreens.

Jim Marks

Non-mini tuocha sheng doesn’t surprise me.

Spoonvonstup

Whoops! I meant to say “the form of the leaves is NOT always an indicator of quality.” Talk about a typo. :/

Ninavampi

Hope your tummy is better! : )

Jim Marks

While I’d agree that the form of the leaves is not always an indicator of quality, I think in the case of a mini tuocha specifically, if one is talking about sheng, it is unlikely that you’re looking at a high quality pu-erh. There’s just too much surface area to allow a sheng to age at a slow enough rate.

teawing

Yes, get well soon.

Spoonvonstup

@ Amy – My husband’s stomach was hurting last night, too, so I made him shu pu’er with a healthy pinch of cinnamon bark and a dash of mint/spearmint. If you’re still feeling unwell, I recommend it.. it’s a nice grounding mix, and the mint helps lift things up and keep the shu from being too heavy to be helpful.

@Jim – Interesting thought about surface area / volume ratios for aging. What benefits do you get by having your shengs age very slowly? I feel actually the opposite. Not by artificially aging them or anything crazy. Many of my favorite bricks are loosely compacted, which actually allows more airflow and seems to help them age faster. It might explain why some of my three and four year old bricks are already drinkable, and taste more like they are 6-8 rs old. I also break up my bricks once I’m about a quarter through and keep them in jars or canisters (with a cloth between the lid and the body to allow airflow). This keeps it better protected than the wrappers when all those pointy edges are created, and also helps it age a tiny bit faster.
But then again, I’ve never been a huge fan of early, rambunctious sheng flavors (dryness and overly metallic were never my things)- I gravitate towards shengs that have mellowed. If you like the grassy astringency (my Japanese green fanatics do), then a slower aging would certainly be beneficial.

Hmm.. this aging discussion might need it’s own thread to keep from completely hijacking Amy’s own note! Amy- have you tried any shu’s from Garret at Mandala? I’ve found he prefers a maltier, breakfast pastry, sweet and caramelly kind of taste from his shu.. especially his old tea nuggets. You might like them if you’re not a fan of camphor.

TeaBrat

Spoon – thanks I will check it out!
Jim – stop hijacking my threads… lol j/k

Jim Marks

As I always say, aging in your house and “aged” pu-erh which has undergone oxidation and fermentation are not the same thing. All I’m trying to say is that it seems unlikely that a tea which can oxidize and ferment very rapidly (because of a high surface area to volume ratio, like a mini tuocha) is going to result in a high quality product. The whole reason shu was developed was because it takes a long time to make good sheng. Maybe I’m completely wrong about all this, but as I understand the processing, speed is not something you want when producing sheng — regardless of how rapidly a consumer may want secondary aging to occur at home (which is more like keeping wine in your basement and has nothing to do with how long the wine was aged in the barrels at the vintner).

Jim Marks

/me points at yesterday’s Pine Breeze thread on my note. :P~

ScottTeaMan

Good points Jim. Yeah, the Pine Breeze discussion was possibly one of the longest (and best) threads IMHO. :))

ScottTeaMan

I’ve also seen mini tuo cha sheng.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

58

Sipdown, 223. This one was just not good today. Even with milk and sugar it had an off, funky taste that I couldn’t stomach. Oh well, it’s gone now!

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

58

Unfortunately not a sipdown, I have one more serving of this. Made it with sugar and milk, because otherwise the black base is bitter and astringent. This is a flavor combination that I thought I would like early on in my tea explorations, but apparently I’m just not that much of a fan of it. It’s ok, but I certainly don’t want to add any more to my stash. Today this one tastes mostly like crappy black tea with a hint of spices. Should have brewed it in hot chocolate like I did last time!

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

58

After coming home from being outside all day I needed something to warm me up. Yeah, it was relatively very warm for winter today, but that wind was still biting. I decided to steep this one in a cup of hot cocoa. Mmm, tea hot cocoa. I think the flavor that’s coming to the forefront here is the ginger, though it took me a bit to identify it. It definitely works well with the chocolate. The other flavors make a kind of spicey background but aren’t very distinct through the cocoa. This was a good tea for this kind of brewing because it had enough spice to come through the cocoa.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

58

Winter really does put me in a spicy tea mood, I guess. All this summer and fall I’ve gotten really into green oolongs and floral teas, which is pretty much the exact opposite of a spicy black. This offering is another thanks to maisonlula. It’s another in the orange-and-spice genre of teas, and this time the spices are ginger and cinnamon, both of which I can smell distinctly in the dry tea along with the orange. There’s supposed to be some vanilla as well, but it’s not obvious in the dry leaf.

Steeped, the tea smells very gingery… I haven’t yet had a ginger black tea (most of my ginger teas come in the form of lemon-ginger greens), so I am intrigued. It definitely smells very spicy. The flavor is less spicy than I would have expected. I can taste the ginger, but I don’t really get a bite from it or anything. Unfortunately a bitterness from the tea base here seems to overwhelm other flavors besides the ginger/cinnamon notes. Even then, I would wish for those notes to be stronger. This may be a tea that is a good candidate for taking home to drink with additions so I can brew it really strong and still drink it.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

93

I’m going international today trying another sample from Maisonlula This tea is quite yummy. The combination of the spices and the apple and orange are in perfect harmony. Reminds me a little bit like a really good apple pie or cobbler.

Itsyknits

Im glad you like it

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

67

The weather is yucky and not very wintery, so I thought this autumnal tea might be appropriate today. I got this in a swap from maisonlula, and I am excited to try some more teas from this tea shop, which I visited when I was in London last spring.

I’m not sure of everything that’s in this tea, but I think there may have been some aroma cross-contamination between it and some of the spicier teas also in the package. The steeped tea smells like a cinnamony, Christmasy spice tea, but that does not carry over to the taste. There I get some tart berry flavors and a smooth, heavy marzipanny almond that coats that mouth and takes over the aftertaste. It’s a little like Harney’s Boston if you added a variety of berries instead of just cranberry. There is a hint of spice in the taste that I’m not sure if it is intentional or not, but it’s not unpleasant. The black tea base isn’t as smooth or rich as the one Harney uses for Boston, but it’s not bitter and it doesn’t really impede my enjoyment. Overall a pretty tasty tea!

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 0 sec
TeaBrat

my boyfriend was just in London and brought me a few things from that shop. It looks like quite the amazing place!

Itsyknits

I walk by there all the time,, it’s hard not to spend my day’s pay there haha.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

87

Ok, word of warning, NEED TO STEEP FOR A VERY VERY LONG TIME, I mean atleast 8 minutes or 10 even.. honestly, it makes such a difference, best with sugar. It does taste nice, you just really need to steep this for a long time to get the gingerbread out. LOVE IT!

Preparation
Boiling 8 min or more
LiberTEAS

I find this to be true of any Rooibos blend (or honeybush, for that matter).

Itsyknits

Really?? I just usually don’t need to steep for so long.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

80

It is good.. It wasn’t as good as I was expecting, I’ve had better rooibos.. it must be the chai or something.. maybe I don’t like this mixture.. I added milk and it tasted much better but somehow I can taste a spice that I’m not really liking.. is that anise seed I taste? :(

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 15 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

95

This is so delicious with some sugar and cream. Honestly, it’s so lovely, I’ll be buying quite a few boxes of this.. I think it does need the sugar and the cream..

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

78

I can definitely taste the spices and the orange and the ginger, I can’t really taste the vanilla in here.. I’m a little gutted as I wanted it to be much sweeter than this, but it definitly has that sort of spice and zing.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.