The Tea Table

Last week was busy and this weekend has been even busier. I had wanted to get to part 2 of the house organizing project this weekend but it will have to wait. The good news is that the worst of the closet organization is done. I can find my shoes now. LOL.

I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. It was hermetically sealed in its shiny gold packet. The dry leaves smell very lightly smoky and have a mouthwatering breadiness.

I would call the color closer to a dark amber beer color than copper, as I don’t see much pink in it. The liquor is clear and smells divine. There are very definite cocoa notes in this, with the breadiness of the dry leaf as an undercurrent. Chocolate croissants! The smokiness smooths out in the steeping so it’s just a mild hint around the edges. I can see what they mean in the description about the floral notes, but I wouldn’t have identified them as that. I might have said honey, only a bit fresher and less heavy smelling.

The flavor is pretty much just like the aroma. It’s a smooth tea with no sharp edges, and a rather soft mouthfeel that leaves behind a fresh coolness in the aftertaste. It’s chewy without being as hefty as most other teas I’d describe that way.

It’s really lovely.

I picked this as one of my three free samples in my last order. My thought was that it would be like Constant Comment, what with the orange and clove.

However, where Constant Comment goes heavy on the clove, this goes heavy on the orange. Not really what I was hoping for, but it’s still pretty good. Orange isn’t exactly my favorite fruit in tea, but this has that nice tangy citrus rind flavor. The cinnamon adds a comforting layer. Can’t say I really detect the vanilla. But this is lovely on such a wet February day.

Still, I can’t help but feel like I’m drinking the Christmas potpourri my mom makes on the stove every year. (In a good way.) But I think I’ll stick with my Constant Comment.

Sipdown no. 9 of April 2019 (no. 58 of 2019 total, no. 546 grand total).

Chocolate mint teas have a hard row to hoe with me. I love the idea of Girl Scout thin mints in a cup, but that’s almost never what I get. Usually it is a problem of balance in the blend. Almost always too much mint. Every once in a while, not enough mint.

I gave this one relatively high marks because I thought the balance was better than most, though the chocolate could have been given a bit more of a boost. I stand by that original assessment.

It would be wonderful, one day, to find Girl Scout thin mints in a cup…

I drank this one Sunday, too, so it’s a backlog from before the Great Steepster Freeze of ’18.

In the packet, this was very minty. The chocolate was so much less present that I worried about balance.

After steeping the aroma was a little weird. It had a quality to it that was like the floury residue on the cake pan after baking cake, but with chocolate and mint aspects as well. The steeped tea was dark amber and cloudy. It looked like an amber beer without the head.

As it turned out, the flavor was nicely balanced. It’s a solid chocolate mint tea — not too minty, but could be a bit more chocolatey for my taste. Still the balance was better than in some others I’ve tasted.

Sipdown no. 73 of 2017 (no. 354 total). A sample.

This was only enough for a single serving, which is a bummer because it’s lovely.

It smells divinely fruity in the packet, more berry than citrus. After steeping, the smell intensity reverses and the citrus is more prominent though both smells come through. The tea is clear and an intense orange-brown color.

The fruit flavors are not overwhelming, but not overly subtle either. The tea has a nice balance. It’s clearly tea, not a vehicle for fruit flavor delivery, and the flavors permeate the tea rather than sitting on top of it.

I can imagine this would be lovely iced. I wish I’d ordered more. It’s going on the wish list.

+ latte e miele

Sipdown no. 41 of 2018 (no. 397 total). A sample.

Gosh, I wish I had more of this. I just had a tiny bit left in the packet, so I had to combine it with the Sencha Arihara to have enough for my take it to work tea today. But I’ll remember it fondly. I wish they still carried it.

What a lovely tea! A berry/fruity floral mix sitting lightly on top a green base. The lemon is present but barely, just enough to perk it up a bit. The dry leaf has a strong, but gorgeous, raspberry smell — not medicinal like some fruit teas — but the aroma of the steeped tea has a strong lavender note. It reminds me of that je ne sais quois of the French flavored teas done by Mariage Freres, Damman Freres, Kusmi, and The O Dor. It’s a clear medium-deep golden color.

I wish I had more than a sample. And of course, now I can’t find it on The Tea Table site.

Sipdown no. 6 of 2020 (no. 601 total).

We had a virtual coffee chat for my team at work and I brought the last of this along.

I must say that my group is doing a nice job of keeping people in touch even though we’re on week three of working from home. I probably see some people more on video now than I did in person.

Anyway, this tea. With age, it’s a little less juicy on the tea front and the cherry has a sort of “dry” aspect for lack of a better word. But it was still enjoyable. The original note provides an interesting record to compare this to from back when this tea was young.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy!

So that thing I said about flavored green teas being hit or miss? I realized that when I wrote that about the Todd & Holland Copacabana, I was thinking about tropical fruity teas. The thing about those is if they have pineapple in them, and sometimes even if they don’t, I mostly taste pineapple. It’s a strong flavor and it overshadows other more subtle ones. Same with coconut. In any case, I often have trouble differentiating the various tropical flavors because everything tastes like pineapple or coconut. And then I say to myself, eh, another one of these.

I wasn’t thinking of this. I’ve known about Japan cherry tea for a while but I have never tried it until now. And I’m a fan.

Cherries, fresh cherries, are one of the fruity pleasures of life in my book. Cherry flavor, in my experience, is usually pretty consistent. It often reminds me of Kool Aid or Luden’s cough drops, and it’s more the associations that are off than the actual flavor. I’ve never really had a cherry flavored thing that I thought had flavoring that was too bitter or too sweet or too anything. Even the medicinal aspect often doesn’t bother me unless it has an alcoholic side to it.

I steeped this a bit hotter than usual for greens because the packet said to take it to near boiling. But I think the temp I chose was close enough. I steeped a bit longer than the directions (by 30 seconds) but I may try a shorter steep next time.

Cait said that this smells like cough syrup in the packet and I get what she meant — it’s a strong cherry flavored scent. But for me, it wasn’t medicinal because no alcohol side. It was more like Jolly Rancher cherry. It retains a cheerful candy-like aroma in the steeped tea, which is more golden than yellow.

But all of that smooths out in the flavor, which becomes more reminiscent (for me anyway) of the true cherry fruit flavor than candy. There’s nothing sweet about the flavor, though nothing sour or bitter either. It’s pretty mellow, but strong enough so that there’s no mistaking it.

I had this just after breakfast, but I’d like to try it with a clear palate and see if I come out the same way.

Sipdown no. 42 of 2018 (no. 398 total).

My opinion of this hasn’t changed in the intervening months. It’s a juicy, tasty, wonderful sencha. As it aged, it took on a more standard sencha flavor, which was also lovely.

Oh wow. This is my 1200th tasting note! It only took eight years…

The description the company gives is “round.” That’s not the word that comes to mind for me, but this is definitely an unusual sencha. There’s a dewy sweetness to the aroma, honey-like, which has a hay note that’s apparent in the dry leaf but not so much in the steeped tea.

The flavor is also quite unusual. It’s not grassy or vegetal so much as it is very subtly sweet and a little tangy. It doesn’t really taste like any tea I’ve had before. It makes me think of bees and pollen. It’s extremely pleasant (which is why it gets a high rating).

About the only thing that’s usual about this is it’s color, which is the golden straw color described on the packet.

Sipdown no. 4 of March 2019 (no. 39 of 2019 total, no. 527 grand total).

I have had an inordinately busy weekend getting ready for no. 2’s Bar Mitzvah. I had several panic attacks this morning before I got out of bed. When I think about how after no. 1’s Bar Mitzvah I basically had vertigo for 6 months, I guess the panic attacks may be letting me off easy. And maybe all of this explains why I have been having headaches lately. Ugh. My body is crap right now.

So I haven’t hit the pu erh samples this weekend. I just drank some black tea — and since I’ve done all my initial notes on the ones I have, I was able to do that without any pressure, which is awesome.

I’m starting to get worried about keeping up the pace on sipdowns, though, as I am plowing through teabags and other samples pretty quickly. I went looking for some teas that weren’t rated in the 90s that were in sipdown range and found this one.

It’s quite enjoyable this morning and amazingly makes a good companion to leftover Chinese food (my breakfast). My initial note on this one is still accurate, so I’m just going to end the recording of the sipdown and go enjoy the rest of this cup before I have to run to get some clothing altered and buy some shoes.

A pretty blend, with lots of shapes and colors including the ever lovely and visual interest-adding red peppercorns. In the packet it smells primarily of spices, but there’s also an orange zest note.

It makes a light orange-brown tea that smells like a spice tea with orange notes.

But amazingly, it somehow gets a pastry flavor into the mix in the sip. The spices sort of blend together with no single note leading, and there’s an unexpected sweetness to the flavor. The orange is a little on the subtle side but definitely there, and what it lacks in strength it makes up for in non-fake orange flavor. I wonder whether making the orange flavor stronger would also make it fake tasting, and if so, this strikes a balance that makes sense. I don’t get a strong sense of the underlying tea, but that’s not really why you drink a tea called “orange cookie” now, is it?

Sipdown no. 64 of 2018 (no. 420 total).

As it was the lowest rated black tea in my cupboard, it went into a cold brew mix — there wasn’t enough of it alone to make a full pitcher so I combined it with the last of the Richmond Park Blend from Upton and Snickerdoodle from Leland.

The cold brew is quite weird, and not the parting note this tea deserved.

A never before opened packet of this has been sitting on my counter for a while. I’ve been waiting for the right time to give it a try.

I always think Keemun leaves are fascinating in a iron filings sort of way. They look like if you held a magnet against them they’d jump right up. The picture is very accurate. They have a very earthy smell in the packet, a dark smell with a sharp, high note.

For me, the liquor wasn’t all the coppery. Unless your penny has been in circulation for a while. It’s much darker than the color I know as copper, but has a reddish/orangish tinge.

The aroma suggests something deep and flavorful. There’s a slightly bready note and a tad of smoke. I had never heard “the burgundy of teas” before, but I get it. It has the same feel.

The flavor is very nice. At first, it seems somewhat less complex than the smell suggests it might be. But the finish and aftertaste belie that impression. There’s a sweetness to it and the smoke is subtle, which I like. The mouthfeel is pretty interesting. Soft and smooth. There’s a dark cocoa note, like a baking chocolate, a slight metallic/potato note and something that’s a cross between coffee and caramel, but not really either.

Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox – Round #5 – Tea #42
Another interesting green. I didn’t really think there would be much spice flavor if I couldn’t fully boil this with the green tea without making the cup bitter. But overall there was a perfect balance of green tea flavor and spices and a nice dose of spearmint as well, which was a refreshing surprise.
Steep #1 // 30 minutes after boiling // 2 1/2 minute steep

Yunnan is one of my favorite black teas for all kinds of reasons.

There’s something aesthetically pleasing to me about the shape and color of the dry leaf. Some are blonder than others, some are curlier than others, but they’re all pretty interesting visually. This one’s leaves give me an overall impression of being medium “blonde” (some very light, golden leaves, some medium green, and some darker) and more wavy than curly. They have a malty smell that I associate with Yunnan and a tad of smoke.

But of course, mostly, I like the taste. I find it to be generally smooth, without the bite that can get me in the throat in certain other blacks, like Assam, but complex with a fair amount of depth. The flavor in this one at 205F for 3.5 minutes is milder than I expected given the description of this at the Tea Table’s site as their strongest Yunnan, but still very tasty (I might bump up the time a bit next time). It’s smooth, with just a tiny bit of astringency in the finish and a definite lingering peppery flavor with an undercurrent of maltiness. Very drinkable. Also, it makes my teeth feel clean. :-)

Liquid Proust sent me a few samples of oolongs recently, and this is one of them. Thank you!

This tastes green and slightly nutty to me. There’s also a hint of a floral note. It tastes like spring to me. I think I prefer the darker oolongs I’ve had, but this is quite good. There’s no bitterness or astringency and the flavors are light and clear.

I decided to give The Tea Table another try – I had ordered from them a while back and was only over the moon with one of their teas – Orange Cookie Tea. THAT tea is so delicious I had to order it again, but everything else I ordered left me cold.

I’m SO glad I did! Maybe I got a bad order last time, maybe I chose the wrong flavors, but this time I have been so impressed wth the selections.

Triple Threat Temptation is AMAZING! Seriously! Chocolate, coconut, creamy goodness for reals! Next time I’m adding a bit of heavy cream or milk

Received this as a sample. Tastes just like peaches and cream! Peach flavor is subtle and not artificial tasting. Creamy goodness! Would consider ordering this in a bigger size.