Upton Tea Imports

Edit Company

Recent Tasting Notes

30

I am not familiar with green teas that India produces, I remember trying some of them in the past but don’t have any memories regarding taste or smell or even something beyond the fact that they were green. Since I love Darjeelings a lot I decided to branch out and ordered a bunch of samples from Upton.

This Korakundah fellow is the first I’m testing and it is kinda scary because the dry leaf smells awfully strong of fish. It isn’t a fresh fish smell, more of smoked fish but it doesn’t exactly improve on the aroma. I know some people think that green teas have fishy qualities and now I can understand why they would say that but it’s the first time I encountered it myself.

Fortunately the brew doesn’t stink as badly as the leaf does. That’s where the smoked fish comes in. I’m getting a lot woody smoke, about the same amount as average Gunpowder has. The fish is finally subdued and the tea actually tastes very vegetal and slightly bitter, with the astringency that lingers in the mouth after each swallow.

Overall I’m not impressed (if only by the fish) and not even slightly pleased so I decided against resteeping it.

Photo-report: http://tiny.cc/DKQdd

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 3 min, 0 sec
Heyes

Love the photo report! I will be stealing said style jut ever so slightly after Christmas.

Oolonga

Great! More photo reports – the better. I’ll be looking forward to yours.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

91

The needle-like leaves have a wonderful nutty fragrance with slight notes of resin and flowers when submerged in hot water. The liquor produced is pale yellow and has a slightly deeper resin fragrance than the leaves alone.

The taste is rich and complex with notes of butter, nuts, pine, and a few other tastes I cannot describe. A very worthwhile tea with wonderful surprises in the flavor.

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 3 min, 0 sec
Cofftea

I just bought my 1st yellow tea and I’ve been wanting to order from UTI for a while and when I do, I’ll be ordering yellow tea.

Jillian

UTI? LOL, I’m not sure they’d want to be associated with the acronym for Urinary Tract Infections! XD

Cofftea

I was really tempted to say something like “so is a yellow tea from UTI better at getting rid of UTIs than say a black tea from Adagio?” UTI is also a car mechanic’s school.

takgoti

I cannot separate the UTI acronym from its urinary counterpart. The fact that this is a yellow tea makes it all the more unfortunate. This does remind me that I need to order yellow tea from Rishi, though. May need to give this a go as well. Methinks I will be ordering a lot of tea tomorrow.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

73

Spicy aroma, but not overpowering; reminds me of hot cinnamon candies. Tannin level a bit high for my taste, but a dash of milk helps smooth this out. A warm, comforting cup.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

100

This white tea does not have much flavor hot BUT when it is chilled…My oh My watch out!! The flavor just blast through!! I will say a little fruity leaves a fresh taste in your mouth.

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 5 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

92

I like this with a teaspoon of sugar per teacup and I brew it like a regular black tea as opposed to infusing in milk. It’s probably one of my favorite Chai blends of all time. Nicely spiced and perfumed, with prominent but not overwhelming clove, cinnamon and cardamom.

I know a few people who like to add a little bit of black tea to this to bring the tea notes out further. I don’t find that necessary, but it’s worth mentioning.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

93

This is a really excellent tea. The Upton description is right that it’s mildly smoky—oddly, I am usually not too wild about Darjeeling or Lapsang Souchong teas, but somehow this mix balances the smokiness of Lapsang Souchong perfectly to my taste. Darjeelings often taste very floral to me, but I don’t get that with this blend — not sure if it’s because of a low amount of Darjeeling, or it’s a nuttier one. A hint of smoke, a hint of nuttiness, and a nice full Keemun background tying it all together. I definitely recommend it.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

93

It snowed here in Michigan this week—just an inch or two, which is a light dusting by midwest standards and by no means a “snowpocalypse.” I shoveled the driveway this morning and it was the first time in weeks I’ve been out in the cold for more than a couple minutes (sans automobile).

Anyway, let’s get on with the tea!

This was in my first order from Upton. The other tea that came in the box was a wuyi golden monkey, which I’ll get to reviewing in the near future, but this golden tip yunnan has taken over my mornings and early afternoons. One reason is it still holds up after 3 or 4 steepings, so I just keep refilling.

The liquid is a rich brown and the taste is sweet. You can tell it’s going to be sweet just by giving the bag a whiff. I don’t get the spicy/pepperiness in the description on the site, but there is an amazing caramel (or maybe toffee… I need to get some caramels and toffees from the store to compare) finish. This really comes through at around the second infusion, and it’s so pronounced that I almost can’t believe this is an unflavored tea.

I’m leaving for a cruise (with family to the Bahamas!) tomorrow morning and considering smuggling some of this aboard in case I suffer from withdrawal. Anyone have tea-related cruise experiences?

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec
Cofftea

No, but I do take my tea w/ my when going on vacations. I think it’d be even more important on cruises because you can’t easily seek out local tea shops.

Auggy

This tea sounds yummy!
And yay cruising! I love cruises! I can’t imagine they have any of the good stuff on board but you will be in the Bahamas so you’ll just have to console yourself with that awesomeness if you don’t pack enough tea goodies. Have fun!

Atacdad

I have the perfectly miserable story about tea and cruises ;-)
Cruising is my wife and I’s favorite way to unwind and we’ve been on 4 or 5 in so many years. On cruise, about 2 years ago, was aboard a Princess Cruise Lines ship out of Galveston, TX. We had high expectations, because Princess has a very good reputation, and I was thrilled to see that they served afternoon tea! I convinced my wife to attend tea one afternoon, thinking we’d enjoy something special. I was expecting some ultra tasty oolong or darjeeling and some nice pastries from the pastry chef…what I got was a Lipton tea bag (yeah, the same one you can go down to the store and buy) and store bought shortbread cookies. Talk about a let-down :-(
So yes, Jack, by all means, take your own tea. You can ring room service and ask for a tea setting for two; you’ll get a coffee carafe of used to be hot water, a couple of mugs, and some tea bags. With some good loose tea, its salvagable. If you do this in the evening, they can send you a piece of whatever was for desert in the main dining room…makes up for it ;-) Consider hanging onto the carafe; the next evening you can take the carafe to one of the drink stations and fill it with real hot water, grab a couple of coffee mugs and serve yourself..quicker and better.

Jack

Thanks everyone! I’m going to go load up a ziplock bag right now :)

chana

Ditto the above. I’ve been on cruises where the food was out of this world and then the tea they served was generic dust in tea-bags. Be prepared. _

Cofftea

This is where fillable filter bags come in handy:)

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

74

I haven’t had a moment in a while when I’ve been able to say, “wow, this is a really good tea.” And that doesn’t really change with this tea.

http://bit.ly/4tTVGo

I know Keemuns are supposed to be among the best black teas and I’m certainly a black tea kinda guy, but I’m just not getting all the Keemun hype. I’ll still take a good Yunnan, one that’s malty like Rishi’s Golden Yunnan, or one that’s caramel-like, such as an all-bud Yunnan, over just about anything.

This tea had a nice hint of deep chocolate, but the rest of the flavor was all smoky-tarry. When I’m in the mood for something smoky, I’ll go for some Scotch-smoked salmon on a bagel. Just not sure I’m looking to replicate that sensation in a hot beverage. (And I so don’t get the whole lapsang thing. First time I had it, I thought someone had accidently extinguished their cigarette in my tea.)

For all my bashing of this Keemun, it has a nice rich texture, however. But I think there are better things out there — maybe even among Keemuns.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec
Angrboda

Aaaaaaaaaaand now I want a salmon sandwich before bedtime. Thank you SO MUCH for that!

East Side Rob

Probably hard to find a good bagel over there I imagine.

Angrboda

It’s gaining ground some. There’s a new little place that’s opened right where I take the train home from work. But I imagine it’s probably not really the same thing as what you get over there. There is a cafe near where I live too that makes them, but I’m not in love with the enormous amount of bean sprouts they insist on putting in. I like bean sprouts, but not really in those quantities. Mostly we have regular sandwiches though.

East Side Rob

I like bean sprouts, too, but I’m not sure bagels are really a good bean-sprout delivery system. A bagel should be served with cream cheese (or maybe butter or margarine) with Scotch, Irish or Norwegian smoked salmon. Reading the New York Times while eating one, however, is optional.

Angrboda

Yeah, they keep trying to get away with stuffing a whole serving of salad in there too. Makes it difficult to eat too, my mouth just doesn’t open that wide.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

83

A nice tea with a buttered vegetal fragrance and taste and that slight nutty taste I’ve come to associate with Sencha. There is the slightest bit of something that might turn into bitterness if steeped too long or at too high of a temperature, but in my cup it is just fine and good with a slight tang.

Preparation
160 °F / 71 °C 3 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

75

I blew through this stuff—just drank my last this morning. They aren’t kidding about it taking milk well, it’s a really nice morning cuppa.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

84

A nice mellow Assam tea with delightful toasty notes and a slight sweetness. While it is not as complex as some full caf Assams I’ve had, it is nonetheless very nice. It makes a soothing cup to accompany me to bed. No bitterness. No astringency.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 30 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

55

New white tea offering from Upton.

I was surprised to see how many silver buds this tea has, it looks almost like Silver Needle but for occasional White Peony leaves. The flavor is less impressive though. It’s light and mellow but lacks character overall. It’s hard to tell what tea exactly I’m drinking – it has both Silver Needle sweetness and dryness of White Peony. The dryness seems to prevail and pushes sweet notes to the background.

This tea has no personality whatsoever and this is what I call totally forgettable. In order to write this review I have to constantly sip on the tea because I keep forgetting what it tastes like as soon as I swallow it.

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 4 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

100

Good gosh! My arby’s italian sub and curly fries must have been REALLY salty. I had their blackberry fruiTEA w/ it and a couple cups of tea and a bunch of water after and I’m still dying of thirst.

Didn’t have any iced tea made and I didn’t want to end up w/ a huge amount of wet leaves so I made ginger lemon water using the ginger I used in my matcha and English Breakfast this morning. I call it ginger water and not ginger tisane because ginger tisane has almost no liquor on it’s own lol.:)

1.5oz ginger steeped in 2oz boiling water for 20 min. Placed 2 thin slices of lemon in the bottom of my glass, decanted my tea, and added 14oz refrigerated water. Don’t have fresh lemon? Add 2TB lemon juice. Lemon verbena or lemon grass would definitely work as well.

Preparation
Boiling 8 min or more

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

88

I love this tea — I got it to try a different Chinese tea than my normal types and went for the generic Keemun (figured I’d start at the bottom), and I am very pleasantly surprised. It’s a perfect morning cup for me; plenty of flavor but not overly astringent.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

37

For all of my black tea drinking, I’m a relatively newbie to Ceylon teas. But I decided to break out of my Yunnan, Assam, or Darjeeling rut and give this one a try.

http://www.uptontea.com/shopcart/item.asp?from=catalog.asp&itemID=TC56&begin=0&parent=Teas%3EBlack%3ECeylon&category=Uva&sortMethod=0&categoryID=24

Koslanda has been an organic and biodynamic estate since 1992 and is located in Sri Lanka’s Uva’s District, famous for its teas and often used in blends.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:TgdgQqD7RPsJ:www.transfairusa.org/pdfs/profiles/Koslanda-Sri%2520Lanka_04.pdf+koslanda+sri+lanka&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESg4VtXmI1NtppCt7rnAS1_Ko6SJ00x3HUauKTslJEqvzf7VM7GA1xyeMX6Mhyfh75CDiNeApjgi4S1I_Y0Y6oJYt9xZMfJHMH7tgu1lG9zKZd1TH3A-7zqS0uFtQSIDvqX0gaop&sig=AHIEtbS4ds9vRVtV6bh3u0QXvK40G-r8AA

The recommended steep time for this tea is relatively short for a black tea, three minutes, not because it’s delicate like a Darjeeling, but because this is a broken-leaf tea and with all that additional leaf-fragment surface area, this baby infuses quickly.

The liquor is rich and dark, but what’s missing is flavor. It’s not an unpleasant flavor, mind you, it’s just completely lacking. It sort of hints at being Assam, with a glimpse of maltiness, with a bright nuance reminiscent of Darjeeling, but they’re all vague hints. And the clean finish that Upton’s description mentions is really a euphemism for when you swallow, any flavor immediately disappears from your mouth — there’s no after-taste whatsoever.

That said, because the liquor is smooth and rich, it holds up to creamer and sweetener fairly well. After trying it neat, I added vanilla rice milk and agave syrup and it tasted, um, sweet and vanilla-y. But the tea was doing very little of the work here. Disappointing.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec
Jillian

I think Ceylons aren’t supposed to have bold flavours of their own. That’s why they’re so often used in flavoured teas.

teaplz

Ceylon, to me, just has that default tea taste. I’ve been told that companies like Samovar aren’t even offering a Ceylon yet just because they can’t find one that’s particularly to their liking. I think they’re absolutely best when they’re paired with other teas, or, as Jillian said, used as a base for a flavored tea.

East Side Rob

Could be. But Upton’s and a lot of other tea purveyors are clearly marketing these as standalone high-end teas, particularly the teas from the Uva region. I’ve got two other single-estate Ceylons in the cupboard that I just ordered from Upton’s. Hoping they’re a bit better. Still haven’t found anything that tops a good Yunnan, whether it’s a two-leaves-and-a-bud golden Yunnan or an all-bud golden tips or golden needles type tea.

Auggy

I did have a Ceylon (one of SpecialTeas’ higher end ones) that tasted like raspberries. Not flavored, just really strong raspberry notes. So I think something like that is a good standalone Ceylon. Well, aside from the fact that I don’t like raspberries. The husband did, though, so he was a big fan.
Anyway, I look forward to seeing how the other two Ceylons you have rate!

takgoti

@teaplz Hrm, I do wonder who could have told you that? [Am giggling madly.] Anyhow!
http://shop.samovarlife.com/Ceylon_Super_Single_Black_Tea_p/0401cesu.htm
I am super excited to give this one a go. I’m getting a truly ridiculous Samovar order ready for after the holidays.

@East Side Rob Glad to see you trying to break out of your rut! I want to see you try some oolongs. But not if it would result in the world eating itself or something equally crazy.

East Side Rob

Yeah, Takgoti, I’ve tried a few oolongs in my day — a bunch of Ti Kwan Yins, a Wuyi, a Formosan “restaurant-type” oolong, and a couple of Darjeeling oolongs — but, like the true black-tea guy that I am, I tend to prefer the darker oolongs. You know, the ones that are around 70 percent oxidized. I’ll be heading in that direction again sometime in the not-too-distant future. But I think I want to exhaust my current supply of Ceylon and Keemun samples first, none of which I’ve liked so far, by the way. So, I’m afraid, you’ll be reading a few more grouchy, unhappy reviews first before it gets better.

I made myself a Yunnan Golden Tips (from Ito En’s store in New York) this afternoon just to confirm that there are still teas that I love and I’m happy to report that the Golden Tips still tastes like Nirvana to me. I just haven’t been able to get that sort of soothing satisfaction from a lot of other teas lately. The Ceylons taste like nothing and, other than the Ancient Tree Yunnans (which may be more like Indian teas than typical Chinese teas since they’re made from Assamica varietals and are malty) the other Chinese black teas taste smoky, which isn’t a pleasant taste to me, at least not in a beverage.

Yeah, I may have been in a rut with my fixation on Assams and Yunnans, but it was only a rut. It wasn’t a crevasse from which I could never escape.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

55

I’m finally finishing off this sample… it actually took me a few weeks because I opened it, tried it, didn’t find particularly interesting and put it away.

It’s one of the higher priced white teas that Upton offers but it just doesn’t deliver the way others do. The leaf looks like a regular Silver Needle but is shorter and partially broken. The smell is pretty generic but strong.

I’m really missing out on “velvety cocoa tones”. The flavor is somewhat dry and powdery, without sweet-mushroomy taste I usually find in most Silver Needles. Maybe it is the promised cocoa but I just don’t feel it should taste like this.

On the positive side it is quality tea, it brews very aromatic and holds 4 infusions easily. Just not my cuppa.

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 3 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.