Vintage TeaWorks

I really enjoyed the pu’erh I sampled from this company recently, and figured it was time to pull out this sample, kindly provided by AJRimmer! (Thank you!)

The steeped tea has a very fruity aroma. I’m getting a strawberry note and a pithy citrus orange note… and caramel? It smells sort of like a very fruity butterscotch. I quite like the aroma!

On the tongue I’m tasting a sweet strawberry, which is quickly followed by a caramel sweetness and spices (mainly a sarsaparilla sort of flavor, though more mild than that tends to be). I think I get a hint of sweet cinnamon left on my tongue in the aftertaste. The base is silky and slightly buttery, with a touch of nondescript floral sweetness.

As someone who can’t even drink alcohol and has nothing to compare the flavors against, as just a flavored tea blend, I really enjoy this! It’s a shame this company now only sales wholesale and not to consumers since I would like to explore more of their teas! Perhaps at some point when my cupboard is more under control, I’ll make the effort to see if I can’t find some mom and pop shop carrying these blends.

I received this sampler way back in 2018 from AJRimmer, so thank you!

Brewed up a 500ml teapot with the full sample, allowing to steep for 5 minutes in 205F water.

The dry leaf has a fruity/floral perfumey sort of aroma. I’m still getting a sort of grape candy/floral perfume scent from the brewed tea as well, but also smell some spices on the nose… perhaps a cinnamon/clove aroma? And underneath is the typical earthy/dirt aroma of the pu’erh.

While I am no connoisseur of wines (been literal decades since I drank any due to alcohol being my top migraine trigger), I definitely get a the wine-direction this tea was going for. I taste a fruitiness of very sweet grape and some spices… on the tongue the spice has more of anise sort of flavor (a faint licorice note) but there is a lingering cinnamon on my tongue. The tea is very smooth and sweet… while I can smell the earthy/dirt aroma of the pu’erh, I honestly am not tasting it much, which in my case is a bonus.

A bit of a novelty tea, but I really like it! I’m glad I got to try it! Thank you, AJ!

Sipdown! Thanks to Phi for the sample!

I’m not a big wine person, so I was reluctant to try this blend. It turns out to not be very wine-like, though. The brew actually reminds me a lot of Nina’s Paris’s Versailles Rose. The grapefruit tartness is the same, just over a green tea base instead of a black one. I got two enjoyable steeps out of the leaf. The second steep was softer in flavor but sweeter. I let part of the second steep get cold so I could try this as an iced tea. Yum! Sweet grapefruit juiciness over a grassy green base. I can see this being great as a cold steep at the height of summer.

OMG OMG OMG… a white I actually enjoy! Hence the boost in rating, on my oolong scale this is a low B…

Yummy delicious peaches. Subtle flavors coming together. It’s a very tropical lift on a rainy day. A touch of honey only makes that pop more! Mmm. It tastes like tropical flowers and fruits on a sunny day. The quality is great, there is a long and lingering pleasant after taste I’m not used to getting from western steeped teas.

The smell alone is divine…

Sadly… this tea is intended as a gift for my sister… I just was performing quality control tastings :P
But now I’m thinking about getting my own. It is definitely on the list of Black Friday scoping out needs. But she loves white tea and white wines, so will prob be even more of a nut about it than me!

So delicious! Smells & tastes wonderful. This is my favorite VTW tea I’ve tried so far.

After receiving some Vintage Tea Works tea for a past birthday, I’m unashamedly hooked. The Green Tea Sauvignon delivers a light and pleasant fruity, floral taste with grapefruit peel and marigold petals. One of the best ways to start off the morning!

This was a fairly old sample I had sitting around. I have a cold this week so take my review with a grain of salt. It was a light, slightly fruity tea. The taste was pleasant, but nothing memorable for me. It was a nice cup to settle down to, last night.

Another tasty wine-inspired tea from Vintage Teaworks. I don’t know why I held off trying this one for so long!

The blend consists of dark twisty green tea leaves and some petals. The smell is intoxicatingly fruity, but not overwhelming. For some reason, I wouldn’t have imagined grapefruit from either the aroma or taste without reading the description. It struck me much more as a peach and tropical fruit combination. The taste is crisp and fresh, a little tart, like a fruity and slightly dry white wine. Both the fruit flavors and the light grassiness and mild astringency from the tea base contribute to the impression. I would say there’s a little green apple as well—definitely the greener and fresher end of the fruit spectrum. But still no grapefruit! Even so, this was a highly enjoyable flavored green tea, and very distinct from the numerous others out there. Thanks beelicious!

Thanks beelicious for this lovely sample. I’ve been holding off on trying it for a while—it seems too strong to drink late in the day, but too fruity for a breakfast tea (and besides, I’m usually not awake enough to fully appreciate my first cup of the day). Today I was finally able to try it in the early afternoon, so hooray!

The blend has a rich, dark-berries aroma that does immediately remind me of a full-bodied, fruity red wine. The part about Merlot getting a bad rap in the official description makes me laugh—having lived in wine country for many years, this is true to some extent, but it doesn’t stop us from enjoying it!

The taste of this tea is similarly richly fruity, not quite wine-like but definitely wine-inspired. The flavors are “tannic” as suggested by the description, making me think of blackcurrants and grape skins. There’s also an interesting sweetness that is candy-like, but refreshing instead of cloying. I finally identified it as liquorice, and while it’s not a common ingredient in tea blends, it has a nice effect here, making the tea seem less heavy as a reuslt. Overall, it’s a one-of-a-kind and enjoyable blend!

Having lived near wine country for many years, I was very curious about Vintage Teaworks’s wine-inspired teas. Thanks to beelicious for the opportunity to sample them!

This is a cheerful-looking oolong blend with rose petals and fruit pieces. It has a sweet, dried-fruit aroma, a little peachy. It brews to a fairly light color, with an aroma that is both fruity and mulled-spice-like. The flavor is not initially strong, and tends toward the spice side at first, but develops more with a longer steep. Tropical fruit and floral notes gradually emerge, and the flavor profile becomes more complex. The aftertaste is a little tart and effervescent, and overall it does remind me of a more ripe-tasting chardonnay with fruit notes. After some cooling it develops a slightly earthy finish. A unique and creative blend that is well worth trying!

My last sample from Blodeuyn! Sorry it took so long for me to try all of them… This one is a mixture of loose leaf puerh with a few other things. There are giant pieces of what looks like vanilla bean, and I guess they are since the description mentions vanilla. I can also see a few cloves and some type of dried berry (cherry possibly). The whole thing is garnished with feathery red flower petals. Dry scent is definitely earthy, but I can also smell sweet vanilla and rich dried fruit notes.

I was surprised that the steeped tea was not super dark due to the puerh. Again, it smells heavily earthy with some sweet and spicy notes mixed in. Hm… This mostly tastes like a light shou puerh to me. The flavoring is quite subtle, in fact I find it too subtle. I can taste the cinnamon as well as a touch of sweet grape. It’s not terrible, but I don’t love it either.

A sample from miss Blodeuyn. She ordered a few of this company’s teas and was kind enough to let me try them since I was curious about them. This one and the puerh blend have been left sitting around for a bit because I’m not really a chai or a puerh drinker. I do enjoy chai, but I never seem to reach for it. This is a very strange tea in its dry form. It’s almost wet, and all of the leaves like to stick together in a giant clump until you break them apart to measure some, at which point they crumble a bit. I can see whole cardamom pods, fennel seed, and some crushed green leaves that resemble bay. Dry scent is strong on the fennel and anise aromas.

The steeped tea has a strong fennel aroma as well, and I confess, it reminds me of Italian sausage… This is definitely a more savory chai. I’m drinking it plain and I can taste the fennel and the cardamom quite strongly, and I can also taste some of the star anise. Cinnamon is mentioned in the description, but I don’t really get that flavor at all. Overall, it’s okay, although I’m not a huge fan of cardamom, so I’m a bit biased.

This sample came from Blodeuyn. She was kind enough to send me samples of three different teas from this company, which I’ve been curious about since I stumbled upon their website a couple of months ago. The leaves are very small and dark, and there are several colors of flower petal/buds mixed in with them. Dry, this tea smells very sweet and almost candy-like with grape and plum notes. It also has a weird powdered sugar scent to it that I do not enjoy. I steeped a teaspoon of leaf for 4 minutes at 200 degrees.

The brewed aroma is also sweet and fruity with some malt and definite wine-y characteristics. However, it still has that weird powdered sugar/chalky scent. Meh, that scent carries over into the taste as well, which is too bad. It reminds me of those berry-flavored Tums. The other flavors are quite nice here, the winey grape and the plum along with a touch of licorice and floral. I would enjoy this one a lot if it weren’t for the weird chalky flavor…

Thanks so much to Blodeuyn for sending me samples of the Vintage TeaWorks teas that she ordered! I’ve been curious about this line for a long time, and I’m not exactly sure why, since I’m not a wine drinker. I decided to start with this one because a light tea sounded nice after having a strong black, and because I actually do like some Riesling wines. :) The tea itself looks like bai mudan – pieces of leaves of varying color and size with some silvery buds mixed in. I also saw a peek of a red flower petal in mine. Dry scent is somewhat sweet and fruit with a floral edge. I let it steep for 3.5 minutes at 175 degrees.

I was a bit worried by the aroma, mostly because it was highly floral. Luckily the taste is delicious! I taste mostly lovely creamy and buttery white tea with grain notes. Then there’s a little bit of white grape flavor, which goes nicely with the cucumber notes of the white tea. Lastly, there’s some floral presence, but it’s not overly offensive to me and comes out mostly at the end of the sip. Overall, this tea is very tasty, and I actually do find it similar to Rieslings I’ve tried! :)

Dry leaf aroma: Black currants with notes of plum and a delicate floral undertone.
Dry leaf appearance: http://instagram.com/p/siUfXtFcBu/

Wet leaf aroma: Very much like the dry leaf aroma – black currants and floral.
Wet leaf appearance: http://instagram.com/p/siUlZYlcB8/

Preparation: Brewed western style in a glass infuser mug.

First steeping: 4 minutes at 195 degrees. The freshly brewed liquor has a delicate floral aroma. While the cup is hot the dominate flavor is black currants, with hints of licorice, plum and a mild floral note. As the cup cools the floral note becomes fainter and there is a tart aftertaste.

Thank you Marcel Duchamp for a sample of this one in our swap a while back! The blend certainly sounds interesting. The oolong is one of those dark wirey types. I haven’t had one of those in a while. There was about 1 1/2 teaspoons so I went with it. Vintage teaworks suggests 1 tsp, at 195 degrees for 3-4 minutes.

Steep #1 // 9 min after boiling // 3 min steep
The steep color is a light amber. The flavor has cinnamon at the front then is a bit fruity.. it’s supposed to be papaya. I’ve probably never had papaya so to me it is mildly melon, cantaloupe. Then it has a sweetness like some teas are described as ‘maple’. Tasty! THEN I looked at the description in this tea for chardonnay which I have also never had before. The flavor notes for chardonnay are actually spot on for this tea! Copy and pasted: “more common descriptors include pears, butter, toast, melon, butterscotch, and spice.” The pear would be the mild fruity flavor I’m talking about. The tea is also buttery. There is also a mild toastiness from the type of oolong this is. I’ve already noticed the melon. The butterscotch is the maple I’ve noticed and the spice is the cinnamon! WHOA – all of those notes for chardonnay fit this tea! And also I need to drink some chardonnay. Lots of it.

Steep#2 // just boiled // 3 min
This one screams citrus for some reason when the last cup didn’t even hint at it. I guess because the citrus sat around all day mushy for the second steep, as gross as that sounds. But then the cinnamon was stronger so this was an interesting cup! The other flavors were pretty tame, just citrus explosion! Seemed more lemon than orange.

Steep #3 // half a mug // just boiled // 3 min
Another super citrus cup. Did I also mention all the vanilla beans? I love how this one changes so much. Delicious and now its gone!

A sample of this was provided to me by looseTman – much appreciated, since I was pretty curios about these tea’s.

Dry leaf form is long, twisted, with rose petals, and chunks of vanilla bean, papaya and orange peel. The aroma is slightly floral. I don’t generally enjoy floral tea’s, but one never knows unless they try.

After steeping for 4 minutes at about 90 produced a chardonnay coloured brew (no surprises there). The aroma was quite vanilla, but one of the vanilla chunks was quite large.

If I were to try this tea blind-folded I would say it’s all vanilla. I didn’t pick up any of the other spices or fruit flavours that other’s have. I like vanilla, so that is not a problem for me. As a vanilla tea – it’s quite good. But this doesn’t say chardonnay to me.

I have enough of the sample provided to have a couple of more tries to see if I can pull out other flavours.

This is super duper tasty. I was completely terrified when I saw the dry leaves looked wet…yet I sniffed them and they smelled like chai and seemed a bit more oily to the touch than water damp, so I brewed it up anyway. I would totally risk my health for a cup of chai.

I am glad I did, as the sample came from LiberTEAs, and noted the same textural oddity. And I also really enjoyed this. I made it with almond milk and a bit of honey and it was on the milder side, but not in a bad way. Just not a punch-in-the-face of cinnamon and spice that I do often enjoy, but like a break from sometimes.

I had been wanting to try this ever since I heard about it, but I’m really not one to buy big supply of something I haven’t even tasted yet….. Then swoops in ifjuly with a generous sample! That girl, I tell you…. :)

This tea is absolutely amazing…. winey but with spices. I can see myself absolutely loving this in the winter, as the cup in my hands felt like a mulled wine treat.
The pu-erh is so lovely here, and the liquor is beautiful.
I’m so excited that I got to try this one (and still have a bunch for more!)… yay!!

For some time this company and these tea’s have intrigued me, and I wanted really badly to sample the tea’s, but for some reason never placed an order. My opportunity to try a couple of these finally came up in a recent swap.

I’ve had the merlot twice. My first sampling of it yesterday didn’t work out. While the leaf in the bag smelled sweet, it didn’t translate to flavour. That was my fault. I think I over-leafed and water temp was too hot. Yesterday’s cup was disappointing.

I tried again today, and decided to let the water cool a bit longer and used less leaf. I also added a drop or 2 of agave, just to see if that would pull out more flavour. Today’s brew was a lot more flavourful. I definitely got the grape/wine coming as the cup continued to cool down. The problem today was the agave that I thought would help, but in fact made the brew too sweet.

So maybe third time will be the charm, and hopefully tomorrow’s sipdown of this I’ll get it right. I guess I should bust out the thermometer for proper brewing temp and skip the sweetener.

Thanks to looseTman for providing me with a sample.

So I found this in an old word document that was saved to my desk top. It is back from before October 2013.

I received this in round 2 of the Secret Pumpkin swap from Darby. It is also on my shopping list so thanks so much for sending a sample!

I have been trying to post about this tea for a while but have been having trouble, steepster won’t let me log this specific tea for some reason. So here is what I remember.

The dry tea smells very fruity. I immediately thought black currant.

The brewed tea tastes similar to merlot. But not a “real” merlot. It really reminds me of Arbour Mists Blackberry Merlot (read: wine that really tastes like juice). It is sweet but not overly sweet without adding any sweetener. I would say it is a bit disappointing in the sense that is lacks the body and flavor profile of wine, but that said, it tastes enough like merlot to not have to question the description/name of the tea. It is also missing that bit of dryness or astringency that you get with wine. Definitely better as is cools, the sweetness becomes a bit stronger as it cools.

Wow, this is actually very reminiscent of deep red wine! The flavors are unexpected but work together very very well. The cherry gives it the fruity taste, and vanilla rounds it out. I think puerh is perfect for this because the aged flavor gives it the earthy flavor that barrel aging would for wine. Most excellent!

This comes to me courtesy of RogersCK. Thanks for sending me this pleasant and intriguing blend!

This is an orange brew that smells of green grapes. The taste really does remind me of white wine. Admittedly, I am by no means a wine connoisseur. Still, this tastes light, grapey, and almost sparkling. There’s a touch of sweetness during the sip and a gentle tartness at the end.

The apricot that everyone’s talking about comes out for me in the second steep. Juicy, with a more assertively tart finish than earlier. More lemon myrtle than lemon fruit. The third steep tastes about the same, only even juicier. Nom nom nom.

This is my first exposure to Vintage Tea Works. I’m impressed. I look forward to trying more of their teas in the future.

sipdown

steep 1: 167f, 3 mins 30 secs
steep 2: 182f, 5 mins
steep 3: 194f, 6 mins

Having a cup of this tea this afternoon. I really like this chai. It’s spicy and warm, it has a taste that evokes thoughts of bourbon, but it’s not too spicy and I love the sweetness of the honey notes. The black tea is robust. It’s a good chai.