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“Wee snaily yums” is right.

This tea…what is this tea? It’s a slice of buttery, perfectly toasted bread, drizzled with sweet honey and maple syrup. Lightly dusted with powdered sugar. There’s a tiny hint of spice that makes me think there’s cinnamon on top too. Visualize it. Mmmmm. There’s some malt and chocolate in there, towards the end. I mean GOOD chocolate, none of that Hershey’s bullshit. My college roommate last year was a young woman from Kazakstan. She brought me a bar of milk chocolate from her country and it was better than any milk chocolate I had ever eaten. That’s what I mean. It was creamy, melt-in-your-mouth delicious. This tea is exactly that. It’s the best, buttery flaky croissant I’ve ever had. It’s the best milk chocolate and the lightest, loveliest honey.

You better have a good reason for not having this in your cupboard.

Backlog! From SEVERAL days ago, so all I have is the stuff I jotted down while sipping.

Here goes:

Bitter nut shell.
Citrus.
Maple.
Sour.
Lime.
Rum.

I remember that it did taste more like an oolong than a black tea. The weight of the liquid, the lightness of body and the almost sparkling texture…it was very bright. It wasn’t what I was expecting. I’ll try this again soon, and I’ll make sure to be more precise in my description! Thanks for sending this my way hapatite!

Lemon pastry! Cake! Buttercream icing! Mmmm!

There’s no icky, medicinal rooibos taste here. The lemon is not tart or sour—it’s smooth, and it’s paired with a soft, creamy vanilla flavor. It’s a little drying on the tongue but I have no real complaints. I tried Lime Chiffon right before this, and this one lacks that distinctly citrus note. It’s more like lemon candy or lemon cake than actual lemon. That’s fine with me though! I expected lemon pastry and that’s what I got.

I can’t help but wish there was a version of this with white tea. Maybe black tea. Though it’s nice to have something caffeine-free before bed, it lacks a certain depth of character that belongs only my beloved camellia sinensis!

SO YUM. I don’t even like rooibos and this is tasty. It has a very natural, slightly tart lime flavor without any bitterness. The fruity rooibos taste is very faint and in the background. (As it should be! Muahahahaha.) There’s a creamy custard taste that really makes it for me! It’s like key lime pie. I’m into it. I need more herbal blends that taste this good, so I can stop feeling guilty for drinking tea so late at night!

First note for the new blend! MM has been pushed to a whole new level of delicious. Each element is in harmonious balance. Sweet lemongrass and spearmint are at the front of each sip, refreshing and calming. The “greener” flavors are tempered by a subtle undercurrent of berry. (Berry, to me, is almost always a red-purple flavor.) The base tea of the new blend is more subdued than the old. It’s not as smoky; the smokiness is only a small element. The Keemun base is all honey, graham cracker and toasted marshmallow. There’s no astringency. It’s touched by woodsmoke, silky and smooth. It’s lovely! Drinking this tea takes me to a place far from here: standing by a smoldering campfire in the early morning light, breathing in the cool misty air with the sounds of the forest all around me. I raise my head to watch the brightening sky when drops of gentle rain begin to fall…

Review for the old version is here:
http://steepster.com/kmewrd/posts/245173

My WPT package came in today and the first thing I did was open and smell EVERYTHING. I probably looked like a crazy person, huffing tea. I have a keen sense of smell and I swear I caught a buzz haha. After a moment’s deliberation this is the one I chose to try first.

It is smooth, smooth, silky smooth. It opens with notes of sweet vanilla and evergreen trees. There’s the gentle touch of warm spices, like a lover’s fingers on the back of your hand. It’s light and soothing; perfectly balanced. The texture of the liquid is velvety. After the spice I notice a buttery, honeyed flavor coming from the base tea. (I think the comparison to chocolate-filled croissants is appropriate here.) It’s like flaky, buttery croissants kissed by chocolate malt! It’s not an overwhelming flavor—it melds with everything else very nicely—but it washes over your tongue with honey, malt and baked goodness. Seriously, soooo good. I rushed to make another cup as soon as the first was empty. For me, resteep value is a good indicator of quality chai. (If the second steep of any tea doesn’t compare to the first, it seems a waste.)

Aaaand it’s still as good as the first cup! I’m in HEAVEN! Melting butter, stronger chocolate notes, vanilla and honey, spice still there! I love this! It’s wonderfully balanced. It’s everything I want, everything I need in a chai. This is perfection.

Brenden you are seriously awesome.

Oh my god.

Oh my god, this tea.

I didn’t read ANY tasting notes on this before I brewed it myself, and my notes look nothing like everyone else’s. Maybe my tastebuds are whack tonight, but if they’re whack I never want to go back. This is hands down one of the best teas I’ve ever tasted.

I used 1.5tsp of leaf for 10oz of water. Steep times were 2min, 3mind, 3min.
The tea liquor is very light. The aroma is fresh, floral and honey-sweet. It’s a delicate, light-bodied tea that exudes the fragrant greenness of springtime. In some respects it’s like an oolong. (Flavors, body, appearance.) I had a hard time believing this was a black tea. It’s honey, fresh, plantlike…then it takes a turn into caramel-drizzled sponge cake. Light, buttery soft. There’s a creamy aftertaste that’s reminiscent of marshmallows. BLEW my mind. It makes me think of a dark-roasted milk oolong. Pure heaven. It coats your mouth with sort of a malty, creamy taste, but without the dark heavy flavors I associate with malt. (Molasses, chocolate, etc.) There is a wood-like undercurrent. Cedar, I think. It’s slightly roasty and drying like a rock oolong. Only slightly, though. (I keep going back to oolong.) For the most part it’s honeysuckle—green and fresh—like spring. I want this tea around forever.

Simply put:
Indescribably lovely.

The base tea for this blend has changed since I last had it! I ordered an ounce of the new one, and this is only my second cup. It certainly is different. The smokiness is more pronounced, melding perfectly with the peppery spices. It’s making the back of my throat and tongue tingle a little. It’s very woodsy! Makes me think of campfires. There’s also an earthy, grounding quality to it as well. While the old tea base tended towards caramel, marshmallow sweetness (at least for me), this tea base tends towards honey sweetness with an undercurrent of freshly cut wood. Honestly, I prefer the former in a black tea…but that’s not to say I don’t like this one too. Looking back at my other tasting note, I mentioned that there was bitterness in the other cup. There’s NO bitterness in this one. Going back to the spice blend for a second…I like it. It’s warming, like an afghan thrown across your lap as you stare lazily into a roaring fire. Yeah. It’s nice. The peppercorn seemed a little strong in the first cup. I think that’s what made my throat tingly. The base tea comes through much better in the second infusion: it’s smoother, less smokey, more wood and honey. Would I reorder this? Not sure. I think there are other chai blends I prefer, but this would be nice to have around in the winter months.

Meh. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t get into this tea. The tea base is (at best) unimpressive. It’s bright and kind of fruity, but it gets astringent much too easily. Even using water as low as 200, or 190F for a few minutes makes it slightly bitter. That’s more frustrating than I can even put into words. The flavoring isn’t too bad—it’s very tart and a little creamy. It makes me think of lemon bars. It’s maybe a little stronger than I’d like. I’d prefer it if the tea base and flavoring worked together a bit better; they seem oddly paired. Tastes better with cream and sugar…It smooths over the acidity of the tea, brings out more of the “buttermilk” flavor that lingers in the background otherwise. Even after swapping out some of this I still have nearly an ounce left. I’m trying my hardest to get through it. Time to pawn more of it off on friends…

I measured out a sample of this for my tea-drinking friend a few months ago. I’ve since run out of this blend, but while I was at her house today she offered me some.

She didn’t spoon out the leaves, she just dumped them into a cup and poured medium-warm water over them. (My internal dialogue: Did I measure several servings or just one? I wonder if she’s—oh, okay…I guess it’ll be a little strong.) Neither of us set a timer. I think it steeped for about five, six minutes, but the water temp was low enough to prevent it from getting bitter.

So. I liked this a lot more than I remembered liking it. I think I brewed through my entire ounce using Brenden’s parameters instead of tinkering. So my memories of this tea use descriptors like “bland, weak, too floral, unbalanced”. Kind of harsh, but I wasn’t impressed. It wasn’t my thing.

The long steep made the green tea base REALLY REALLY buttery, velvety and delicious. There was only a hint of jasmine in the background. It added more to the texture of the tea than the taste, in my opinion. Smoothed it over…made it a little creamier and sweeter. Just a little floral. The pine was barely present. In fact, I don’t remember if I could taste it or not. I wish I had taken notes while sipping. Oops! Anyway, the thick buttery sweet taste/texture is what got me. It was warm and comforting, like a soft blanket on a chilly night. It’s the kind of tea I’d love to have right before bed. Winding down, at the end of the day…

Not very outdoorsy, that cup. Not at all. That’s fine…it was an experiment of taste! Now I wish I had more of this to play around with. Next time!! shakes fist at sky