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OH Wow! This is really wonderful!!!!! This tea has been roasted along with a bit of red cane sugar in the firing process. Red Cane is like a Muscovado, according to the Canton website. This black tea is sweet but not sickie sweet, it’s naturally sweet. There is no bitterness to the black tea. It smells like molasses but tastes like the top of a crème brülee which every time I find this in tea it just is the best!!!!
I never add anything to my teas so I love the sweetness of the sugar actually involved in the firing process. This is definitely a treat and special tea. Definitely worth getting more of this,,,this is a necessity in life!!!!
Oh and I also found on their website that the black tea used is Zheng shan xiao zhong (the same varietal used for Lapsang Souchong).

Second Steeping—Still delicious flavors and a touch less sweet (which they said it would be) but still a sweet and not bitter at all black tea. So good!!!

Third Steeping—Starting to lose its yum factor but still o.k…..I’d say that two sessions is what you can get from these particular leaves but maybe I could have left the leaves in the water a little longer (I only steeped for 3 minutes each time to keep leaves from turning bitter). Still such a delicious tea, I rarely get to a third steeping but that’s how good this is!!!!

5/14/14 — Oh Sugarcane Black,,,why are you so good?? I have to pay international shipping to get you :( Drinking some more today yum yum :)
I had a cup left because I had had another tea before that,,,so I put it in the fridge for iced tea later. When I had this chilled on ice,,,it was like the yummiest Southern sweet tea only with quality tea and not as sicky sweet as sweet teas can be. So delicious!!!!
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7/30/14
Having a cup Western style today. Sooooo good!!!! I usually don’t resteep this one now because the sugar effect gets washed away with the first but it is still a light smoky black tea with no sweetness if you do resteep.

Very fresh tea with spring green colored leaves, scents of mineral and spinach. Very light spring green color liquor that is very light and delicate as it is brewed at a lower temperature.
It is very cleansing and has a touch of astringency. It almost has a hint of jasmine but this is not a jasmine tea. It is supposed to have an “oily” liquor but I didn’t find that at all. I found it very clean.
LIght, fresh, and springy green tea.

This tea also has Se Wei (which is a term I just read about) which I have found in some younger white teas. It is a feeling of having a rough tongue, as astringency deploys, the taste buds contract and it can feel a bit itchy. It is very itchy in the back of the throat.

The tea leaves are very clean, beautiful, fresh, and green as if they just picked and dried them and they haven’t been stored,,just straight to your cup so that was very nice.
This is brewed at a low temp so it is very delicate and subtle in its flavors. This is a lovely, cleansing white tea.
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6/19/14
Dry leaves are silver needles mixed with sage green colored very young leaves. Gorgeous and delicate tea. Scents of spices and apricot.
Only had a tiny bit of sample leaf left so I brewed in a Pyrex cup at 170F for 3 minutes. Had about 1 tsp left so I used 1/2 cup water.
Liquor has a vanilla scent with subtle spice and apricot. It has a white pearl color.
Wet Leaf is so pretty. Baby leaves that have gone from the sage green to a lovely sea vegetable green color.
Flavor is very subtle. Light, refreshing, light light strawberry note. Not bitter at all.

This tea smells so good, roasted and warm little rolled tea leaves.
Brewed, the liquor is a dark amber jewel color and smells like roasted nuts and baked cookies.
Whoooaaaa!! The flavor is very delicious!!!! Creamy roasted goodness. I love Da Hong Pao and this one is rivaling that as my favorite roasty tea!!!!
I am glad I chose to take this down to 195 F. I am getting to where I don’t want to brew any tea at 212 F,,,it is too hot for the leaves for me. I love my tea kettle where I can set the temp that I want and 195 still gets the leaves to open and keeps them from being burned.
The wet leaves are all opened and a dark green color, as if they roasted them first and then rolled them (but I know nothing of how they create these wonderful teas).
It has that burnt sugar color and flavor in crème brûlee that I love. This is definitely a very yummy, complex, and worth getting more kind of tea!!!

Whoa!!! Now the word “buttery” gets thrown around a lot but this really is buttery and has a very creamy mouthfeel. There is a lovely, but not overpowering, floral note that accents as it finishes.
I used my glass teapot that has a huge brew basket so the leaves had lots of room to open up,,, because they really puff up from their original little rolled green balls with stems.
The scent of both the dry tea and the liquor is just heavenly, like lovely white citrus blossoms.
I brewed this at boiling and then a re-steep at boiling and I detected a bit of bitterness so I got fresh leaves and lowered the temperature to 200. This was a much better temperature and produced the same buttery notes with no bitterness.
Also the packaging of Eco-Cha is is both Earth-friendly and classy. It is very nice and comes with a very informative tasting note for each tea. This tea was made by an artisan who has won first prize in the Nantou Co Jin Xuan Tea Competition out of 2400 entries.
This is definitely delicious and I am honored to get to taste it!!!!

Got to eat at True Food Kitchen today,,,so yum!!! We ordered this tea to go with dessert and it had all the great qualities of Bai Mu Dan,,,sweet honey and creamy notes.
They served honey with the tea at the restaurant but it certainly does not need it as there is natural sweetness to White Peony.
Was a great Saturday and a lovely ending to lunch!!

Very beautiful, tightly rolled little emerald green balls that smell like honeysuckle. The leaves unfurl to be pretty forest green and the liquor is a Spring green as well.
The liquor smells of honeysuckle as well.
The flavor is not as floral as the scent which is very cool. It has a cream and almond taste.
As it cools, a nice Angel food cake flavor comes thru. There is a touch of astringency but it is palate-cleansing and very very subtle.

The second steeping I timed at 4 minutes as well, as the leaves had opened up very large. The flavor was still creamy- tasting and honeysuckle-scented with the very light astringency.
This is a very beautiful tea!!!!!
Thank you to Teavivre for this sample!!!!!

I really like Rishi teas because their teas are always perfectly described on the box and you know for sure that you will be getting those tasting notes. This one is malty and rich with accents of plum and raisin just as the box says and it is delicious!! It doesn’t have any astringency or bitterness either.
I am really enjoying this tea and love its creamy, sweet scent too. The liquor is so dark like coffee. This is really yummy black tea!!!!

This was an impulse buy today and I’m glad I got it!!
It really smells like those Airborne orange tablets lol,,,I wonder if Airborne uses dried citrus peel in their recipe?
Now, I live in the desert; and in the summer time I dry stuff all the time especially sun-dried tomatoes. I could probably dry a lime this summer and brew that up so I might try that sometime.
But the reason I got this Numi tisane is that these are 100% natural, dried organic Arabian limes so I thought this would be a slightly unusual lime flavor!!! Plus these are all ground up and put into tea bags so it really gave some punch!!
I loved this herbal! I thought it had a great citrus flavor but not too tart. It really did have elements of those Airborne tablets (but in a good, natural way without the chalk of those things,,,,and in hot liquid form without the effervescence) so I kept thinking how great this would be if you didn’t feel well.
I drank this straight and it was really enjoyable and if you added honey to this, it would just be yum yum!! I will have to do that next time :)

Thank u to Teavivre for this sample!!! This has a lovely creamy scent. There is a tiny tiny hint of floral and I like the floral being subtle. The floral notes are mainly when you breathe out and not in the flavor.
Small cleansing amount of astringency.
The creamy “milk” flavor really comes out as the tea cools a bit. This is a lovely and balanced Jin Xuan!!!