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Thanks Tea Lizzy for giving me a sample of this to try, it definitely has long beautiful leaves. I decided to steep it Western Style this morning. I’m getting a very light infusion that is slightly malty, light and also has a definite sweet aftertaste. The fruity element is quite prominent here with notes of apple and apricot. This might have been a better tea to try gong fu’ing instead of steeping western style but that’s all I had time for today. This is nice and refreshing, would be a good choice for afternoon tea I think. Thanks again, TL!

Happy Sunday evening Steepster….
It’s been a busy weekend and I’m at home here now relaxing and just taking care of some things. This is from the Yunnan Sourcing “dark tea of the month” club. Sorry but I can’t remember which month it arrived!

This is a very mild shu, which is good. I appreciate the light fermentation in this tea. I’ve been doing a few short steeps and picked up a coffee flavor, as well as a slight fruitiness. It has a nice mellow energy, which is good for reviving me a bit but hopefully won’t keep me up tonight! Overall this was a tasty shu but I don’t think I need to add more to the permanent collection.

Chose this as my morning tea. I feel that it’s hard to go wrong with anything from the Jun Chiyabari Estate, at least I have always liked the teas I’ve tried from there.

Compared to the Himalayan bouquet of yesterday, this is a stronger tea with more “oomph”. It reminds me more of a second flush darjeeling. I am getting a definite “spice” flavor from this tea along with nuttiness & a bit of muscatel. I decided to add a bit of agave syrup to this cuppa and found the sweetener made the flavor of it really sparkle. The agave definitely brought out the grape notes! Also nice because it has no astringency in the finish. I would say Nepali teas are like darjeeling’s gentle cousin… :)

Glad I got the chance to try this…

Another sample from Happy Earth Tea. This has a very appropriate name because it seems like a bouquet of flowers to me. As others have remarked this isn’t a “black” tea in the traditional sense, it steeps up fairly light similar to a darjeeling. I got a yellow tea liquor color from this. This is a very gentle, uplifting tea with no astringency or bitterness. I get the raisin like sweetness and the nuttiness in this blend. Combined with the floral nose, this is pretty dreamy. I would drink this as an afternoon tea it’s so mild and refreshing. No need for sweetener or milk! Would probably be good iced as well.

I am saving up to get a large order from HET but need to try all my samples first. I think this is going in the “buy” list for me. :)

I am quite fond of Nepali teas. Did you know 10% of Happy Earth’s Nepali teas go to the Ama Foundation? check it out. http://happyearthtea.com/pages/social-partners

Tea of the afternoon from the T-We shop in the Crocker Galleria. I went in looking for a rooibos blend but decided to try this instead. It’s a blend of white tea, coconut and cardamom.

I happen to love cardamom and this smelled really good in the shop. I wanted something with low caffeine so hopefully this doesn’t keep me awake later on. I’d say the cardamom is very strong in this blend and overpowers the other ingredients a bit. The coconut is present in the background as a bit of a milky/creamy taste. It’s a bit difficult to pick out the flavor that the white tea is contributing to this. Overall this is a really nice blend if you like cardamom. I tried mine plain but I think it would be good with a touch of sweetener and would be VERY good with coconut milk or coconut sugar. hmmm.

Did you know that cardamom is supposedly an anti-depressant? there’s something about it that is making me happy. ;)

I am definitely happy with this ff darjeeling sample I got from Happy Earth tea.

I brewed up my whole 5g sample because I was using a tea tumbler for this one. The predominate note I am getting is fruity. I thought peach/nectarine but it has a little bit of pineapple too. There seems to be a slight nuttiness about it as well. Only a hint of astringency in the finish but that might be because I steeped it too long. I did get a 2nd steep out of this that brought forth more pineapple and slight lemony notes.

As far as detox teas go, this is better than most I’ve tried. It isn’t too bitter and has a pleasant minty flavor from the organic peppermint & tulsi. This is pretty good plain but would also be nice with a bit of sweetener. There’s lemongrass in here too but I can’t really taste it. The burdock root, dandelion and red clover seem like the “detoxifying” ingredients in this blend but… like all detox teas it’s kind of difficult to tell if they’re actually doing anything. I like this as an afternoon beverage so far.

More adventures from the Spicely tea and spice shop on Market Street. I went in asking for a black tea that I wouldn’t necessarily need to drink with milk. They recommended this so I thought I’d try it. It’s from the Assam region and normally I would drink a tea like this with milk and sugar so I was a bit skeptical.

The package instructions say to brew this at 175 degrees for 5-10 minutes. I never brew black teas that way! But I decided I would add some cold water to my boiling hot to cool it down a bit. No variable temp. kettle here in the office.

I’ve steeped it around 3-4 minutes both times I’ve had it (today and yesterday). It has a nice malty flavor with some fruitiness too. A bit of astringency but not overwhelming. This is tasty but I must admit I think it would be better with soy milk or almond milk so I’ll have to try it that way someday. I was also told this would be good as an iced tea and I can definitely see that. Perhaps with a bit of lemon.

Finally a sipdown… this is one of my favorites from Kusmi but I don’t seem to drink the large tins very quickly. I got this over 3 years ago and am just finishing it! It is more reminiscent of chai than chocolate and the clove note is pretty strong, I do like this as a breakfast tea sometimes and it’s also good as an afternoon tea with soymilk. It’s good to be finishing something off at least, to make room for the new stuff! My life is a revolving door of tea! I don’t think I will buy more of this any time soon.