Black Dragon Pearls

Swapdown this morning (not this tea, but getting rid of a few others, and actually not acquiring new teas in return, just postage), leaving me with 138 teas! Woot! It’s a good thing because I am approaching some travel times, which means few sipdowns, and then in less than a month I will be in Paris, buying way too many teas.

Anyway, this tea. Two ounces of black dragon pearls, which is what I had ordered of this one, is really not a lot. Some teas are like that I guess! My pouch already seems pretty empty, but may have more servings in it than I think. This tea is good but not great. It shows its Yunnan roots in the light hay notes. They discontinued selling this tea at the same time that I bought it on clearance, so perhaps my pearls are fairly old, but these pale in comparsion to most of the other pearls I’ve had. I don’t get much chocolate, I don’t get sweetness. I get a fairly normal non-golden Yunnan black tea that just happens to be rolled into pearls. Well, if I drink this up then I can order some pearls from Teavivre (my favorite!)

my new years day plans have been ruined by being sick. So much for getting to drink tea and play board games with friends all day. Might just need to make it up by “forcing” my other half to play games with me all day. Not nearly as much fun as gaming with more than the two of us but i really don’t want to get anyone else sick.

I had a cup of this in the morning. I’m struggling with working today so i may call it quits sooner rather than later.

Farewell, my lovely Black Dragon Pearls! You will be missed. I am astonished how quickly I drank up your roasty chocolatey wonderment — I only added you to my cupboard in mid-July!

Now that Starbucks have bought Teavana — my head spins. I’m not holding my breath on being able to buy Black Dragon Pearls on every corner, but… can you imagine?!?!

Another black pearl I’m able to try from Momo’s teabox. There was only one serving left, so I took it from the box for later. Later is now! These are about half inch in diameter sized black and gold pearls. I’m sure I’ve had these before under other tea companies, but I’m willing to try all of them! I used the last six pearls.

Steep #1 // just boiled // a few minutes steep
I wasn’t sure if the dry leaves smelled exactly like chocolate or it was smelling like that because it was stored around another tea that actually had chocolate in it. At first sip, nope, it’s these chocolate pearls! The flavor is very deep dark chocolate. Like chocolate without the sugar/calories. Before taking a sip I swore there was a wisp of a fragrance of cherry and the first couple sips were actually slightly smoky. I think six pearls are the magic number for this, or maybe even seven, though there actually are a ton of leaves in the basket.

Steep #2 // just boiled // few minutes steep
This cup was much less deep chocolate and even less cherry but turned into a berry flavor.. can’t tell which, just not cherry. Interesting switch! I feel like I’ve had these pearls before (though I know most black pearls aren’t the same). Probably either Tealux or Teavivre. I’ve tried both of those only once, so I can’t be sure. If these Teavana are the same as those two, I imagine the prices of the other two are WAY cheaper for the same thing. In any case, this happens to be about one in three Teavana blends I actually like. These would be a cupboard staple… from Teavivre of Tealux though.

The first time I had this, I was underwhelmed by the comparison to Teavivre’s.

This one is better brewed Western-style, I think.

And as I’m sitting here printing out literally hundreds of papers for my Creative Writing class (no text, just 20 odd PDFs of poems and stories that we have to print out) I figured it was a good time to give this one another go.

Steeped with water a little bit hotter than Teavana recommends – I used just-off-boiling instead of 195. But it’s still good. It’s rich and thick, and it’s not overly astringent the way it was the first time I had it. It reminds me a bit of late winter, when the leaves have all fallen off he trees and the sky is dark and grey – it feel s like it would fit in there pretty well. Good tea.

This is the third company that I’ve tried this style of tea from, and I also place it in third for taste.

I found subtle hints of cocoa, and some maltiness. It was ok. I’ll have no problem finishing what I have, but I wouldn’t re-purchase. There are tastier pearls out there.

Tea #9 from the traveling tea box.

This isn’t the most robust black dragon pearl that I’ve tried, in fact they left me a little underwhelmed, but they do make a nice iced tea. It has a nice malty flavor to it and a subtle sweetness.

I will say that 2 oz of these pearls certainly won’t go very far.

Tea #18 from Traveling Tea Box C

Good, but not great sums this up pretty well.

They have a nice thick, smooth mouthfeel (The twelve year old boy in me totally just giggled at that), and they’re malty and just a little sweet. They’re not as cocoa-y or tobacco-y as thepuriTea’s or as robust as Teavivre’s even though I brewed them at about 5 pearls for 10 ounces, so I was a little underwhelmed.

I’d still definitely drink these if someone was giving them out.

This is an incredibly delicious black tea. It has sweet undertones, but they aren’t so harsh that the tea should at all be considered a sweet tea. It’s perfect!

There is a sort of sharpness to this tea, almost like eating a very strong dark chocolate. One thing I like most is that it sure does wake you up in the morning.