Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Black Teas’

Keemun, Assam, Ceylon, and Darjeeling teas each have their own personalities: grainy, stout, brisk, and wine-y. Thus, you’d expect a blending of these personalities to be the tea equivalent of a cheerful and intellectual morning conversation.

What you get, however, is the tea equivalent of morning senior-citizen buzz at the Branson hotel breakfast buffet—the kind you tune out because there’s really nothing worth eavesdropping on.

Don’t get me wrong—it’s good tea. It’s distinguished senior-citizen buzz. But to my highly uneducated palate, the blend tones down the character of the individual ingredients…the “brisk and complex” flavor and “subtle floral overtones” just aren’t there.

Prepped according to package directions and left a full four minutes, the tea is a nice, clear copper color.  Golden Moon ensures that the leaves are quality enough to take a second steep, no problems there.  A little milk with the second cup may have kicked up the Assam mojo a little bit, but still … just  murmuring white-haired tourists in embroidered autumn-leaf sweatshirts.

Golden Moon’s sample packs are nice (vacu-packed foil sleeves), but tiny (you’ll be lucky to squeeze two dry leaf-cups out of one). Perhaps if I had had a full tin to stick my nose in and experiment with, I could have gotten some real gossip out of the grannies.

You can purchase the English Breakfast directly from the Golden Moon Tea website.

Inside my sample I find small, broken leaves with a few yellow marigold petals.

The dry smell reminds me of black tea with a hint of something sweet.

Two teaspoons in boiling water with a three minute infusion produces a rich brownish red tea. The taste is smooth but could use something sweet. My Mother’s apple cake fits the bill and greatly enhances my enjoyment of this tea.

The tea itself is pretty one dimensional. I think if it had more of the apricot pieces, the tea would be better.

The package that my sample came in was a plain brown wrapper. No markings what so ever. I brew most of my black teas for three minutes, so I took a guess for this particular tea. It is not the star of the show, but paired with something mildly sweet the end result is satisfying.

You can purchase products directly from the Shanti Tea website.

Blood oranges fascinate me. I know they are becoming more popular (like the surge of pomegranate flavors over the last 3 years), but they still seems exotic, unusual and downright fascinating. It’s the dark red color of the fruit’s flesh combined with the bright citrus flavor that just get my mouth watering!

My first impression is that this tea smells awesome; dark and sweet and tangy. And upon the first sip, the taste lives up to the smell. I brewed this up in my zarafina tea maker at work, and added half a packet of sweetener and the first cup disappeared within minutes. So did the second cup. And the third. Additionally, it withstood a second brewing quite well. Which is a little unusual for a highly flavored black tea. This helps in making this tea a good value for your money – always a bonus!

I’d recommend this tea to anyone who likes black teas and citrus flavors. It tastes great and is a good value.

You can purchase the Blood Orange Black directly from the Drink The Leaf website.

The leaves of the Castleton Darjeeling are very green and twisted. When I first tried one of these 1st flush Darjeelings a few days ago, I was thrown off by how similar the 1st flushes are to green teas. I don’t have any prior experience with Darjeelings, but I really thought that they were black teas and perhaps the later flushes are. I don’t know.

What I do know is that this tea is much more like a green tea. If you go into it, like I initially did, expecting a robust black tea that would take milk and/or sugar you will probably be disappointed. However, I’m going into this tasting thinking that this is a green tea.

The dry leaf had a very green smell, but not vegetal; almost a bit musky, but not off-putting. This Castleton brews up a rich, golden hue similar to that of apple juice and has a medium floral aroma. The first sip begins slightly buttery, followed by a light floral taste. As the cup begins to cool slightly, the fruity scent begins to come into play. It is a bit hard to identify the fruity taste however that Darjeelings are famous for (well, from what I’ve read).

This tea is pretty good, but is best when drank before allowed to cool too much. A light, pleasant floral aftertaste lingers between each sip.

You can purchase the Castleton FTGFOP 1st Flush 2010 Darjeeling directly from the Lochan Tea website.

I have had this tea for a few weeks but wanted to wait for the perfect occasion to try it.  Mark T. Wendell has a reputation for exquisite teas and seems to import only the very best.  In business for over a hundred years, it wins customer loyalty by superb service and quality.  I’ve long been a fan of their black teas but have yet to try one of the oolongs.  Today was a grey and gloomy day which called for a special tea to provide sunshine within.   Mark T. Wendell’s Extra Fancy Formosa Oolong  was a much more than satisfying compensation for a dank chilly afternoon.

The first thing I thought when I saw this tea was, “Ooh, Extra Fancy?” This is the first plain dark oolong I’ve had the pleasure of trying so I’m really excited to see what I think.

The leaves were long, dark, and twisted with a few light green/gold pieces thrown in just for fun. The scent of the dry leaf was light and toasted. This is a tea that really needs boiling water otherwise it will taste extremely weak.

The first infusion was very smooth and not astringent, which is a problem I’ve had with the first infusions of a few flavored oolongs. The toasted scent has carried over to the brewed tea and is now taking on a wood-like quality.

My favorite thing about oolongs is their ability to change personalities over infusions. However, this one didn’t change much at all. I was really looking for some type of sweet note or just anything different from one infusion to the next, but I was a bit disappointed. In addition, it was only able to withstand 3 infusions which surprised me a bit since it was an unflavored oolong.

I will say that if you aren’t expecting any surprising tastes, this oolong is quite drinkable. I’ve been drinking it while studying because it is very smooth and I don’t have to add a bunch of stuff to it before it tastes good. I was excited to try it, but I think I’m still looking for my perfect oolong.

You can purchase the Extra Fancy Formosa Oolong directly from the Mark T. Wendall Tea Company website.