Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Tea Leaf’

One of the things I’ve been noticing over the years, as I’ve ordered tea from various merchants, is that common parameters aren’t always common.

Almost every tea will have directions on the back of the packet, telling you how to brew a cup of tea. Too bad they can’t agree on the definition of the word ‘cup’. A standard English definition of the word cup could lead you to believe that it would be a measurement somewhere around 8 oz. But apparently this doesn’t count in the tea world. The general rule of thumb is 2-3 grams of tea per cup. But if you don’t have the same definition of cup, that could result in some very strange brewing parameters.

Lupicia has one of the smallest definitions of a cup I’ve ever seen. They define a cup as 5 oz., and still call for 3 grams of tea per these 5 oz. I’d be afraid of oversteeping with something like this but this cup? This was an amazing cup of tea.

The product description says “Sweet nostalgic aroma of caramel and almonds. Delicious straight or with milk.” This tea leaf smells sweet. And brewed up, it’s a beautiful medium brown and smells lovely, although much less sweet. Drinking the tea straight up, it has hints of caramel and almond flavors; a nice light cup. However, I like to add splenda or honey to my black teas. And if you sweeten this? Wow, it’s amazing. Mellow, smooth caramel flavors. Rich, creamy, and sweet with an almond finish. I also tried this tea with milk, and while nice, I didn’t find that it added as much as the sweetener did.

I strongly recommend that those who like a little sweetness with their tea give this a try. It’s a lovely yummy cup of goodness.

You can purchase the Caramele directly from the Lupicia Tea website.

Dry smell is nice and minty.

A 4 minute brew time yields a light straw colored brew.

My first sip leaves me screaming, “where is the mint?”

This is blasphemy. The Moroccan mint police need to called! Someone stole the mint out of this blend!

The dry smell was to die for, the brewed up tea was a total failure.

I was greatly disappointed with this sample.

You can purchase the Moroccan Mint directly from the SpecialTea Brew website.

This is a solid white tea.  Just a nice solid white tea.  The leaf smells lovely and fruity.  Once brewed, the aroma of this tea is sweet and slightly grassy,  It brews up to a golden liquor; a really pretty cup.  The flavor is pleasantly hay-like, and very mellow, but the aromas don’t arrive on the tongue.  There are no outstanding high notes, but nothing distracting either.  It does have a base-line sweetness to it, and overall, it’s just really pleasant.  I don’t know how typical or representative of a White Peony this tea is, but it’s good and would compliment a number of sweet treats or an afternoon sitting and reading.

You can purchase the Organic White Peony directly from the Boston Tea Company website.

The dry tuo cha smells of a smooth, cooked pu-er, but after rinsing this mini tuo in my gaiwan, the aromas of rice start to come out. Using just-boiled water, I prepare the first steeping. Light, golden-brown, the liquor is a bit cloudy and mingles a faint hint of rice with tea. The taste of this first steeping is not a flavourful as the aroma would suggest.

The second steeping gives off a darker brown infusion. This time it is hard to distinguish whether the tea is just very smooth or whether it lacks a lot of flavour. I suspect this is on account of the intense rice flavour, which seems to camouflage a lot of the pu-er nuances. Hopefully the rice flavours will give way soon and let the tea itself shine through.

Finally, with this third steeping, I am getting more of the flavour of the shou pu on which this tea is built. It is good, though perhaps not as amazing as I had hoped. I go ahead and put this tea through a couple more infusions. It is good, but I am left with the impression that it is lacking something. On my personal enjoyment scale, I would give it a 75/100.

You can purchase the Rice Shou Pu-erh directly from the Tao Tea Leaf website.

I just love the little mini-cakes that pu-er occasionally comes in.  They’re just cute.  An adorable little pellet of yumminess.

This is a lovely, lovely tea.  The creamy rice flavor blends with the warm masculinity of the pu-er to make a dark blend that is rich with complexity and vigor yet smooth and tasty.   Along with the rice flavor, it has the typical leathery, woody and earthy notes of a pu-er, but blended together smoothly.   Others found citrus flavors, but I’m not tasting those.  And, like many pu-ers, it’s great for multiple re-steeps.  I’m on steep three currently… or is it four… of my current set of leaves.  And the sweet and creamy rice flavor lasts and lasts.  Other literature notes people getting up to 9 steeps.   I would not be surprised to get rice notes to the end.

This is really great pu-er.  I recommend it to anyone.

You can purchase the Rice Shou Pu-erh directly from the Tao Tea Leaf website.