Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Teaspoons’

This tea? This tea moved me to buy a tea scale.

I’ve known for a while that if you really want to get serious about making sure you’re able to get good, repeatable results from your tea that you need to watch all your parameters. But I hadn’t bothered to get a scale, until I met this tea.

I got the package, and thought, meh- I can just wing it. So I did. And the tea was awesome. And then my brain finally kicked it and thought – hey, if you can get awesome tea by winging it – what would happen if you actually did it 100% right?? I ordered a scale 5 minutes later.

The dry leaf is very silvery, the large needles are covered with that silvery down that gives this style of tea it’s name. In aroma, it’s got a lot of hay overtones – like summer fields. The liquor is a very light yellow once brewed, with only traces of summer fields. But – the flavor on this tea is where it really shines. It’s got a rich, silky feel in your mouth, and a flavor of newly mown hay and just a hint of honeysuckle for a delicate sweet note on the finish. This is light and clear – not a tea to be drunk with a heavy meal, but a tea to be savored on it’s own or maybe with light fruit. It has almost no astringency, but the very little it does have just invites you to sip more.

Delicate yet rich; smooth and clear. This is an amazing example of a silver needle.

You can purchase TeaGschwendner China Yin Zhen Silver Needle directly from their website.

Hmm, the scent of this dry rooibos is legit. And by legit, I mean it legitimately smells like vanilla. Not fake vanilla like is used in various desserts, but real vanilla. Adding three teaspoons of this tea and steeping it in two cups of water for six minutes, I was left being tantalized by the aromas of vanilla wafting from my teapot as I waited. The tea smells sweet, but not in a fake sweetener way. It is more like the sweetness that comes from plants like mint or various fruits. The liquor is clear, yet a very dark red-brown.

My first cup smells warm. And not just from the hot tea. It just has a warm, and soft, aroma about it. It softly caresses the senses and lingers in the nose. Eagerly, I take my first sip and am immediately surprised by how sweet it tastes. The sweetness is very passive, but it is definitely there, and a quite pleasant surprise. This tea’s mouthfeel is thick and smooth. The flavour of vanilla is, of course, at the forefront. The rooibos, sadly, seems to have taken a backseat in this brew, as it does not show its head much, except in the aftertaste.

The flavours do not change much throughout the rest of the pot. I very much enjoyed drinking this tea. It is good, it is unique, and it is well worth a taste or two. I give it a 77/100 on my personal enjoyment scale.

You can purchase the Vanilla Rooibos directly from the TeaFrog website.

Today I’m trying some Melon from Golden Moon Teas and I can’t wait. I love white tea and I love melons, sounds like a good match.

Opened the sample and was surprised by how little was in it. The directions only say how long to steep it and how hot the water should be, doesn’t tell me how many cups this sample is meant to make. Looks like about two teaspoons of tea in the packet. Going to try for two cups…

Opened the pouch and the dry white leaves are really full and long, mostly buds. Can’t see the melon in it though. Took a deep breathe and inhaled. The smell is nasty. It smells like an over ripe (rotten) honeydew melon. Ugh. Thinking the scent will lighten, I poured boiling water over it and steeped it for two minutes. Brew is a nice golden, honey color, smell is still horrid.

You can purchase the White Persian Melon directly from the Golden Moon Tea website.

Well, these pearls certainly are downy…I felt one of the little balls of tea and it was soft and fuzzy. The jasmine smell is sharp and sweet in the dry leaf, and makes me wonder if the taste will be the same.

I used approximately two teaspoons of pearls, in two cups of water, for three minutes (give or take ten seconds, as I initially forgot to start my timer, oops). At the end of three minutes, the brew was very watery, so I let it sit for two minutes more. At this point, I’d like to take a moment to say that while I enjoy the challenge of matching up just the right steeping time with just the right amount of leaf and water to make a delectable cup, I do wish that more companies would give what they believe the ideal steeping conditions to be, even if it’s a rough estimate, since not all teas are created equally, and generalizing conditions does not always work out. Regardless, the extra two minutes seems to have helped immensely, as there is greater unfurl to the leaves and more colour to the liquor.

The jasmine scent is just as sharp in the completed cup as it was in the dry leaf. And the taste….Wow…that’s incredibly…mediocre. Thankfully, the sharpness of the jasmine hasn’t come through in the taste of the liquor, yet everything about it is very average. The flavour is smooth, and light, and has a nice jasmine scent and taste, but, all in all, it just seems to be lacking something in a big way.

I enjoyed drinking it, but Jasmine Pearls are one of my favourites, so that could bias me a bit. I give it a 65 out of 100 on my personal enjoyment scale.

You can purchase the Downy Pearl Jasmine directly from the Mark T. Wendall Tea Company website.

The shape of these rolled oolong leaves was reminiscent of an Alishan oolong I once had – small, compacted clumps of leaf. They carry quite a vegetal smell, almost more like a green tea than an oolong. I started out by steeping two teaspoons of leaves in two cups of water for three minutes.This resulted in somewhat of a weak brew, so I put the leaves back in for another minute or so (I like my oolongs stronger).

This completed brew is delightful. Light and creamy oolong scent with just a hint of that original vegetal strength with a bit of peppery smell too. The liquor is a very bright and clear light brown, and the taste….ooooh my. Light and soft, it caresses the tongue while still putting out moderately bold flavours including floral, vegetal, and peppery notes all wrapped into one tasty package. If this oolong went to school, it would be said that it was a very well-rounded individual, as this is a very well-rounded tea, encompassing a variety of different flavours that all serve to complement each other.

The second steep brought out the floral notes in the tea to a much fuller extent. The taste overall mellowed out a lot and brought out a bit more of the vegetal side as well. I could easily see this tea going for at least one or two more steepings. I really enjoyed this tea, and am giving it an 80/100 on my personal enjoyment scale.

You can purchase the Imperial Gold Oolong directly from the Mark T. Wendall Tea Company website.