Hey Cash! I'm ordering some tea online and I was wondering if you could recommend anything? Thanks!
My favorite tea source is DavidsTea, from which I particularly like the Quangzhou Milk Oolong (my go-to “Favorite Tea,” since that’s always an inevitable question), Jumpy Monkey maté, Buttered Rum black, and just in general I’ve never gotten one from them I didn’t at least like, if not love.
As far as something you’re less likely to find recommended elsewhere, Lupicia has some really wonderful teas of a Japanese bent - if you’re at all familiar with the candy section of Japanese markets, you’ll know what I mean. Their Melon White makes the single best iced tea I’ve ever had, Melon Oolong is amazing but I’m biased as a lover of melon flavor and oolongs, Muscat Oolong is very unique (muscat is a type of grape often used to make a really sweet wine, it’s a popular flavor in Japan). Their Strawberry Black is also fantastic and I don’t generally like black teas, let alone East Asian ones.
The Spice & Tea Exchange has some good choices, and may have a local shop near you if you’re on the East Coast. Their coconut oolong is my go-to for introducing someone to loose-leaf tea, the blueberry black makes a wonderful iced tea, and the rainforest maté is a great introduction to that particular herb.
If you want straight East Asian teas, Teavivre has never disappointed me. For West Asian ones, I’ll give a shout-out to my former employer Teaism, whose Darjeeling, Assam, Jasmine Silver Needle, and Guranse are all worth trying. Teaism also sells my favorite chai, if you’re into that.
It's hard to review a mug in detail, but this steeping mug from The Tea Spot is a fantastic choice if you're looking for one - it has a gorgeous design, holes small enough in the steeper to keep your liquor free of leaf bits, and 10% of their profits go to cancer & wellness programs!
A little while after starting this blog, I was contacted by a representative of Teavivre asking if I would like some samples for review. I of course responded with an emphatic yes, stating I like oolongs best but would love to review anything they'd send me. Soon enough, a box came in the mail with plenty of goodies to try.
What does "monkey-picked" mean? As Teavivre themselves state, "Legend has it that the cliff [on which this tea is grown, in Lishan, Taiwan] is too abrupt for people to pick the tea leaves. Therefore, monkeys are trained to climb the cliff and help tea farmers pick the leaves." In the modern age, "monkey-picked" teas are rarely actually picked by monkeys but they do tend to be of very high quality.
But back to this beauty of a tea; little did I know that I've been sent the best example of Tie Guan Yin I've had to date - which has me extremely excited to get to reviewing the rest. I've never had a Teavivre tea before, but if they're all like this they can count me as a regular customer.
The leaves are tightly rolled and so deeply brown as to almost appear black, with some visible streaks of green. They have the bark scent commonly found in darker oolongs like this, along with some subtle floral/orchid undertones.
Those undertones come front and center when steeped - in fact, it is almost as if the earthy notes and floral notes switch places as to who's in charge. Tie Guan Yin is one tea I find absolutely unmistakable by its scent, and even at this step of the process I knew I had something special on my hands.
The liquor came out a perfect, pure gold with a - not to keep using the word - perfectly nutty scent. When I worked for a local tea shop, Tie Guan Yin was most often my recommendation to customers looking to get into oolongs - I find it straddles the line between roasty blacks and grassy greens well enough to demonstrate why oolong is considered a distinct type of tea.
At first, the liquor tastes just as it smells, with a pleasantly full mouthfeel and roasty quality. That flavor then mellows out into a (can you tell I like this one?) perfect mix of grass and earth tones, with the floral notes present in the dry leaves showing up more and more as the liquor cools.
I generally prefer this varietal iced - Ito En's fantastic Golden Oolong iced tea uses TGY as its base - but Teavivre's is one I will drink hot again. If you're new to oolongs or just looking for a great example of the varietal, you can't go wrong with this.
Steep: 195°, 2 minutes. Second steep: 195°, 3 minutes.
Score: 10 / 10
Teavivre's Tie Guan Yin Oolong is available for purchase from their website.
More reviews are coming starting tomorrow, including my first-ever video review!
If you or any other tea fanatics you know are interested in writing a guest post, please get in touch with me via the Ask link or even skip straight to submitting your post/photo!
I'm also interested in finding someone to help with the blog full-time. If you're interested in writing 3-4 articles (or even taking photos, anything you'd like really) a week please get in touch with me so we can chat it up. :)
I'd like to give a special shoutout to the fine people over at Teavivre (website/tumblr) for sending me a box of samples; those will be reviewed over the next few days.
Takeya Iced Tea Maker just after putting in A Southern Season's Blood Orange Chocolate Rooibos
This will be a very short review - there's just not too much to say about this. It works exactly as advertised. So well, in fact, that I purchased a second just because I kept going through iced tea too quickly for one to do!
12 hours later
Using the Takeya Iced Tea Maker is simple as can be. Put tea in the steep basket - I typically use around two tablespoons for most teas, a bit less for oolongs that expand into large leaves but for the most part I eye out how much to put in based on prior experience. Fill the pitcher with (purified, of course!) water, screw on the cap/steep basket, and leave it in your refrigerator for 8-12 hours. I have accidentally left the steep basket in for up to 36 hours before and did not get any of the nasty flavor a hot oversteep would cause, but I'm typically too impatient to really test that out!
Once steeped, remove the steep basket, screw the cap back on, and place back in the refrigerator. I typically sweeten my teas with just the tiniest bit of raw agave syrup - just enough to see the water level rise a tiny bit. That, of course, depends on your own personal preference. I recommend finishing the tea within three days, as after that it begins to take on a bit of a stale taste, but I do not know of any health issues associated with letting it sit longer. (The disclaimer, of course, is I have absolutely no professional medical knowledge whatsoever.)
I also strongly recommend washing out the steep basket immediately after removal, else it can take on the flavor of whatever tea you've left in.
As I mentioned, there's just not too much more to say about this product. It is very affordable at $20, works exactly as advertised, and is second only to the Breville One-Touch as my most valued piece of teaware. This one gets a 10 out of 10.
The Takeya Iced Tea Maker is available from Amazon.
Dragon Well Green, also known as Longjing, is one of the quintessential Chinese green teas. This tea is sold by the same company and I ordered it at the same shop as the Se Chung Oolong I reviewed a few weeks ago - which received a fairly low score as a result of improper steeping. This made me somewhat wary of ordering from the same shop again, but doesn't everyone deserve a second chance?
Fortunately, this time The Coupe - a coffeeshop in Washington, D.C. - got the steep right, and I found this to be a wonderful example of the style.
Due to the manner in which The Coupe serves tea, I unfortunately did not have a chance to see the leaves before they began steeping. Mid-steep, however, the leaves appear very small with a dark green color far more reminiscent of a Japanese green - maybe a midrange sencha - than most Chinese greens I've encountered. The scent, however, is purely Chinese - grassy with some bark undertones.
The liquor is a shockingly pale gold compared to what I expected out of leaves this dark. Its scent is all grass, leaving the bark undertones behind in the pot. It has a much thicker mouthfeel and stronger flavor than I expected, both very good qualities in my book. Like its scent, the flavor is all grass. As I mentioned, Longjing is an extremely common Chinese green tea, and this is exactly what it should taste like.
The leaves took a second steep quite well, providing a slightly thinner mouthfeel with the same full flavor. A third steep was very weak and I did not bother finishing that cup.
Dragon Well is one of the varietals of green teas I heartily recommend to new tea drinkers as an example of what to expect out of Chinese greens. Serendipitea's version is just what it should be, and at $14 for 4oz. it is a wonderful deal.
Steep: Unknown temperature, 3 minutes. Second and third steep: Same temperature, 3 and 4 minutes respectively.
Score: 9 / 10
Serendipiteas' Dragon Well Green is available for purchase from their website.
It warms my heart every time I see a new follower. Reblog our content so we can reach more viewers! More unique and informative features are in the pipeline and I'm really excited to show you all. Namaste.
I've mentioned this product before, but never given it a proper review - in a sense, it's not even worth going into detail about this teamaker as it's possibly the greatest piece of teaware I've used or owned and I whole-heartedly recommend it to ANY tea fanatic. My sole complaint is its high price of $250 - but if you love tea enough to be reading this, I promise you it's worth every cent.
The One-Touch Tea Maker is fairly simple as far as the parts go - a pitcher and lid, steeping basket and lid, and base. The power cord for the base is short, perhaps 18", which I found perfect for my kitchen placement but could be an annoyance for those with fewer outlets available. The steep basket attaches to the pitcher magnetically with a very satisfying click. In fact, every part feels incredibly sturdy, including the glass walls of the kettle which I have accidentally bumped into my counters far more than I'm willing to admit. This is an appliance that will last you for years.
The base contains all the controls, which are both intuitive and very easily configured to your own taste. Preset temperatures and times are provided for all five of the major varieties of tea as well as an option for custom temperature and steep time. I particularly like the customization options, as I don't necessarily agree with the steep times programmed in (specifically, it does not like to steep oolongs as long as I would like and the times for white teas are far too high). There is also an option to ignore the steeping functionality completely and use it purely as an electric kettle.
The three buttons on the left side are the biggest selling points of the teamaker. There is an auto start function, which will steep tea for you automatically at a pre-set time using the settings you tell it. Your auto-start settings are even saved, which is a very convenient feature if you're like me and like to wake up to the same tea each morning (a first-flush Darjeeling, in my case).
Under the auto start button is a button to keep tea warm, which works for up to an hour and keeps the tea at a specific temperature based on what you chose for the steep. This feature is particularly handy as the minimum amount of tea you can steep at a time is two full 12-ounce cups. Under the keep warm toggle is a "basket" option, which raises and lowers the steep basket during steeping rather than leaving it in the water. I like this feature when preparing an oolong or other large-leafed tea for a group, as it ensures all the leaves get moved around enough to fully expand.
There are some drawbacks to this teamaker, albeit very few. As mentioned, the price is quite high, but I feel this is made up for in the durability of the product. The kettle part itself is not dishwasher safe, and though I don't know for sure I assume the steep basket is not either. That is a very minor gripe, of course, as washing a large pitcher like this is easy enough.
The Breville One-Touch Tea Maker gets an emphatic 10/10 from me, and is available for purchase from Amazon.
My apologies for the big break in content! It's been a hectic week for me. These are photos of a tisane my dumb butt unfortunately forgot to take notes on, so God knows what it is or how I felt about it. But it sure is pretty!
More reviews and other content to follow now that life's calming down a bit. Also, greetings to the new followers I've been seeing recently! Feel free to send me a message with comments or suggestions, and photos/reviews/other content is always welcome.
I swear to god, one of these days I'll have a real photographer so things like.. well, that don't happen.
This was my glorious return to The Coupe, home of a pretty mediocre cocktail (that just happened to involve tea so naturally I ordered it) I recently reviewed, which I noticed had a tea list with names too rare to be typical Tazo-esque coffeeshop fare. Sure enough, the place serves Serendipitea, a brand I'm familiar with from a hundred higher-end coffee places but have never owned in my own collection.
Anyway! I was not hugely impressed by this tea, but I strongly suspect (unintentional) foul play in the steeping to be the culprit. Read on..
When the waiter brought out my cup and pot, served just as in the photo, he seemed very surprised by my request that he leave me the leaves for further use. (This led to a conversation about my intentions in sipping this drink, which I believe put him on edge and got me the finest service he could give. Score one for the reviewer.) That did not really bode well for how the establishment treats its teas, but perhaps the new shop just hadn't had a big oolong fan in yet. Or maybe he was new! Kettle half full.
Strike two came when I opened the lid of the kettle to feel almost lukewarm steam lazily drift out. As I've not yet reached the nerd level of carrying a thermometer, I can't tell you exactly how hot the water was but I would barely expect it to be hot enough for a delicate white - let alone anything hardier.
Though I could not see the liquor color, I pulled out a nice-sized, complete leaf which did stand up to the quality I expected for absolutely no reason. It smelled of bark, a fairly standard Anxi-esque oolong scent. I expected from the scent for the liquor to be a darkish yellow.
Upon pouring, I was surprised to hold a cup full of golden liquor with the exact same mild woody scent as its steep. It was at this point I decided I'm probably not giving this leaf a fair chance, as it is clearly understeeped; all things considered, I'd rather have that happen than the more common oversteeped cup anything but a teahouse hands you, but there has to be a lot more to this tea than I'm finding. Finding little of note in its taste or mouthfeel - mild with no presence of the "nutty" flavor advertised by Serendipitea, and very thin, respectively - I drained my cup and hoped a second steep would be a tad more interesting.
For the second steep, much as I hate being That Guy asking the waiter to bring me so much as a water refill after my many years in food service, I requested hotter water in my pot and to his/their credit I was obliged. I gave it a longer steep, crossed my fingers, poured, and was heartened by the much darker liquor that poured into my cup!
..then crushed when my lips found the same bland tea. What flavor there is comes immediately, with notes of leaves and bark and, yes, nuts. There is little in terms of mouthfeel and no aftertaste to speak of. It's all a bit more.. "developed," yes, but still nowhere near what I'd hoped.
I'm willing to give this tea a second chance. I really do think the steep killed what could have been at least a good tea, but for now this one just passes.
Steep: ?, 5 minutes. Second steep: Slightly hotter, 6 minutes.
Score: 6 / 10
Serendipiteas' Se Chung Oolong is available for purchase from their website.
