Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company

So got a sample of this one from LiberTEAS! Actually was tempted to buy this one since this company had a great sale last week, but I resisted.
Glad I did, because I am not such a fan of this cup. I can’t pin point the flavor. It is kinda mineral-y, earthy, kinda grape-y. It is a very weird tea. xD
No flavor is really popping out of this tea. There doesn’t seem to be much of a main flavor. So it’s okay, but just not the best. Glad I got a sample of it instead of wasting my money though!

Talk about ‘Spirit Food!’ I had a lot of fun with this tea. When you sit down with no distractions and just drink a couple infusions, it is quite meditative. I am almost appalled at how BTT calls this a ‘daily drinker.’ This is almost too good! The leaves are a deep forest green with tinges of grass green. All throughout the steeping process I noticed a couple of developing flavors. First was a rich buttery smoothness that made each infusion up to the last velvety smooth. With each infusion, the butter seemed to melt. Also on the dry noise was the scent of heady flowers. That carried on into each steep. The last was a light vegetal note like fresh spinach. That kept me from being tossed overboard from the strong floral notes.
I really liked this tea, and I totally wished I had gotten more than just a sample size.
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Backlog:

I really enjoyed this Asian Beauty Oolong – and the other teas that I tried from this company as well. Beautiful Taiwan Tea Co. has some wonderful teas!

My full-length article will go into depth about each of the infusions that I experienced from this lovely tea: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/09/03/asian-beauty-oolong-tea-from-beautiful-taiwan-tea-company/

The earliest infusions start out light and refreshing with notes of honey and peach. Notes of wood, earth and spice were also detected. As I continued to infuse this tea, I noticed the woodsy/earthy tones beginning to emerge somewhat. The tea is sweet with the aforementioned notes of honey and peach – and I like that this sweetness remains in the aftertaste. Lovely.

This would be the tea that I’d recommend to someone who is looking for an Oolong that’s a little less floral focused. This has a nice balance of sweet honey notes and peach and not so much of a vegetal or floral taste.

This is a tea from my secret pumpkin Cheri. Thank you.

I think Cheri needs to be my tea shopper. She picked out some amazing teas for me. Sometimes I get in kids where I want to try everything new and I just don’t order things that I really love. It was so neat to get an entire package of teas that look absolutely wonderful. This is my 2nd tea from the box. I am falling head over heals for Oriental Beauty Oolongs. For one this tea resteeps so well. I am sitting here writing this note while I am waiting on western style resteep #5. The first two infusions offered creamy, honey with enough hints to remind you this was an oolong, but the smoothness and depth of black tea. The third and fourth infusions offered the baked bread flavor with dribbles of honey and caramel. This last steep I am tasting bread, and a tad bit of astringency that rounds out the flavor. What a wonderful experience this morning!

I have Butiki’s Oriental Beauty in my cupboard still and I hope to compare the two. I have also added TeaVivre’s Oriental Beauty to my wish list to remind me to pick this up the next time I stop by TeaVivire and it is in stock.

Oh milk oolong how I love thee. I have been trying to drink down my cupboard a bit this week so in the process of doing so, sometimes I neglect favorite. The milk oolong is one of the first teas I truly fell in love with and today on the snowy afternoon it is a great companion. floral, sweet, slightly creamy and buttery. Yum!

This tea is from my secret pumpkin Cheri. Thank you!

It is coming! I have the chills, the aches, and the scratchy throat. This will probably be the last session of nice tea I will get to have for a few days. 2 months without getting sick. That is a record since my daughter was born. Hopefully this bug will pass fast and the tea awesomeness will be able to continue.

I enjoyed this tea while doing my meal prep for the week. This is such a lovely tea. It is not as milky as a few milk oolongs that I have had, but it is buttery, floral and sweet. This tea has just kept giving and giving and giving. I brewed this in the beautiful new gaiwan that Cheri also sent. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures. I will try to get one next time. I can’t wait to spend some more time with this tea.

So yummy!!!

I decided I wanted to enjoy one of my teapots today, and I picked this tea to play with.

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buttery, sweet, floral, delicious.

I feel like Jack Sparrow. “But why is all the Ruby Red gone?”. Love the sweet potato notes. Very smooth.

I was in the mood for a Taiwanese black tea this morning, and this was the first one I saw, so here we are! This sample is from Blodeuyn. The leaves are beautiful and have that gnarled, twisty Taiwanese Assam style. They’re very dark in color, almost black. Dry, they smell surprisingly strongly of molasses, and there’s also some sweetness and malt. I used a teaspoon (roughly, these teas are difficult to measure!) of leaf and let it steep for 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

Once brewed, the tea’s aroma is grainy sourdough bread with lots of dried fruit and some caramelized sugar/molasses tones. The taste is very similar. There’s a combination of tangy sourdough and soft homemade wheat breads, along with a fair amount of malt. The molasses seems to have lightened itself into honey, but definitely a stronger raw honey. I must confess, it took me far too long to identify the dried fruit that I was tasting, and then I felt like a complete dope for not thinking of it sooner… It’s definitely dried apricots, and I can say maybe there’s a hint of a second fruit – a mild and sweet one like golden raisin or fig. Overall, a very delicious tea for the morning!

Backlog:

A rich, delicious black tea with characteristics that remind me of an Oolong. It’s a very interesting and intriguing tea. Notes of fruit, flower, earth and molasses. This isn’t like the “Assam” that you might be used to (the Indian Assam) it’s much smoother and less astringent. It’s like the best characteristics from the robust, rich Assam tea together with the best characteristics of a Formosa Oolong.

Please read more about it here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/06/27/formosa-assam-black-tea-from-beautiful-taiwan-tea-company/

Backlog:

I have tried a few teas from this company thus far (I have a bunch of reviews waiting for me to post tasting notes about them … yeah, still behind) and I’ve loved everything I’ve tried from them.

This is a beautiful green tea. Very fresh, reminiscent of spring when the early leaves are appearing, the scents, the feel, the experience and the flavors of newness of spring. A lovely delicate flavor but still quite complex. Notes of cream, very smooth, sweet, hints of vanilla and a vegetal tone.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/06/08/twisted-green-tea-from-beautiful-taiwan-tea-company/

Dry leaf aroma: Sweet hay and malt.
Dry leaf appearance: http://instagram.com/p/sGdoB6FcNE/

Wet leaf aroma: Damp hay with a vegetal tang.
Wet leaf appearance: http://instagram.com/p/sGdvtiFcNJ/

Preparation: Brewed western style in a ceramic infuser mug.

First/only steeping: 5 minutes at 212 degrees. The aroma is malt with undertones of honey and the slightest hint of sweet hay. The main flavors are malt and a pleasant bitterness, with a suggestion of hay at the end of the sip.

A nice all-around breakfast tea. Typically I take mine with honey, but this one stands on it own.

This is a good milk oolong. It has an almost nutty quality to it. It definitely has some of those cream flavors you expect from a decent milk oolong and also has a little bit of floral aspect to it during the steeping process. I got 7-8 good steeps out of it before it quit. It’s a good value at about $5.50/ oz.

Dry leaf aroma: Sweet and crisp with undertones of honey.
Dry leaf appearance: http://instagram.com/p/r58lC1lcAn/

Wet leaf aroma: Slightly vegetal with suggestions of hay.
Wet leaf appearance: http://instagram.com/p/r6CV2VFcG_/

Preparation: Brewed western style in an all-glass infuser mug.

First/only steeping: 5 minutes at 210 degrees. The aroma is predominately hay with subtle vegetal notes and the liquor is a medium golden brown. Honey Black tastes much like it smells, hay-vegetal-black tea, with an aftertaste of hay and a vegetal tinge.

Funny enough, while drinking this tea I kept thinking about spinach. I find it odd to experience this in a black tea, albeit I am still learning a lot about varietals.

I really enjoy this tea. It’s so fresh and green and just the right amount of sweet.

This is my first mug of tea for the day. Yes, after 9:30 at night.

I have some sort of stomach virus that has had me down for the count. It started yesterday, but I tried to ignore it. Apparently, that was not the right thing to do as it got a lot worse before basically knocking me flat on my ass last night after I lost dinner.

I’ve slept most of the day and I’m feeling a lot better.

So I decided to have some tea. I wanted something nice and easy drinking, a flavorful green since my sense of taste seems to be a little off. This was my choice.

Oh it’s good. I ordered a bunch of it off of the Beautiful Taiwan website, but I got last year’s harvest instead of this years, to save a little money. Did it make a difference in the tea? I don’t think so as this tastes incredible to me. It’s one of my favorite greens.

So I was supposed to mail out a bunch of teas today, but it didn’t happen. Probably not until Wednesday now because I don’t want to touch anything for other people with the way I have been feeling. Sorry for the delay everyone.

Backlog from vacation

So the first night of our vacation some wicked storms when through the town we were staying in. The first round came while we were out eating dinner and drinking beer. The second round came through starting about 3am, waking me up. I never fell back asleep because the storms just kept on coming. The power was knocked out about 5am.

Fortunately, the bed and breakfast we were staying at was prepared. Even though the hot water system didn’t work, they knew I am a tea drinker and they had hot water waiting for me when I wandered downstairs shortly after 6 because I really needed something to drink.

It turns out that one of the owners collects antique kerosene lamps. Crazy, but true. So everything was lit by these lamps, which was really cool.

Anyway, the tea handled the unknown water temperature really well. This is such a yummy tea. I’m currently all out of it, but I think this is one that I will be purchasing again soon.

This is a really nice tea. The aroma from the leaves while they were steeping was amazing. Beautiful, even. The flavor was sweet and refreshing, incredibly smooth.

This tea is GOOD.

I love the mouth feel. It is creamy and buttery. The flavor is outstanding. I’ve had this pseudo gongfu and I’m on my 7th infusion now, and it’s still giving amazing notes. I knew this one was more expensive, but it’s $25 for 2 oz. (I only had a sample size.) I think it’s worth it. This is one of the best oolongs I’ve had.

The wet leaves smell so green and fresh, but the tea doesn’t taste vegetal at all (it’s okay if it does, but that’s not what I get from the tea.)

This was a nice tea. It’s kept me company all morning and into the afternoon.

Creamy, sweet, buttery, just a touch floral. It’s not as milky as some milk oolongs feel, but it still has a very nice mouth feel and taste. I am enjoying it quite a bit. It’s got a very light flavor. It’s not my favorite milk oolong, but it’s a nice tea.

It’s been a while since I had this one. I had forgotten how much I like it. In fact, I think I like it more than I used to.

I had this over the weekend, one of the teas I brought with me to robots. Then I had this one again yesterday and today. I couldn’t taste anything at all yesterday, but somehow the aroma of this one got through my horribly stuffed nose. Really. Today, not tasting much of anything, I can actually taste this tea. Wow.

And now, I’m going to go back to sleep. Another nap is in order for me.

This is very light in flavor but it has a great mouth feel. It’s lightly floral, lightly green, just nice and easy drinking. It is quite creamy feeling, for sure.

I’m enjoying this.

One of my cats is curled up with me. He has been going absolutely crazy for my tea lately.

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Yes, he is licking the bag.

He is a goofball.