Single Origin Teas

Sample from a TTB. The base tea is pretty tasty here. It’s deep and almost fruity. I wasn’t sure what flavor this tea is supposed to be, but apparently it’s grapefruit, which I could sort of see. I’d drink it again if offered.

Of course, when Steepster was down, I made a ton of sipdown progress hahaha.

Finished this off Sunday morning, added a miniscule drop of honey to bring out the bread notes in this tea and make it more pastry like. There were a little bit of crumbs at the bottom of the bag, so I tossed it into my black iced tea bucket. I really enjoyed this second flush tea for a while. I think I may be down to my last Nepal/Indian regional tea!! Oh nooo I’ll have to get more! Woe is me hehe

Dang this is an old tea! I think I got this tea from the very first Midwest Tea fest at Single Origin’s booth. Very surprised that this tea has lasted that long! I remember really enjoying the muscatel lightness from this tea, and the rich smoothness. I also remember this tea giving me a similar energy boost to a Darjeeling – like riding a crotch rocket to space XD
Drinking it for breakfast this morning, it still retained a bit of the Darjeeling-esque muscatel headiness with a bit of overripe fruit added to the golden malty warmth. The multicolor leaves have faded a bit, the verdant greens a little faded into amber browns. It’s still the rocket fuel I remember. Sure, the ‘freshness’ of this tea is a thing in the past, but I still get a delicious refreshing cup. May add the rest of this to my iced tea pile.

Tiny sample from the tea box. I thought this tasted pretty weird and peppery. The black tea was light, but strange. My partner said it tasted peachy. Neither one of us liked it much. Reviews on here look pretty good for this one, so maybe this sample is just old.

This tea is technically Jun Chiyabari – Organic. I don’t feel like adding another tea to the database. Purchased at the 2019 Midwest Tea festival.
I went through this tea quickly. I drank most of it at work. Solid black tea with no real distinct flavors that I remember. I wrote malt on the packaging? Sipdown

Day 6 from nicole super fun! this is a really delicately flavoured oolong that i can get behind. sort of a toasty orange cuppa tea. I think i’ve had a different companies version of this before as it seems familiar. Thanks nicole! this was super tasty!

A delicate orange flavor complements the oolong perfectly. The blossoms give it a little bit of floral but not a lot. The oolong doesn’t have the green, vegetal taste of an unroasted tea but it definitely doesn’t have a roasty, toasted flavor to it, either. This is a light, delicate tea for a light, delicate flavor.

Sipdown. Sample from Midwest teafest. Very nice black tea. Sweet and fruity. I’ll have to keep an eye out for other Vietnam blacks when I make an order eventually.

Bought a sample of this in my last order since I really like the Chesnut tea and thought this would be similar. It smelled and tasted to me exactly like peanut m&ms. There’s definately a Nutella-ness to it as well. This is much more of a “dessert” tea to my tastes than the Chesnut. I tried a second steep with (probably too much) whole milk and honey, but I think I overwhelmed it a bit. Seemed good.

Dessert teas aren’t my thing so I don’t think I would buy this again, but if you are into seasonally themed desert teas and want something nicer tasting than hazelnut creamer I can see how this would be good.

I’m really enjoying the sample I got of this. Floral and silky, resteeps really well. Doesn’t seem to be too finicky about brewing parameters. Just good :)

I’ve been drinking this at work so with an eyeballed amount in a Libre tea infuser being steeped multiple times with random water temps. It’s been holding up to this abuse pretty well. There’s just a slight amount of astringency that comes out, enough to keep it interesting but it has yet to become overwhelming. It’s full flavored and still manages to be so three or four steeps in, surprising for the smaller leaves. Tastes like a light Darjeeling crossed with a higher oxidized oolong. Fruity, hay, and a bit of toasty goodness.

This was another black tea sample sent to me by a kind steepster. My first round with all these samples was to err on the weaker side in the hopes of avoiding the need for sweetener but that was not to be here. Sugar was needed but the tea was quite enjoyable.

It may be that for my black tea pick-me-up in the morning that sugar or honey stays part of the routine. That’s ok though. Most of the time black tea is a breakfast thing for me.

I’ve never actually seen Camellia Sinensis blossoms included in a tea before, which is somewhat surprising because they add such a wonderful touch to an already unique tea. The flavor is gentle, with a slight kiss of cherry and citrus, and has a slightly sweet undertone. Even when steeped in boiling water this tea doesn’t grow astringent, so those of you who prefer a complete lack of bitterness in your tea will enjoy it immensely.

You can read the full review on my blog:
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2016/5/3/tuesday-tea-amba-tea-flower-tea-single-origin-teas

This is quite different from the Yunnan Chinese breakfast tea I’m accustomed to drinking. The scent is faintly fruity, but the flavor is bold, slightly sweet, with a malty undertone and the barest trace of minerality. Whether I steep it for three minutes or five it doesn’t seem to produce much in the way of astringency and only leaves me with the barest hint of dry mouth. During the summer I prefer teas that lack astringency, so this would make an excellent choice for iced tea—it’s absolutely delicious iced or hot.

You can read the full review on my blog:
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2016/4/12/tuesday-tea-nucifora-tea-estate-australian-black-tea-single-origin-teas

What an interesting tea! Some of the leaves have so much of the white fuzz that they look like they come from a variegated plant. They brew into small whole leaves and long fuzzy buds.

The tea itself brews up with the lovely scent of a white tea, but with a silky light toasty flavor. There’s not much else I can say other than it was really pleasant and I got three good brews out of it which I found to be impressive for such a delicate tea.

I love these little tea pebbles. It’s such an unusual gray green color from the licorice powder. The leaves unfurl into very crumpled but whole leaves.

The tea is sweet and mellow with a really silky mouthfeel. There’s a floral herbal note that must be from the ginseng. I’ve avoided ginseng containing teas in the past as they are usually sold as being medicinal which both annoys me and doesn’t bode well for the flavor. After multiple steeping the oolong flavor starts coming out and the licorice and go sing starts to fade.

The leaves of this are long and whole with a slight twist. The color is very dark with a twinge of oxidized copper. The leaves brew up into perfect dark brown leaves around 1.5-2 inches long and the color of the tea is light but very red.

The tea tastes like I imagine cherry wood would taste and it ends dry finish. It’s the only nilgiri that I’ve found so far that I really enjoy hot. It’s flavorful but still has that smoothness that makes me think it would be a great crisp iced tea. I got three good steeps out of this before I was forced to abandon my leaves. I’ve got a jar of this cold brewing in my fridge right now so we’ll see how that turns out.

EDIT: Just drank the cold brew it was very lightly colored for the amount of leaf but excellent. It has a buttery finish now, and the large leaves are perfect for grandpa style.

I haven’t purchased any unflavored sencha in awhile so I don’t have much to compare it to other than my less than youthful tin from Ippodo. I had wanted to use up the last of it before I opened this sample, but I got up early this morning and needed a bracing cup of something STAT so this is what I grabbed. I kind of wished I waited since I was in too much of a hurry to really take notes.

I thought a bit of tropical flavor would be good on yet another rainy day. The tea itself is cheering looking with pops of blue and orange color from the flower petals. The aroma is light like fresh passion fruit, from what I remember anyway, and not the strong artificial smell like most passion fruit flavored juices or candies.

The taste is a bit more ambiguously fruity with some floral flavor and a dry aftertaste. It reminded me more of a scented tea than most fruit flavored ones as it doesn’t have any sweet or tart flavors added. The base is pretty strong and during my second steep it backed off a bit and more of the fruit flavor came out. Both times were pretty delicious. I’m actually suprised I liked this as much as I did as outside of citrus tea I find fruit teas usually disappointing.

Cold brew: I’ve been sick so my sense of taste isn’t all there. This was super refreshing cold brewed though. A cooling Citrus zestyness comes out after you take a sip. Pretty good for my poor throat.

I was excited to try this sample as I love grapefruit. Like I’ve been eating about 5 a week for the last few months L-O-V-E. Surprisingly I’ve never thought to look for a grapefruit tea…I’ve just never come across one on my own and probably assumed it wasn’t a popular flavor. I do know a lot of grapefruit haters out there although I don’t know what they have against it now that the markets are saturated with the newer sweeter ruby varieties. Maybe they need to become easy to peel? I saw some white grapefruits a few months ago being sold as “cocktail grapefruits”, they were twice as much per pound than I usually pay so I didn’t get any and of course I have regretted it ever since. Of course they haven’t returned since, but then again the other grapefruits are getting sad now so I guess the season is over…all the better for having this tea then.

This tea is pretty much what I never knew I wanted earl gray to taste like. It has an amazing grapefruit zest flavor. It is spot on what I smell and taste when I peel a grapefruit. There’s no weird artificial flavor, nothing that’s missing, just high bright citrusy goodness with a solid black tea background to hold it together. I got a second steep from this but the black tea was weaker and the citrus note a bit more pithy. Still good though.

This will definitely be able to tide me over in the off season.

Jasmine pearls are one of my favorite types of tea. I like jasmine teas in general but none seem to hold on to the flavor as well as the tightly wound pearls. Plus they aren’t too delicate making them good for travel especially without the need of a scale. So I’m always looking for new ones to try.

This one has slightly larger pearls than most I’ve had. It smells, of course, strongly of jasmine. The pearls unfurl to the first few leaves and the tip. The first steeping is lovely, full of jasmine, but not overwhelming or bad like purfume. The next steep was still flavorful and the one after that…and after that

I’m going to have to make room for more of this one.