teabento

Sipdown (611)!

Well, glad that I’m confirming that the last time I made a cup of this I was just having a weird day because this doesn’t taste anything like mint this time around. Instead it’s warm, toasty peanuts and barley with grassy undertones. Also a little bit bean-y. I’m enjoying it; can’t say I’m crushed that it’s a sipdown though.

So, it turns out all I had to do to find a home in Montreal was complain on the internet about it – not even 24 hours after writing up my tasting note ranting about how hard of a time I was having apartment hunting I had managed to find and secure a place to live!

So, now I just have to start packing everything up and shipping it out to Montreal; I have a friend/coworker who has offered to hold onto stuff for me until my move in a month so I’m just going to slowly start sending stuff her way up until “Moving Day”. Now I get to deal with a whole new kind of anxiety; transporting my tea collection across the country through the mail. At least I found somewhere totally furnished, so I don’t have to worry about moving furniture…

(Can’t afford to have it professionally moved; mailing is the next best option since I don’t drive, and therefore can’t transport it myself that way)

Anyway; I drank this one a few days ago – and I swear something about my sense of smell and palate were broken that day because the dry leaf of this tea just smelled strongly and distinctly of mint chocolate chip ice cream. How weird and abstract is that!? At least, steeped up, it wasn’t as weird and wacky. I mean, I still swear that the tea had mint notes to it – but otherwise it was mostly very nutty with strong alfalfa hay notes and a bit of a “bluntness”/dull quality to the body. Just not a lot of bright or sweet characteristics.

Still decently enjoyable, though.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgEaJw1wEB0&list=WL&index=2

Midday cuppa.

So, I’ve tried a green Korean Sejak before but admittedly I’m not educated about most green tea at all – and especially Korean tea so I have absolutely no clue what the difference between the two actually is.

I’m enjoying sipping on this one right now though; it’s pretty smooth with a really nice toasty/nutty character to it in the top and body notes. There are also some more generic grassy green undertones, and notes of straw in the body that tie in pretty well with the nuttiness I’m getting in the top. Reminds me a little of roasted peanuts, in a way? Unsalted, of course. The finish is a little sweeter; more of like an ambrosia/nectar like fruitiness? It’s a little bit harder to place exactly what kind of fruit I’m reminded of though the one jumping to mind is Pluots – plum/apricot crosses. It’s been a LONG time since I had a pluot though, so don’t know how accurate that actually is.

Totally couldn’t drink this one often – but I’m happy with the sample!

Holy moly, this is hands down my favourite Teabento tea that I’ve tried, and I purposely left this one to try last because I had a feeling it would be my favourite.

While I was expecting some chocolate when I initially opened the packet, I didn’t expect this much. Seriously, opening it was like unwrapping a bar of dark chocolate with cacao nibs. Although I haven’t had it in ever, this totally reminds me of Endangered Species chocolate, in particular, this one:

http://www.chocolatebar.com/?portfolio=dark-chocolate-with-cacao-nibs-2

Look at that cute little bat. Just in time for Halloween too. But yeah, dark chocolate tea without the guilt. Brewed up, this has the thickest mouthfeel of all the ones I’ve tried, which is my thing. The chocolate notes are the strongest, followed by grainy sweetness. No bitterness whatsoever.

Thank you so much for the wonderful bento box full of delicious samples, Teabento! This brings me to the end of my sample bento journey, and I can definitely see myself ordering this one.

Thank you, thank you, to Teabento for sending me a sample of this one! I’ve ripped through two cups of this and enjoyed its honey and gentle malty notes. I couldn’t find any chocolate notes either time. There was a surprise woodsy note that popped up as it would cool down but it was very faint. Apologies for the über short review as I’ve been really busy lately and I’m just writing from memory.

Plum Rooster is the favorite so far out of the black teas from Teabento. It is a black Long Jing. The notes are of pomelo, butter, mineral, and various baked goods like eggy cookies and sourdough. This tea is quite delicate, so it gets bitter and dry in 5 infusions.

Full review, along with other Teabento black tea reviews, on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/black-teas-teabento/

This is a unique black as it is a Yunnan black, processed as a Taiwanese black. Happy Panda has notes of blackberry, malt, and clover honey. The texture is super oily, which I love. This tea does get quite bitter and dry at the 4th infusion.

Full review, along with other Teabento black tea reviews, on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/black-teas-teabento/

Yes, I love unsmoked Lapsangs! This LS is deep woodsy, orange, creamy, and malty. It reminds me of a chocolate orange. It does get dry and bitter in the later infusions. I got 7 reinfusions.

Full review, along with other Teabento black tea reviews, on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/black-teas-teabento/

Beautiful golden mossy leaf.

I am steeping western style, my own variation of it.

Initially, the steeped tea felt a bit one dimensional, but as it cooled a bit, the maltiness and caramel and cocoa and breadiness came out in full. Lovely, just lovely. A very enjoyable cup. I look forward to the next one.

Third steep of caramel and sweet potato goodness and the tea is still going. It just might make a fourth steep flavourful enough to enjoy.

Thank you, teabento, for the sample of this engaging tea.

Thank you to Teabento for the lovely sample! The reason why I haven’t been around to review teas is because I keep getting sick and have been avoiding caffeinated beverages, especially. Had a cold a few weeks ago, then my demanding, new boss was making it difficult to even drink any water throughout the day, which led to dehydration, which led to an ahem UTI. A week of antibiotics annihilated that, plus the cold went away. Ok cool, back on track. Then a few days after I finished those antibiotics (a couple days ago), I woke up with a sore throat that keeps getting worse. Went back to doctor very reluctantly, and sure enough, now I have strep throat. Just can’t win.

But at least I can go with caffeine again? So in walks Black Sheep finally, finally. Have been looking forward to trying this since I received my package.

Maybe it’s because I’m sick but these aren’t as chocolatey as I thought they would be. The mouthfeel is thinner with the most prominent note being honey, followed by some grainy malt. I’m looking forward to another cup of this soon, perhaps when I’m better, to see how the second round would go.

I do not have a lot to say about this tea, for it is a straight forward brew. It’s a jasmine green tea. Therefore, it tastes like Jasmine and green tea. Hahaha. However, I will say that Jasmine pearls are an all time favorite for me. Actually, jasmine tea in general is almost always a win in my box, except some the very poorly executed greens that curl your tongue. This is not one of those tongue curling monstrosities. This is actually quite nice and quite meek. The leaves give off a very subtle and sweet waft of jasmine that is warm and feminine. The brew itself matches the subtlety and quiet approach with a tantalizing sweet touch of jasmine. the follow-through is filled with basic soft watercress tones. It’s good stuff.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZxUtW0HOTE/?hl=en&taken-by=haveteawilltravel

Sipdown (518)!

Finished this one off on the way home from work yesterday; I realized my sample of this was small enough I could just finish it off in one go so I took advantage of the easy sipdown. I honestly didn’t expect to get so into it!

I know it had jasmine notes to it; it would be crazy if there was no jasmine in a jasmine scented tea. However, as I was sipping on this my brain decided to do that very, very weird and mostly unique to me thing where essentially all of those jasmine notes came across to me as grape notes. Really nice, sweet, smooth and beautifully natural tasting grape notes. Seriously, what the fuck brain? I LOVED this cup of tea but the entire time all I was thinking of was red grapes and green grape skins.

So strange.

In general, I really, really like the tea and animal graphics that teabento uses on their site but I think this is probably one of my favourites – I’m totally biased though as a rodent lover in general. I do have a rat and a hairless guinea pig at the moment, after all.

This was my last tea of the day today; I drank it Western style on the way home from work. It was smooth, light to medium bodied with a very fresh, aromatic and sweet jasmine flavour. A little peachy in the undertones, and pleasantly grassy. I thought the whole profile was very clean, and to the point without feeling flat/stale.

Jasmine green teas are actually probably my least favourite variety of jasmine scented teas; but every now and then as a really rare cuppa I can get into them. So, I wouldn’t order this again because I just wouldn’t want it enough to be worthwhile. I actually only got it because I was grabbing a bento anyway and needed one more tea to fill it; and since this is one of my favourite tea/animal designs on the site I figured why not? If I were going to order on of their jasmine teas again I’d probably go for teabento’s jasmine scented white tea, Silver Cat, instead. However, there’s definitely nothing I can fault this tea for – as far as Dragon Pearls go I thought this was a very solid option!

Higher rating, because even though it’s not my favourite profile in the world I don’t have anything negative to say about the cup at all.

Thank you, @teabento for this one. It has been a while since I have had a green tea. This is nice and refreshing. I’m getting some nice seaweed and soybean notes, a little sweetness, and some nuttiness.

Afternoon pick-me-up it is! :)

Sipdown (601)!

Finished this one off while I was packing boxes a few days ago; I’ve done up six boxes in total now and I think I have about four more to go not counting clothing, which will be coming with me on the plane. So, ten in total. That’s actually not so bad – when I had to guess how many boxes of stuff I had I had estimated around twelve so I wasn’t far off!

I made this one up “London Fog Style” with vanilla agave and milk. I also realized after I’d already done so that I never did try this one straight up – but that’s ok, I think this was a more faithful representation of how I actually usually drink my EG. I don’t have much more to add that I didn’t cover when I first wrote about this one, other than just wanting to really reemphasize that as a person who’s not SUPER into the taste of bergamot I think this blend has a really good grasp on what is an appropriate level of bergamot in a blend so that you can still taste it but it’s not all… blergamot, as Sil would say.

I don’t think I’d reorder – just feels like a waste to pick up EG from Tea Bento when they carry so many better single origin and scented teas. Plus, I just don’t want lots of EG in my cupboard when I don’t drink it often. But this is one of the good ones, imo.

So, normally I don’t really love EG teas so to be completely honest I’m not sure why this one spoke to me the way that it did – I’ll be honest, at least part of it probably boils down to teabento’s really cute marketing/imagery.

That said, when I cracked open the sample pouch of this I was pulled in by the sweet smelling, malty aroma mixed with the fresh bergamot oil notes. It actually smelled really, really good. As it was steeping, this stayed true – and the whole kitchen gradually started to smell of aromatic, sweet bergamot notes. Really inviting, and delightful!

I added some almond milk to the steeped brew; if I was smart I would have tried it straight first and then added my almond milk but I didn’t think that far ahead. What can I say, I’m sort of groggy right now. I went for the milk though because rarely do I drink my EG plain; I prefer some sort of creamy element in my EGs and milk helps a lot with that.

Flavour wise, I was a little taken back by how sweet this is! And I know that sweetness isn’t coming from my almond milk because it’s the unsweetened, not vanilla flavoured stuff. No, this is definitely like a French bread and honey kind of sweetness. Really warm and comforting and ultimately quite pastry like in nature. It’s also really, really pleasantly malty. Plus, of course, there’s the flavour of bergamot. I have to say, it’s a really fresh sort of bergamot and, true to the tea’s name, I think it’s pretty gentle all things considered. It compliments the honey and freshly baked breads notes quite well, actually – and the malt is just off set enough from the citrus to really pull out some of the brightness of the bergamot. It’s a very soothing profile overall; makes me feel relaxed and happy. Plus, now I kind of want to have a nap but like in a good way.

Yeah, I can get behind this one.

Song Pairing: https://youtu.be/AmIYWroqsyk

Gongfu Sipdown (617)!

Never gonna get over the adorable little ‘animal mascots’ from Tea Bento made w/ the tea – it’s such a clever, cute design choice…

I finished this one off last weekend; no tea and food pairings this time (mostly because I didn’t have anything fun and interesting to pair it with). Just straight tea; it’s been a hot second since I last had a Gongfu Session without anything to eat – at home at least. Work doesn’t count. This was good though, even if not overly complex. I’ve had a lot of Ali Shan lately, though not intentionally. It’s not even a type of oolong I like all that much!? I think this was kinda average in terms of quality, compared to the others I’ve had as of late…

Nutty top notes, like unroasted/seasoned almonds or sunflower seeds. Floral notes creeping into the mid sips, and a little bit of lawn clipping sour grassiness to the body and finish that I wasn’t particularly fond of – would have preferred more of the nutty sunflower elements. Also some astringency to the finish; which would have been welcomed were it not alongside that sour grassy note. I don’t remember the total number of infusions that I did…

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx5nTvQgPbr/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1-mcn1Hgh8

Thank you for the sample teabento!

I feel a little bad that it’s taken me a while to get to my last two samples – however, I’ve been sick as of late and I wanted to be sure that I was doing the teas sent to me justice when describing the flavours. I drank this one tonight; Western style. Normally I Gong Fu oolongs, but I generally actually prefer Ali Shans western style as opposed to Gong Fu brewed so I just went for my taste preference.

To be completely honest; I didn’t love this one. I think it’s the first tea so far from teabento that was a bit of a miss for me. Not terrible or anything; just not great. I think the biggest reason I disliked it was because there was a VERY strong prune sort of flavour to it – I’m not really a fan of prunes. Apart from that very strong prune note, there was also a really robust nuttiness to the flavour. Sort of a grilled nut/barley kind of nutty flavour with a soft honey sweetness sort of tacked right to the tail/transition of that flavour note.

Apart from those two/three main flavours, there was also some grassy and floral top notes which were fairly smooth and pleasant. The finish was a bit fruitier; peach/nectarine rather than the unpleasant prune notes that take up so much of the body flavour. The peach note lingers briefly in the aftertaste; then swiftly dissipates.

I can see why this would appeal to people; and there are certainly aspects to it that I enjoyed – but the prune is a deal breaker for me. That said, I still have another cup worth of this left, so I’ll give it at least one more try before I completely make up my mind.

I have drank this more than my steepster tea cupboard says I just haven’t logged in ages. This is a really good chocolate~y tea. I get all the infusions they promise and because it has the temperature, as well as the time recommended for each steeping on the package itself it makes my life a lot easier. I just have to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit as my kettle uses the evil imperial system.

This is a good tea. I tasted a bit of marshmallow and malt. I like Prince Pengu more though. I still have more of their teas in my cupboard that I have to try.

To me this tastes like Big Red gum. If you have ever had it, then you know it’s a spicy cinnamon. That was my first steep of about a minute. My second steep was about 30 seconds and I still got some cinnamon but it was more mild with a bit of a peach like flavour at the end. It was really tasty and I’m really glad I got it.

Another sample graciously provided by Teabento. This one is easy to enjoy. It reminds me of a quality “red” or Dian Hong style black tea. Very smooth, malty taste that lingers pleasantly.

My first cup was the initial rinse prepared at the suggested 1-minute, 205° pre-boil which produced a deep golden liquor. The second time around I jumped off the suggested trail and went a full 3-minutes. The resulting cup was darker, but still a beautiful golden-red, and the flavor was significantly more intense. Still smoothly malty, and the stone fruit in the aftertaste was much more pronounced.

Overall a very nice tea for black tea fans – but if you think everything called Lapsang Souchong is smoky…think again.

This is a nice white peony, very smooth and mellow. I taste white grape skins, dry grass, and floral aroma that reminds me of dryer sheets. Not the most complex or intensely flavorful tea, but very comforting and enjoyable.