Vital Tea Leaf

Using an English-style teapot for the first time in months, if not over a year. This feels strange.

So sweet and tasty. I took my father tea tasting for his first time, and he ended up purchasing some of this. When I visited him a couple of months later, I “borrowed” some from his cupboard for my own use.

This is a nutty tasting smooth tea that goes down easy. I’ve tried a few of vital teas blended ginseng oolong’s such as blue people, golden throat and the iron goddess ginseng oolong. This one is the most straightforward oolong and unlike the others is not blended with herbs.

I’ve never had the iron goddess without ginseng so I can’t compare it to that, but I think the flavor ginseng adds is minimal.

Tea of the afternoon here, a nice wuyi oolong for the cold and foggy weather we are having.

After I broke my yixing dedicated to wuyi oolongs, I had to get another one, which is the blue one with brown accents you see here on this picture:
https://instagram.com/p/0ByFXyoLSN

It’s one of my smallest pots and holds only about 4 oz of tea. My shu puerh is also pretty small, but these are the perfect size if you want to do gong fu brewing.

It’s amzing how fast these pots begin to take on the tea flavor. I was seasoning this using a shui xian and it already reminded me of the wuyi aroma this morning. THis is the first tea I’m actually tasting with the pot and it is doing a good job so far, I don’t really pick up a lot of clay flavor. This is a delicious red robe, very roasty with lush fruity flavors of plum and cherry. I think the yixing works so well for the wuyi oolongs somehow. Lovely tea, lovely pot, makes for a perfect afternoon… it was steeped for 8 times before it finally started giving up flavor.

It’s super cold and rainy here again and for some reason my apartment is freezing….

I am off to a networking event soon which I don’t really want to go to… i’m freaking tired from not sleeping last night. My plan is to go for a while and bail out early.

Anyway I haven’t had this tea in quite some time. It’s a couple of years old already but I think wuyi oolongs have a fairly long shelf life. This is really good for the chilly weather with the roasty, fruity like flavor. I’m doing shorter steeps in the yixing teapot. Kind of hoping it will revive me soon!

I haven’t been to Chinatown in ages but I might have to go back soon to get some more of this tea since I’m all out now. Smells like charcoal roasted fruit and tastes very roasty and pleasant with a nice richness on the tongue. Something about this just makes me want to curl up and purr like a cat. I don’t believe I have anymore red robes in my stash and it would be good to have one for the winter time. See previous notes if interested.

I got this one last year, but I think red robes stay good for a while, for at least 5 years.

I’ve had two steeps of this and it’s still as good as I remember. Dark and toasty with an underlying fruitiness. I am slowing down on tea purchasing, does anyone believe it?

yep, I am a sucker for any store that says it has a free tea tasting. This is a very large shop in Chinatown here in SF that has quite a wide selection of tea and a very friendly staff. This was the boyfriend’s selection so we brewed it up this morning in the Gaiwan.

I can’t say that I know enough about red robes to really say that this one is really so much better than any other one but I am enjoying it this morning. When the leaves are wet they are intensely smoky and smell of cherries and plums. This brews up to a nice reddish color – in the shop they call it “red tea” and not an oolong but I digress. Here is a nice composition of flavors with some fruitiness, some nuttiness, a bit of smoke and a tiny bit of sourness. It is holding a nice fizzy aftertaste on my tongue.

Didn’t get much of a smell on this dry leaf, but I’m revisiting some Erin Hurley swap items and I found this! So it’s been sitting there for a while haha.

Yum, I steeped about 1.5 tsps for 2.5 mins, it was pretty good! Creamy coconut, not artificial at all, and still a strong base of the green tea. The tea itself is slightly astringent but sweet and buttery as well, a perfect match.

This is a super sweet black tea!

I have a major sweet tooth, so I tried this tea out and was not disappointed. Even over a year later, the tea still brews like the day I bought it.

It has a very sweet flavor, which I guess comes from the lychee fruit. Lychee kind of tastes like honey.

If you love honey in tea, you’ll love this! Don’t even think about adding any additional sugar or sweetener. It would be overkill.

I suppose this tea would also be good with milk, but I love it straight. I’m also sure it would be perfect iced, but I have yet to try that out either.

It’s the perfect tea for when I’m craving something bad for me (cake, cookies, ice cream, anything sweet that I know I shouldn’t be eating). Instead, I can drink this tea and relax knowing that I’m getting a much healthier sweet fix.

I steep about 1 tsp of leaves for 30-60 seconds in boiling water. It can be resteeped 2-3 times. Only by the third steep does it start to get weak, so I just increase the steeping time a little. I can’t imagine steeping this for 3-5 minutes as suggested (in fact, when I bought it the suggested steeping time was 30-60 seconds). To each his own.

Dr Who S1E4 and Coconut Green.

Oh my! This is the best coconut tea I’ve had! Not heavy or fake. The aroma struck me as artificial, but the taste is MmmmMMM!

Iced overnight, got a bit bitter but it’s nothing a splenda won’t fix.

Just what I needed after a long jog :)

Scrumptious!

So a woman walks into a tea shop…..

I was chillin in Chinatown. I was totes excitey because I knew I’d find tea. And I found a ton of it. Most of what I brought back from SF? Tea. And some tins that got dented in transit.

When I bought this, I was being rushed out the door by family. I pretty much chose the two teas closest to me at the time. After picking apple I was pretty sure I’d made a mistake. Wtf apple? Artificial apple is awful…. “I think I’ve made a huge mistake”

I tried this tea in San Fran but it’s hard to get a good brew in a hotel room. Oh my geezyweez! Strong apple flavor. Not artificial tasting at all. Sweet and yummy! Getting my day off to a fantastic start. I don’t drink a ton of green tea. Now I will!

WOW!!! This tea is sensational!

It’s almost impossible to describe, and I don’t see how anyone could dislike it. It has a clean, crisp, sweet flavor going down. But the aftertaste is what’s so fantastic!

The aftertaste is so unique and different from anything else I’ve ever had. It sort of cools your tongue and refreshes your palate, while at the same time being incredibly flavorful and delicious.

I don’t know about the tea being a good alternative to an energy drink. Yes, it has ginseng added to it, but oolong is naturally very low in caffeine. I can drink it right before bedtime and still fall asleep with ease.

It’s pretty expensive as teas go, but it does have a very long shelf life (around 3 years). As with most teas, it’s better the fresher it is. But you can brew the same tea leaves up to seven times! In my opinion, it tastes best on brews 2-5. Funny that the first brew isn’t the best, huh?

But truly, this is a lifetime favorite. Brew it in very little water for 15-30 seconds, and you’ll have magic. Trust me, this tea is worth a trip to a Vital Tea Leaf shop all by itself.

Just don’t buy their Piao I Teapot to brew it in. Yes, it’s so simple and cool. But it breaks really easily after just a few uses. Instead, go for something like Teavana’s Classic Comfort Touch Tea Strainer with lid. You’ll be much happier in the long run, and the large open strainer allows the tea leaves to expand more than a small tea ball would.

Our host at the Vital Tea Leaf tasting room in San Francisco China Town loves giving this tea to visitors because it’s so unique. I consider myself to be a tea connoisseur, and I’d never tasted anything like this.

His brother calls it “party in your mouth tea” because the flavor changes dramatically with each sip. It starts out with a nice Oohlong flavor, but the aftertaste is wonderfully sweet from the licorice root. Additional sips will continue to change in taste.

This is one of my favorite teas to help me focus through my work day. I also love sharing it with friends because it’s so unique.

Starting off the morning with some delicious pu’erh. Cleansing the palate after breakfast that felt heavy.

Just picked up another package of this, last week. Yum. Needing it to clear some grease flavor, leftover from lunch, from my mouth.
Plus, it is just delicious.