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I put “energizing chair” in the search when trying to look this tea up. LOL.

I had this tea last weekend as well. One of my new Zen tea additions, just a sample size though. The description didn’t sound too exciting to me, but I thought it would be worth trying anyway.

I was pleasantly surprised by deep chocolate notes I was getting from it. Slightly spicy dark chocolate drink. The mate in the mix is not too obtrusive, although it does pop out its head more as the cup cools down. I don’t know if it was energizing though, I am always energized enough because, thank god, most of the time I work in accordance with my very own circadian rhythm where I go to sleep very late at night and get up very late morning :D

But yeah, I am looking forward to trying this tea again, although I can see that it’s probably not going to be my very favorite.

Backlog!

Shang Tea don’t have any mediocre tea to offer, not to mention a bad one. It’s pretty apparent. I still haven’t tried the entire sampler that I got from them but I don’t think there was yet a tea from them I’ve had that I was at least remotely disappointed with.

I don’t have straight white teas very often. Not sure why because I definitely enjoy them. I know that to some white teas don’t taste like much of anything, but I have always enjoyed their delicate and sweet notes. Anyway, the cup of this tasted unmistakably of honey, smelled gorgeous and I loved it. I am not sure if I would get more of it as I would probably go with their honeysuckle white instead, but I definitely recommend it to all the white tea aficionados!

Poppies are in bloom, awwww!

Anyway, here’s another backlog from the weekend. I cooked up most of the sample of this that ATR sent me as an extra. It wasn’t exquisite but pretty agreeable. It reminded me some of Zen Tea’s Earl Grey Creme (which is yum x 10!) but it wasn’t quite as fancy.

It made for a nice cup that accompanies one while they are focusing on something else. I wouldn’t get more of it and, besides, when it comes to ATR’s greys I am enjoying their Earl Grey Shanghai much more – which is what I am having right now.

I had a sample of this and I decided to make this iced. I don’t know why. I usually avoid trying teas for the first time iced.

This awesome-“leafed” tea has an unmistakable roasty flavor that reminds me of roasted rice in genmaicha and I think it would work great hot but as an iced tea it seems that its most characteristic features were a little jarring. Especially at first. When I have iced tea, it means I’m either driving to work, am at work, or driving back from work, so I don’t pay that much attention to the flavors but with this one I kind of… had to. So roasty!

I still have about 1 serving of this left and I am definitely going to try it hot!

Okay, it’s time to backlog some teas!

So, I got my order from Zen Tea on Friday and I already tried some teas I was most curious about. Since I am a huge fan of Golden Moon’s Coconut Pouchong, I decided it would be a great idea to try this! And it seems like the base here is also Pouchong…

I cannot say much about the comparison of the base between the two, pouchong always just seems to me the shyest of oolongs that nevertheless makes a great base for flavored teas. However, the coconut flavor is creamier and bolder here, which does not necessarily make it better than the GM’s counterpart. It doesn’t make it worse either! Just different! Which is great because what would be the point of having virtually the same teas? :D It makes for a very delicious cup and I might be tempted to keep it in stock most of the time along with the Golden Moon’s one.

I must have not been into it last night when I steeped it as this oolong did not steal my heart away. It was roasty? yes. Tieguanyinny? Yes. (Tieguanyinny is totally a word meaning vegetal tasting with a these-leaves-went-through-so-much-suffering-to-bring-you-light oolong flair). Did it resteep nice? Well, it did! So what was wrong with it? Absolutely nothing.

But it did fail to steal my heart away. I think I just wasn’t in the mood. I remember some unique, salted caramely and even weak-chocolate notes trying to communicate with me last night but I just waved them away. I need to try this again soon and then remember to write about it! I should be writing “revised” or “returning” tasting notes more often. I almost never do that!

Oh the Chinese green teas! They are so sneaky and so shy at the same time. The dry leaf for this tea is spectacular, silver, pretty and curled – the name doesn’t lie! The liquor I got is straw colored and smells like the promise of a buttery peas and asparagus casserole :D Yum!

The flavor is bolder than I expected. There are some mildly roasty grass notes in the foretaste that evaporate into sweet, buttery aftertaste. This tea is kicking! There is a certain boldness to its flavor that is in no way straightforward but rather complex. The mouthfeel is more on the astringent side, but only very slightly so. This one is definitely more a sneak than a shy chick, LOL. I don’t even know what I meant by that.

In other, but still related, news, I ordered a bunch of teas from ZenTea because of their huge sale they have going on, but I was also tempted to get one of their gaiwans and 2 cups. My first gaiwan!!! I am really excited. I have a little glass pot that is going to make a perfect pitcher, and the trays are way too expensive for now, so I figured that a gaiwan and 2 cups (for my hub and me) would be all I need to finally go gongfu style!

You know what? I don’t eat enough apples. I’m too lazy to eat them, bite into them and munch them. I usually just settle for an easy banana (LOL) or grapes – they are so much more convenient. It’s kinda scary to admit that I have been usually passing up on apples because I feel there’s too much jaw work involved eating them.

All these fascinating reflections were initiated by the first sips of this tea. It’s an apple tea alright. It’s pretty good at being what it is, too. I like the ceylon base here, it is not shy, it is not weak, it is not hiding. It works perfectly with apple flavoring, which is just exquisite in its lack of artificial nastiness. All the apple notes I had in teas before were either practically non-existent or super fakey-fake. This one almost tastes like there’s a splash of cider in there. And it smells heavenly. I also detect some flower notes, from the rose petals I’m sure, although they are fainter.

Whenever I consider ordering from Nina’s Paris again, I will definitely re-order this one :) Thank you Laurent from Nina’s Paris for letting me try a sample of this tea :)

I had this last night and… well, it tasted like a buckwheat tea would ;D I can see myself reaching for it when I feel overdosed on caffeine, but it failed to stir me in any special way. It was definitely flavorful, more flavorful than one would expect from a handful of buckwheat and the aroma reminded me a bit of Polish roasted grain “coffee”. It was kind of like… a genmaicha with no tea in it :D

I would still like to try Lupicia’s flavored orzos though. I realize it’s not quite the same thing, but this tea and these orzos often come up together in people’s notes, so that’s where my mind went.

I had this tea a few days ago when I couldn’t quite log it (or even write it down), so my impressions are somewhat hazed and dazed.

The tea arrived to me among others in a mystery pack I got from MissB. Thank you, MissB, for including it :)

I love coconut in everything (my husband just recently brewed a lime & coconut belgian wit beer… It’s not ready yet but it’s going to be AWESOME!) and I absolutely loved the smell of this one. The taste disappointed me a little, however, since the base tea turned out to be a rather pungent sencha. It turns out, the more and more tea I drink, that I am not so huge on sencha. I can see myself craving this seaweedy flavor from time to time, but when I think yummy green, I think dragonwell, gunpowder, or some other Chinese green. So… yeah, the sencha was pretty strong and it spoiled coconut for me a bit. I also detected some matcha bitterness in it. It could’ve been that some of the sencha powdered up a bit and stuck to the coconut pieces and then imitated matcha.

It’s a pretty unique tea, I will definitely have more of it, too. Perhaps I will like it more next time :)