Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Strand Tea Company
Tea Description:
Premium Black Teas from highland China blended with lilac flowers. This tea looks, smells, and tastes great.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Lilac Blend from Strand Tea Company has me just beaming with happiness. It is a beautiful sun shiny day outside, I am looking at my first flowers of the year, although they are daffodils, not lilacs, and dreamily sipping on such a delightful surprise! I love lilacs, they are so very fragrant and beautiful. This tea speaks to my sensibilities of summer, flowers, and yet there is a wonderful, surprising fruitiness as well. Mmmmm, so good!
I have to say I have never heard of Strand before a generous tea trade with a fellow Steepster but I am really glad to know of this company and am looking forward to exploring their site more throughly.
I have read on Steepster that this company sends a tea sample and a cookie with orders! WHAT? Okay this place may have me breaking my no order streak! Cookies and tea, YES PLEASE!
And then I saw the price of this tea. No its not a bad thing, rather shockingly good! 2 ounces for only 3.50 – are you kidding me? Wow what a bargain!
And the taste? Can it match up to all my self imposed hype? Why yes, it can! It is sweet – like honey, fruity, wonderful berry notes, almost a blueberry flavor but I get some deep red berry notes in here too. It tastes wine like, a bit like a blueberry mead tea.
The aroma is beautiful as well. This is a cup you just hold up under your nose and deeply inhale the aroma between sips. Gad this is good!
Lilac from Strand Tea Company has a full mouthfeel nearly creamy. Add a splash of milk and you have a dessert tea for sure, oh so creamy and delicious! The mouthfeel is surprisingly heavy for what one would think is a light dainty tea. This tea has some heft to it.
A perfect tea for younger ones too! I could easily see this being the hit at a tea party for young and old alike! I doubt the kids would even know this is tea and mistake it for some sugary drink if you didn’t tell them about it!
I can’t wait to try this tea iced!
I had to come back and add this to my review. My daughter tried this tea after it had become cold. She prefers cold tea to hot. Regardless she found a note in this tea that I had totally missed but should not have! I think my daughter is getting really good at detecting flavor notes in tea. Before long she may be better than I am at it because this note is SO obvious, yet I missed it! Walnut! Yes walnut, I can’t believe I missed it because as soon as she said it – it become so obvious! I made a second steep in addition to enjoying the rest of my cold cup and I am even more in love. You know how once you identify a flavor note it becomes even easier to pick out? Well now I am enjoying this sweet, honey kissed, blueberry, creamy, floral, WALNUT tasting tea. Yummm
Gold Rush Black Tea Blend from Monterey Bay Spice Company
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Monterey Bay Spice Company
Tea Description:
Abundant with tropical treats, Gold Rush Tea is as appetizing as it is visually appealing! Chunks of delicious mango improve your mood while bits of passion fruit inject vitality into your body! Amongst the high floral notes of the colorful and aromatic blossoms are cornflowers, blue mallow flowers, safflowers, and marigolds. Completing this blend is robust black tea that provides body and warmth to this savory selection!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I first tried this Gold Rush Black Tea Blend from Monterey Bay Spice Company hot, and while it was enjoyable served hot, it is really best served as an iced tea! It’s so refreshing and thirst-quenching!
The black tea base is strong and somewhat astringent. I would classify the astringency as a “fair” amount of astringency, not overly astringent and this should not be confused with bitterness, but, there is that tangy sensation toward the tail of the sip. This tea is not bitter when brewed properly, although I did notice hints of bitterness in the sip that suggest to me that if you were to over-brew this tea, you might end up with a bitter cup. I brewed it for 2 1/2 minutes, and this was long enough to produce a fairly robust tasting tea without the bitterness that a longer brew time might have created.
The flowers in this blend provide a very colorful, appealing dry leaf appearance, but, I don’t think they add a whole lot of flavor to the cup. I do notice the faintest whisper of a floral presence to the sip, but, it is very slight.
The flavors are very pleasantly tropical with lovely notes of mango and passion fruit. Sweet and just a hint of tangy fruit taste. The sip is primarily sweet and fruity … with the tangy notes coming through more in the aftertaste than during the actual sip. The fruit flavors are delicious and sweet, but I like that they are not overwhelming the cup. The tea comes first … the fruit is an accent flavor. Just a little fruity note to complement the natural fruit tones of the black tea!
Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable cup – and as I mentioned at the start, this is much better iced than hot. It’s still good hot, too – but it’s spectacular iced!
Blue of London (Yunnan Earl Grey) from Le Palais des Thés
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Le Palais des Thés
Tea Description:
Yunnan is one of the best black teas in the world and with a fresh and delicate bergamot from Calabria, it gives a particularly fine and well balanced blend. An exceptional Earl Grey.
Earl Grey is one of the best-loved English teas. It was first created when Charles Grey, 2nd Earl of Falloden and Foreign Secretary of Britain, received an old recipe from a Mandarin Chinese that called for flavoring tea with bergamot.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This is a tasty Earl Grey from Le Palais des Thés … this Blue of London – or Earl Grey Yunnan. Tasty … but I don’t know that I would call it exceptional as it is called in the above description.
But it is good. The Yunnan gives it a very rich flavor that is sweet with notes of caramel and spice, and the slightest hint of chocolate. It is a strong, invigorating black tea, and I like the way the Yunnan complements the bergamot flavor. The Yunnan tea is the strongest flavor of the cup, but there is a compelling balance between black tea notes and bergamot.
The bergamot here is a softer bergamot. Some teas go for a heady bergamot essence and some go for a more subtle approach. This bergamot is on the subtle side. It doesn’t whack me upside the head with the tangy citrus notes, nor is it so strong that it comes across as perfume-y. It is on the delicate side, but it isn’t so delicate that it is not tasted. I DEFINITELY taste the bergamot here, I just don’t taste a strong, pungent, soapy bergamot that overwhelms the palate with its presence.
And I like that. As much as I love bergamot – and for those of you that have been reading my reviews for a while probably are well aware of my love affair with the distinguished Mr. Earl Grey – sometimes a subtle, smooth approach is better than coming on strong. I like that the way the bergamot comes through here.
This is a really good Earl Grey … and the more I sip it, the more I like it. It isn’t my favorite Earl Grey, which is why I say I wouldn’t classify it as exceptional – I save exceptional for only those I consider my favorites. But, it IS good, and certainly worth a try, especially if you are a fan of Earl Grey. Just because it isn’t my favorite doesn’t mean that it won’t be yours!
Oriental Beauty (Dong Fang Mei Ren) from Driftwood Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Driftwood Teas
Tea Description:
Oriental Beauty is also know by several other names including: Dong Fang Mei Ren; White Tip Oolong; and Champagne Oolong. Whatever name it goes by this is perhaps Taiwan’s most special tea and cited by many connoisseur as one of the world’s finest.
Key Flavours: Ripe fruits, honey and sweet muscatel notes combine with hints of warming spices and exotic woods.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Oriental Beauty (Dong Fang Mei Ren) from Driftwood teas does what Oriental Beauty always does for me, surprises me. I am always taken aback by this tea because I adore oolong, but this is never what I expect an oolong to be! This tea is light, sweet, and fruity, with notes that lean toward muscatel, and juicy peach.
Then we have the woody and spicy notes that come forward but very subtle on the spice more strong on the woodsy notes. I do love the wood notes in this tea, it feels so natural and wonderful and makes me long to go hiking!
One thing that is a bit different from this Oriental Beauty is that the honey notes are really thick, as in lay in the back of your throat thick, and so wonderfully sweet. Also unlike some Oriental Beauty this tea does not have that drying sensation in the back of the throat. The tea coats the throat and lingers lightly with honey kissed floral notes.
I can’t mention enough how lovely these wood notes are and with the honey sweetness, and that light touch of floral and spice. This may be one of my favorite Oriental Beauty oolongs, yet I find myself saying that in almost every review I do of Oriental Beauty. Yet then I say that I normally do not gravitate toward lighter oolong. Maybe I am changing in that aspect.
Driftwood Tea certainly does bring us a wonderful example of a high quality Dong Fang Mei Ren with a light smooth taste and mouthfeel. Light, yet so very flavorful! You won’t be wishing for more flavor because this tea has it all from woodsy, sweet, fruity, spiced, and, muscatel, almost in a Darjeeling way, to apricot and floral notes.
This is truly a tea to savor through multiple steeps Gong Fu style!
Floral Green Tea Blend from De Vos Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: De Vos Tea
Tea Description:
Floral Green Tea has a calm and refreshing character punctuated with beautiful floral notes from the addition of sepalika flowers. Sepalika, also known as night flowering jasmine, is a sweet smelling Ayurvedic flower used for medicinal purposes such as aiding sound sleep and rheumatism.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Ohhhh… this is so lovely!
I know that I’ve tried at least one other tea that was blended with sepalika flowers, but, I don’t recall the tea at this time. It’s been a while … and I think I may have forgotten just how lovely this “night flowering jasmine” truly is. The flavor of this Floral Green Tea Blend from De Vos Tea is delicate and sweetly floral … not at all overwhelming. It’s so delightful, it’s almost dreamy just how good it is.
I love that the flowery touch of this tea is not a strong or fake kind of flavor … it tastes light and sweet and natural. It doesn’t taste like perfume or soap. It just tastes beautiful and it is enchanting!
The green tea has a soft taste and texture to it. The texture is “almost creamy” … that is to say it doesn’t really taste or feel “buttery” or any of the other “creamy” kind of sensations … it is almost a “fluffy” kind of creaminess … the way it would taste and feel if you were to bite into a baked meringue. That is not to say it tastes like a baked egg white … but it has that light, airy, creamy kind of taste and and mouthfeel.
The green tea doesn’t taste overwhelmingly “vegetative.” There is some vegetal notes here, reminiscent of a mild vegetable with hints of sweet grass notes. It is overall a very mellow, smooth green tea taste that melds amazingly well with the soft, sultry flavor of the sepalika flowers.
A delightful floral experience … if you appreciate floral teas, you really have GOT to try this one!