Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: White Two Tea
Tea Description:
The Barb’s breakfast black is an homage to my mother, who despite years of being baited with high-end Puer teas, still prefers to start her day with a heavily brewed pot of black tea in the morning. This Yunnan black tea blend is built to survive British style steeping as well as gongfu style brewing techniques. Well balanced daily drinking black tea with a classic style, versatile enough to enjoy with breakfast on the go or in a slow and quiet tea session.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about White Two Tea’s Tea Club Subscription here.
Taster’s Review:
A really lovely Yunnan!
This isn’t as robust as I expected it to be. Usually, I’m expecting a real wallop of flavor from a Yunnan tea, but this is more subdued. It’s like a mellow version of Yunnan – smooth, rich, flavorful, but without the gusto that I was expecting.
That’s not to say that this isn’t a really good tea – it is!
It’s just that with a Breakfast Blend moniker, I expected it to have the kind of kick that breakfast blends usually deliver. This is smoother and mellower, more like a gentle nudge awake rather than a swift kick in the pants.
I really love the smooth flavor of this. It’s nicely round. It has light notes of spice, like white pepper and hints of cinnamon. And I find that these gentle spice notes becoming more lovely with each sip. Not more intense, really, but more clearly defined.
I think that I’d be more likely to reach for this tea as a late morning tea or perhaps an early afternoon tea rather than my breakfast blend. For a breakfast blend, I prefer really strong teas with some edge, and this doesn’t have that kind of edgy flavor to it. This is more refined, like something you’d want after you’re already awake and alert, and now you want something to please the taste buds, because this tea certainly does that!
Rather than brewing this gongfu style as suggested in the above description, I brewed it in my Breville One-Touch. (I don’t like to brew black teas gongfu style, mostly because I don’t like to scorch the fingertips with the hot gaiwan.) I found it next to impossible to measure out a bamboo scoop of this tea because of the curly leaves, so instead, I poured the leaves into my hand and eyeballed a bamboo scoop measurement. I eyeballed two such measurements and put them both into the basket of the Breville, and then poured 500ml of water into the jug. The thermometer was set for 212°F and the timer for 2 1/2 minutes.
The result is a cup of perfection! Smooth with very little astringency. Flavorful with notes of earth, spice and leather. Hints of fruit in the background that continue to develop as I sip, and now that I’m more than halfway through my mug of tea, I taste a distinct plum-like note that is quite nice. I also taste distant notes of flower.
A really nice, complex cup of Yunnan!
French Lemon Creme Rooibos from Petali Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green Rooibos
Tea Information:
Sometimes you just want a tea that’s bursting with fun flavour. We think it’s not too much to ask for that flavour punch to taste completely natural. Welcome French Lemon Creme with your luscious lemon and creamy vanilla sweetness. This is built on a green rooibos base, so the blend has extra health benefits from locking in the herb’s natural enzymes.
This tea is available from Amoda Tea.
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda Tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I want to start this review by saying: the aroma of this tea smells just like what the name promises: It’s lemon and cream. And it’s lovely!
I was happy to see that this rooibos blend is a green rooibos blend which is my preference when it comes to rooibos teas. I like the fruity element of the green rooibos rather than the woody/nutty and sometimes gentle smoke note of the red rooibos (the red rooibos is oxidized to achieve it’s color, while the green rooibos is not oxidized.)
To steep this tea, I used my Kati Tumbler. I measured out 1 1/2 bamboo scoops of the tisane into the basket of my tumbler and added 12 ounces of water heated to 195°F. Then I let it steep for 10 minutes. Rooibos doesn’t get bitter because it isn’t tannic like camellia sinensis, so go ahead and let it steep – the flavors will just intensify. Do be sure to keep the temperature below boiling though, because you may get a ‘sour’ taste from rooibos if you steep it too hot.
Mmm! This is good. The aroma of the brewed tisane is still quite lemon-y and because of that, when I raise the tumbler to my lips and inhale deeply, I smell the lemon. My palate’s reaction to this is to prepare itself for something sour. But the sip doesn’t start out that way! Instead I get a sweet, creamy lemon taste, similar to lemon curd.
It isn’t until mid-sip that I start to pick up on the tart notes of the lemon. They aren’t a pucker-y tart, but just enough tart to let you know that hey, you’re tasting lemon! The creamy vanilla notes are strong right at first, and then they subside to let some of the bright lemon notes shine through.
I really like the way these two flavors have come together in this. It’s sweet but there’s enough tart to keep it interesting and to keep it from becoming too sickeningly sweet! And the rooibos base melds beautifully with these flavors, adding sweetness without taking away from the sunny lemon and the luscious cream flavor.
A really awesome rooibos blend. I don’t often say that about a rooibos blend, but this one has earned that praise!
Yunomi Tea Discoveries Club, January Review (Part 2)
As promised, this is part 2 of my review of January’s Tea Discoveries Club package from Yunomi.
We’re going to start off where we left off last night, moving on to the third tea I tried from January’s collection of teas: Bancha Green Tea from Onocha Tea Factory & Shop. Similarly to the other teas in this collection, this tea is not available for purchase from Yunomi. That’s part of what makes the Discovery Club a MUST for tea lovers. It will expose you to teas that you might never have tried! What a unique and wonderful opportunity!
This is a really pleasant Bancha. It has a crisp, uplifting flavor: fresh, vegetative and clean. There is a nice contrast between sweet and savory. It has a nice, brothy sort of texture and taste. Nutty, sweet, hints of bitter to offset the sweetness. Nicely smooth.
It’s a soothing tea that reminds me a bit of sipping broth. That warm, nourishing sort of feeling that I get when I sip broth, that’s what I get when I sip this Bancha. It’s not too sweet, not too bitter – just really pleasant.
This is the kind of green tea that I like to have on hand for “every day” sort of drinking. It is a great tea to drink with meals because it’s not an aggressive tasting tea – it’s really smooth and satisfying.
The next tea that I tried was the Sencha Suiho. Immediately, I found myself curious as to how it would differ from the other Sencha I enjoyed from this month’s Discovery Club package: Sencha Suiren.
Upon first sip, I got my answer! These are really two very different Sencha teas! This Sencha Suiho is sweet, buttery and smooth. Very little bitterness. Very little astringency. I noticed more bitterness and astringency with the Suiren – and that wasn’t even a really strongly bitter or aggressively astringent tea!
This is beautifully buttery and pleasantly mellow. Nice! The resteep is almost as nice as the first cup – still really beautifully creamy and sweet!
I saved the Hojicha for last as Hojicha is one of my favorite types of Japanese green teas! Hojicha Soybean Blend to be exact. I think of all the teas that I received this month, this was the one I was the most excited about, mostly because I found myself curious about the ‘soybean.’
Unfortunately, I’m not able to provide a picture of the tea itself because the battery in my camera thought it was the right time to die. So, I just have a picture of the package. 
The dry leaf looks a lot like … well, it looks like dried, chopped up leaves and stems. The first thought that went through my head when I saw it was “mulch.” I’m hoping it tastes better than I can only imagine mulch tasting. Since I’m not planning on brewing mulch and drinking it any time soon, I’ll have to imagine what it would taste like.
Ah … yeah! Yum! There’s that lovely sweet, nutty flavor that I’ve come to love when it comes to Hojicha. That delicious roasty-toasty flavor that evokes thoughts of autumn.
It has a smooth texture to it and it’s not an astringent tea. It’s not bitter. It’s sweet and a very soothing, calming sort of drink. Really lovely. However, I don’t know that I taste any ‘soybean’ in this tea, I just taste sweet, nutty flavor, very much like I’d experience with a top-quality Hojicha.
Overall, I found this adventure with the Discoveries Club from Yunomi to be really enjoyable. Spectacular teas – I love that these teas are exclusive to the Discovery Club. It’s certainly well worth it to take part in this adventure and discover some amazing Japanese Teas!
Berry Mocha Truffle Black Tea from Octavia Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Tea Information:
Let’s keep this simple. This blend smells and tastes exactly like dark chocolate covered fruit. It’s seriously good. You get the mocha & dark chocolate first, a fruit blast in the middle and a slight bitter chocolate and floral finish. To make it more indulgent, stir in some milk and sugar.
This tea is available from Amoda Tea.
It’s also part of Amoda Tea’s Holiday Box!
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda Tea here.
Taster’s Review:
As I’m sitting here with the aroma of this tea wafting through the air, I find myself in total agreement with Amoda Tea’s description above: Yep, it smells exactly like dark chocolate covered fruit. My mouth is watering right now. It smells SO GOOD.
It’s the cocoa husks! (Aka cacao shells!) I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: tea companies should use cacao shells if they want a strong, true flavor for their chocolate teas.
As for the taste: Yum! I get the mocha notes up front, and as the sip continues, I pick up on a strong berry note that lingers into the aftertaste.
This has a really pleasing chocolate note. I love the dark chocolate flavor of this tea. Bittersweet! It’s a really nice contrast to the sweet-tart flavors of berry.
My one criticism of this tea is that the black tea seems just a wee bit lost in these strong flavors. Yes, I taste the black tea, but I don’t think it’s quite robust enough to be with all this chocolate mocha and berry flavors.
I don’t know what type of black tea is used as a base for this blend, but I think that an Assam or a Nilgiri would have been a good choice for it because I think that those malty notes that Assam and Nilgiri teas are known for would taste amazing with these chocolate mocha notes. My taste buds are “mmm-ing” just at the thought of a malty, rich Assam tea with the mocha flavors.
But as it is, this is really a nice tea. I can taste the tea – and I find that the tea flavors come through a little stronger as I make my way down the cup (and a slurp now and then doesn’t hurt!) But this really tastes more like a mocha than it does a tea.
The berry notes brighten the cup in a really nice way. The sip starts out with the strong mocha-esque flavors and then all the sudden, a bit of bright, berry flavor hits the palate. Nice!
This is the tea I’d recommend to someone who is a former coffee drinker and decided to turn to tea because the caffeine of coffee is harsh on them (it was on me!) but they still miss that mocha flavor from their favorite coffee shop! This tea will help them miss their mocha less – or perhaps not at all – because I’d rather drink this than a $5 mocha any day!
Fig Peach Oolong from Modern Tea Girl
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Tea Information:
Trust us, this tea tastes SO much better than it looks 🙂 Peaches may not scream Christmas, but figs are certainly quite festive! Mission and golden figs taste amazing in this blend with a beautiful, sophisticated and fragrant dark oolong. A very uncommon blend that has a stunning flavour that subtly builds with each sip.
This tea is available from Amoda Tea.
It’s also part of Amoda Tea’s Holiday Box!
Learn more about subscribing to Amoda Tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I just received my January box from Amoda and I haven’t yet finished reviewing the teas that I got from the Holiday Box – I better get busy!
I was pretty excited about this one (really, I was excited about all the teas in the Holiday Box! It’s a scrumptious collection of teas! I love the flavor combination of fig and dark Oolong – these two flavors really work well together. And because darker Oolongs tend to have a peach-like flavor and figs have a similar profile to a peach, it would seem to be the natural choice for an additional flavor for this blend.
And what can I say? YUM! This is really tasty. As Amoda says in the description above – it definitely does taste better than it looks. It’s not the most attractive tea I’ve ever seen, but it is very tasty.
The Oolong is the star of this tea – it’s a mellow tasting, lightly smoky, earthy Oolong with a smooth, silky texture.
The flavors start out really delicate. My first few sips, I was tasting mostly just Oolong and I found myself wondering: “where’s the fig? where’s the peach?” But after about three or four sips, I started to pick up on subtle notes of fig. The peach developed even more slowly, but after a few more sips, I could pick up on the peach.
I like that the Oolong is really front and center with this tea. It’s a really delicious Oolong!
The fig notes arrive slowly but when they do, they’re sweet and really lovely. I love figs and there is something so comforting to me about a fig tea – especially when served warm. It evokes memories of a happy time in my childhood when I would pick figs from a fig orchard and eat them right after picking them. They were still warm from the afternoon sunshine and really, there’s no better way to eat a fig!
And I’d argue that there’s no better way to eat a peach! Freshly picked from the tree and still warm from the sun. Mmm! This tea manages to capture both of those flavorful memories very well.
This is a really happy tea – it makes me happy to drink it and it brings back so many warm and happy memories. If you are looking for a really good fig tea – you should try this one. And because it’s an Oolong, you can get a few flavorful infusions out of it!