Vivacious Vitalitea by Vampyre Tea Company (Cup of Love). . . . .

by Sensiblyscript

Steeping: 3 g at 212°  in 1 cup for two minutes. . .

This is my first tea of the day so let’s hope it lives up to its name! It’s a rooibos-based blend, but it does have green tea as well so it’s not caffeine-free.

As the tea steeps, I’m watching it and catching a sniff here and there. I’m catching some whiffs of rooibos fragrance and, leaning closer, some honeylike flavor as well (which I at first thought came from honeybush, although I later discovered honeybush does not seem to be in the ingredients list). The liquid is turning dark reddish orange and I notice that a few bits of tea have escaped the mesh as well. (I would recommend using a finer mesh if you don’t prefer having small bits in your tea). It also smells a little bit acidic. The first sip has an interesting hint of flavor that I can’t quite place – citrus maybe? Or perhaps it’s from the rose petal I saw in the tea leaves before steeping. The overall flavor is sweet and not bitter at all or very astringent either; the flavor is welcoming but not too exciting. It doesn’t need any sugar, though, because it’s already so sweet. This tea could be a nice intro to rooibos; it does have some other flavors such as rose petals too, but they’re not too overpowering so you can still taste the rooibos flavor.

It’s good with milk too! Adding milk was actually a very interesting experiment because it ended up bringing out a completely different side of the flavor profile. I’d almost think that I was drinking a totally different kind of tea! That doesn’t happen often (and I do almost always add milk to my tea so I have plenty of experience).

Overall, I’d say this is a great, enjoyable rooibos combination with plenty of sweetness, perhaps a little citrus and/or rose flavor, and definitely no need for sugar. And according to the label it’s also organic and fair trade!

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type:  Rooibos
Where to Buy:  Cup of Love
Description

A revitalizing blend of herbs, flowers, and Green & Rooibos Teas to give you a boost of energy throughout your day.  Its effervescent flavor is smooth without the bitter crash of an energy

drink.  It leaves the body feeling clean, refreshed, and renewed for all of life’s adventures.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Sensiblyscript

Hi! My name is Tabitha and I'm an uprooted PNW native living in the South with my husband and my cocker spaniel. My favorite teas are usually dark and strong and go well with milk and sugar. I like to combine tea-drinking with all of my favorite activities, such as listening to music, reading YA fiction, knitting, and writing blog and website content for businesses. Because I'm a well-rounded person, I also have other interests, such as wearing mismatched socks and pretending to be ambidextrous.

This post was posted in Cup of Love, Rooibos

RYCBAR by Fandom Teas. . . .

by Sensiblyscript

I’m a Doctor Who fan and, even with the information that this is an “impossible girl” inspired tea, it still took me several seconds to figure out what the name of this blend meant. Maybe my brain was just really slow today? Hopefully you can figure it out faster. 😉

I steeped two teaspoons of this tea in ten ounces of 175-degree water for three minutes.

While steeping, it starts smelling fruity right away. This is a flavored tea (raspberry-pomegranate flavored) and the tea liquid is much darker than an unflavored green tea would. That might be from the raspberry, although it’s not really pink; it’s a sort of clear and handsome brown color with a reddish tinge.

First sip: It’s definitely fruity and sweet. Pomegranate and raspberry are both quite tart fruits, but the tartness isn’t coming through too strongly here, although yes, there is quite a bit of astringency. The fruity flavors complement each other well, and the green tea base sings backup; I’m hard put to it to distinguish its flavor components separately, yet I can still tell it’s there.

With sugar: Sweeter, of course. But surprisingly, I can taste the green tea base a bit more now. The sugar tames the astringency but doesn’t really bring out the fruity flavors like I hoped/assumed it would.

I bet this one would be great as iced tea too, but wouldn’t want to try milk with it because it might be too acidic for that.

All in all a fun tea, and one that I’d like to try iced (or as cold-brew) if I ever have the chance to try it again!

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Green Tea
Where to Buy: Fandom Teas
Description

This tea is no longer available but click below for Doctor Who teas that are.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Sensiblyscript

Hi! My name is Tabitha and I'm an uprooted PNW native living in the South with my husband and my cocker spaniel. My favorite teas are usually dark and strong and go well with milk and sugar. I like to combine tea-drinking with all of my favorite activities, such as listening to music, reading YA fiction, knitting, and writing blog and website content for businesses. Because I'm a well-rounded person, I also have other interests, such as wearing mismatched socks and pretending to be ambidextrous.

This post was posted in Fandom Teas, Green Tea

Organic Assam Black Tea by Mana Organics

by Sensiblyscript
 I haven’t bought from this tea company before, but it seems to have a social conscience. Mana Organics isn’t just focused on producing organic tea and selling it, but instead takes a more holistic approach to getting the products from farmers to customers. They focus on community development and sustainable farming in rural areas, then help the farmers get products out to the world by doing marketing and retail work. So I’m really excited about this company and I’m planning to do more research and potentially start sourcing some of my tea from here.
But on to the review!
I steeped this tea at 212 degrees for about five minutes, using 1.5tsp of leaves in about 10 ounces of water. It turns out to be a handsome teak /cedar color after steeping. It smells deep, malty, and strong. It’s very aromatic, promising good things to come.
First sip: It’s astringent, but not puckery, with a deep and bright flavor profile. There’s just a hint of bitterness at the back but then it’s gone (fortunately; it’s not my favorite thing when bitterness hangs out with me all day). But on top of that, I’m detecting sweet potato and baked squash notes! Nice. Next to chocolate, I think this is one of my favorite flavor types for black teas. Actually I’ve been looking for a good squash/sweet potato flavored tea so this is good news.
Anyway. With milk, which brings baked-squash and maltish flavors to the front, this tea is just great. In fact I’m almost finding it has a little brown sugar flavor to go with the squash flavor. So fun! (Come to think of it, I hope I’m not the only person who thinks it’s funny how similar sweet potato and baked squash flavors are. Isn’t that just strange?) There’s no bitterness now, and practically no astringency; milk is an excellent buffer for such things, which is one reason I almost invariably have milk with my tea. (Another reason is that I sometimes drink tea when I’m hungry, or even in lieu of a meal, and the milk helps keep my blood sugar from crashing.) I’m also thinking maybe I’m detecting a hint of a floral note? But then again maybe I’m making that up–it was too fleeting to be sure.

 

All in all this is a solid, strong, great tea blend and goes well with food at meals (or even without food at meals if you’re like me) and is excellent with milk. <3

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy:  Mana Organics
Description

A brisk tea with a malty, honey-sweet aroma followed deep character of taste and a pleasant pungency that will please even the most discerning of palates.Only Tippy Golden Flower Orange Pekoe Premier Grade (TGFOP1) Assam tea direct from our family’s estate, Chota Tingrai.  Healthier for you and the environment thanks to our USDA certified organic practices.  Packed onsite in re-sealable bag so you get that garden-fresh taste again and again.  Tastes, smells, and looks so delicious that we got an award in the Global Tea Championship 2017

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Sensiblyscript

Hi! My name is Tabitha and I'm an uprooted PNW native living in the South with my husband and my cocker spaniel. My favorite teas are usually dark and strong and go well with milk and sugar. I like to combine tea-drinking with all of my favorite activities, such as listening to music, reading YA fiction, knitting, and writing blog and website content for businesses. Because I'm a well-rounded person, I also have other interests, such as wearing mismatched socks and pretending to be ambidextrous.

This post was posted in Black Tea, Mana Organics

Oaks SFTGFOP 1 CL SPL 2nd Flush 2016 Darjeeling Organic from Lochan Tea Limited

by Sensiblyscript

I steeped this tea for about 3 min at 212 with almost 2tsp and 1 cup water. I couldn’t find the product on the company’s website, so I just guesstimated the steeping specs. Which is always fun. I prefer to use the recommended specs if possible, in order to give the tea a chance to put its best foot forward (as it were), but I’m also fine with just doing whatever seems to work if there aren’t any recommendations.

The water started turning amber pretty quickly after I put the leaves in to steep. I used a generous amount of leaf due to not knowing the specs; probably a heaping teaspoon would have been sufficient, but of course that’s all up to personal preference. The leaves seemed to be chopped pretty small, but they’re not crushed into dust or anything. The fragrance was a bit malty and flowery while steeping, but also a bit astringent.

After steeping, the tea was a warm golden-brown color, transparent enough to see a stray leaf at the bottom of the cup. It smelled very inviting. Once I tasted it, though, I decided I’d steeped it a bit strong. The astringency was prominent, although fortunately the tea wasn’t bitter at all (despite using boiling water). The flavor wasn’t as malty as I expected, but there were still floral notes especially at the end of the sip. It’s a solid black tea, especially astringent but also somewhat sweet.

With sugar, the astringency is wonderfully mellowed and the floral notes emerge a bit more–I’d definitely recommend this. With milk added, I love it even more. (But what did you expect? I always do.) I’d consider this a great breakfast tea, and steeping it strongly is a good plan if you’re going to add sugar and milk, otherwise I’d recommend steeping it not quite so long (maybe 2 minutes?).

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Black/Darjeeling
Where to Buy:  Lochan Tea Limited
Description

This tea is no longer on the website but click below for teas that are.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Sensiblyscript

Hi! My name is Tabitha and I'm an uprooted PNW native living in the South with my husband and my cocker spaniel. My favorite teas are usually dark and strong and go well with milk and sugar. I like to combine tea-drinking with all of my favorite activities, such as listening to music, reading YA fiction, knitting, and writing blog and website content for businesses. Because I'm a well-rounded person, I also have other interests, such as wearing mismatched socks and pretending to be ambidextrous.

This post was posted in Black Tea, Lochan Tea Limited

Kind Green by Love Some Tea. . . . .

by Sensiblyscript

The tea leaves are long, twisty, intact, and dark green. I used the entire sample packet and steeped it for 3 minutes at 175 degrees in about 6 ounces of water.

This tea starts to smell quite buttery and floral while steeping. The water’s not turning color much, but it smells very nice. (When I saw the leaves and smelled the sweet and buttery flavor I kind of forgot this was a green tea rather than an oolong tea, so I was expecting the water to get darker than it did.)

After steeping, the tea liquid is a light whitish yellow; there’s not really much green in it at all. It tastes astringent, floral, and a bit sweet (honey-like?). It has fruity and orchardy notes and maybe a hint of umami. It really tastes much more like an oolong to me than a green tea, with its orchid-fruity taste and lack of the usual green tea flavors like jasmine/grass/seaweed/etc. Although there’s a bit of umami, there’s not a lot of vegetal flavor. The leaves looked oolongy too–super long and twisty.

As I continued drinking this tea, I found it to be a very complex, fulfilling cup. It has more than enough flavor notes to stand on its own without sugar or milk, and is interesting enough that I didn’t get tired of the flavor and found myself wishing for more when I’d finished. I normally consider myself more of a dark-tea person (and don’t drink oolongs or greens much) so that’s quite impressive.

The tea company has a focus on natural tea production and harvesting tea leaves in their natural state (grown pesticide/fertilizer free and plantation free in the forest), which means their processing tends to be a bit different than conventional processing. This may account for the super-high quality of the leaves and the fact that it has elements of oolong as well as of green tea (at least in my opinion). I’m kind of in love with this tea now so I might just have to go and buy some more from their website now. And if you enjoy complex oolong-y flavors and high-quality tea leaves in your cup, you might want to do the same. 🙂

Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type:  Green
Where to Buy:  Love Some Tea
Description

Green Tea natural and wild, the way nature intended. Our green tea is wild picked from the mountains of Northern Thailand.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Sensiblyscript

Hi! My name is Tabitha and I'm an uprooted PNW native living in the South with my husband and my cocker spaniel. My favorite teas are usually dark and strong and go well with milk and sugar. I like to combine tea-drinking with all of my favorite activities, such as listening to music, reading YA fiction, knitting, and writing blog and website content for businesses. Because I'm a well-rounded person, I also have other interests, such as wearing mismatched socks and pretending to be ambidextrous.

This post was posted in Green Tea, Love Some Tea