Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Teasenz
Tea Description:
RICH, SMOOTH FLAVOR with SMOKY AROMA: perhaps the most famous black tea of all, the Keemun is synonymous with black tea. The small and neat dried leaves brew beautifully amber red tea liquor with a mellow and smooth flavor.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I really enjoy a good Keemun. I love the rich, silky flavor with notes of smoke. However, the first time I brewed this Keemun Black Tea from Teasenz, I found myself a wee bit disappointed because it was a bit too mild for my taste. I like the fullness of flavor that I usually experience from a Keemun and I wasn’t getting that with my first cup.
Oh, that first cup was tasty. It had a wine-like quality with notes of fruit that mingled with the wisps of smoke. It was pleasant. But it just … wasn’t what I was expecting from a Keemun tea.
So, I brewed another cup, thinking that perhaps I didn’t use enough leaf in my teapot. And I believe that must have been the case, because this second pot of tea is fabulous! It is smooth and full-flavored. Sweet with notes of caramel and hints of smoke. Hints of cocoa play on the palate. THIS is what I want when I want a Keemun tea!
And now that I sit and consider this tea … I realize what an exceptional tea it really is. This tea is ideal for someone who enjoys a mellower cup of tea – something flavorful and refreshing … and it is also ideal for someone who is looking for a slightly more robust cuppa. Just use a little less leaf if you want a wine-like, fruit and smoky cup, and a little more leaf if you want that rich impact. This tea delivers!
Jasmine Dragon Pearls from Teasenz
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Teasenz
Tea Description:
SUBTLY SWEET, AND SOFT, AIRY MOUTHFEEL: Perfumy hand-rolled jasmine tea made from the most tender tea leaves and best Fujian jasmines. When added to hot water, the pearls majestically unfurl, filling the room with sweet jasmine scent and flavor.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Jasmine pearls! Yay! I was so happy to receive these Jasmine Dragon Pearls from Teasenz. I love jasmine teas, as I’ve professed many times, and Jasmine Pearls are among my favorite jasmine teas. They are not only “top of the line” when it comes to jasmine teas … but it’s a lot of fun to watch them “dance” in the hot water as they steep – they slowly unfurl from a tightly wound ball into a long, elegant and beautifully fragrant tea leaf – all the while, producing a very flavorful cup of tea.
This particular pearl tea from Teasenz is a real treat. It has a very delicate quality to it … something I noticed immediately when I opened the pouch of the tea. The aroma was light and almost … airy. It evoked thoughts of walking through a path lined with jasmine vines on a cool evening as the gentle breezes capture the exotic fragrance of the jasmine flowers and surround me with the essence of beautiful jasmine. So, I’ve never actually done anything like that … but I’ve imagined in on more than one occasion.
And that’s what I think of when I smell the dry leaf of these Jasmine Dragon Pearls. It’s a delicate, ethereal sort of olfactory experience. The brewed tea maintains that sort of subtle aroma, it is soft and has an almost dreamy quality to it. Really beautiful.
The flavor is also quite delicate, especially when sipped as the tea is still quite hot. Allow the tea to cool for a few moments, and the flavor begins to intensify. Not cold, the tea is still hot … but it’s cool enough to sip. For maximum flavor, slurp the sip, aerating the tea a little bit before it touches the palate. Now the flavors of the sweet jasmine can be tasted and the fresh, buttery flavor of the green tea leaves are also experienced in the sip.
This is a really delightful and beautiful jasmine pearl … soothing and relaxing to sip.
Wild Orange Pu’er Tea from Teasenz
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Pu-erh
Where to Buy: Teasenz
Tea Description:
SMOOTH, FRUITY with ORANGE AROMA: A beautiful tea for the adventurous tea drinker. Definitely a master piece resulting from aging pu’er leaves in a hollowed out wild orange (clementines). Simply a must-have for any pu’er tea collector.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Even though I am rarely “excited” to try a pu-erh tea, I have to admit that I was a little excited to try this Wild Orange Pu’er Tea from Teasenz. Especially after opening the foil packaging and seeing the dried tangerine casing. Maybe it’s silly (my husband would say “nerdy”) of me to think so … but these tiny dried oranges filled with pu-erh are just … so cool and clever!
But how to prepare this tea? I can imagine someone new to tea might find the tangerine casing to be a bit confounding. And to be perfectly honest, I can’t tell you if I did it “right” or not … but I’ll tell you what I did.
Since I brew pu-erh in my gaiwan, I cut away the tight cellophane wrapping from the dried tangerine, and then I took off the little “lid” of the tangerine and cut into the side of the fruit. I cut off a portion of the dried tangerine peel, and then I scooped out some of the dark tea leaves and I put the bit of tangerine peel and the scoop of dark tea leaves into my gaiwan.
Then I brewed it the way I would normally brew pu-erh: with a quick 15 second rinse, and then I started infusing. My first infusion was 45 seconds, and then I added 15 seconds to each subsequent infusion. I got eight tasty infusions out of this one bit of Wild Orange Pu’er.
And from someone who tends to be timid when it comes to pu-erh, I like the tangerine flavor that the casing imparts on the earthy tea. The fruit notes balance out the earthy tones without making it taste too “sweet” and without making it taste as though it’s been artificially flavored. The tangerine comes through, providing notes of sweet and hints of tart.
If I had to choose just one word to describe this tea, that word would be mellow. The flavor of the tea is sweet with notes of deep caramel, but overall, it’s a very smooth and mellow taste. There is earthy notes but it doesn’t taste brine-y or fishy. The orange notes are also mellow, but they do a little more than just mellow out the earthy tones here … the tangerine also brightens the overall flavor.
This is definitely an ideal pu-erh for someone who – like me – tends to shy away from pu-erh because of its strong earthy overtures. The fruit notes soften the earthy notes … bringing a taste that is neither too fruity nor too earthy. This is just right. Even in the subsequent infusions, as the fruit notes tend to taper, I found that the tea kept it’s mellowness and did not ever taste too earthy.
A true delight!
Silky Silver Needle Tea from Teasenz
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Teasenz
Tea Description:
PURE, CLEAN and REFRESHING : enjoyed exclusively by the imperial family in China for centuries, the Silky Silver Needle is a top grade white tea that has a soft, smooth and silky-sweet taste experience – an ethereal cup with lingering fragrance and a refreshing aftertaste.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This Silky Silver Needle Tea from Teasenz will be my first experience with a tea from this company, and I’m excited about it! I love trying teas from new-to-me tea companies … especially when the teas are of such remarkable quality as what I’m finding from Teasenz!
The color of the dry leaf is beautiful – light green with silvery tips, each needle-like leaf is covered in fluffy fuzz. The leaves are soft to the touch … not dry or brittle. The brewed leaves are also quite lovely … I don’t see the “fuzz” anymore, but, the color is this gorgeous, spring-green color, evoking thoughts of the earliest days of spring when all the new leaves and buds of grass start to come alive. The fragrance of both the dry leaf and the brewed tea is subtle and hay-like, with an enhanced “vegetative” note in the brewed liquid.
The flavor is sweet and clean. There is a vibrant crispness to the flavor. There are notes of vegetation … and I’m noticing less of that “hay-like” quality that I often notice in white teas … this has more of a distinct fresh vegetable note … like somewhere between hay and freshly steamed, mild vegetables.
The texture is silky, thin and delicate, as is the taste. This is not what I’d call a ‘brothy’ kind of tea, because it doesn’t have that soup-like quality to the consistency of the liquid. It is thinner than that. It has a light quality to it … from the fragrance to the flavor to the mouthfeel … but I find this to be very refreshing and invigorating in its own way. I don’t feel weighed down in any way when I sip this.
I feel the cup calm me as I drink it … while at the same time, I feel a sense of rejuvenation … like it’s gently recharging me from the inside out. I really enjoyed this cup of tea … my first sampling of the teas from Teasenz … and I really am happy with this!
Blue Spring Bi Luo Chun from Teasenz
Tea Type:
Green Tea
Where To Buy:
Teasenz
Product Description:
AROMATIC, SMOOTH AND MELLOW : Listed on virtually every list of the 10 Most Famous Chinese Teas, the Bi Luo Chun green tea is renowned for its fruity taste and lingering floral aroma. Its name, literally meaning “Blue Snail Spring” is originated from its delicate spiral shape which resembles a snail house .
Tasters Review:
Don’t let the first few lines of this review trick you! I want to start off by saying I have had some horrible Bi Luo Chun experiences in my day…BUT THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM! This is a fabulous Bi Luo Chun from Teasenz. They call it “Blue Spring” and it’s lovely! Dry – this is VERY fuzzy and fine. “Cut” more precise than the others I have seen. The aroma is incredibly fresh and lively!
Once I was finished infusing this it left a creamy mellow shade of yellow/light-green.
The flavor is fresher than most of the other Bi Luo Chun’s I have had and I want to certainly point that out! It’s not bitter at all! It has a somewhat juicy-sweet yet slightly herbal and green-ish taste to it.
This may be the best Bi Luo Chun I have had to date! This is a goodie!
