Alex
Tea Reviewer
Member since May. 6th, 2018. Reviewed 45 teas.
Reviews of Teas & Herbal Teas
Page 1 2 of 2 pages with 45 results
Lao Cong Mi Lan Xiang (Honey Orchid) Phoenix Dan Cong Oolong from TeaVivre
Style: Dancong Oolong – Region: Guangdong, China79 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5
Sep. 18th, 2018
The name is accurate: it does smell like honey and flowers. Like Teavivre's Ya Shi Xiang and Da Wu Ye, it has a creamy mouthfeel and sweet, fruity taste. However, I'm not sure it's worth the price considering the cheaper Da Wu Ye from Teavivre or the cheaper and likely better Mi Lan Xiang from both Yunnan Sourcing and ...
Read Full Review
Da Wu Ye (Big Dark Leaf) Phoenix Dan Cong Oolong from TeaVivre
Style: Dancong Oolong – Region: Guangdong, China80 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Sep. 18th, 2018
Bright floral aroma, creamy mouthfeel. Later infusions have a note of peach with a mildly spicy finish. Pretty much a stereotypical Dancong. I'd recommend this to someone who has never tried one before. If you have, there's nothing new here, but I don't think there's really anything bad about it either unless you're us...
Read Full Review
Ya Shi Xiang Phoenix Dan Cong Oolong Tea from TeaVivre
Style: Dancong Oolong – Region: Guangdong, China78 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Sep. 18th, 2018
I like floral teas, but this was a little too floral for me. Great creamy mouthfeel, though.
Read Full Review
Huang Guanyin (Yellow Goddess) Wuyi Rock Oolong from TeaVivre
Style: Oolong Tea – Region: Wuyi, Fujian, China80 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Sep. 18th, 2018
The dark chocolaty, floral aroma of the dry leaves is honestly the best thing about this tea. I spent a lot of time trying to get it to taste like it smells. I can get close with a lower temperature and the right brewing time, but it's never exact. Most of the time, the taste is slightly fruity and a little less roasty...
Read Full Review
English Breakfast Decaffeinated from Twinings
Style: English Breakfast – Region: ?????56 / 100 Aroma: 5/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 4/5
Sep. 18th, 2018
Like the others who reviewed this, I was surprised that it tastes nothing like the regular Twinings English Breakfast. I remember that tasting more woody and malty, with a bit of the usual Assam dried fruit note. This has some slightly tangy tropical fruit notes that make me think of Keemun, but it also has this weird ...
Read Full Review
Kenilworth Ceylon from Coffee and Tea Exchange
Style: Black Tea – Region: Sri Lanka / Ceylon75 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Sep. 18th, 2018
This is what I think of as the stereotypical Ceylon: wiry leaves that brew a cup with a smooth, full body and honey and citrus notes. It's not my favorite type of the (I generally prefer Chinese tea), but this is still good.
Read Full ReviewSeeyok First Flush Darjeeling from Coffee and Tea Exchange
Style: Darjeeling First Flush – Region: Darjeeling, India88 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Sep. 18th, 2018
With the most prominent notes being pineapple, cranberry, and lemongrass, this tea is almost like drinking tart fruit juice. I love it because of that, but I can see others disliking it for the same reason. I taste a bit of honey as well. First flush is stereotyped as floral, but I don't get a lot of that here. There a...
Read Full ReviewWuyi Shui Xian from Coffee and Tea Exchange
Style: Oolong Tea – Region: Wuyi, Fujian, China77 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Sep. 18th, 2018
This is a very basic Wuyi oolong, with the deep, roasty flavor you'd expect. There's a caramel sweetness and the aroma has a bit of tobacco. I compared this to Teavivre's Da Hong Pao, and while the Teavivre DHP had a slight fruity note that was lacking here, I thought this compared pretty well otherwise. For $2, it's n...
Read Full ReviewTi Kuan Yin from Coffee and Tea Exchange
Style: Tie Guan Yin – Region: Anxi, Fujian, China72 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Sep. 18th, 2018
Decent dark roast oolong, but nothing special. It had a nutty, caramel flavor that reminded me of Brazilian coffee. Considering it was only $2/ounce, I'd buy some again if I was in Chicago and low on oolongs, but it's not something I'd go out of my way for.
Read Full Review
Premium Grade Dragon Well Green Tea (Long Jing) from TeaVivre
Style: Dragon Well (Long Jing) – Region: Zhejiang, China90 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Sep. 12th, 2018
Nutty and umami. I don't have much to say about this, but it really is a great tea even though I rarely drink Chinese greens.
Read Full Review
2015 Yunnan Sourcing Menghai Lao Cha Tou Ripe Pu-erh Tea Brick from Yunnan Sourcing
Style: Ripened (Shou) Pu-erh – Region: Menghai, Yunnan, China82 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Sep. 12th, 2018
The dry leaves still have a little wet pile odor, but fortunately, this doesn't make it into the cup. I mostly taste wood and earthy flavors. My preference with shou is for sweeter notes of cherry, dried fruit, chocolate, vanilla, etc. I'll let this air out for a few weeks and see if it changes, but it's pretty mediocr...
Read Full Review
Matcha Green Tea Traditional from ITO EN
Style: Green Tea – Region: Japan84 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Sep. 12th, 2018
This is my sushi tea. It complements the flavor of nori well, and it's quick to brew and clean up because it's a teabag. Despite the name, this mostly tastes like sencha. It has a creamy, seaweedy, umami flavor. There is a very slight bitterness, which sencha always seems to have and I actually like in the same way tha...
Read Full Review
Seikoen Tea Factory Aged Yukimuro Sencha from Yunomi
Style: Sencha – Region: Shizuoka, Japan87 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5
Aug. 22nd, 2018
I don't have a lot of experience with brewing Japanese green tea, so I probably didn't brew this as well as it deserved. I brewed it in my gaiwan, figuring that shouldn't be too much different from brewing it in a shiboridashi. I ended up with a lot of small pieces of tea in my cup because I didn't have any kind of fil...
Read Full Review
English Breakfast from Revolution Tea
Style: English Breakfast – Region: Blend70 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5
Aug. 5th, 2018
I got a cup of this at a gas station, surprisingly. I think it's better than the average English Breakfast, though I'm comparing it to the common bagged English Breakfast blends like Twinings because I have never bought it loose leaf. It mostly tasted like Assam to me, with the hint of a bright honey flavor being the o...
Read Full Review
Darjeeling (Sachets) from Hampstead Tea
Style: Darjeeling Black Tea – Region: Darjeeling, India75 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Jul. 30th, 2018
This actually tastes like Darjeeling: the fruity, woody notes are similar to the loose leaf Darjeeling teas I've had, and it even has that smooth muscatel flavor (or at least the flavor I taste in most Darjeeling tea that I associate with the word "muscatel"). I guess this shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did...
Read Full Review
Japanese Sencha (Sachets) from Harney and Sons
Style: Sencha – Region: Shizuoka, Japan75 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Jul. 30th, 2018
Surprisingly good for a tea bag. I feel like I've been saying that a lot lately (which reminds me that I have a couple reviews to add), but with all the terrible tea bags out there, it's still a surprise when a bagged tea taste much like the loose leaf version.
I'm not going to describe this in detail for two reaso...
Imperial Keemun Mao Feng Secret Garden from Culinary Teas
Style: Keemun Mao Feng – Region: China88 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5
Jul. 30th, 2018
Finally, a good Keemun! The dry tea has an aroma of aged wood, with a smoky scent that's more like the smokiness of a smoked cheese than the harsh smokiness of lower quality Keemun. I brewed it in a French press with water that hadn't reached boiling yet. The brewed tea has a similar aroma to the dry leaves, but this a...
Read Full Review
Fengqing Golden Buds Ripened Puerh from TeaVivre
Style: Ripened (Shou) Pu-erh – Region: Fengqing, Yunnan, China76 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5
Jul. 27th, 2018
I'll be surprised if I ever give more than 3 stars for aroma in a ripe puerh review. They all smell the same to me, excluding the odors of too fresh, poorly made, or improperly stored examples. The taste, though, is something else. Each one tastes noticably different in both subtle and obvious ways. What they all seem ...
Read Full Review
2017 Old Reliable from white2tea
Style: Ripened (Shou) Pu-erh – Region: Yunnan, China78 / 100 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5
Jul. 23rd, 2018
At first, this mostly smells and tastes like generic ripe pu-erh: wood, leaves, earth. It's sweet and syrupy, but the interesting flavors aren't immediately obvious. It does have subtle, non-generic-shou flavors that can be brought out depending on how you brew, though: caramel, cherry cola, dried fruit. Typical gaiwan...
Read Full Review
2017 Little Ducks from white2tea
Style: Raw (Sheng) Pu-erh – Region: Yunnan, China86 / 100 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5
Jul. 21st, 2018
While the dry leaves have a rather muted scent, the wet leaves and brewed tea both have an amazingly sweet aroma, like if flowers were candy. Like the Daily Drinker, this is on the mellow side, but this one can be pushed further if you can tolerate bitterness. Brewed normally, the first couple steeps are grassy and veg...
Read Full Review
2017 Daily Drinker from white2tea
Style: Raw (Sheng) Pu-erh – Region: Yunnan, China77 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 5/5
Jul. 19th, 2018
This tea has a wonderfully bright, fresh, floral fragrance, and a light bittersweet (more sweet than bitter) taste. It's moderately astringent, so be careful with brew times. As the name suggests, this won't be the greatest tea you've ever tasted; it's called Daily Drinker for a reason. It is quite good for the price, ...
Read Full Review
Xi Gui Ancient Tree Raw Pu-erh Cake 2013 from TeaVivre
Style: Raw (Sheng) Pu-erh – Region: Yunnan, China83 / 100 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 3/5
Jul. 19th, 2018
My favorite pu-erh so far out of the half a dozen or so I've tried, but it's also the most expensive. It does smell fruity (not sure what kind of fruit), but it also has a sweet rocky aroma, sort of like smelling the aftertaste of a good Wuyi oolong. Once brewed, it's strong and sweet without being astringent or bitter...
Read Full Review
2017 Mini Jimbo from white2tea
Style: Ripened (Shou) Pu-erh – Region: Yunnan, China74 / 100 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 4/5
Jun. 25th, 2018
This was a surprise bonus in my order. Being new to pu-erh, I really appreciated being able to sample something that I wouldn't have picked out, giving me a little extra variety to figure out what I do and don't like. The first thing I noticed about this mini cake (and the other ripe pu-erh I got from White2Tea, Old Re...
Read Full Review
Organic White Peony (Bai MuDan) Tea from TeaVivre
Style: White Peony Tea – Region: Fuding, Fujian, China90 / 100 Aroma: 10/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5
Jun. 15th, 2018
I've had this for a few weeks now, but I've put off this review because this is my first pure white tea. The leaves were picked in April of 2016, making the tea a little over two years old as of this review. It has a gentle yet complex aroma of autumn leaves, vanilla, cinnamon, old books, and hints of flowers and spice...
Read Full Review
Gunpowder Green Tea (Loose) from Pure Leaf
Style: Gunpowder Green Tea – Region: Indonesia44 / 100 Aroma: 4/10 Flavor: 2/5 Value: 4/5
Jun. 13th, 2018
This is one of the cheapest loose leaf teas I've ever seen, so I'm trying not to judge it to harshly, but it's just not very good. It's smoky, of course, but not too much if the temperature isn't too high. The overall flavor is vegetal, tasting like cooked carrots and green beans to me. It's pretty sour and astringent,...
Read Full ReviewPage 1 2 of 2 pages with 45 results
