Tea review - Buddha Teas' Oolong

A few weeks ago, the nice dude in charge of the Buddha Teas social media saw one of my posts on Instagram about tea and asked if I'd be interested in trying their tea for review. Of course, I said yes about as quickly as I could master the urge to type back in all caps.

They sent me Oolong, which, as it happens, is one of my favorite teas of all time, and they sent it even though I forgot to tell them that fact when they asked if there was any tea I particularly liked or didn't--so good job, Buddha Tea peeps!

The tea is certified organic, the company is concerned with holistic health, and they use unbleached tea bags because bleaching leaves dioxins which could be dangerous if they build up enough.

Look how pretty all their packaging is! 

See that little nub on the side of the tag? That's a hole I managed to year in the bag, but that's probably more my clutziness than a flaw in the packaging.

This oolong is so nice. It smells toasty and maybe almost savory when it's dry, sort of the way a good genmaicha does. It brews up warm-brown and mellow, flavorful and toasty without getting bitter or being too bland. It tastes like a perfect middle ground between grassy green and deep black--which is exactly what oolong should be.

I got two brews out of the one tea bag; I might've gotten more if I hadn't broken it, but since I did, I got to see that the tea in the bag is actually recognizable as leaves, not as dust like more ordinary tea! 

All in all, I was super-impressed, and if I can afford it, I'm definitely going to get more from this company!

Now to find somewhere to put it in my shelf...

NOTES:

This was provided for review, but the opinions are mine and honest--I'm just impressed by how nice everyone was.

The website is right here at BuddhaTeas.com--be sure to check them out!

Tuesday Tea - Pumpkin Spice Brûlée

http://www.teavana.com/the-teas/oolong-teas/p/pumpkin-spice-brulee-oolong-tea

I usually don't buy Teavana tea just because it's so very, very expensive, but we stopped by to look at the pretty tea tins and they had it brewed and waiting for me. It smells buttery and tastes like a mildly sweet and mellow pumpkin spice--not all cloves and cinnamon, thank god! It's also made with oolong tea, which is my fav of the teas!

And it's perfect for fall.

Tuesday Tea - Rose Tea Is Perfect For Cold Days

(pic credit: http://userealbutter.com/2009/06/10/rose-green-tea-infused-panna-cotta-recipe/)

Roses usually flower in the summer. This is moment, usually sometime in June, where all the roses in an area will be in bloom, and the world just wafts of roses everywhere.

I love the smell of roses. And I love eating and drinking things that taste like roses. To the point where I have a rose perfume, and I once had a guy at an Indian restaurant add more rose syrup to my rose lassi so that it almost tasted like that perfume. I just adore the whole thing.

(pic credit: http://gdlohas.en.made-in-china.com/offer/FboQgCVrAlhP/Sell-Herbal-Tea-Sweet-Black-Tea-Rose-Flavor.html)

In the middle of winter, or on other cold and grey days, it can be hard to remember that there actually are bright sunny days when the air is full of fragrant flower smells and everything is warm and sunny and wonderful. On those cold days, I like to drink rose tea. I'll drink it all through winter, in fact, if I'm feeling especially grouchy about the Seasonal Affective stuff, and that moment when you open the teabag or the jar, when you first drop the tea into the water and that captured smell of summer wafts up? It's one of the best moments in a bad winter.

I think rose goes especially well with tea because it's related, though distantly, to the tea plant. And because there can be a lot of subtlety and complexity in rose petals, just like there can be in tea leaves. It's floral, but in a fruity, tea-y sort of way, so it blends well on its own with tea, or you can mix it with vanilla, or strawberry, or just about any other red or pink fruit. If you add sugar and milk, it tastes just like Flower Kiss candies.

What's your favorite rainy-day tea?

(pic credit: http://www.zhitea.com/black-tea/vanilla-rose-tea.html)

Tuesday Tea - Why Oolong Is The Best Tea Ever

(pic credit: http://oolongteanew.blogspot.com/2013/02/what-is-oolong-tea.html)

Because of my general tastes for un-sweetened tea, I gravitate, when the choice is given to me, toward teas that don't need sugar to taste really good. And because of this, at one of the tea shops or herb shops ages ago, someone introduced me to Oolong, and I was in love. 

It varies as much as green or black tea does in flavor, but it's generally rich, earthy, a little toasty, and often bright and fresh tasting. It's made by a process somewhere halfway between how you make green tea and how you make black tea, so it comes out halfway between. At the time that I found it for the first time, I was regularly drinking a pot of tea made with a black tea bag and a green tea bag, and oolong is something like that, but much, much better.

(pic credit: http://healthlob.com/2011/04/slim-tea/)

Oolong is the best tea for losing and maintaining lost weight. It raises your metabolism without making you jittery, it has very low caffeine (though not so low as green tea) and it's got all the antioxidants and trace nutrients that any tea has. It's good hot or cold, and it takes flavoring and scenting well--I've had oolong scented with jasmine, with peach, with vanilla, with osmanthus, and with herbs, and they were all good. It's especially good with summer-fruit sorts of flavors, or with really fragrant floral flavors.

Some of the stronger ones are just as good British-style as a decent black tea, and it mixes well with other types of teas for fancy Teavana-style blended teas.

Have you tried any oolongs? What did you think of them?

(pic credit: http://english.mingshancha.com/abouttea/about-tea.php)

Tuesday Tea - Why I Don't Sugar My Tea Most Of The Time

(pic credit: http://www.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/tea.htm)

Because I'm hardcore. Or because I'm addicted.

But seriously...

(pic credit: http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/diet-fitness/diets/green-tea-diet.htm)

Most of the time, I drink tea that doesn't need sugar. I drink a lot of Oolong, my favorite tea, or green tea, and while Oolong can handle some sweetness, it's totally not necessary. And I'm pretty sure it's a criminal offence to sugar green tea unless it's one of those delicious instant mixes that only tangentially count as "tea".

But here's the thing: I also don't sugar the black tea I drink most of the time.

There's several reasons for this:

1. I'm lazy, most of the time. The fact that I actually boil the water in one container (the kettle) and then pour it into another (the teapot) is a pretty big deal in and of itself.
2. I've been drinking tea for a really long time. Because of this, I'm both used to the natural flavor, and sort of in love with it, and I don't need to add anything to it to cover it up or change it.
3. I'm concerned about the health benefits. Tea is really good for you. It's packed with antioxidants, it has trace minerals and amino acids, it's antiseptic, it helps control hunger, it's good for when you're feeling blue and when you're not, it's totally and naturally calorie free--but if you add sugar, it's no longer antiseptic, it's got calories you don't need, it messes with your blood-sugar balance, it makes you crave more sugar...It's just not as great anymore.
4. Tea these days just doesn't need sugar, I feel. 

See, back in the day, the quality of the tea could be pretty lousy if you weren't in a tea-drinking society or if you were poor, and you'd need sugar to cover that up. And back when I was a kid living in the UK without a taste for it yet, it took a lot of sugar and milk to make it palatable. But now I'm adult, with adult tastebuds and more that a little bit of food-snobbery refining them, and there's so very many fancy and high-quality teas available. Even the basic teas, the ones meant for ice tea making or the ones meant for just day-to-day mass consumption, are better quality and more various than they used to be a lot of the time, and there just isn't, in my cup or in my tongue, that acrid bitterness there used to be.

Which means, most of the time, I don't sugar my tea.

There are exceptions, of course. Ice tea made at home and in the middle of the summer should be very dark and pretty sweet. If I'm going British-style, I'll sugar and milk a good strong black tea. If I'm away from home and have no choice but really old or really cheap tea or nothing, I'll pick cheap old tea and sugar, any day. Sometimes, the highly-flavored teas you can get from, say, Adagio or Teavana are better and more balanced with just a little bit of sugar.

But for day-to-day consumption? Not needed.

How about you? What're your views on sugar in tea?

(pic credit: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/black%20tea from Winter's Daughter)