A line from Little Yellow Teapot’s review of Chicago Tea Garden’s Golden Bi Luo has stuck with me this week:

The sign of a great tea is when the leaves look great before and after steeping.

How true.

Unfortunately, it’s a sentiment that doesn’t favour Orange Tea Co.’s ti kuan yin, which comes out of a steeping looking rather worse for the wear. The dry leaves are attractive enough, with a nice consistency of darker green rolled leaves; but after steeping this once, I can see that many of the leaves are broken. There are a few full sized leaves, but there are also quite a few broken bits. Granted, I was at the bottom of a sample, so you are always going to end up with some smaller leaf particles; but there was too much of it here for my liking.

Appearance aside, this is still a pleasant tea. It reminds me a little of those plums that straddle the line between sweet and sour. I picked up a hint of pepper, both in the nose and the mouth, which struck me as interesting ? neither of the previous ti kuan yins I have reviewed had that. The tea wasn’t as fragrant as either the Serenity Teahouse ti kuan yin or the Tea Trekker ti kuan yin; but I suspect that both of those teas were much more fragrant than your average ti kuan yin.

Iron Goddess is available from Orange Tea Co.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Ti Kuan Yin from Orange Tea Co. | No comment |
Post categories: Oolong tea, Tea reviews
Post tags: Orange Tea Co, ti kuan yin

It’s going to be a week of ti kuan yin here on Tea Finely Brewed. Over the past few months I’ve accumulated a nice little collection of ti kuan yin teas from different merchants, so I thought it would be interesting to review them all in the same week.

At a glance, here’s what I’ll be reviewing:

• A Taiwanese ti kuan yin from Serenity Teahouse
• Tea Trekker’s clear and fragrant-style ti kuan yin from Fujian Province, China
• Orange Tea Co.’s ti kuan yin, pictured above
• Chicago Tea Room’s Competition Grade ti kuan yin

If you hate ti kuan yin, check back next week:)

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | A Week of Ti Kuan Yin | 5 comments |
Post categories: Oolong tea
Post tags: Chicago Tea Garden, Orange Tea Co, Serenity Teahouse, Tea Trekker, ti kuan yin

My Father’s Day mug.

Do you like my mug? It was a Father’s Day present ? my first ever ? from Benedict.

Of course, Father’s Day was way back in September, so why the recursion into the past? Truth be told, my camera has a flat battery, so I don’t have any photos of today’s tea. Instead, you’ll have to make do with some choice pictures of the almighty mug I drank it from.

Today’s tea is Keemun Panda #1 from Orange Tea Co., who sent this to me as a free sample. Further disclosure: Orange Tea Co. have advertised on Tea Finely Brewed in the past.

This is one of those teas you start the day with, when what you’re after is a nice kick of caffeine and a tea with a bit of verve. The perfect tea to have in a big, hulking mug like my Father’s Day mug.

It’s a balanced, well-rounded tea. The flipside of that is that it doesn’t have anything that really jumps out at you; there are no surprising or unexpected flavours here. It’s just pure black tea, with that smoky quality that you would expect from a keemun, and some nice notes of honey as the tea cools.

The dry leaf, which consists of needle-thin, mostly broken leaves, suggests to me that this is a lower grade keemun. It’s on par with the keemun from Narien Teas that I reviewed in this post, though the Teas Etc keemun I reviewed in that post still trumps them both.

Keemun Panda #1 is available from Orange Tea Co. for $10.95 CA for 50 grams.

Browse more keemun tea in the Tea Finely Brewed marketplace.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Keemun Panda #1 from Orange Tea Co. | No comment |
Post categories: Black tea, Tea reviews
Post tags: keemun, Orange Tea Co

If you’re looking to pick up some cheap tea and teaware, head over to Teavana and take a look at their New Year’s sale. They’ve slashed 30%-75% off some items.

For some high quality pu-erh, I heartily recommend Bana Tea Company. I’ve reviewed two of their pu-erhs lately, including a very special wild-grown denong pu-erh.

Finally, those Canadians among you should check out Orange Tea Co.. I’m looking forward to trying some of their teas soon and reporting back to you.

If you are interested in advertising on Tea Finely Brewed, either now or down the track, please do get in touch. There are a few low-cost spots up for grabs in January.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Thank you to Tea Finely Brewed sponsors | No comment |
Post categories: Site news
Post tags: Bana Tea Company, Orange Tea Co, Teavana