Jasmine Black Pearls from DAVIDsTEA – Tea Review

Jasmine Black Pearls is an organic black tea offering from DAVIDsTEA. This tea is listed in the Web Specials at DAVIDsTEA‘s online store – with that said, if you want this tea you should act quickly!! I do like my floral teas, but most often floral is present in white, green and oolong teas rather than blacks. I was doing a tea order with a friend and he spotted Jasmine Black Pearls. I totally didn’t notice this tea when browsing around DAVIDsTEA. I don’t drink much unflavored blacks and own some regular black pearls from another tea company. My eyes just skimmed past assuming its… Continue reading, hoot!

Guava Cadabra from DAVIDsTEA – Tea Review

Guava Cadabra is a caffeine-free herbal fruit blend from DAVIDsTEA. This blend features mango, apple, hibiscus, elderberries, and guava crunchies. Guava Cadabra is DAVIDsTEA‘s Tea of the Month for July 2013.   Guava seems to be an uncommon ingredient in tea. Actually, even seeing guavas in stores is uncommon, unless I go to specialty markets. Guavas remind me of a coworker I had who would often eat them like a giant apple – walking around the office with this large green fruit in his hand, taking large bites out of it. I ordered this tea as guava is tasty, unique and I do love… Continue reading, hoot!

Mad Tea Party Blend from Disney Wonderland Tea – Tea Review

Mad Tea Party blend is an indian black tea flavored with peach, apricot, ginger, safflower and calendula petals. This tea was purchased at Disneyland, under the brand Disney Wonderland Tea. My best friend/sister loves going to Disneyland. Of course, since I now live in Southern California, when she came to visit me, she went to Disneyland, like she does every time she’s in the area. Me? I went to Disneyland when I was 6 years old. These days I see the $90+ 1 day ticket price and pass – that’s lots of tea, yarn, nail polish, stuff owls and frozen yogurt… Continue reading, hoot!

All Day Oolong from Teascent – Tea Review

All Day Oolong is a fresh, light floral oolong from teascent, a UK based tea seller. Interestingly teascent only sells oolong tea, with 4 types of oolong. The one we’ll be trying today is the All Day Oolong, which is a Ali Shan Oolong in bagged form. By the way, their website is adorable! Plus, this Troutie tote bag is awesome! Dry Leaf: Nice smell on the oolong! All Day Oolong has a comforting smell like fresh baked bread. Appearance wise is kind of smashed up, more smashed up compared to teascent‘s photos. However, this tea came in a paper envelope from the UK to California, so it can… Continue reading, hoot!

THE SEASONING! Oolong Owl seasoning yixing teapot special!

Finally, it is time for… THE SEASONING A horror film with a great black metal soundtrack. The air is filled with the earthy clay scent of yixing clay. Boiling pots of water of cleansing and dark shu pu’er THRASHING WITH QI! /metal yell Yeah I’m weird. Admittedly, I am a little scared of THE SEASONING, hence the horror film theme playing in my mind. These yixing pots are pricey little tea pots and it’s something I don’t want to mess up. Though logically, seasoning a yixing pot sounds easier than boiling pasta. As planned, I decided to season Oolong Owl’s Yixing pot… Continue reading, hoot!

Houjicha from Obubu Tea via Yunomi.us Mystery Tea Samplers Club

Yunomi.us just started a Monthly Mystery Tea Samplers Club and this lucky Owl got her beak on it! With the Monthly Mystery Tea Samplers Club you get 3 x 10g samples, all different teas. 20% off coupon to purchase any of the teas for that month. What I found was really cool was included was a couple page letter that goes into each tea – the history of the tea farm its from, pictures of the family/farmers at the tea farm, information about what the tea is and steeping instructions.   This month, one of my three teas is Houjicha Light Roast from Obubu Teas! I’ve… Continue reading, hoot!

Gravity Tea Steeper Love and Care

In early into my tea journey, Gravity Tea Steepers got me started into making amazing loose leaf tea. Before gravity steepers, I was use those tea ball chain things which were messy and didn’t give tea room to expand. I also used paper filters that you can fill with your own loose leaf, but I found that was a bit of waste. Once I got my first gravity steeper, in my case DAVIDsTEA the Steeper, I immediately noticed a flavor difference. Tea had a fuller and stronger flavor! Years later, I acquired other tea ware for steeping, such as teapots and… Continue reading, hoot!

Magnolia Oolong from Upton Tea Imports – Tea Review

Magnolia Blossom Oolong is a floral scented oolong from Upton Tea Imports. Life has been weird lately. My husband adopted a turtle. We unexpectedly bought a new fridge and deepfreeze on a trip to the hardware store to build a pond for Turtimer. The kitchen was in disarray as said new fridge doesn’t fit where the old one was (and barely got into the house). All the moving around of the kitchen and surrounding areas to get the fridge into the house made me move my tea stuff out of the way, so I’m disorganized. The bonus is I have a… Continue reading, hoot!

Yixing pot #2

Finally, my second yixing pot! My first yixing pot was from Hong Kong, but I’ve been undecided what to season it with. I figured if I get a couple more, I’d have an easier time – so I ordered a second pot. While I waited for this teapot to arrive, I unexpectedly bought a third yixing teapot. I saw some fantastic yixing pots and gaiwans at Yunnan Sourcing. However, since based in China, the shipping fees were on the high side or long shipping times. Luckily, they have a US based site, Yunnan Sourcing.us, that also had the same yixing pot.… Continue reading, hoot!

Yixing Teapot #3

So, I unexpectedly acquired another Yixing clay teapot. Yixing #3? Well, I have #2 coming in the mail soon. #1 is the yixing pot I got from Hong Kong. I was shopping a couple towns over from where I live and my Mother-inlaw said there was a tea shop in the area. We weren’t sure what kind of tea shop it was.. Boba tea? Restaurant? Loose leaf? Anyways, it was a few blocks away from where we were so we went to check it out. This tea shop is called Bamboo Tea House out in Claremont, California. By the way,… Continue reading, hoot!