Grumpy Beastie's Other Lair

Tea Month 2026: Tea 22

Tea Review
Name: 2014 Aged Da Hong Pao Oolong Tea
Brand: unsure, vendor: Bana Tea Co.
Type: oolong
Brick


Notes:
Tea Guy described this tea as fully oxidated and "super super" roasted. This tea came in a pressed brick that resembled a bar of baking chocolate. Which is only sort of funny because when it was passed around before brewing, it smelled like a molasses cake. You break up a piece of the brick before brewing. Tea Guy warned us to be careful when buying brick tea because when you are first searching for it online, most of what comes up are these very beautiful brick tea sculptures, which are technically drinkable, but they use the lowest grade/worst tea to make those and are more meant to be art. The tea was very Amber colored. I had trouble describing the taste. Woody & smoky were the closest I could come to describe what I was tasting. Someone else said it had a malt flavor. I did like it, it just sort of evaded my vocabulary. Mostly, it made me think of campfires and smoke rooms (where meat and cheses would get smoked or dried) where I would be charged with keeping the fire going while men sat around talking, drinking whiskey, and smoking pipes all night when I was a kid.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 7
Flavor: 7

Overall Rating: 3 stars

Tea Month 2026: Tea 20

Tea Review
Name: Baozhong Oolong Tea
Brand: unsure, vendor: Tao of Tea
Type: oolong
Loose leaf

Notes:
Tea Guy made a point of telling us that the leaves of this particular tea did not come rolled. It is pretty common for loose leaf oolong tea leaves to be individually rolled up tightly, which expand as the tea steeps. This was the only tea we tried at the May tea tasting that was from Taiwan. It was also at the lightest end of the roasting scale an oolong tea can be, making it closer to a green tea. The leaves themselves before bring brewed had a fruity scent. The tea was a light honey color, with a light perfumy taste with a little bit of a bitter aftertaste.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 7
Flavor: 7

Overall Rating: 3 stars

Tea Month 2026: Tea 18

Tea Review
Name: 2013 Liu Bao Dark Tea
Brand: unsure, vendor: Ohio Tea Co.
Type: fermented
Loose tea

Notes:
This is the other tea that we sampled at both tastings. Dark tea is another name for fermented tea. It is also aged. The 2013 in the name refers to when it was originally harvested. This kind of tea is considered an after dinner tea and is supposed to aid in digestion. It requires hotter water and has a high brewing threshold, which is why Tea Guy prefers to use a clay tea pot to brew it in. The first steeping of this tea is always a rinsing of the tea that is thrown away and not drank. The way it is aged and stored means things accumulate on it that need to be rinsed off. Tea Guy says the first steeping (the one you dump) usually has an "oceany" or fishy flavor. This particular tea is considered an "approachable" tea for beginners wanting to try fermented teas. Even with a light steeping, this tea is almost black in color. It is very dark, with maybe a little red. At the second tasting, I noted it had no scent, but I think that was the leaves before brewing not the tea. It's a very thick tea, not in a syrup kind of a way. It just sort of fills your mouth in a way other tea doesn't. The flavor is hard to pin down. At first, it made me think of the way peat smells, but the more I drank, the more it tasted like figs. I enjoy fermented teas, but they are an acquired taste.

Rate
Appearance: 8
Aroma: 5
Flavor: 8

Overall Rating: 3.5 stars

Tea Month 2026: Tea 16

Tea Review
Name: Medium Roast "Fancy Grade" Ben Shan Varietal Oolong Tea
Brand: unsure, vendor: Yunnan Sourcing
Type: oolong
Loose leaf

Notes:
I tried this at the March tea tasting. It was imported from China. I do not know what "fancy grade" means. It had a really heavy coffee-esque scent while it was steeping. Tea Guy said he gave it a "light steep to bring out the sweetness." Apparently, it can get pretty bitter. The tea was a ruby color. It tasted mostly like a light roast coffee, but had a citrus flavor to it. We did try four infusions of this tea and it didn't change much, except for the flavor intensifying with each one.

Rate
Appearance: 8
Aroma: 8
Flavor: 8

Overall Rating: 4 stars

Tea Month 2026: Tea 14

Tea Review
Name: Tung Ting Oolong Tea
Brand: unsure, vendor: Boulder Tea Co.
Type: oolong
Loose tea

Notes:
This was one of my two favorite teas from the tea tasting in March. It's from Taiwan. We tried six infusions of this tea. It is at the least roasted end of the scale. The color stayed pretty consistent across the infusions, a lighter black tea color. The first two infusions had a very grassy/leafy scent and taste. It became more floral tasting over the next infusions until the 6th one, where it had a slightly smokey aftertaste.

Rate
Appearance: 8
Aroma: 8
Flavor: 8

Overall Rating: 4 stars

Tea Month 2026: Tea 12

Tea Review
Name: Pai Mu Tan White Tea
Brand: unsure, vendor: Ohio Tea Co.
Type: white
Loose leaf

Notes:
This tea was part of the tea tasting in March and the one I probably have the fewest notes on. The tea is also known as "White Peony" tea. It was the starter tea of the day being the lightest and only one tasting of. (Most of the teas we got to sample multiple brewing of.) For a delicate looking white tea, it had more body than expected. This is also where I was reminded that we don't all use the same words to describe things. I used the word "woodsy" to describe it, meaning a flavor profile that is sort of comparable to how you would describe a woodsy fragrance, somewhat of wood, not quite earthy. Everyone else in the room would later be using the word "woodsy" to describe things (though not this tea) I would consider "floral," with the meaning of things that are flowery/notes similar to floral perfume. It was an interesting time to try an communicate.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 7
Flavor: 7

Overall Rating: 3 stars

Tea Month 2026: Tea 10

Tea Review
Name: Sweet Dreams
Brand: Bigelow
Type: herbal
Tea bag

Notes:
This tea tastes good, but it's a confusing blend and I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a sleepy time tea. It's a blend of chamomile, hibiscus, peppermint, rose blossoms, spearmint, spice, & orange blossoms. While chamomile is restful, peppermint and spearmint are for waking you up. And there was also this weird disconnect of it smelled like a lovely, cinnamon forward, warm spiced tea, but then tasted like a mint blend with no hint of spice at all. Which it tasted good, it was just odd.

Rate
Appearance: 8
Aroma: 8
Flavor: 8

Overall Rating: 3.5 stars

Tea Month 2026: Tea 8

Tea Review
Name: Nighty Night Extra
Brand: Traditional Medicinals
Type: herbal
Tea bag

Notes:
This one surprised me in a good way. One, it actually tasted good. This brand and Yogi both have vague proprietary blends listed in the ingredients of all their medicinal teas and I obviously don't know what is in either of those blends, but they tend to add a flavor that I find very off-putting that is similar between the two brands. It was not noticeable in this one. Two, I was not expecting it to help. It's primary ingredient is valerian root, which typically doesn't do anything for me. I don't know if it was this particular blend of things or if I was actually tired enough that any warm cup of tea while reading before bed might have put me out, but it was the most restful night of sleep I've had in over two years.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 7
Flavor: 7

Overall Rating: 4 stars (bonus star for sleep)

Tea Month 2026: Tea 6

Tea Review
Name: Cozy Chamomile
Brand: Bigelow
Type: herbal
Tea bag

Notes:
My review for this might be a little unfair as it came from the jar of random tea and by the art on the packaging, it might have been a little past it's prime. That being said, it was okay. I thought it might be a blend, given it's nearly non-existent chamomile flavor, but it's not. That could be it's age. My bar for chamomile is low and this particular bag of tea limboed under it.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 3
Flavor: 1

Overall Rating: 2 stars

Tea Month 2026: Tea 4

Tea Review
Name: Anela Hawaiian Flavored
Brand: Lupicia
Type: unknown blend
Tea bag

Notes:
This tea and I went on a journey. To start with, I have no idea where I got this tea originally. It was in my jar of random packaged bags of tea. The packaging just has the brand name and "ANELA Hawaiian Flavored" on the front and the back just has brewing instructions in Japanese & English. I tried googling it. I found out anela means angel, maybe, and I found the USA version of the Lupicia website. The tea is not listed anywhere, even when I tried to search their catalog of over 400 teas, which includes the discontinued ones. It just kept saying it doesn't exist. Also, they seem to exclusively sell loose tea in tins and this is a bag in a packet. It does look like something you might get at a hotel, so maybe it wasn't a regular retail product.

Anyway, I finally found mention of the flavor in two places; a blog post and a reddit comment. In a blog post from 2018, someone had bought the Lupicia Hawaiian tea sampler, which included the Anela tea. At that time, it was described as "a sweet aromatic strawberry lychee black tea." The reddit comment was complaining that their favorite Lupicia tea used to be Anela, which used to be a jasmine lychee green tea, but it had changed to a strawberry lychee black tea.

Neither of these descriptions fit what I drank.

I did enjoy it. It was fun to drink. I couldn't pick out any particular flavors, but it hit my taste buds as "tropical flavor" without any notes of coconut or pineapple. Honestly the first thing I pictured in my head was the tropical trail mix they used to have in the bulk bins at the grocery store. Though it didn't taste like that either. It was dark enough, it was most likely a black tea blend, so probably the strawberry lychee.

I'd drink it again, if I had more. I don't see that happening.

Rate
Appearance: 7
Aroma: 9
Flavor: 8

Overall Rating: 3.5 stars