Some teas are neat to think about. How the leaves are rolled and twisted. The process of producing the right flavors consistently from the leaves and buds. This Jasmine scented tea from Teavana is put through eight to ten rounds of scenting with Jasmine blossoms, oil and petals prior to being rolled into these neat little balls.

Visually these tiny pearls appear as a mixture of light and dark green twists. They’re rolled so tight they almost look like little marbles in the bag.

The aroma is lighter than expected for a tea basically wading through a couple weeks of Jasmine flowers, oils and petals. It’s clearly Jasmine, but it lacks some of the hints of nectar sweetness some other Jasmine teas have.

The flavor from these little marbles is also weaker than expected. That’s not necessarily all bad, it’s a matter of taste. I happen to like my Jasmine teas on the stronger side. The Jasmine is clearly notable in the flavor with floral tone which hint more toward gardenia than the Jasmine this tea is known for.

There’s some bite in the finish of this tea. Not enough to make a lasting impression, although the Jasmine flavor lingers in the mouth for a bit it seems to dissipate rather quickly.

I would recommend this tea to fans of more floral teas and flavored teas. Fans of Earl Grey varients may be likely to enjoy this brew. If you like your Jasmine teas on the stronger side, brew for four minutes instead of three as you’ll get more flavor that way.

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I really like fresh oranges. They’re a great source of vitamin-C and are pretty tasty to boot.

Visually this Chinese Sencha green tea appears with dark green sharp leaves with slivers of orange peel mixed in. I suspect some flavoring to have been included as well to strengthen the flavor. This tea provides a bright yellow-green liquor.

The aroma is straight forward. Boom. Tangerine/mandarin orange. No two ways about it. Sadly there’s no real vegetal scent from the Sencha here. The same is true once brewed.

This Mandarin Sencha dries the palate rather quickly. The flavor is strong on the tangerine side of things. Stronger than I think is natural given the amount of peel included. That being said, there’s nothing wrong about that if you enjoy a strong flavor. However, none of the vegetal strength of the Sencha comes through, which is disappointing.

If you’re looking for a tea tasting of oranges, this could be your choice. Though, I wasn’t particularly pleased with the results myself, your mileage may vary. It’s sufficiently low cost to give it a shot if purchasing their Blueberry Rooibos or their Earl Grey, both of which I enjoyed.

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Here’s the final installment of this three part recap to the activities and friends from this year’s expo!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Day 3

Ouch! So much ground to cover in a single day! Seven rows and we’ve only finished four! I gues it helps I didn’t attend any educational sessions this year. This would have been a five page set instead! Maybe next year.

First stop when the doors opened? Special Teas! This group has some rather fine offerings. Then, on to Florapharm. A bright logo, good quality product and an interesting name. This German company is housed in the US near my old stomping grounds in Owings Mills, MD. They even had a real live samovar (see last photo)!

Special Teas

Special Teas

Special Teas

Special Teas

Florapharm USA

Florapharm USA's samovar

Next I hit Eco Vita who do supplements and vitamins. Not really my scene. Then was Eastrise Trading Corp. who had the banner for Foojoy, a great chinese company who I had a good rapport with last year. No, on to Rooibos, Ltd. This company obviously specializes in Rooibos related teas.

Further down the isle I hit AOI Tea which specializes in Matcha. I had a little formal ceremony sit down with a great little Japanese woman who whisked the tea up in a little bowl for me to drink. It was extremely good!

Next was Harney & Sons. Last year I was lucky enough to meet both Michael and John Harney at their booth. This year, the booth was considerably smaller and the Harney’s themselves weren’t present. I was a little disappointed.

AOI Matcha

Moving on I had the pleasure of hitting Sugimoto America again. They won an award this year for their greeting cards with a pretty sealed teabag in it based on the occasion. That was kinda neat.

Tavalon Tea was next. Their packaging is some of the more unique I think. Clear plastic that’s UV coated so you can see the tea is nice. What’s great is that unlike other UV plastic tins, these don’t just have a window in the tin to see the tea. The container is the window to see the tea.

Continuing, Stash Tea was the following stop. Most of us know Stash Tea from their tea bags sold in grocery stores and such. However, they have some great loose teas, and the new Chanakara line Cindy Harling showed me is really great, and available loose!

Oh My Gosh! PeLi Teas! The wonderful 2009 Pu’erh they had was equally pleasant in a tea bag as it was loose. Just incredible! Maeda-En was great as usual. With their Green Tea Mochi and their Iced Green Tea. Delicious!

What the heck is up with Sam Ritchey and his hair over at TeaGschwendner! That guys knows how to liven it up something real! A stop off at MarketSpice located in Pike Place in Seattle and a taste of Hojicha Gelee (which I’ll review down the road) at The Green Teaist and we close out the fifth row!

What a hectic run! But we’re only about a third of the way through our day! Will I be able to make it through the seventh row in time for closing? Follow along and we’ll see!

PeLi Teas

PeLi Teas

Maeda En

The Green Teaist

The Green Teaist

There’s a LOT going on here in the sixth row! Plenty to see. Let’s get started!

First stop? The Taiwan Tea Manufacturer’s Association. This is a conglomerated booth area made up of seven or eight Taiwanese tea companies all in one place. They’re almost independent of the expo! Too much to describe here. There’s lots of good stuff!

What’s this!?! Hawiian grown tea! I’ve known about the Hawaii projects for a while now, but it failed to register that anyone was close enough to production. Well, Liam Ball over at Na Liko Tea certainly is! The Hawaiian Oolong was spectacular. This is on top of being a first year production from plants just five years old! They really nailed it!

Tisano was next. They make cacao stuff. In this case their product is made from the outer shells of the cacao beans. This Equadoran product is pretty good actually and tastes like a hot chocolate but not as rich. The company actually helps in the picking and shipping processes for their product and gives some proceeds back to the community and growers from each sale.

Na Liko Tea from Hawaii

Na Liko Tea from Hawaii

Tisano Cacao Tea

Just across the split from Tisano… was Zealong, the New Zealand Oolong people. If you haven’t tried this stuff, seriously give it a go. I did. I’ll have a formal review up soemtime soon. Zealong has some of the best marketing this year I think, and their packaging is simply beautiful! Tulsi Organics across the walkway was another herbal beverages company. There seem to be plenty of these this year.

Time to take a peek at one of my favorite accessory makers… FORLIFE! Great looking stuff as always! Vibrant colors, unique styles. Good stuff.

On to Naivetea. I really like this brand’s identity. Clean and refined but with a slightly fancy augmentation. Always friendly, the couple who run this company are somehow calming to me. It could be the tea too, but there’s something about this fun pair from California!

Zealong New Zealand Oolong

Tulsi Organics

Naivetea

Next up? Hankook Tea who have some simple but nice packaging, and they’re representing Korean teas which are seriously under-represented in the industry. You go guys! On to Takeya USA! These guys make some really swell tea brewer jugs! Some of these are for chilled teas, and others are for hot teas. Some for large quantities and others for just a cup or two. You should check them out!

Keeping up the pace we have Shang Ri La Tea and Hancha Tea another company I remember from last year who has nice clean package design. A trip to Teas Etc. rounds out the 6th row. I mean what would the expo be without Beth and Newman Johnston!

Time for the final row already!?! The Expo can’t be over yet!?! I mean c’mon!

Takeya

Teas Etc

Teas Etc

Row seven is shorter and has less going on. I did run into Jason O. Walker from Walker Tea Review whom I met last year. If I’d been swifter maybe I’d have caught him before he was closing up. Maybe I could have even been in one of his review videos! That would have been killer!

A stop by the World Tea News booth was empty. All that was left was Torn Ranch.

I did make my way back to the International Tea Importers booth to grab a copy of the New Tea Dictionary and a photo-op with the author Mr. James Norwood Pratt.

Disappointed row 7 didn’t have more going on? Oh, fine! There was this row of new product displays. Maybe you’d like to see those, yeah? Here you go, I’ll leave you with these. I hope you enjoyed my coverage of the expo as much as I did getting to go again.

Me sniffing some Himalayan Tips

QTrade Teas & Herbs

Village Tea Mini Canisters

Tea friends Make a Toast

Tea Friends at Lotus of Siam for Dinner

ITO EN Bench Made of Recycled Tea

More Delicious Tea

David Smith Tea Blender

This fruity blend of florals, fruits and a Chinese Sencha smells floral, looks like green tea and tastes fruity. It’s quite the party to be sure.

Looking at the loose leaves you see mango bits, sunflower petals, cornflower petals, choppy Sencha style green tea leaves and a cacophony of other ingredients. This makes for an interesting, if busy visual to take in. Brewed, the liquor shows as a nice yellow-gold.

The aroma of the dry and the spent leaves is very fruity. I get guava and mango with a hint of passionfruit and marigold in there as well. The tea liquor however smells more vegetal, almost like steamed leeks. My guess is that comes from the Sencha base.

This tea seriously dries the palate. The finish twinges of guava. However, rolling the liquor in the mouth provides a more apricot taste. You can tell this is a Sencha even through all the flavors. There’s the vegetal tones inherent ni the green tea, a nuttier lightly roasted sense I get which would be a more southern grown plant. The gritty bitterness from a Sencha is clearly present.

It’s nice to have a blended tea like this where you can actually taste the base tee. Often the base tea is overrun by hoards of ingredients all vying for the top spot. The one major issue with this tea keeping it from a higher score in flavor and a lower score in boldness is its penchant for reminding me of having cotton balls in my mouth.

I would recommend this tea to fans of guava, passion fruit, mango, Earl Grey and Sencha teas blended with fruit.

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Here’s part two of this three part recap to the activities and friends from this year’s expo!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Day 2

Saturday. A day to sleep in. Something I don’t do frequently enough. But are you CRAZY! I’m at the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas! There’s no way I’m sleeping in! There’s too much to do and see!

Let’s start out at the front of the 3rd row here. This row is exciting to me because I know some people here and some others are altogether brand new to the expo this year. A great mix of old and new!

First up is Qtrade Teas & Herbs. This company is one of the leading direct importers of teas and herbs to the United States directly from their source countries. In the next booth is Kopius Teas, the exclusive distributor of Qtrade imports. Directly across from Qtrade and Kopius is Elmwood Inn Fine Teas which is based in my neck of the woods down in Kentucky.

Further down the row I ran into my friends at The Art of Tea whose branding I love! They were nestled just before a split in the rows and were directly across from my peeps at Adagio Teas such as Cynthia Fazekas, Ilya Kreymerman and Charles Cain!

Art of Tea

Art of Tea

Art of Tea

The next segment seems to be the most difficult for me. China row. The Indian and Sri Lankan folks all speak some form of English, but the Chinese don’t always understand what I’m saying. It doesn’t keep me from trying though. And try I did! I even ended up learning about a nice little tea shop in Columbus, OH called ZenCha Tea Salon. I’m planning a trip up to review their place soon!

An old buddy from last year’s expo resurfaced with force and had a bigger booth and much stronger branding. Kaushika Patel of Catalyst Gourmet makes flavor and tea enhancers. Essentially spice sets you can add to food, tea or other items to escape from the hum-drum of the everyday. While I wouldn’t personally be adding ony of these to an orthodox tea, there’s some pretty nice stuff in her cabinet, let me tell you!

Directly across from Catalyst Gourmet was Runa, a new herbal beverage company selling a product derived from a plant called Guayusa (why-you-suh). It’s pretty decent and they have several flavored options including a mint and an original.

Catalyst Gourmet

Runa Guayusa Tea

For those counting Runa is the third company listed here which boasts their own 501c(3) Non-Profit Foundation which provides some or all of their profits back to the growers & pickers of their product. The first was Ajiri which I visited on Day 1. They provide 100% of their profits back to Kenyan orphanage schools. The second was SAFA Himalaya which provides a protion of their profits back to the Nepalese growers they source their teas from.

At the end of row three we had a mild tweetup where I met Adam Hansen as well as Chris Palmer of Tazo Tea. That was pretty neat. I think the World Tea Expo needs a tweetup every year which is formally arranged. The way it is now, there were four of us at this year’s tweetup and 12 at last year’s.

So far, that’s just half of day 2! We’ve so much more to go! On to row 4!

Starting at the end of row 4 we hit International Tea Importers where Mr. James Norwood Pratt was speaking. Mr. Pratt is always great to listen to. He knows more about tea than anyone I’ve met and he remains lively and energetic!

International Tea Importers

International Tea Importers

International Tea Importers

Mr. James Norwood Pratt and Myself

After the poke around the ITI booth it was time to head off for Aiya, makers of fine Matcha and Matcha products. It’s always fun to run into Shiro Nobunaga and Fumi Sugita. We had a great conversation last year too! Just across the row split was ITO EN, a favorite of mine from last year. A wonderful hello from Rona Tison veep of product marketing always goes a long way to a good day!

Aiya Matcha Tea

Next up is Village Tea Co. Martin runs a great shop in Dallas and his branding is spectacular. It makes me want to consume it to be hip and attractive… just like he is! If you haven’t read it yet, I wrote a review on his Gentle Organic Lemon Ginger Green Tea last a while back.

A little further down was one of my favorite booths to hit during the expo last year, and again this year. Puripan! This Korean tea company is based in California and has some really interesting and fantastic teas such as Mugwort or their Kusus or Soba-cha.

Puripan Tea Garden

Me with the Puripan gals

Further down we find The East Indies Tea Company whose name reminds me of the fabled East India Company which classically created the tea industry outside of Asia and controlled the majority of it for nearly 200 years with the Queen’s blessing. And finally Rishi Tea. Rishi walks away with awards every year, and this year was no exception. I’ll have a separate post all about the World Tea Championships at a later date.

Sadly I didn’t get to hit Rishi Tea or Sungarden Tea which were both in the 4th row. Next year perhaps.

That about does it for Day 2. Head back to check out Day 1 or check out Day 3.