Valley Green Tea from Shan Valley

by liberteas

Valley_GreenTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Green

Where to Buy:  Shan Valley

Tea Description:

Valley Green Tea is our premium tea harvested year round. It has a subtle, fresh and well-rounded taste. 

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

This Valley Green Tea is the last of the four teas from Shan Valley that I’m tasting, and I’m very happy to say that I found enjoyment from all four teas.  These teas from tea farms in Myanmar are really quite good, I’m glad I had the opportunity to try all four!  I don’t know that I could select a favorite of the four because I found something in each that I liked.  These teas from Shan Valley are really good, and I recommend them highly.

I really like this Valley Green Tea.  It’s one I’d call a “daily go-to” type green tea – it has a very pleasing flavor:  not too overpowering, just a fresh and calm sort of taste that I like to sip when I just want a good cup of green tea.  Not something that I need to sit and think about … just something that’s easy to enjoy.

The flavor is very uplifting and it has more of a classic green tea taste:  fresh, leafy and vegetative.  The vegetal notes are somewhere between grassy and very lightly buttered beans, leaning just a little more toward the grassy flavor.  I like that even though this has more of a vegetal taste than a “toasted nut” type flavor that I noticed in the Mountain Roasted Green Tea, the “green” flavor isn’t overwhelming.

It’s just a soothing, enjoyable cuppa.  Great to drink with meals because it doesn’t have any strong, detracting flavors.  It has a nice, smooth texture and a refreshing taste.  I especially like this one iced with a thin slice of lemon.  Or try brewing up a pitcher of it and squeezing in some fresh grapefruit juice – delicious!

liberteas

Anne (aka the Mad Tea Artist) has celebrated her 29th birthday for many years now. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her hubby and her youngest daughter. Her oldest daughter is married and has bestowed Anne with the proud title of "Gramma" and her grandson is about the cutest boy you ever did see. Anne started her journey with tea as a casual drinker and became more serious about her tea drinking when she realized that she couldn't drink coffee. Shortly thereafter, she started becoming obsessed with the beverage and she started creating small-batch, artisan blends of tea that she sold online as LiberTEAS. After a few years, she realized she wasn't cut out to be the sole proprietor of a business so she closed LiberTEAS and started reviewing teas online. She met Jennifer through another blog that they both reviewed for and they decided to start their own review blog. This review blog! Throughout her journey as a tea reviewer, she discovered 52Teas and became enamored with the idea of creating a new tea every week. When the founder of 52Teas decided he wanted to move on, he offered the business to Anne but knowing that she wasn't cut out to be a sole proprietor, she instead offered the company to her oldest daughter who employs her as the Mad Tea Artist for 52Teas!

This post was posted in Green Tea

Mountain Roasted Green Tea from Shan Valley

by liberteas

Mountain_Roasted_GreenTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Green

Where to Buy:  Shan Valley

Tea Description:

Mountain Roasted tea is our premium tea harvested year round and roasted to perfection.  It has a nice roasted taste and smell blended in with the more subtle fresh flavor of the tea.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

When I first opened the pouch of  Mountain Roasted Green Tea from Shan Valley, I wasn’t too sure what to expect.  I’ve tried many roasted Oolong teas, however, my experience with roasted green teas is much more limited.

But this tastes more like a roasted green Oolong than it does a typical green tea to me.  In the place of the usual or expected vegetative tones of a green tea, I taste a delicious nutty quality.

The texture of this tea is really nice – like velvet!  It tastes very smooth, and feels very smooth to the palate as I sip.  As the name suggests, it has a delicious roasty-toasty taste to it, with hints of smoke that mingle with distant floral notes.  It is sweet and nutty, and there are some creamy butter-like notes to the cup as well.

A really delicious, unexpected green tea.  I like it!

liberteas

Anne (aka the Mad Tea Artist) has celebrated her 29th birthday for many years now. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her hubby and her youngest daughter. Her oldest daughter is married and has bestowed Anne with the proud title of "Gramma" and her grandson is about the cutest boy you ever did see. Anne started her journey with tea as a casual drinker and became more serious about her tea drinking when she realized that she couldn't drink coffee. Shortly thereafter, she started becoming obsessed with the beverage and she started creating small-batch, artisan blends of tea that she sold online as LiberTEAS. After a few years, she realized she wasn't cut out to be the sole proprietor of a business so she closed LiberTEAS and started reviewing teas online. She met Jennifer through another blog that they both reviewed for and they decided to start their own review blog. This review blog! Throughout her journey as a tea reviewer, she discovered 52Teas and became enamored with the idea of creating a new tea every week. When the founder of 52Teas decided he wanted to move on, he offered the business to Anne but knowing that she wasn't cut out to be a sole proprietor, she instead offered the company to her oldest daughter who employs her as the Mad Tea Artist for 52Teas!

This post was posted in Green Tea

Black Tea from Shan Valley

by liberteas

Black_TeaTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Black

Where to Buy:  Shan Valley

Tea Description:

Our tea is has satisfying roasted flavor blend and strong taste.  This tea is naturally processed from our green tea to further enhance flavor. 

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

This Black Tea from Shan Valley has a nice, roasted taste to it that reminds me a bit like coffee!  A bit of an unexpected flavor, but, it’s tasty.

The dry leaf is a small CTC cut, which immediately communicates to me that it should be brewed at a slightly lower temperature (205°F instead of 212°F) and steeped for slightly less time (2 minutes instead of 2 1/2 or 3 minutes).  This produced a tea that was strong but not bitter … although I do notice some hints at bitterness here.  I think that even just a couple more moments steeping would have resulted in a bitter brew.

But this is nice.  I can’t recall tasting a pure black tea quite like this one before.  It is rich and malty, reminding me a little bit of an Assam.  It has a sweet, almost cocoa-ish background that reminds me of a Fujian black.  It is pleasantly full-bodied, with notes that hint at caramel, smoke, toasty nut flavors, and an earthy quality.  And then there is the coffee-ish overtone that is quite compelling.  This tastes a bit like maybe someone poured a half coffee-half Assam tea concoction for me but without the bitterness of coffee.

I like this one a lot.  It is an excellent choice for that first cup of the day, because it’s got some gusto to it!

liberteas

Anne (aka the Mad Tea Artist) has celebrated her 29th birthday for many years now. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her hubby and her youngest daughter. Her oldest daughter is married and has bestowed Anne with the proud title of "Gramma" and her grandson is about the cutest boy you ever did see. Anne started her journey with tea as a casual drinker and became more serious about her tea drinking when she realized that she couldn't drink coffee. Shortly thereafter, she started becoming obsessed with the beverage and she started creating small-batch, artisan blends of tea that she sold online as LiberTEAS. After a few years, she realized she wasn't cut out to be the sole proprietor of a business so she closed LiberTEAS and started reviewing teas online. She met Jennifer through another blog that they both reviewed for and they decided to start their own review blog. This review blog! Throughout her journey as a tea reviewer, she discovered 52Teas and became enamored with the idea of creating a new tea every week. When the founder of 52Teas decided he wanted to move on, he offered the business to Anne but knowing that she wasn't cut out to be a sole proprietor, she instead offered the company to her oldest daughter who employs her as the Mad Tea Artist for 52Teas!

This post was posted in Black Tea