Plus, if you order over $60, you’ll get free shipping (continental U.S. only).

You’ll have to get in quick with this coupon: it expires at the end of today. Sorry for not posting about it earlier!

Click here to go to Teas Etc and start shopping

Better yet, they’re offering a 10% discount to all Tea Finely Brewed readers. Just use the promotional code TFB when you’re checking out.

My tip? I already mentioned the piao-i teapot as a great gift idea. That’s up for grabs in their Tea & Infuser starter pack. Get that for someone who’s just starting to take an interest in tea.

If you’re feeling really generous, scroll down the page to the Christmas gift hampers. Those start around the $60USD mark, but they look amazing.

If you’re based in the UK, you can take advantage of their free shipping, free gift wrapping and free gift card offer. If you’re outside the UK, rest assured that they will ship to you (and at very reasonable rates — I just ordered a stack of tea from Canton Tea Co last week and paid about a quarter the price for shipping compared to what I’d pay for most US-based tea companies).

Click here to check out the Canton Tea Co Christmas gift catalogue

I find this oolong to sit somewhere near pouchong. It is a lighter tea with an understated floral perfume and a faded green infusion with wistful, sweet flavours. A mild, delicate kind of oolong that sits very well on the palate.

>>> Available here

For me, Teas Etc’s tea traveler ticks every box and one more: it also provides a much nicer tea drinking experience than any other travel mug I’ve tried. Is it the way you can watch the leaves unfurl in the water? Or is the warm aroma that hits you the first time you unscrew the lid to drink your freshly brewed tea? A little bit of both, I think. Either way, if a friend of yours loves tea but doesn’t have a travel mug, get them one of these. They’ll love it.

For a longer, more in-depth review, click here.

Buy the Tea Traveler Mug from Teas Etc for $19.95

Here’s how it works: Drop the leaves in the top, add water, and push the button on top to empty the liquor into the glass pot below. Simple, innovative and particularly good for high quality oolongs, pu-erhs or green teas that are suitable for multiple infusions.

My recommendation: Get this for someone who loves quality loose leaf tea, especially teas that can be reinfused.

Available from:

• Bana Tea Company’s Amazon shopfront. $28 by itself or $32 with a 5-pack sampler set of pu-erh teas.
• UK-based Canton Tea Co also sell the Piao i Teapot. By itself, it’s 18 GBP for the 300ml version, but you can also get it in a gift pack with a 50gram packet of tea for 22 GBP.

I only listed a handful of tea gifts that time, but there are many more worth mentioning. So I’ve set up a new page dedicated to tea gifts. It’s a bare shell at the moment, but bear with me — over time, every gift idea I add will be listed there, with some helpful categories to guide the desperate gift buyer.

I already have a bunch of ideas in mind – some I’ve reviewed on Tea Finely Brewed, some I haven’t – but I’d love to hear from you if you know of a gift idea for people who love tea. Have you ever received a great tea-related gift? What’s on your wishlist at the moment?

But that’s just how it looks. How does it taste? Surprisingly subtle. There is a mild nuttiness sidelined with the sweetness of caramel. If you’re looking for a black tea to wake you up in the morning, keep looking. This is a tea to savour and enjoy slowly.

This review was originally published here.

>>> Available here

But pu-erh is truly an acquired taste. You grow used to that earthiness. You start feeling past the mustiness and sense the smokiness that underpins it. Then, when you’ve reached that stage, come to this fine pu-erh, harvested in 1999 around the Vietnam-China border region. Come and enjoy a pu-erh that starts slow but blossoms around the third infusion with a surge of sweet smokiness. Every mouthful is ended with a long, satisfying finish. Lovely.

>>> Available here

To take advantage of the first coupon, use coupon COLUMBUS20. For the free shipping to Canada offer, use coupon CANADA

Both deals expire on October 11.

Click here to go to American Tea Room

So how is it? Pretty good. Maybe not my favourite pu-erh from Bana’s collection, but then the standard is high over there. The tea smells of burnt wood or charcoal, though the flavour is surprisingly light: Gentle fruit flavours with a singing overtone of honey. This is a rounded tea — and yes, it does make a good tea for the end of the day.

>>> Available here

Click here to go to Mighty Leaf Tea.

For a tea that costs $23 for an ounce, this is frighteningly easy to drink!

>>> Available here

>>> Available here

Click here to go to Mighty Leaf Tea

ps. For another travel mug worth checking out, take a look at my review of Teas Etc’s travel mug

The tea of choice, Canton Tea Co’s bai lin gong fu, was perfect. Its fine sweet aroma of butterscotch and caramelized onion was delightful, even to my stuffy nose. This is a light, elegant black tea with a surprisingly vegetal flavour, more like a deeply oxidized oolong than a brash black tea.

>>> Available here

I know what you’re thinking.

It’s been months of nothing Eric, and then you put up twenty posts in one day?

Sorry about that. Here’s the deal: Tea Finely Brewed is back. Not that it ever went anywhere, but there were some long overdue issues I wanted to sort through. Many of those have been ironed out, which means I can now shift my focus from site development to writing about tea, something I’ve sorely missed over the last couple of months.

You’d be amazed how much that hour of sitting down and really thinking about the tea I drink helps balance life out. I’ve got a cupboard full of wonderful teas to try, but when life is way too busy, I find it incredibly challenging to take that time out. Here’s to taking control of life and allowing plenty of time for family, tea and The Wire.

Click here to go to Teas Etc

When done right, the kabusecha is a lovely tea. It doesn’t have the intense flavours of shincha, instead offering a lighter, sweeter flavour with distinctive notes of seaweed. It gives three good infusions, though I wouldn’t go much beyond that.

>>> Available here

The only downside is that it can be a bit tricky cleaning out the teapot after use. I rinse it out with running water, but it’s a challenge to get all the little bits of tea out — especially with smaller green teas.

>>> Available here

Lightly coloured but with a full aroma of fruit and smoke, this keemun is very smooth and has a round, balanced mouthfeel. A lingering sweetness gives it fruity notes while there is a certain delicacy to it that is almost floral.

>>> Available here

Narien Teas’ Keemun Imperial is a black tea with a slight smokiness and a buttery note reminiscent of Yunnan’s black teas. This is a refined tea with a very smooth texture, but it lacks a little in depth.

>>> Available here

Narien Teas’ Ceylon Kenilworth is hardy yet smooth, a classic black tea tone exceptionally well. Thoroughly enjoyable.

>>> Available here

Unlike the Kagoshima Sencha Yutaka Midori that I reviewed earlier this week, this shincha is much more forgiving of lengthened brewing times, largely because its flavour is not nearly as forthright as that of the other shincha. In fact, the longer brewing times (I’m still only suggesting an extra 20 to 30 seconds) help tease a little more out of the tea.

Review originally published here: Shincha 2010: Organic Sencha “Warashima Supreme” from O-Cha

>>> Available here

Precision pays off with this shincha: oversteep it by 10 or 20 seconds and you’ll find that the tea has developed a sharpness that can be off-putting. But get it just right and you’ll be rewarded with a wonderful sencha, a broth with flavours of steamed vegetables and a chewy texture.

This review was originally published here: Shincha 2010: Kagoshima Sencha Yutaka Midori.

For a review of the same tea from 2009′s harvest, click here.

>>> Available here

The most surprising aspect of this tea is its similarity to genmaicha. While it is much lighter in flavour, and is not astringent in the least, it has a mild roasted flavour that reminded us of the Japanese green tea. But it also has a sweetness – a nutty, gentle sweetness – that I don’t often notice in mao feng teas.

>>> Available here

At $19.95, this is a seriously good buy. It’s BPA-free, easy to use and allows you to make just about any tea. Highly recommended.

For a longer, much more detailed review, view the original review: Tea Traveler Mug from Teas Etc

>>> Available here

>>> Available here

Given the sweetness of the dry aroma, it’s surprising how little sweetness there is to the flavour. This is a very savoury tea, with strong notes of vegetal flavours and a milder hint of something like sweet potato or yam. You need to take special care not to oversteep this tea, or its astringency will make it nasty, but if you’re careful enough it’s a rewarding, unique and delicate tea.

>>> Available here

>>> Available here

I originally reviewed this tea on my blog: Organic Hojicha from Mighty Leaf Tea.

>>> Available here