Kimberley's Kyusu

Hey there Teacups! I’m back today with another Let’s Talk Tea post this time around I’m going to be reviewing Chariteas’ Amber Woods. Before I get into this review if you haven’t read my first post featuring Chariteas yet you can find that here . From that post you’ll know that their Grey Dragon tea made the best first impression and is one of the best pure white teas I’ve ever tried. So, with that said you probably won’t be shocked to hear that although their amber woods blend isn’t a white tea I still went into trying it with very high expectations. I know that by now you’re probably all tired about reading that line by now but tea companies are creating amazing blends and curating great collections of pure teas right now that it’s hard not to build up your expectations after tasting just one of the teas they have to offer. The more teas I try from one company the high my expectations get and sometimes it can be hard to see past them.

Here’s what Chariteas have to say out this tea on their website “Sourced directly from a Rainforest Alliance family farm in Java, Indonesia. This black tea is smooth with notes of caramel and Apricot.’’

Dry Leaves

Smoky – Woody – Earthy – Slight Caramel Note

Ingredients: Sustainably grown black tea.

Tea Tasting Notes

For this tasting session as always, I used my 150ml Teapot and my 150ml Tumbler (you can find reviews of them both here if you want to know more). I use 3g of tea and since this is a black tea I used boiling water.

Woody – Malty – Slightly Sweet – Burnt Caramel – Very Slight Apricot (Aftertaste).

I’ve never tried or even heard of this tea before so I wasn’t really sure what to expect taste wise and I was a little worried that I wasn’t going to like it but once I stopped worrying and jumped straight into tasting I was obvious that I had nothing to worry about because I really liked this tea. I  see what chariteas meant when they aid it had caramel notes but for me because of the smoky note it turn to an almost slight burnt caramel note (which sounds bad but it’s the only way I can describe it and It’s actually a really interesting flavour). At first I couldn’t really pick out the aforementioned Apricot notes but as it began to cool they slowly became stronger and rounded it off perfectly I just wish they had been there from the get go. Mouthfeel wise it’s actually quite smooth which I didn’t expect as teas with smoky notes are often rather drying it was nice to get that smoky flavour and not have to worry about having a really dry mouth afterwards. I bet you all thought you would never hear me say that I enjoyed a tea with smoky notes but something about this tea was different and maybe it will be the start of something new for me.

Overall Teacup Rating: 4.2/5 | My Fiancé and I both agreed that taste wise while this blend is pleasant it’s not something we would drink on a regular basis. For me the smoky note is as strong as I would ever want it to be in a tea but for my fiancé they were rather light, so it shows how our tastes really do differ. (I’m really looking forward to when he starts writing reviews for this series)

If you want to find out more about Chariteas & purchase this tea for yourself here. As always Teacups if you have any questions at all either stick them in the comments or send them to me on Twitter/Instagram and I’ll answer them as soon as I can.

Speak to you all soon. Happy Steeping – Kimberley