Classic Chinese Tea Sampler

An excellent overview of Classic Chinese teas, including a few I have not tried before. Highly recommend this set and sampling them together to taste the differences.

When I cracked open the Classic Tea Sampler, it was like unwrapping a box full of tea joy. The packaging is just as delightful as the diverse collection of classic black teas and oolongs inside. Perfect for gifting, but I couldn't resist keeping it for myself.

This box of tea arrives in a beautiful heavy paperboard box, worthy of gift giving. See photo. Inside are 16 "bags" of tea. However, these aren't your normal tea bags. The leaves are larger than I'm used to with tea and they brew whole. It reminded me of a pu-erh tea cake, but prepackaged. One tea bag container can make 2-3 cups of tea, plus each measure of tea leaves (according to the instructions) can be brewed up to seven times. Now, that's more than I would ever brew tea, but a friend on a tight budget might love this. I really like that the box contains a good selection of various black and oolong teas. I started with an oolong variety. It brewed well. I did "wash" the tea for three seconds before brewing, as the instructions suggested. I don't know if it made a difference in the final product, but the tea leaves produced a lovely cup of oolong. See photo. I enjoyed this tea and am very much looking forward to working through the other 15 bags.

This collection of loose leaf oolong and black teas from ITEAWORLD is delicious. The packaging is nice enough that this would make a great gift for any fine tea lover. I'm not an expert on teas at all, but I do love a good black tea. Ooolong is my absolute favorite and the ones included here are a treat. I especially loved the Dahongpao. The Wild Souchong black tea was my least favorite but is still very good.

I brewed according to the directions on the back of each pouch, with the first very brief brew being meant to clean the tea leaves then is discarded. For some of the varieties I was able to re-brew 5 times and still get an enjoyable cup by lengthening the brew times. I kept the tea leaves in the infuser in a cool spot - not in the refrigerator - then brewed more later or the next day. That makes this collection a good value based on how many cups of tea you can enjoy from it. Highly recommended!

I am extremely impressed with this tea collection. Everything about it is top notch; the quality of tea leaves, packaging, etc. I love that each tea has a unique taste different from one another.