Longstanding Favorite Teas

Many of my beloved teas of 2025 are multiyear, or even longer, favorites. I will always love Balhyocha, Sejak, Frozen Summit (Dong Ding), Jade Rouge, Oriental Beauty (Bai Hao), Ya Shi Xiang Dan Cong, and Yuzu Matcha. These are just some highlights of my long-term favorites.

In this post, I highlight teas that I either first tried and loved or that first captured my heart in 2025. Some of these teas are pricey, but can be caught on sale with some patience and luck.

New-to-Me Teas that Delighted in 2025

Jasmine Black Pearls

I know this is controversial for jasmine tea lovers, but I am usually not in the mood for jasmine green tea, which is the way I encounter a jasmine tea 99% of the time. I will occasionally enjoy a cup. To my very subjective tastes, however, the jasmine overpowers the green tea in ways that I don’t usually appreciate.

I bought the Jasmine Black Pearls from David’s Tea at the 2025 Toronto Tea Festival. Mainly, I planned to give some to my son, who appreciates jasmine green tea. Thankfully, I bought a bag of the pearls for me to try, too. To my surprise, I loved it!

The tea is scented with jasmine flowers and rolled into balls of about .75-1g of tea each. The balance between the hearty (but elegant) black tea and the jasmine in this scented tea is perfection! I love it hot, as a cold brew, and as a sparkling iced tea. And, the pearls are really convenient for steeping…and fun to watch. So, the Jasmine Black Pearls have been on regular rotation as a delightful tea of 2025 this year.

Hwangcha (Korean Yellow Tea)

If you’ve read my posts, subscribed to my newsletter, or followed me on social media, you probably already know I love the selection of lovingly curated teas from Soocha Tea. I pay full price for their teas that I drink personally. But–full transparency–Soocha Tea has generously donated teas (and sometimes accessories) to some of my giveaways.

Several years ago, I tasted Hwangcha–a “yellow” Korean tea before and really enjoyed it. Unlike Chinese yellow tea that closer in flavor profile to green tea, Korean hwangcha tastes more like a honeyed oolong.

At the very end of 2024, Soocha Tea started offering Hwangcha. I tried it and fell in love with it and put it in regular rotation in 2025. I knew I had to include it on this list of teas that delighted me in 2025. It’s a family favorite, too!

This Korean Hwangcha tea is sweet, with no astringency. (Seriously—I accidentally let a third infusion steep for 15 minutes once, and it was still great and not astringent or bitter!)

One prominent flavor note reminds me of honey— if it were made from dried wildflowers. Another note also reminds me a bit of buckwheat honey. There is also a touch of grain flavor. A beautiful depth of flavor balances the sweetness. It’s so good! Besides the flavor and aroma, I also love the fanciful shapes of the tea leaves.

Lũng Phìn Small Leaf Green

This green tea was a surprise! I tend to be very wary of teas that have smoky flavors. I usually avoid them; however, this Vietnamese tea from Anna Ye Tea absolutely changed that! There’s something very comforting (and delicious) about this tea. It brings summer cookout vibes—buttered sweet corn and a plate of garden fresh greens while seated near the grill.

Despite the summer flavors, this is the rarer green tea that delights me in the colder months, too. I’m amazed that I have a smoky green tea on my list of teas that delighted me in 2025!

Native Cultivar Reserve

One of my besties sent me a sample of this tea. That’s how I got to taste Native Cultivar Reserve the first (and second) times. This delightful tea from Red Blossom Tea Company is a black, bug bitten tea.

It was love at first sniff and taste! Its fruity aroma absolutely reminds me –very specifically– of the delightful fragrance of dried strawberries. It’s an elegant, aromatic, and silky tea. Honesty, the steeped tea reminds me of a delightful cross between an Oriental Beauty and a Dan Cong–no wonder I love it!

Night Blooming Fragrance Phoenix Dan Cong

I first tried Azenbor’s teas when they generously sent me their Phoenix Dan Cong Sampler, which I reviewed on the blog. Since then, I have purchased more teas from them at full price, including this one. Another tea to delight me in 2025!

Their Night Blooming Fragrance (Ye Lai) Phoenix Dan Cong absolutely delighted me. It still does! The warmed, dry leaves smell of berries and flowers. I also detected a slightly earthy/woody note hiding out in the stacked aromas. The floral notes are well integrated into the flavor profile. I detect that floral and the flavor of fresh tomato vine in the second steep. My daughter noted that mild and pleasant earthy flavor in the third steep, too.

So Many 2025 Delightful Teas

I feel so lucky to have made the acquaintance of, and gotten to know better, so many delightful teas in 2025. I feel like I learn about a new-to-me tea every week! Aren’t we lucky that the world of tea is so wide and diverse. There’s really something for everyone, not to mention so much to learn and so many to taste.

This list was a challenge to narrow down! I thoroughly enjoyed other teas that didn’t make this list.

Raising my glass of sparkling tea: here’s to new discoveries and great tea in 2026! If you’ve tried any of the teas I mentioned, or would like to share a tea that delighted you in 2025, I invite to let me know in the comments.

The post Teas That Delighted Me in 2025 appeared first on Tea Infusiast.

I am now a huge fan of Phoenix Dan Cong. I’ve learned to deeply appreciate this Chinese, twisted-leaf oolong from the Phoenix Mountains ( in Chinese, Fenghuangshan). The more common flavor notes among the different floral and spice notes in the varieties that I’ve tried so far are: minerality, hops, and a slight and beautiful bitterness (if brewed carefully). There’s always a lush fruity and/or floral aroma(s) as well. These leaves are so fragrant–despite not being blended or scented–that they are named for their floral and/or spice aromas.

I have deeper experience with a couple Dan Cong oolongs. The first is named misleadingly. I’ve loved Ya Shi Xiang, translated as “Duck Shit Aroma,” although it smells beautifully floral. There are lots of theories about why this tea is named this way. I’ve also had many beautiful sessions with Mi Lan Xiang (Honey Orchid Aroma). I even named one of my tea pet rabbits Mi Lan (shown in the nearby photo), in honor of this tea.

I’ve long wanted to explore a fuller range of Phoenix Dan Cong, so when Azenbor reached out and offered to send their “10 Aroma Tea Sampler Box,” and were happy with my review policy, I gladly accepted.

10 Aroma Dan Cong Sampler

As the name suggests, Azenbor’s 10 Aroma Tea Sampler Box contains 10 different Phoenix Dan Cong oolongs. The tea arrives packaged as loose leaf, with 7 grams of each selection.

The box includes, in alphabetical order by English name:

• Almond Fragrance (Xing Ren)
• Cinnamon Fragrance (Rou Gui)
• Ginger Flower Fragrance (Jiang Hua)
• Honey Orchid Fragrance (Mi Lan)
• Jasmine Fragrance (Mo Li)
• Magnolia Fragrance (Yu Lan)
• Night Blooming Fragrance (Ye Lai)
• Orchid Fragrance (Zhi Lan)
• Osmanthus Fragrance (Gui Hua)
• Yellow Gardenia Fragrance (Huang Zhi)

Benefits of This Phoenix Dan Cong Sampler

7 grams of tea is a generous amount of loose leaf to have one gongfu session for each of these teas. Azenbor recommends 5-7 grams per 120 ml teapot. I know from experience that when I’m drinking tea solo, that’s too much caffeine for me in one session. So, the 7 grams is perfect for me to prepare 3.5 grams of the tea twice. I’ll use one of my smaller–80-100 ml–gongfu teapots so I get a good leaf: water ratio.

The sheer number of teas–10–in this sampler box is wonderful! It allows you to get a good sense of the varieties of Phoenix Dan Cong.

What’s more, by including so many different varieties, this Azenbor sampler allows you to see which teas you might like to order more of to explore in more detail.

Preparing to Steep

I only do tea tasting when I have a lot of time and in the right mindset, so I haven’t torn through these Phoenix Dan Cong samples. I have, however, savored them!

To date, I’ve steeped (sometimes twice) the Huang Shi (Yellow Gardenia), Ye Lai (Evening Fragrance), Mi Lan (Honey Orchid), and Zhi Lan (Orchid Fragrance).

Here are some of my aromatic and tasting notes! I went back and forth between steeping in a Chaozhou clay teapot (from the area where Dan Cong is produced) and in glazed clay or porcelain teapots. Their outcomes are slightly different. I can never decide which I prefer.

My Tasting Notes

Each tea, below, had a minerality, a degree of hops, and a blend of sweet and bitter notes–the latter in the best sense, to keep it from being cloying and adding interest. I will mention the hops or bitter, at times, if it shows up in distinctive ways.

• Huang Shi (Yellow Gardenia): Warmed leaves exude a floral fragrance with other notes like hops, and touch of sweet corn. My flavor notes include: floral, touch of orange and roasted corn. I note the third infusion aroma smelled remarkably similar to a wildflower honey our family has been getting for years. (Yum!)
• Ye Lai (Night Blooming Fragrance): The warmed, dry leaves smell of berries and flowers. As my daughter. Clara, astutely noted, it was floral just like “the blooming camellia house” at our local arboretum. She dubbed this aroma “greenhouse core,” which made me chuckle. I also detected a slightly earthy/ woody note hiding out in the stacked aromas. The aroma is absolutely delightful. The flavor is amazing, too. The floral notes were well integrated into the flavor profile. I detected that floral and the flavor of fresh tomato vine in the second steep. Clara noted that mild and pleasant earthy flavor in the third steep. In her words “like the roots in the greenhouse.”

• Mi Lan (Honey Orchid): I already had substantial experience with Mi Lan Dan Cong. Azenbor’s did not disappoint! The dry leaf was floral and peachy. The wet leaves added a note of hops to the dry-leaf aromas. The tea flavor was a delightful tapestry of flowers, hops, and almond.
• Zhi Lan (Orchid): I wish I could remember the aroma of orchids. The orchids I grow at home don’t emit any fragrance. I was able to faintly smell an aromatic orchid at an orchid show, but with so many people and other plants, it didn’t imprint! So, although it might smell like orchid, the Zhi Lan Phoenix Dan Cong gave floral, peach, and almond extra aromas. The warmed leaves shared a fragrance of light marzipan, flowers, and tomato vine. The taste was sweet and simultaneously bitter, in a pleasant way. The tastes match the dry leaf aroma with a plum blossom flavor also showing up in the early steeps.

Exploring More Phoenix Dan Cong

This Phoenix Oolong 10 Aroma Tea Sampler Box from Azenbor has inspired me to continue exploring the varieties I am less familiar with, and maybe slip in more Mi Lan in my next order! I can’t wait to steep the others. I’ll be trying to decide which I might order in regular sizes to get to know better.

Do you have a favorite Phoenix Dan Cong variety? Do you prefer unglazed or clay for steeping your Dan Cong oolong? I’d love to know.

The post Phoenix Dan Cong Sampler Review appeared first on Tea Infusiast.

In this post, I am comparing two tea blends: Harney & Sons’ “East Frisian” and Thiele’s “Broken Silber” “Echte Ostfriesische Mischung.” East Frisian blends in Germany are mostly Assam, accented by Ceylon and/or Darjeeling tea. Harney says its blend contains all three. The Thiele package says, translated, the “best Assam teas characterize the full, fine, bitter taste of this classic top blend.”

Steeping the East Frisian tea blends

To compare these East Frisian teas, I used the same exact amount of leaves, water temperature, volume, steeping time, white rock sugar, and whole milk. I steeped the tea hot–roughly 200F or 95C, for 3-4 minutes. I compared them straight, then added sugar and compared with milk, and finally judged using the traditional cream.

Noting the differences in the blends

The Harney dry leaves look bigger. As you might expect, they didn’t brew as strongly with the same steep time as the Thiele. The Harney tastes more rounded and slightly less malty. The Thiele has more (very pleasant) pucker and deeper malty notes. It also brews up darker, with a thicker mouthfeel. The differences weren’t huge, but my husband and I both noted them right away. Both blends are really good, bold black teas. If drinking tea straight, without sugar or milk, I would lean toward the Harney blend (steeped closer to 2 minutes). If drinking with milk, I would enjoy either one (steeped 3-4 minutes), but I prefer the Thiele. When adding cream–as is traditional in East Friesland–Thiele’s “Broken Silber” wins hands down.

Have you ever tried an East Frisian blend, or black tea with cream? Please let me know in the comments.

Interested in a different kind of tea “review,” check out my post, “Tea that Evokes Non-Tea Memories.”

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