Alphakitty

I have been wanting to try some spicy teas, so it was a pleasant surprise to get this in the 52teas grab bag. Spicy AND chocolate? Why yes please. I’m surprised this only has one tasting note, since it seems like anything chocolate = instantly popular.

I made the mistake of sticking my nose in the bag to sniff when I got this, and got cayenne in my nostrils. Not the most pleasant experience, but it meant that this had to be spicy! I was disappointed by the spice level in Mango Diablo, so I was kind of happy to have a burning nose. And yes, this blend has a lot of kick! It’s not “top of the mouth chili pepper” heat, but more “back of the mouth slow burning.” At first sip it’s like chicory coffee (which is what I automatically associate roasted mate with), then a bit of deep, dark chocolate and them pow cayenne! In fact, I think the spicy element is the strongest taste here: the chocolate is probably the weakest. You can definitely taste it, but it’s not super rich creamy chocolate. I actually like that it’s subtle, since it doesn’t have a dessert-y feel and is light even with all the rich flavors going on.

I was really hoping to get this in my grab bag, but it was a newer flavor so I didn’t really expect it. Imagine my excitement when I opened my package and found it in there! I decided to cold brew this, since I honestly can’t imagine watermelon tea hot. I mean… it’s watermelon, the official fruit of summer! It HAS to be cold.

And oh man, this is heaven in a cup. The watermelon and blackberry balance perfectly, and the honeybush is very unassuming. It adds some woodsy notes, but the fruit flavors are definitely front and center. This reminds me a bit of Cotton Candy for some reason, and I almost like it as much… which is really saying a lot! I think this is the first honeybush blend I’ve fallen in love with.

I went to the DAVIDs on Bleeker today in the hopes of using that coupon… only to find that the prices in store are 2-3$ higher than online. I find them a bit on the higher end given the quality anyway, so I ended up not getting anything. I was just going to buy online and get the 50g of Paradise Found but 2 of the teas I want are sold out, yet they were in stock hours earlier. Guuuuuh.

Anyway, I DID get an iced tea in store. I mean, I’m not going to leave with nothing and they seem reasonably priced compared to other tea stores. I find it kind of funny that there’s no way I’ll spend $9 on 2oz of loose-leaf but $2.50 for an iced tea is fine… the brain is a funny thing. I’ve heard so many rave reviews about Tropicalia that I had to get it, even though it’s a wet and rainy day. Now I kind of wish I hadn’t because it is SO GOOD. I could drink this every day. But it’s a heavy blend which means it’s pricey to keep in my cupboard all the time. However, I don’t know if I can live without it, it’s perfectly fruity and has a surprising amount of depth.

I love love love yuzu, and it’s pretty easy to find in NYC. I use it in cooking a lot, so it was kind of a surprise when I found out how uncommon it is in the rest of the US. It’s often equated to lemon, but yuzu is a citrus unto itself with no real flavor to equate it to. I suppose lemon + mandarin orange would be more accurate, but it still doesn’t capture the amazing aspects of yuzu. I’ve been looking for a yuzu tea, and I’ve been contemplating Mellow Monk’s but it’s quite expensive. Since this was on sale for like $4 for 4oz I decided it couldn’t hurt!

Like the Cherry Sakura, I treated this tea with kid gloves: a small amount of leaf cold-brewed for a pretty short amount of time. And holy wow did it work! There’s zero berry flavor here which I am quite pleased with, since I just wanted yuzu. This seriously tastes like iced sencha with yuzu juice squeezed in! I’m so happy that I’ve found a way to save the green teas from Caraway, and this one I would actually restock unless, of course, I find a better yuzu tea. I hear Den’s has a seasonal one…

I cold-brewed this two nights ago and really meant to write it up, but I had the Batman marathon to attend! Quite possibly the most amazing movie experience of my life! But that doesn’t really have much to do with tea (aside from the fact that I brought this with me into the theater—thankfully the one I went to lets you bring in food/drinks for midnight screenings or long showings!). As a side note, now that I’ve been making my own iced tea I find grocery store brands way too sweet.

Anyway, Caraway’s teas don’t have the best rep here, I think a lot of people were disappointed with their purchases even with the crazy discounts. Some of them smell horrifyingly artificial, this one included. It’s like BAM cherry cough syrup right in your face. Eurgh. But I was determined to make it work, so I cold-brewed this with a small amount of leaf for less time than usual, hoping to tone down the cherry-ness. And, thankfully, it worked! This really just tastes like a nice mild sencha until the end of the sip, where you get a bright burst of cherry that really doesn’t taste artificial. It kind of reminds me of DAVIDs Cherry Blossom without the floral notes. However, neither are actually sakura tea, since there are no cherry blossoms. What is up with “sakura” tea being cherry-flavored? Sakura trees aren’t actually fruit-bearing so it makes no sense to me. I’ve had 3 other sakura teas that are really sakura, and it’s a very different taste than cherry. Anyway, if I treat this as a mild cherry iced tea I think it’s actually pretty nice—I don’t think I’d buy it again (I prefer Den’s Sakura sencha and Tay’s Kyoto), but I will definitely finish off the bag.

It seems like most people are displeased with their Caraway, so I am pretty nervous about digging into mine. Especially this one, since it was over $20 before discounts. A tea that pricey should be delicious, right? In the bag this smells like Element’s Pink Sonoma, which I loved, so I was cautiously optimistic. I decided to cold brew it since that seems to lessen the artificial-ness of some teas, which seems to be the main complaint with Caraway’s product.

I’ll admit that I totally forgot this was in the fridge and steeped it for about 20 hours instead of 12. Oops! Fortunately it didn’t seem to do much damage, just a bit of bitterness because there was too much leaf. I’m gonna chalk that one up to my spazziness and not the tea. The raspberry here is very subtle, not as bright or fruity as I was expecting based on the smell. The champagne comes in at the end of the sip and tastes like, well, champagne! It’s sweet and almost sparkling, which I didn’t expect. The white base is bright and a bit fruity, with some soft floral notes. Overall this is a nice tea and much better than I was expecting based on some of their other teas. I do prefer Pink Sonoma, but that tea isn’t even available anymore so I suppose this is a fair substitute!

I am not a picky tea drinker. I know some people only drink pure, unsweetened, unflavored loose-leaf which I admire but could never do—sure, I enjoy a cup of pure oolongy goodness, but I also like putting crazy things in my tea like cookie butter or milk candy. I also like teabags when they’re high-quality: I mean, you really can’t beat the convenience! I haven’t tried a whole lot of the nicer ones though, mostly grocery store offerings. The good ones I’ve tried have come almost exclusively from my local asian grocery store. So when I saw a few teabags in my fire sale/stash clearout box from Emilie (which got to me 2 days after I ordered it—talk about fast shipping!), I was pretty enthusiastic about trying them out.

The name of this is so wonderfully evocative—Black Raven! Makes me think of creepy poetry (obviously, since it’s named for Poe), dark nights, fog, strange noises… and it also makes me want to try my hand at a Lovecraft blend. But what would I flavor it with, madness and ooze? Black Raven is flavored with the much more appealing blackcurrant, which has become a favorite flavor of mine since I found out it’s the berry goodness in Paris. Plus this is decaf, which means I can safely drink it before bed. I am not really that affected by black teas normally, or at least I usually seem to think that… my sleep schedule is so weird that I’m trying to switch to only decaf and herbals and see if that helps. So this tea has an evocative name, one of my favorite flavors, AND no caffeine—a winner right from the start!

The bag doesn’t really smell like anything, but then again bagged teas usually don’t. Brewed, though, it’s nicely fragrant. This is a smooth, brisk, clean black—not overly complex, but warm and comforting. The blackcurrant is bright and lively, with jammy berry notes and that rich fruit flavor it brings to tea. This is so very English I feel like I should be sitting in a cafe in London drinking it! One of the best bagged blends I’ve had for sure.

I’ve been drinking pretty much exclusively flavored teas iced (aside from my daily pitcher of Genmaicha!) so I decided to go a different way today and cold brewed a simple sencha. Greens are my favorite tea to drink “straight” iced, so refreshing and the flavors really shine. This is buttery, nutty, and grassy—in fact, there’s a roasted flavor so pronounced that I might have guessed this was a mild genmaicha. A womderful flavor combo, though I don’t know if it’s a particularly special sencha. Drinkable for sure, but nothing that really screams “buy me again!” So it’s an in-between tea: I’ll enjoy finishing off my bag, but probably won’t restock. I try to keep my “must have” teas pretty low so my cupboard isn’t always constantly overflowing… though really, I’m not that successful at it!

The last tea left to try from my Fire Sale box from iHeartTeas! I’ve actually never had a peanut tea before, mostly because the bf is allergic to them and I feel bad buying things he can’t try. However, it doesn’t count if it’s a surprise!

In the bag, this smells very smokey, almost like a full lapsang even though it says there’s only a bit blended in here. Smokey teas and I don’t always get along, so I wasn’t so sure, probably why it took so long to brew this even with my love of peanut butter. However, there are lots of whole peanut halves, so I had high hopes! Brewed, this loses a lot of that smokey edge and is almost fruity. In fact, it reminds me of a nice keemun! It’s smooth and sweet, nicely full-flavored with a touch of smoke and a hint of astringency. I think this would be a fantastic breakfast tea!

The peanut, though, isn’t that prominent. There are nutty tones but I don’t really get “peanut” except at the every end of the sip—the smokey notes linger along with the peanut, and that’s the only time I get the “peanut butter toast” aspect. I think the name is a bit misleading, since this is more of a nutty, brisk morning blend to me. Though it’s totally different from what I was expecting, it’s very tasty and I don’t think it’ll take long to finish this off!

I saved the leaves from the Element Tea chai last night, since it seems like such a waste to use them only once when they’re the only chance I’ll ever have to try this tea! However, I didn’t think there was enough oomph in them for a cup by themselves—it was a teeny sample and I brewed it for extra-long last night. I brought a few teas to my parents’ house to try but went through them all, which means blending time!

The only thing I had that I thought would work was the ETS Scottist Toffee Caramel Pu-erh, so into the little french press it went! As a side note, my parents have a freaking adorable little Bodum french press with enough room at the bottom to not squish the tea leaves when you’re pouring, perfect for saving them for re-steeps. They never use it since it’s a 1-cup thing, so now it’s all mine!

These two teas melded perfectly. Spicy and bold from the chai, rich earthy and sweet from the pu-erh. They went together so perfectly it was hard to tell what base notes were from which tea, definitely a happy marriage! I have a few other chais I might try mixing with dessert-y teas now since this worked so well.

It’s weird drinking a tea for the first and last time. I got this in my Element Tea order, just a cup’s worth in a little paper sachet. So I am trying to enjoy this but not love it: I mean I don’t want to make myself hate it, but I don’t want to love it so much I’m sad it is gone.

Well… sadly, I really like it! It’s a strong chai, my sample was a bit small so I brewed it two extra minutes and damn is it spicy! Lots of ginger and cardamom. In fact, there are more spices than actual tea (at least in the spoonful I have) which is a good sign… for me. It seems like a lot of people enjoy milder chais, but I like mine to be a kick in the face of spiced goodness which this definitely is. Alas, I shall never have it again! There are a LOT of chais out there though, so it’s not like this is some ridiculously unique blend, just a particularly tasty version of a classic.

For some reason I am putting off making a tasting note for this. I’m not sure why, I enjoyed it! I guess I’m having trouble coming up with a not boring description for it. You’d think this tea would be all over the place because of the ingredient list, but it’s actually quite simple and mellow. It’s a bit fruity (I tasted mostly peach, perhaps a hint of mango but they blend together really well) and only a tad floral—rose mainly, I didn’t get any lavender. I was worried this blend would be overwhelming but it’s a bit underwhelming I think. I braced for strange flavors, but it was just… average. In flavor profile I mean, the tea itself is of nice quality. The black base stood up really well to all the flavors thrown in there, and was definitely not overtaken by any of them. I think I’m going to have to revisit this tea when I am in a different mood and can appreciate it better, since it seems like something I’d really love. I kind of want to add coconut though, somehow I feel like it would go very well!

Another one I should have logged days ago. Ah well, it’s still very fresh in my mind so hopefully I can remember everything! I got this in my box from LiberTEAS and hadn’t tried it yet since I have had a lot of jasmine teas and they all sort of blend together after a while. However, I noticed some absolutely fantastic tasting notes and decided to give it a go.

I said that I’ve had a lot of jasmine blends before—green, oolong, even black—but never a white jasmine. Which is odd, since it seems like such a light, floral tea would be perfectly suited for jasmine. Though I suppose it would be easy to overwhelm, since jasmine seems to be the most heavily floral scent. However, the two are so perfectly balanced here. It’s airy, light, crisp, floral, sweet, ever so slightly grassy. Like drinking a wonderfully scented cloud! I must have brewed the leaves about 4 times and they continued to hold up beautifully, adding softer, sweeter notes with each steep. This is the perfect jasmine tea!

I am so behind on my tasting notes! This was a cold brew from 2 days ago that I totally forgot to log, I’m working my way through my Element teas and I think this is the last of them (though I didn’t log one!). I love blackberry but was worried since this smells SO artificial in the bag, like someone crunched up blackberry hard candies and threw them in. Pink Sonoma smelled a bit artificial too and I ended up loving it, so I wasn’t too worried, just a bit nervous. And hot this is, ah… shall we say “not good.” I was determined to make it better and less candy-like, and since I’m kind of addicted to cold brewing stuff I thought I’d try it out with this blend.

Now warm, this tea is a hot mess. The black base is totally lost, and it’s very artificial tasting. Iced, it’s the exact opposite—the tea itself pops, and that overly-sweet blackberry taste vanishes. In fact, this doesn’t really taste like a berry tea. There’s a tiny hint of it, but the blackberry leaves are far more prominent, adding just a touch of berry goodness and a lovely herbaceous quality. It reminds me of berry picking in high summer, when the air smells sweet and fresh and grassy and your fingers get stained purple. It’s not the best tea out there, but it brings back a lot of memories and I don’t think I’ll have any trouble finishing it off.

I got a cute little sample packet of this from Kittenna. I love how DAVIDs packages their samples, they’re adorable and perfect for taking around in your purse or bag. I brought this one up with me since I didn’t want to be without my daily morning cold brew, and it seems like it’d be good iced. I don’t really like strawberry teas hot (Lady Londonderry being the delicious exception).

I think I steeped this a little under 12 hours, I tend to get up earlier when I am away from home. It’s a lovely color, pale strawberry pink. The hibiscus is nonexistent which I am grateful for, this really just tastes like strawberries. It’s got a nice juicy quality, perhaps not overly strong—I almost would have guessed this was a white blend with a kind of middle of the road base, it’s not very “herb-y.” It does have some soft floral notes and an airy quality which remind me of a white blend… yet it’s definitely tea-free. Weird!

Sadly, I’m not getting a ton of ginger, just a hint towards the end of each sip. I love spicy ginger teas so I was hoping for a strong kick of it, but I’d have to say the taste is almost 100% strawberry with the teeniest ounce of ginger. It’s very refreshing with a nice natural sweetness, though just not at all what I was expecting.

I got this in my swap with Amanda—it’s one of those blends I’ve wanted to try for a while, but the rooibos scared me off from getting a whole bag. In the bag this smells amazing, like pure honey. Of course there’s no crystallized honey or anything IN there, so it’s just flavoring, but it smells very authentic and I was worried it would be too sweet.

Steeped, though, it’s pretty mellow. The honey comes in at the end of the sip and fills your mouth with wonderful honey notes that linger. It tastes very much like real honey, perhaps a bit less complex but not flat-tasting. The rooibos actually works for me here, it’s the first blend that hasn’t had that icky medicinal taste for me. Probably because there’s so little of it. The mate, green rooibos and rooibos meld perfectly together for an earthy but light blend that really gives you a burst of energy. And it adds an almost honeycomb taste: woody and sweet. Definitely going to restock this one!

It’s a little late to be drinking something this strong, but oh well! I only had a few options today since I am visiting my aunt and I brought a handful of samples with me. This was one of them, and I read “caramel toffee” and was sold!

The smell in the bag is very caramel-y and dessert-y, but steeped it smells more like a normal pu-erh. I was kind of expecting this to be a “light” or wussy pu-erh like companies often use for blending, but this has that nice earthy smell and a rich, forest floor taste. Hay, dirt, musty… but you know, in a good way. The caramel is sweet and subtle. This brews up as dark as coffee, and it also tastes a lot like coffee—or rather, like some sort of fancy latte. Rich, dark, malty, sweet, a very nice tea though not one for every day.

So last night I was mourning the fact that there is NO way that I can make it to SDCC this year, even though I have a free ticket to the show. However, $700 airfare is something I just can’t swing. sigh So, I needed a comforting tea, and what’s more comforting than cookies and cream? This was a sample from LiberTEAS that I was saving for just such an occasion.

It’s not really… cookie tea, but I wasn’t expecting that based on other reviews and also the fact that I have no idea how you’d get cookie flavor in tea. Maybe a 52tea blend could do it, but I was expecting more chocolatey goodness from this. It definitely delivered on that end, with some smooth and natural tasting chocolate flavors. With milk & sugar this honestly tastes more like chocolate milk than tea: as others have said, the base is overwhelmed by the flavoring, but it’s still there in the background. I think this would have been amazing with a good Chinese black base with some malty, bready, cocoa notes… but then it would probably be very expensive.

I didn’t get any maple, though I suppose that’s not much of a bad thing since last time I checked, it’s not actually a flavor in cookies & cream. The cream is there, though I also added milk so that kind of bumped up the creamy factor. All in all this is a satisfying dessert tea, though perhaps not the most aptly named blend.

I got this in a swap with Will Work For Tea, who sent me a very generous amount! I have been looking for that “just right” grapefruit tea: I really liked Upton’s St. Isaac’s blend, but I still felt like there was something better and this was recommend to me by several people so I had to try it!

Since I dislike hot grapefruit usually, I made this iced. At first sip it’s just a nice, mild and lightly sweet green tea. Refreshing, but where’s the grapefruit? Then BAM it hits you! It’s actually softer than I was expecting, and only a bit tart, but the grapefruit taste is so fresh and juicy. Not the strongest I’ve tried, but definitely the most natural. I mean, it really tastes like I just squeezed a little grapefruit juice into some green tea. Most definitely will be picking this one up!

I decided to give this tea another shot as a cold brew. It wasn’t really my cup of tea hot, but iced + coconut usually = good things! This got a short steep, since I made it last afternoon and drank it around midnight, but it was delicious! The white base really shined, and wasn’t as overpowered as it was before. The coconut is nice and fresh-tasting, and the cream is a LOT more subtle and doesn’t overwhelm the other aspects. Cold, I could see this being something I reach for often, very tropical and summery. Upping the rating a bit!

Another day, another cold brew. And also another sample from LiberTEAS! Every time I think I’m making progress on the wealth of samples from her, I realize that I haven’t at all… and they’ve just migrated to the bottom of my sample box. Seriously, it’s endless samples. More keep popping up that I don’t even remember! This one, though, was one of 2 I requested, so I was thrilled to see it at the bottom of the sample bin, hanging out with a bunch of oolongs. I really need to bust out my gaiwan and get to work on those…

Anyway, cold brewed this for 14 hours with a bit of sugar (I like my iced teas sweet!). I’ve been feeling really sluggish when I get up, so I wanted to see how the day would go with a jolt of caffeine to start it off. I can’t drink blacks on an empty stomach, so I was hoping guayusa and mate would be a nice alternative. It’s already been established that I LOVE guayusa, and this tea just reaffirms my fondness for it. The lemon and other citruses are so bright and warm, but they’re kept from being “too much” by the wonderful forest-y guayusa. With the hint of fruity notes in the background, this makes for a pretty perfect iced tea. Sweet, refresihng, bright, citrusy, fruity, and earthy. Plus I have been wide-awake all day!

I like cranberry, orange, scones and butter, but for some reason I’ve been eying this sample from LiberTEAS with trepidation. Probably because of the honeybush, which I’m not sure if I like yet. I know I definitely do NOT like rooibos (it makes me nauseous, unfortunately), but honeybush is missing a lot of that medicinal quality. Still, I don’t have enough experience with it to say “I like this” or “I don’t like this.”

Well, I decided to be brave last night and give it a go! The first steep I did for 6 minutes, since it says 6-10 but I was nervous about leaving it in for so long. It smells like toast with marmalade, so this tea and I were off to a good start! The flavor, however, was a little lacking. Just a hint of orange, no “scone” or cranberry whatsoever. There was a lot of buttery goodness that had kind of a heavy mouthfeel, but in a pleasant way. The honeybush was innocuous, and this tasted like a generic orange herbal with some butter thrown in. The second steep I did for 10, and the flavors came out much stronger: the orange was bright, and the honeybush more prominent which lead to a kind of scone-y texture. Still no cranberry though—there were 2 dried ones, but apparently none of the flavor leeched out. The butter is definitely my favorite part of this tea, and while it was an enjoyable cup I am still on the fence about honeybush (though I am leaning towards “it’s okay, but not something I would reach for often”). I do, however, want to immediately pick up the Pancake Breakfast… seriously, the butter part of this was sooo good!

I am feeling indulgent tonight, so I had a big mug of this while eating cherry cheesecake bread pudding. Take that, heat wave! This is from my swap with Will Work For Tea and the reason we swapped in the first place: she had a bunch to unload, and I love peppery chais so it was a match made in heaven!

I’ve had a few coconut chais before, but this one is quite different. First off, it doesn’t have any other “Asian” flavor components (lemongrass, galangal, etc) but a more classic Indian spice base. The spices are strong, as you can tell just by looking at the tea: whole cloves, big chunks of pepper and other spices. Yum! It brews up quite bold and peppery, with lots of different spice “layers.” There’s warmth from the cinnamon and ginger, heat from the pepper, a spicy quality from the nutmeg, and that distinctive tongue-tingling flavor that comes from cloves and cardamom. The coconut here is mostly flavoring (no actual coconut pieces) and it’s an odd result: it kind of tastes like it was steeped in coconut water! It’s not overpoweringly coconutty or tropical, more homey and comforting like coconut cream pie. A nice departure from my usual chais, but bold enough that this could be a regular in my cupboard!

I’ve been drinking this almost every day, and while it’s no less delicious I wanted to try something new. Almost everything I have in my fridge that could potentially be added to tea is fruity, and somehow I don’t think peach genmaicha would be good (though who knows, I’ll probably try it out now!). That’s how I ended up with half of a cucumber (peeled & sliced) in my pitcher of genmaicha: it stayed in there for the whole cold brew, roughly 14 hours. I was honestly a bit suspicious when I sniffed the end result (no cucumber) but oh dear lord is this delicious. It’s even MORE refreshing than usual, with that soft hint of cucumber lifting it to new heights. It tastes like a day at the spa!