Alphakitty

I love a good oolong blend, so of course I had to ask for some of this in my swap with T.C! Plus the name is just so delightful—I occasionally buy teas based on the name alone and if I saw this in a shop there would be no way I could resist. Slightly off topic but I am the same way with music, if I see a band or album with a intriguing name I buy it! That’s how I have found a lot of my favorites though, like Doves or Iron & Wine.

This tea is peachy! I was expecting a more tropical taste and I am getting something vaguely tropical but not the standard pineapple or coconut. Maybe guava or papaya? Hmm, quite possibly papaya. And, of course, peach! The flavoring is rather soft, letting the green oolong shine. There’s also a nice floral taste, not just from the oolong but from the amaranth petals as well. Very nice!

A book club tea from Threewhales! Every time I go to Harney & Sons’ physical store I swear that I am going to pick some of this up. Then I forget, and end up coming home with 5 different teas that were totally not on the list. So I’m happy to finally have some of this!

As others have said, this is a rich and creamy vanilla tea. It’s not very complex but I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing, sometimes you want a simple, delicious cup of tea! And this certainly fits the bill, it reminds me of frosting. Mmmm, vanilla! One of the best flavors for a tea, I think, especially one with a black base.

On its own it’s delightful, but I think this will really shine with some blending. I’m thinking with a rose earl grey to make a rosy EG cream, or with Lemon Dreams for a particularly indulgent bedtime treat (since this is deaf!).

Sometimes I am drinking a cup of tea and think to myself “man, this would be great as a chai!” Which essentially is why I purchased the revamped version of this: it’s all the spices without the tea, so you can add it to whatever you want!

First experiment: mixed with Ovation’s Apple Cinnamon, honey and a splash of cream. Delicious! It’s like Adagio’s Apple Spice Chai only, you know, a million times better. Don’t get me wrong I do love the Adagio blend but the spices here are so deliciously complex. I’m going to have a lot of fun with thiw!

I’m not going to lie, I enjoy fruit tisanes that taste like juice. I mean, it’s hardly even tea even in the most generous sense of the word, but it’s tasty! Like fruit punch without all the sugar. A lot of Teavana’s blends are like this bu just a bit too tart for me, so I am looking for a less hibiscus-y version.

I got a sample of this on a whim, and oh boy am I glad I did. When I opened up the little bag I smelled… cinnamon! The first thing I thought was that my sample had been contaminated, but I have never had a sample from Persimmon Tree pick up flavors from other ones they are packaged in. Also, I don’t have any cinnamon teas in there—a chai, but the smell of that one is pure ginger and cardamom. My second, more reasonable thought was that my nose was just off so I cold brewed a cup and thought it would be totally fruity by morning.

Well, blessedly, it’s not! The smell is strong cinnamon and vanilla, with a strong fruity undertone. The taste is like cinnamon coffee cake with fruit compote on top, cherry and strawberry! I’m kind of fascinated by this since there are only fruity ingredients listed aside from the flavoring. But really, I’m sure if there was cinnamon/vanilla in here someone else would have made a note of it!

As it is, I would give this tea a ridiculously high score because it is just so so tasty. However, I don’t think it is really supposed to taste like this— happy accident indeed, but I am left wondering what happened.

Earlier in the evening I really wanted to make something in my gaiwan, but I ended up with a rich latte instead. But the gaiwan bug wasn’t leaving, so I decided to just go for it! At 2:30 in the morning. Maybe no the brightest idea, but my packet of this from TeaEqualsBliss was calling out to me.

Rinse: 10 seconds. Okay, I know you are technically not supposed to drink this, but to heck with it! I tea how I want to! Yes, I just used tea as a verb. I was amazed at how fast the leaves unfurled. After a mere ten seconds in hot water they were fully expanded! And so pretty, all of them fully intact like they just fell off the tree into my cup. I almost overestimated the capacity of my little gaiwan, they’re right up to the lid.

This “steep” was like a punch of floral nectar, rich and thick like honey. Orchid and jasmine! Also a wee bit vegetal.

1st Steep: 20 seconds. This smells like vegetables, fresh buttered spinach. It’s still floral, orchid but now with a hint of lychee. Sweet, fruity.

2nd Steep: 20 seconds. Buttery! This steep has a creamy mouthfeel, not sweet but quite savory. I’m smelling kale! It’s less floral but still with the orchid element. More honey.

At this point I stopped, for some reason green oolongs (and ONLY green oolongs) have the tendency to make me a bit nauseous. I still love them, but 2 steeps + a rinse is my limit.

There’s such an interesting mix of sweet/savory here: butter, honey, spinach, flowers. It’s so complex, I saved my leaves and can’t wait to see what the next steeps bring tomorrow!

I didn’t log many teas for a while, but now that I’ve started I apparently can’t stop! This one comes to me from Josie Jade and was the tea for the first book club, which I missed due to, well, not having room for a 600 page monster book in my schedule!

I love smokey teas, thought I know they are really love it or hate it. This is actually quite mild, even after an overly long sleep because I didn’t put a timer on. Smells like a campfire! I took this without milk or sugar because I honestly find milk weird in smokey blends, though I know that’s really the norm.

The idea of smoke and rose is so nice. However, this tea doesn’t entirely live up to the idea in my head—it’s smokey but not as strong as I expected, and the rose is on the light side. But it’s still nice, in fact I think it would be a good evening cuppa! I have quite a few bags of this left so I think I might split open one and mix it with RoT’s rose black for an extra floral kick.

This is one of those 52teas blends that I really wanted to get when it first came out, but my tea budget said “no way!” Thankfully (for my wallet) I got to swap with Starfevre for a whole pouch! For a girl with insomnia, 2 ounces of sleepy tea is an absolute dream. Because, much like how medicine becomes less effective the more you use it, I’ve found my usual go-to night tea (Marketspice’s Knockout) to be losing some potency.

This is a pretty simple mix of flavors: lemon, chamomile, honeybush. But together they really are dreamy! Floral, woodsy, and wonderfully lemony. It’s a soft citrus, rather creamy. And the honeybush and chamomile blend perfectly together: the chamomile’s floral is toned down and the honeybush isn’t so sweet. It’s such a drowsy blend, a few sips (with honey!) have me almost nodding off. I’m kind of sad this one isn’t a permanent blend, it’s so useful (not to mention delicious).

I’ve learned that the trick with Republic of Tea teabags is to use little mugs. I actually collect (or rather, er, hoard…) mugs from Japan, which are much smaller than American or European mugs. The one I’m using for this has Teddie from Persona 4 on it! They’re perfectly sized, about the same width as the teabag and they hold enough water so that it brews up extra strong.

I’m so happy Josie Jade sent me this one because I adore it! Brewed up this way the plum is really strong and quite distinctive, like those sugar plum candies you get around Christmas. Which makes sense, it’s a holiday blend! The spice is very nice, and the base is quite forgiving—I didn’t notice this was a green and brewed it in boiling water for an insanely long time (7 minutes? I forgot about it!) and it was not bitter at all! I like that it’s a lighter base, so the plum flavor pops a lot more.

I know RoT doesn’t get a lot of love on Steepster but I have always bee a fan. And as much as I love fancy loose leaf I always have to have reliable bagged teas around because honestly, sometimes I just want no-fuss tea! This one is a keeper.

I got my swap from yssah today! Of course I had to try this one first, I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect blueberry tea. Plus I adore Della Terra’s Blueberry Creme and hoped this would be similar.

This smells very strongly of blueberry, but there’s not much blueberry flavor in the brew. Funnily enough, it doesn’t smell of cream at all but the flavor of cream is so strong and delicious! Creamy vanilla, it reminds me of an EG cream in its richness. There’s a bit of blueberry, but I really do wish there was a little more. It’s still quite tasty though! I think I’ll try mixing it 50/50 with the DT blend, which is heavily blueberry but doesn’t have quite as much cream as I’d like.

Woah, this tea is STRONG! I mean, pu-erh is obviously a dense, flavor-packed tea, but I always expect it to be lighter in blends. In fact, the Nature’s Tea Leaf pu blends (oh god that sounds horrible out of context… pu blends…) have been pretty light on that signature flavor to me. Not necessarily in a bad way, but I was not prepared for this!

The tea is so dark and murky, almost coffee-colored. The lavender is quite assertive but the earthy, rich flavor of the base makes it oddly enough a not very floral tea. Woodsy and an almost chicory note? Very tasty but a big pow of flavor and I did get a bit more buzzed from it than I normally do with tea (even though pu is apparently lower in caffeine?). I think this would be a good morning brew! Thanks to Kasumi for the sample.

I got this one from Novi! I am kind of obsessed with melon teas of any form, and they seem to be relatively rare so it’s always exciting to find a new one. And with kiwi?! Oh yes please.

Though really you can’t really taste much kiwi, the watermelon is BAM in your face in a very good way. Very much like a liquid jolly rancher but the base does stand up to it. But somehow it’s also quite natural tasting? Truly a mysterious tea! Mysterious and delicious.

You know how some people put salt on watermelon slices to make them sweeter? I am kind of wondering how iced watermelon tea would taste with a tiny sprinkle of salt… and maybe mint… and rum… I feel a cocktail experiment coming on!

I am so painfully behind on logging my teas. I’ve been drinking a lot, but for some reason I am lacking the motivation to log them all. Well, I must push through and try to catch up! Starting with this, which I got in the book club swap with Terri HarpLady and am sipping right now!

I was planning on a gongfu session with one of the new(ish) Verdant oolongs, but I’ve been eating painfully healthy recently so screw it, I’m making a latte! Not that lattes are particularly bad for you, I’ve been using less and less sugar in mine recently. 1 cup milk, 1 cup water, a tiny squeeze of honey, and my sample of this lovely blend which reminds me wonderfully of my beloved Paris.

This is creamy with a delicious berry note, so smooth and tasty! As a latte it’s just to die for, like a fancy dressed up london fog. And perfect for the book we are reading, An American Heiress. Blackcurrant always reads as a very European taste to me (probably because of those hard candies that come in the fancy gold tins), so I can close my eyes and imagine myself in a British castle, hanging out in front of a roaring fire instead of a boring old tv!

Mint, orange, berry… a combination made in heaven. I had so much success with the teas I ordered from Steep City my first time around that it was only about 2 weeks before I placed another order! And this, of course, was a blend I couldn’t pass up. I love Moroccan Mint but oddly enough I’ve never had any variations of it—just green tea and mint. But add in berry and citrus? Sounds like heaven!

The mint here is mild, but it still pops at the end of the sip. The berry is sweet and juicy, and there’s a bit of tartness from the citrus. And then, there’s a creamy aspect! Almost like vanilla? I don’t think there is any in here, but it really does taste like it. And last but not least, a hint of grassy smoke from the gunpowder!

This is absolute perfection iced—in fact I almost like it as much as their Citrus Sunshine Oolong (my current favorite iced tea!). Another winner from Steep City!

I got this as a sample in my latest Den’s order, which is good because I am on a quest to try all of their flavored senchas! I love love rose, so I thought this for sure would be a winner.

Maybe my expectations were too high, but this was just okay for me. Actually, it’s tasty: I found the sencha to be dominant, but it wasn’t the same buttery flavor that I got in the pineapple sencha. The rose is faint and at the end of the sip, but somehow still very perfumey. I don’t mind perfumey but it wasn’t my favorite rose flavoring.

I feel like I’m being kind of harsh on this tea! It’s good but just not quite what I was expecting after the yuzu, pineapple and sakura which are all super fabulous.

I’ve tried what feels like a hundred of flavors from Red Leaf Tea, yet there are always so many more I haven’t tasted! Thanks so much to KallieBoo for including a sample of this in our swap, I am kind of a matcha addict—especially when it comes to new flavors.

I usually pick the crazy dessert flavors over the simpler ones, yet the packets I reach for on an average day are usually the “plain” fruity ones! Fruity matcha is the best in the afternoon. I love plums, so I am wondering why I never ordered this one… I guess it just slipped through the cracks!

Made in the water bottle shake method this smells so good, kind of like jam! It’s not a fresh plum flavor, more pie or jam: slow cooked and rich! But not heavy, there’s still that nice fruity tang. The grassy matcha is, as always, excellent and delicious. I really enjoyed this one, and I even have some leftover for experimenting—caramel plum matcha? Plum cheesecake? Plum toffee?! The possibilities are endless!

Surprised this one doesn’t have any notes yet! I mean raspberry & cream, what is not to love. Dry the leaves remind me a lot of another tea, the smell is so familiar but I can’t place it. How bothersome! I think it might actually be Adagio’s Ripe for Romance, which is strange because that is raspberry and chocolate.

Anyway, this tea is scrumptious. I made it iced with some cream just to bump up the creamy notes, though I tried it first sans-cream and, yes, it’s very creamy! Not like vanilla, but a smoother and less sweet cream element. The raspberry is bright and fruity, one of the best raspberry flavored blends I’ve tried. That seems to be a finnicky flavor, but it’s perfect here!

On a side note, I totally spazzed and missed my 400th tasting note (which funnily enough was another 52teas blend, Genmaichai). The same thing happened to me with #300, I am terrible at keeping track of this stuff.. So I dub this my honorary 400th!

Grabbed a sample of this when I stocked up on Maple Sugar. I mean coconut and chocolate, how could I resist? The dry leaves smell so good, like chocolate cake soaked in coconut cream. I love to do cakes sans icing with coconut cream, you brush it onto the dry cake over and over until it’s just oozing with creamy coconut goodness. Mmm!

This is a very chocolatey tea! And not fake chocolate, but nice dark roasty cocoa notes. The coconut kind of plays second fiddle to the chocolate but it’s still there! This reminds me of a more dessert-y version of Yunnan’s Fable/Coconut Cacao (which I am 99% sure are the same teas). Very nice with a little cream and sugar!

Once again I am behind on tasting notes! I was so absorbed with tasting out my Red Leaf matcha samples and making sure I have sufficient notes for each that I’ve had about 7 other teas so far that I have yet to log, all of them new. Sigh! Well, I’ll start with this, which I am drinking right now. I made my dad Teavivre’s Yunnan Golden Tip earlier today and the smell had me really craving a Chinese black. I got a sample of these in my recent order and they seemed like just the thing.

I love how these look! They’re my first pearl-type tea that wasn’t a Jasmine, which are generally pretty smaller. These are big and chunky, I used 4 for a big cup and they unfurl into so much tea! It’s fun to watch, they start dissolving as soon as you pour water over them. And among all the black tea leaves was one stray green one—wonder how it got there?

This is a strong, malty tea with heavenly cocoa notes. It’s a bit astringent but in a pleasing way, in fact it reminds me of an Assam but lighter and with less body. It brews up a surprisingly light amber color, very pleasing, and has a light flavor to match. Not bad light, just less heavy than I expected from the heady, yeasty cocoa smell. However, it’s the most chocolatey black I’ve tried, so scrumptious! Reminds me of a bakery shop, which I think most Chinese blacks do… or maybe I just really like pastries and associate everything with them!

this blend smells just like Pineapple Kona Pop from Teavana, which I enjoy… even though it’s not anything like tea. It’s pretty much juice, delicious tart juice. Except less calories!

However, PKP is a little sour for me most days, so I was a bit worried about getting this. But with samples so cheap, how could I resist? After all, I love pineapple.

This blend is surprisingly light looking, not that ominous red you can get from hibiscus. But roselle is a bit different, right? Less tart, I think. And indeed, this doesn’t brew up very sour—it’s light and fruity, almost airy. It’s not packed full of flavor, but it’s a nice tropical drink.

Apparently I’ve been drinking a ton of genmaicha blends recently, three in as many days! I am trying out this one thanks to TeaEqualsBliss from our swap, I was looking forward to this especially after the lack of toasty goodness in Love Life.

The strawberry flavor in this is sweet and natural, in fact at first it’s not that apparent at all—the first half of the sip is pure genmaicha, a nice blend though very heavy on the rice. Then at the end, bam, a strong hit of strawberry!

The name of this blend is definitely fitting, a little nutty and a little sweet! Scrumptious and refreshing.

Hm, thought I logged this one already. Guess not! I love genmaicha, I love chai, and I love the one genmaicha chai mix I’ve tried (Yogic’s with lemongrass) so I was pretty sure from the moment this was announced that it would be a winner for me.

Simmering on the stovetop, this makes my whole kitchen smell amazing. It’s a particularly fragrant chai blend, with tons of chunky spices in the mix. With the toasty aspect of the genmaicha, it smells like I am making chai-flavored rice krispie bars! Which of course now I am dying to do.

The spices in this are a bit unique. I mean, yeah, they’re standard enough but the ratios make this blend stand apart. It’s pretty heavy on the cardamom, ginger and clove while the cinnamon is only a hint in the background. I don’t like very cinnamon-y chais and I adore cardamom so this is right up my alley!

With the genmaicha base I decided to go sugarless, even though I almost always add honey/agave/etc to chais made on the stovetop. Genmaicha + sugar is just not a thing that works in my head, so this ended up being almost savory! Well, I guess as savory as a chai can be. It seems much lighter than other chais because of the green base, this is definitely a winner!

Basil seems like a weird idea for teas, but I do like sweet/savory blends.. for example tortellini salad with pesto and chopped strawberries! Or Numi’s Basil Mint Pu-erh which really does taste strongly of basil. I got this in a swap with Novi and was excited to try it, since it seemed right up my alley!

There’s hibiscus, of course, and pineapple. Seriously, they put those two in EVERYTHING. Thankfully they went light on the hibiscus and the pineapple imparts zero flavor. But I’m also not really tasting (or seeing) much in the way of white tea, which is standard with Teavana blends I think, except for the Acai Blueberry one which had great fluffy leaves.

This is kind of mildly berry-like, maybe strawberry or blueberry? Jammy, not fresh berry. There’s kind of a generic berry flavor that Teavana uses, and that’s what this is. Not that it’s bad, I do like berry! But I am tasting zero basil. Like none, at all. Is there any in here even?! A bit disappointed, but my love for Numi’s Basil blend makes up for it.

Thanks to Nicole for this one! The name alone sounds very tasty, and I do love a good sakura tea. Or cherry, which is what most sakura teas really are since it’s hard to find sakura outside of Japan.

I didn’t know how much was going on in this blend until I looked at the listing—mango, pineapple, what? Teavana seems to put pineapple in EVERYTHING. Also… hibiscus. I thought there would be none here but I cold brewed this and opened the fridge in the morning to a bright red brew. Oh nooo!

There is a nice cherry flavor here, but there are just so many competing flavors. I was hoping for a simple blend—cherry, bamboo, green tea. But there are tropical notes, a bit of sourness from the hibiscus, floral from the rose, and then a bit citrusy from the lemon peel. It’s just… so much, my tastebuds are a bit overwhelmed! I think this is a great idea for a blend but it’s bogged down by a lot of extra stuff that doesn’t need to be there.

After the success I had with Casablanca, I was excited to try this one. Jasmine, like mint, tends to be quite overpowering but the bergamot worked so so well in Casablanca, how could I not be excited!

This tea has a nice, fluffy base that smells strongly of both bergamot and jasmine. Well duh, of course it does! It smells like heaven while it’s brewing, I just want to stick my face in there. I wish there were tea perfumes! Well I mean, there are, but I’d like an endless variety of them.

I think 3 minutes is a little too long for this, since the jasmine is just a tad soapy. Not overwhelmingly so, and I think a 2 minute steep would fix that up nicely. The bergamot balances so nicely with it, both are quite strong but neither one is too strong. It’s exactly what you would expect—a light green earl grey with jasmine! I’m not going to rate it until I get the steep time right, but it’s pretty damn yummy.