Alphakitty

So I’ve tried this tea a few times and liked it but didn’t love it. I thought that maybe it was time to go a little mad scientist on this blend! I mean, of any tea to experiment with this has got to be the best one, right? The goal was to make it taste like a real strawberry milkshake.

First off I steeped a spoonful of this with 1 cup milk, 1 cup filtered water stovetop style. While that was simmering I mixed up this weird concoction:

3 strawberries + a splash of rum (hey, it’s Walter we’re talking about!) + a heaping spoonful of vanilla curd + a sprinkle of caramel matcha

and blended them in the food processor until it was a nice fine puree. In case you don’t know what vanilla curd is, it’s pretty much the best thing ever: like lemon curd, only with vanilla beans. It’s like frosting in a jar! Uhnf, so good.

Then I mixed the puree into the hot tea and strained it all—which took longer than expected, because of all the strawberry seeds!

I think I’ve created the most delicious thing ever. It tastes JUST like a strawberry milkshake (only hot). The vanilla curd and milk makes it super creamy, the fresh strawberry makes it nice and fruity, the honeybush adds extra depth along with the caramel matcha. And the rum adds something extra—just like Walter would want, since I’m all out of LSD to sprinkle in it.

Is it just me or have there been a LOT of 52teas honeybush blends recently? I’ve been subscribed to their tea of the week for a little under 2 months now and this is the 3rd one I’ve gotten—the first being Strawberry Rhubarb and then Walter Bishop. However, I’m not going to complain—I do like honeybush, though I don’t love it, and I’m dreading the day I get an inevitable rooibos blend that I can’t try!

This is pretty malty and chocolatey even iced, which is how I am trying this since I want the “chocolate shake” effect. I suppose the best way to really do that though would be to make it stovetop and then pour it over iced… or even better yet iced milk. I’m not going to rate this blend until I do it right, because while it’s nice now it probably has the potential to be great.

I’ve been waiting patiently for the SoHo store to get this in loose, and it’s finally here! I picked up two ounces just to test it out—I tend to buy most of my bulk iced teas from H&S, since 6 ounces are all of $8. This seemed like a possible for the iced tea rotation—genmaicha is what we usually make, the bf loves strawberry, I love coconut. What could go wrong?

Well, honestly, the genmaicha part! There were no popped rice kernels in my bag, and while there’s a slightly toasty flavor it’s not as strong as I would like.

Thankfully, the strawberry/coconut combo is very nice. The coconut is light and sweet, and the green base seems particularly airy to me, bordering on a white. In fact, it reminds me of Coconut Creme a bit! The strawberry is a nice fruity pop, not too strong or artificial. And the vanilla makes it wonderfully creamy.

I think mixed 60/40 with our regular genmaicha, this will be a total winner. As it is right now it’s a nice fruity blend, but nothing special—I think with a nutty hit it will really shine.

When I ordered half an ounce of this at Davids, the employee packaging up my stuff warned me that I’d get addicted to it. I thought that, you know, he was saying that because he worked there and of course they are supposed to make their teas sound great, but one sniff and I thought that perhaps he was right.

I gave this a nice long cold brew, since it’s still a million degrees in my apartment (with the heat OFF) even though it is 15 outside. Seriously, I have to sleep with the fan on. I love my building. This is a light pink tea, and it really does look like strawberry juice—so cute and girlie!

I think this is the best strawberry tea I’ve tried. It’s just so fruity and refreshing! Like Kittenna said, this does remind me of Mother of Pearl, since it’s a pu-erh strawberry blend. However MoP has a really distinct mango flavor along with a floral element, while there’s something a bit herbaceous going on here (from the strawberry leaves) and a hint of blackberry flavor.

I love pu-erh berry blends, the bright fruity flavor contrasts so well with the deep, earthy taste. And I know there’s hibiscus in here, but at least in my cup it’s not adding anything but color since I taste not even a whiff of sharp or bitter hibiscus. Ah man, I really do love this tea, I think I might need to pick up a bunch next time I head out to Davids.

Sometimes you come across a tea so wonderful you have no idea how your life went on without it. One of those teas that makes you grin ear to ear, it’s just perfect! For me (and judging from the reviews, for many others as well!) this is one of those teas.

I bought this kind of on a whim, I was ordering the Sakura Sencha and noticed this sitting right next to it. So I looked up reviews, and there were so many 90+ I just had to get some. But I didn’t know it would be THIS good. Because man oh man, this tea is heaven. Fruit heaven.

The pineapple is so unbelievably authentic, up there in my mind with Butiki’s fantastic fruit flavoring. It’s tart, tropical and so smooth and fresh, like someone mixed pineapple juice in with my sencha. I mean, I almost don’t believe this is flavored! Obviously someone snuck chunks of fresh pineapple in when I wasn’t looking!

And, since this is Den’s we are talking about, the base is fantastic. It’s denser than some senchas I’ve tried, with a real creamy and butter feel. And a hint of caramel comes out when combined with the pineapple! It’s both light and heavy, if that makes any sense. Creamy and rich, but without a dense feeling to it.

And while I usually only drink fruit teas iced, this is fantastic hot! Thankfully it’s not one of their seasonal blends so I can keep this gem stocked all year long.

So last night when I was placing my Adagio sample order, I contemplated their Apricot Green until I remembered that I have a sample of a similar blend from Momo! So into a cup for an overnight cold brew it went.

This tea reminds me of something I’ve tried before almost exactly, but I can’t place what it is. Infuriating! I’m pretty sure I never logged whatever this mystery tea was so I’ve spent 20 minutes glaring angrily at my cup as if it will give up the answer. Funnily enough, I don’t think it was another apricot blend, but a flavored green with fruit of some kind. Oh well.

This is a nice enough tea, though I don’t know if I’d know it was apricot without being told first. A little fruity, but the base dominates. Oddly enough, I’d swear the taste was changing as I work through my cup. With one sip it’s very plum-like, then I get a hint of real apricot, then it’s just generic fruity tasting. If nothing else, this is a big ’ol cup of mystery!

Apparently I’m on a pear kick, in part because I got quite a few teas with it as a flavor from TeaEqualsBliss! This is from our swap rather than the TTB but they came together so I keep forgetting which tea came from where.

I love a good pear. That first juicy bite, the super firm and crisp flesh, the tart rindy taste from the peel. Pears are great, especially because consistency is a real issue with me when it comes to fresh fruit and I often find apples (other than Granny Smith and some reds like Honeycrisp) super mushy and revolting. Just looking at a golden delicious makes me shudder. But pears are where it is at, so perfectly firm!

Of course you can’t capture that sensation in a tea, but just the smell of this reminds me of a perfect autumn pear. The flavoring is spot-on, totally authentic and delicious. I drank this for the first time a few days ago when I had a friend over: he took a sip, looked at me amazed and said “it tastes like a pear!” He’s used to bagged teas so I suppose the transition to nice loose-leaf is initially a shock. Like holy cow, a flavored blend can be this good?!

I would rate this blend really highly if not for the base, which has come out a touch bitter both hot and even in a cold brew. A little more astringent and assertive than I’d like in a fruit blend, but now I know to just cut down on the leaves.

Funny, I mentioned not having any good pomegranate teas in a recent tasting note and suddenly I’ve had a huge influx of them! First the 52teas Pom Blackberry, now this one from the Traveling Tea Box! How could I resist two fruits that I love so much combined into one?

This is a bright pink cup due to the hibiscus, but for once it’s actually quite purposeful in a blend. Without it I think this tea would be worse: which is what you want in an ingredient, right? But so often hibiscus is just thrown in as a filler with no place in a blend. But here, it mimics that tart bite of a fresh pomegranate seed quite nicely, in taste as well as color.

The pear is definitely at the forefront here, so nice and crisp and refreshing! I do love pear teas, though I don’t really have a whole lot of them. I don’t know if there’s actually pomegranate flavoring in here or it’s just the effect of the hibiscus, but it’s a really nice counterpoint to the pear. Two fruits I never would have thought of combining, but now I’m intrigued! I wonder how a pear poached in honey and pomegranate juice would go over?

Anyway, this is a really great iced tea, one of the best fruit tisanes I’ve tried. Finally, hibiscus used correctly! That alone makes me rejoice, but the fruit flavors here are just so natural tasting. Now I want to try more from this company!

Mmm, there’s just something so comforting about the smell of hazelnut. Toasty, nutty, bake-y goodness. I’ve been dying to try this since I received it in a swap with TeaEqualsBliss but for some reason it got shoved to the back of my “to try” pile and I just noticed it sitting there all lonely and sad today. Well, time to remedy that!

I was about to prepare some earl grey when I dug up this beauty, so I decided why not mix them up? And of course with something as decadent as hazelnut I couldn’t have any regular old cup of tea so a stovetop latte it was—2 parts hazelnut to 1 part RoT’s Earl Greyer.

Wow, this is good! Really strong hazelnut flavor, and very natural tasting. It pairs so well with the EG, which tempers the hazelnut a bit so it’s not too strong. I have to say, the base on this is really fantastic too. That’s not normally something I notice with heavily flavored blends, but the base here is really strong and malty and definitely held up to a long steep in milk.

I won’t be rating this now since I haven’t had it on its own, but suffice to say it’s a real winner so far! I’ve been looking for a good hazelnut tea, and I think this one has just found a place in my cupboard where it will be staying for a long time.

I love love love blueberry teas, so I was thrilled to find a few cups of this in my swap package from TeaEqualsBliss! Especially since I’ve been craving Adagio’s Blueberry White but ran out a while back. I really do need to place an order there soon!

This is a blend of 3 blueberry teas: one white, one black, one herbal. The herbal part must have some hibiscus because my cup is a nice rosy shade, though there’s only a tiny hint of tartness from it thankfully. It’s a more complex cup than the straight Blueberry White, understandable since there’s technically 3 different bases here. It’s not as sweet as Blueberry White either, in fact it’s a very crisp cup (of course I had it iced, which definitely adds to it). This definitely curbed my blueberry craving!

There sure are a lot of cherry senchas out there! I’m sipping this from KallieBoo! and I blanked on the company name, and I don’t feel like walking to the kitchen this late at night to look it up so I thought “how hard could it be to find?” 83 results, it took a bit of digging until one of the company names popped out at me!

I try not to compare cherry senchas to Den’s Sakura Sencha, the god of sakura flavored teas. But this one isn’t pretending to be sakura, it’s just cherry and rose… which I suppose when combined are close enough to sakura, a little fruity and floral. But not quite—like if you combine grapefruit and lemon it would almost be yuzu, but not as good as the real thing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like a good cherry green tea, especially iced (which is how I am having this one).

This is good, perhaps not as flavorful as other similar blends I’ve tried but the rose is a nice touch. It’s a really subdued cherry flavor, like just a little whiff of it at the end of the sip. And that’s after a 12 hour cold brew! The rose is also pretty soft, I’d say this is a very mildly flavored blend… which is better than overly flavored, at any rate! It’s a nice tea, maybe not anything special but I do love floral blends so I really enjoyed it.

I only get to go to my favorite restaurant in NYC once a year for dinner: on Valentine’s Day, because usually anything but the lunch menu is way outside our budget. It’s a Japanese place, but not sushi and tonkatsu Japanese (not that there’s anything wrong with sushi and tonkatsu!). It’s all small-sized, more traditional fare for the most part with some interesting twists thrown in.

We had an 8 course meal this year including smoked duck negimaki, baby scallop tempura, slow-cooked miso pork belly, black sesame creme brulee and a whole lot of sake. It was absolutely to die for, and so overindulgent I feel like I am going to burst hours later. After the meal I was so full I could barely down the genmaicha they give you after the dessert course, so I had to wait a few hours after I got home to make some tea of my own.

Peppermint is my go-to detox tea for that “oh god did I really just eat that much food” feeling, but I wanted something a bit special since it is Valentine’s Day! Originally I was planning on sharing a cup of one of the two Della Terra vday blends I haven’t tried yet, but they both contain chocolate and the thought of anything sweet was making me a bit nauseous. Then I remembered this blend—black tea, green tea, bergamot and peppermint! Sounds perfect.

Peppermint and bergamot are two flavors I’ve found that can really overwhelm a cup and drown out other notes. So how would they do in direct competition? Well, after a 3 minute steep the cup is a gorgeous golden tone and it smells strongly of both. At first sip it’s actually bergamot that is more present, but it fades into crisp mint. You can definitely taste the nuances of the base: a bit smokey from the black, but with a hint of that classic “green tea” taste. Okay, not the best description, but you know that one nameless flavor that makes you say “oh yes, this is a green tea”?

I love earl grey and this is such a great twist on it, the perfect way to lighten up a classic blend. Definitely one of my favorite variations! And it definitely cured my over-full feeling! In fact, it did its job so well I am now eying the box of Godiva on my bed…

I love eucalyptus in teas, but it doesn’t seem very common. So of course I had to throw in a few ounces of this in my Steep City order! Usually you find eucalyptus in herbal blends, not black ones, and the name and colors are so appealing. All of the blends I’ve tried from them are so beautiful, this is no exception: the bits of purple and orange are just so striking.

I tried this one iced in my travel mug, since I’m not sure if this is a blend I’d like hot. Also, I’m totally in love with finally being able to take tea with me everywhere! This reminds me a lot of Zen Tea’s Grapefruit Orange, since they share many of the same elements, namely eucalyptus and citrus. This blend is very assertive, not for the faint of heart! Orange and lemongrass are bright and sparkling, backed up by that unique herby menthol flavor from the eucalyptus.

The black base makes this a bit more earthy and grounded than the tisanes I’ve tried with eucalyptus, though it’s still very strong. With all the different strong flavors and colors it really does remind me of a carnival!

I’ve discovered the best iced tea in the world.

One part Steep City Tea’s Coconut Grove + one part Butiki’s Cantaloupe & Cream.

PERFECTION! The cantaloupe and coconut are perfect together, complemented by both cream and a soft hint of rose. I actually made this by mistake—I had half a cup of each in my fridge from past cold brews that I just hadn’t got around to finishing, and they were so similar in color that I mistook them for the same tea and poured them together. Thankfully the result is pure, delicious magic.

I love coconut and I love rose, but I never thought of putting them together! Tropical and floral, it sounds good but I was on the fence about ordering it… until I saw Steep City’s Citrus Sunshine Oolong. Of course I can’t order just one tea, so into the cart this went!

This is a beautiful blend, fluffy leaves and whole rosebuds. It smells very coconutty but not very rosy, a lot like Persimmon Tree’s Coconut Creme. I already have a lot of creamy coconut teas, so I was hoping this would be different once brewed.

And indeed it is! The coconut is smooth and tropical, but still quite light and airy, in part I’m sure because of the white base. The rose is subtle, but still there! There’s just a hint of floral rose at the end of the sip. I think this is probably my favorite coconut blend that I’ve tried so far!

For some reason I thought this was mango when I grabbed a few ounces in the store, but it’s actually guava! Which is good, because I absolutely love guava. In fact I’ve been craving it recently, since I picked up a pastry at one of the many local bakeries around me without knowing what the filling was (I guessed strawberry from the color) and it turned out to be guava and dulce de leche in the best pastry crust I’ve ever had.

Well, this tea doesn’t taste like a pastry, but it’s very strongly guava-y! The smell is deliciously tropical, and a single sniff transports me to a nice beach. The strawberry is also pretty prominent, but not overwhelming—it’s a bright strawberry flavor, not jammy or sweet. Usually I like jam-like teas, but with guava I think that would be a little weird! I’m not getting any coconut but I don’t really mind, since I think that might be a little too much going on in here.

There’s apparently hibiscus in this blend but thank god I am not really getting any. Maybe a tiny bit of tartness, but in a pleasant way. It also doesn’t brew up red/pink at all like blends with hibiscus usually do. I think this is really a summer blend, but sometimes it’s nice to take a little tea vacation in the middle of winter!

This is the tea that made me place my Steep City order. Ginger, berry, citrus and oolong? These are all things that I love, and while I usually like to buy in small sample sizes from a new company I was willing to take the 2 ounce plunge for a blend that sounds this good.

Before I talk about the tea, I am so impressed with Steep City Tea’s packaging! Sleek white with a really beautiful logo, and I love the little check boxes for size/type/temperature and time. Very creative! And this is a BIG two ounces, it’s a nice fluffy blend. I was worried it would be dense because of the berries and dried orange peel, but there’s a whole lot of this blend in my bag. Hooray!

Uhnf, this tea… this tea is heaven. There’s so much going on and it works together perfectly. The berry is subdued and not jammy or overly sweet, just a nice fruity undertone. The ginger adds a hint of spice and heat, and pairs perfectly with the nice pop of citrus. And of course there’s the base, which is really the main reason I got this. I love oolong blends when they’re done well, which means you can actually taste the base. And here you can, oh yes! Floral, buttery, a hit grassy, everything I want in a nice green oolong.

I’ve had this tea about 3 times since I got it a week ago, and I seriously think it’s already a cupboard staple. Perfect hot, iced, lukewarm, with a hint of sugar or left alone. I’m in love!

I’ve been so busy this week that I have about a dozen teas I have to log that I had absolutely no time for! This week was Toy Fair, and I also had a friend over from Oregon so I admit that I neglected Steepster for a while. So many tasting notes to catch up on!

My friend is a fellow tea addict who I am converting to loose-leaf, so we did a lot of tea shopping while he was here. Including going to my favorite physical tea store, Harney & Sons! I picked up a few things while I was there, and added in 2 ounces of this at the last minute because I’ve heard people say that it’s better than Paris. Better than one of my favorite blends, of course I had to try it out!

This does indeed remind me a lot of Paris. There’s a plum and berry taste, similar to the blackcurrant in Paris, along with a hint of bergamot and cream. But it’s not quite as all-around rich and deep as Paris—the flavor is more shallow, if that makes sense, though it’s still tasty. This is like a lighter version of Paris, better suited for the afternoon or morning since I generally think of Paris as a late-night indulgence.

Thanks to Kasumi for this sample! I’ve tried some savory teas before, but usually with sage. I’ve had two blends with rosemary and one was great (Victorian EG) and one was… weird (Sakurambo). So I approached this tea with a bit of trepidation.

The taste is SO unique. The white base is light and soft and almost fruity-sweet, and lets the rosemary really shine. It’s herby, woodsy, a little nutty and has just the right hint of grassiness. It definitely tastes like rosemary, but so different from the preparation it usually gets. It’s like there was a whole sweet side to this herb I never knew about!

Now I really want to experiment with rosemary in sweets. I have a recipe for olive oil rosemary tea cakes, maybe that would be a good place to start? Certainly seems fitting, considering how tea-obsessed I am!

I’m so surprised this one wasn’t in the database! I skipped over it on my first order with Tea Guys, but had to snag at least a sample with my giant bag of Maple Sugar. Mm, Maple Sugar…

But I digress! Lime teas often don’t work for me, they taste a little artificial and odd. But this one is lovely! Bright, sweet and tart key lime with a hint of cream. Funnily enough, this tea has a different name on my sample—Key Lime Ceylon instead of Key Lime Pie—but I definitely think there’s some creamy aspect in here.

It’s really fantastic iced, I have a hard time with lime teas hot but I think this would even work that way with a little cream to make it even more pie-y. Thankfully their samples have 3-4 cups so I can play around with this a bit!

The name of this tea is quite misleading, I thought it was cookie flavored but no, you are supposed to have it WITH cookies! In fact this tea is pretty far from cookie flavored, it’s a nice citrusy spiced blend that I am trying out thanks to Azzrian.

The smell is lovely, like orange and clove. It’s a beautiful blend too, large chunks of dried orange along with cardamon and bright red peppercorns. It’s very festive, I feel like I’m at a tea party! It’s funny that this is a spiced tea but it tastes nothing like chai to me, makes me wonder what exactly makes a chai a chai. After all the 3 “key” chai ingredients, ginger cinnamon and cardamom, aren’t found in every chai blend. One of them is here, with cloves and pepper which are often in chai, but it’s definitely not a chai at all!

There’s some fruity sweetness, soft and not overpowering, and the citrus is bright and refreshing against the heavy spice. Mm, delicious!

I am going to hold off on rating this one, since I don’t think I’ve quite found the right way to prepare it yet. Made as an ordinary honeybush it’s sweet and has strong strawberry notes, but reminds me of the Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Honeybush without the pie or rhubarb and with maybe a dash of cream. I think this will really shine as a latter, or better yet in an actual milkshake! I’m contemplating using it in an ice cream base and making a true strawberry milkshake, fitting of Walter!

By the way, for anyone who is a fan of both Fringe and Homeland, how awesome would a slice of life sitcom featuring Water Bishop and Saul Berenson be? I don’t know why but I picture those two being absolutely hilarious together.

I got a sample of this with my happy bag, and I’ve been eying it with caution ever since. Rooibos and I do not get along, it’s so medicinal and I’m starting to think it might be a migraine trigger for me under certain circumstances. But I decided to brave it, because it’s just a one bag sample AND it reminds me of Dragon Ball Z (which my brother loves, so I’ve spent a lot of time watching it with him haha).

The berry flavor here is nice, kind of jammy mixed berry without one dominant flavor. It’s sweet, kind of honey like and rather thick—like it has honey in it, but with no actual honey. However, the medicinal aspects of the rooibos are just not working for me unfortunately. It’s kind of overpowering, I finished the cup but definitely didn’t love this one.

Another one of my lost samples! I have tried the unflavored version of this and loved it, but sometimes you want a really milky flavor so I thought I’d give this one a spin. Sniffing the dry leaves, I was wondering if this would maybe taste like Nature’s Leaf Tea’s Milk Black, which is like POW milk flavor. The leaves are very fragrant! And pretty, I love tightly wound oolongs that unfurl like magic while steeping. A small spoonful becomes a forest in my little french press!

Flavor-wise, I’m surprised at how not artificial the milk flavoring is. It’s definitely more creamy than the unflavored version (obviously) but not in a fake or strange way. Just an extra boost! There’s the soft floral orchid notes, buttery and smooth and vegetal. Mmm, I love green oolongs!

I think I like the unflavored version a bit better, since it’s easier to pick out the complex notes of the base oolong, but the extra creamy version is great for a more dessert-like cup. It’s a real indulgent treat, and without any calories—and also lighter than actual dessert blends, so there’s nothing heavy or dense. Smooth, sweet oolong with an extra bit of sweetness!