I am 0 for 3 today on my new teas!
23 Tasting Notes
I don’t like coffee, I never have, and now I can be certain that I don’t like tea that kind of tastes like coffee. It’s not offensive, but it’s vaguely chocolatey and has a thin coffee flavor. Meh.
Not bad… not knock-my-socks-off, but for a windy Saturday morning on the high desert when I’m trying to work up the steam to keep up with two toddler boys, it’ll do. This is my first mate/caffeine tea in a while, and I’m enjoying the little buzz. ;-)
Good God, this tea makes me happy.
In the tin, this smelled delicious… until I realized there was a scent of something like bananas, and I started to try to break it down. I resorted to the ingredients list, which showed “vanilla and coconut flavor”. Which, of course, means almost anything but actual vanilla or coconut.
Steeping, it did smell enticing, but when it was ready to drink it seemed like nothing more than hot water. Reminiscent of banana.
Reading the 1st tasting note, I wonder if I used water that was a little too hot. More likely, this tea is just too delicate for my palate, which tends to prefer really tasty spicy chais.
I’ll keep it in my cupboard, but will be happy to send a sample (it’s in bags) to anyone who’d like to give it a try despite my experience…
Mmm. Just as I took the first sip from the second glass, the sun broke over the Sangre de Christo mountains and shot its low gold blaze across the desert.
Bliss.
A tall tumbler of this tea, made from a newly-filled tin… just the smell of it makes me happy.
The desert sky is lightening on this new year, pale pink to the east, still darker to the west as the full blue moon sets gently over the Jemez mountains. The baby is pulling out toys, one after another, seeming to choose and favor anything with jingling bells, which is a sweet, sweet sound on this cold morning. The wood stove is roaring with a new morning fire, so the heat is concentrated around it while the rest of the room holds its nighttime chill.
Perfection can be so simple.
Happy new year to all.
— Andrea in New Mexicop.s. It’s New Year’s Day! I hope to not see anyone drinking anything they’ve rated less than a perfect 100 this morning, OK?
I just want to note that while I haven’t brewed any of this yet (and probably won’t for a couple of days), this arrived this afternoon—and as I was putting it into a tin, all I could think is that it looks and smells like something that would be put out in bowls as bar snacks at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Santa Fe, something I’d eat way too much of as we set out on an unforgettable night of tequila shots and tattoos.
I have an order in with Essencha for this, my near-daily morning wake-up, and it’s on back order! Their web site assures that by the time something’s listed as backordered that it’s probably already on the way to their warehouse, but I’m not sure what I’d do without this in my cupboard.
(Oh, I know exactly what I’ll do: My white Ayurvedic chai from Teavana will be here Saturday and I’ll spoil myself for a little while…)
(Notes taken from my own comments after Cofftea’s tasting note on Den’s Teas Matcha Kaze, to which she added drinking chocolate):
Well, that was truly inspired, Ms. Cofftea!
I had to wing it on the amounts of chocolate and milk, lacking measuring implements here, but as a gesture of compensation, I did use my chasen, which survived just fine. :-)
One scoop of Essencha’s Jade Bliss Matcha plus 3 spoonfuls of Lake Champlain’s Aztec Hot Chocolate added to some amount of unsweetend vanilla almond milk heated just to the point of small bubbles forming on top.
Holy moly. This was nothing less than exquisite liquid truffle. I wish I could sigh and say that oh, I couldn’t possibly have something this rich more than once a week, but that would be a bald-faced lie. I’ll probably do it again before the day is done.
I’ll be playing close attention to any future tweaks you make to this, Ms. Cofftea. The only thing I’ll do differently next time myself is drink it while it’s hotter. I, too, only taste the matcha “in the very back”, and I like the way it works. Maybe I’ll try a different chocolate next time—I do have one that isn’t spicy but has notes of almond and orange in it. That could be brilliant, I think.
Nothing I write about this chai right now will be anything approaching objective, since I’m overwhelmed with both guilt and pleasure. I’m breaking my no-black-tea rule this morning.
THIS IS SO DELICIOUS! So yummy that right now I don’t even care that I and my nursling will be paying the price for the caffeine I’m consuming.
I am going to re-steep this until there’s nothing left.
This does nothing on the second steep. Hot water. I’m downgrading my rating from 80.
Interesting.
I’m working my way through the cupboard now, turning each tin to the back until I’ve worked through them all once… I’ve been procrastinating this one, thinking it’d be too summery sweet and fruity.
It’s not. It’s a fascinating mix of flavors, and I can’t really detect any one overpowering the rest. It’s a delicate balance of a lot of heavies, and I am impressed.
I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I did add a small amount of agave nectar before I knew what I was doing, but I don’t think it’s detracting from anything that’s going on. I’ll do a second steep with none.
This one just makes me swoon from its perfection.
I’ve been savoring every cup from the 2oz I bought a few weeks ago and the last week has been torture as I rationed out the last small amount. I’m not joking when I write that if I could strap the tin to my head like a feedbag just to breathe it in, I would. This morning I caved and ordered 8oz to be here by the weekend, so in celebration of that purchase I just brewed some up from the last remaining.
Man, this is sublime. I brewed 16oz using 3tsp of tea and 1tsp of rock sugar, steeping for about two minutes at around 175 degrees. That went into mugs with rice milk—2/3 tea, 1/3 rice milk. Perfection.
Thanks to a toddler in the house, I drink almost exclusively out of travel tumblers. This is one grand exception: it smells so wonderful and is such a pleasure that I want the full experience of my most treasured stoneware mug to warm my hands and thrill all my senses.
This is my desert island tea, no question.
(So many reviews mention blending this one, and maybe I’ve just not yet developed a sophisticated enough tea-palate to get it, but there’s nothing I’d change in this one.)
I had this once and realized that it would probably be much more satisfying drunk cold on a hot summer day.
However, my 13-month-old baby LOVES it! Rooibos is wonderful for babies and kids, and I brew a batch of this up and keep it in the fridge for his sippy cup. He doesn’t get any juice at all, so this must be wonderfully sweet and delicious to him!
He gives it a 90, at least.
(2nd steep is always as good as the first!)
This is totally one of my desert-island teas right now. I love, love, love chai and am sticking to rooibos or low-caffeine as much as I can during pregnancy. This one is perfectly delicious, with or without the agave nectar and rice milk I frequently add to it.
(Scratching that itch that the cocoamint tea couldn’t reach…)
There really isn’t much oomph to either the chocolate or the mint here, and maybe that’s indicated by the “smooth” modifier. There’s nothing offensive about this one, no odd taste at any point, but it’s just not that interesting or exciting. I have a whole 8 ounces of it, though, and while I’ll certainly work my way through it quickly enough, I don’t think that I’ll be in a hurry to replace it.
For a chocolatey tea, I adore Teavana’s Haute Chocolate. No mint, but it’s got a little kick of pepper… if that kind of spicy is your thing (as it is mine), I’d check out that one.
(A steep time of 8 minutes or more means that I’ve made it in my Rhapsody… so it steeps as long as it takes me to drink it!)
(A steep time of 8 minutes or more means that I’ve made it in my Rhapsody… so it steeps as long as it takes me to drink it!)
(A steep time of 8 minutes or more means that I’ve made it in my Rhapsody… so it steeps as long as it takes me to drink it!)
I wake up for this one! I’ve tried so many varieties of Moroccan Mint tea—“Berber whiskey”, as it’s known over there—and this one tastes more like what I grew to love in North Africa than any other. Sweeten it if you like—I sometimes use rock sugar—but it’s not necessary.
