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Sipdown! (3 | 200)

Got my Savoy order, which was mostly full of samples. Also grabbed a tin of Squash Buckling Chai, because it was sold out when I wanted to buy it last year, and I want it for fall!

Anyway, this one wasn’t for me. The berry has that chalky taste to it that I sometimes find in berry flavoring. Overall it just tastes a bit vague and generic, and the Chinese sencha base isn’t helping things either.

So sort of tastes like lemon and berry Tums-flavored dry grass.

Sipdown! (1 | 198)

This seems to be a nice sakura sencha, with dark shiny leaves and sakura blossoms and leaves mixed in. However, in my tin at least, the leaves were super broken, which made it easily become bitter. I found I had to shorten the steep quite a bit, and even then there’s a bit more bitterless than was probably instead.

However, otherwise it’s quite tasty. Very savory with a noticeable salinity from the salted blossoms, a thick texture and intense vegetal-umami flavor profile. Very spinachy, but with a touch of sweetness. As always, love the savory-floral flavor of the sakura.

A nice enough tea, but I don’t think I would buy it again. It’s quite expensive and I feel like some of my other options for sakura sencha are superior.

Sipdown! (8 | 197)

Last one for June! This is one of my oldest teas, so feels good to get it finished off. It’s from the fall of 2019, purchased in Kyoto.

Still tastes yummy, just a well-rounded hojicha with a moderate roast and a nice touch of grassiness. Not particularly nutty, but has such a cozy autumn leaf sort of flavor profile. I don’t know that I would order this particular tea again, but that’s mostly because I always have a ton of Obubu teas lying around from my subscription. Always love a hojicha though!

Sipdown! (7 | 196)

I enjoyed this one, it’s nice and lemony but in a soft, fluffy way. Like lemon drops mixed with clouds. Don’t taste much of the lavender or sage, which I’m actually happy about.

I don’t think I would buy it again, since it mostly tastes like lemongrass. But I did enjoy sipping through the small tin (although Old Barrel’s small tins can be so difficult to open lol).

Random tea of the day!

Ordered this one because it just sounded so interesting, and I love root beer.

The flavoring is actually spot-on. It’s sweet and spicy and even has a bit of effervescence to it. The rooibos base makes a lot of sense to me, since root beer has a somewhat earthy flavor to it.

Now I’m going to have to try this iced/cold-brewed, and also as a latte… Although I’m not generally a big fan of rooibos with milk, so we’ll see how the “float” treatment goes ha ha.

Sipdown! (4 | 193)

I just find this one weird. Like yeah, it has peppermint, hence the candy cane. But then there’s cinnamon and chicory, both odd choices to me. I guess I kind of get holiday vibes? But the extra ingredients make it taste less like a candy cane.

Not one I would buy again.

Random tea of the day. Actually this was supposed to be my random tea for yesterday, but I forgot about it, so it’s for today instead.

This is just so good. I hadn’t tried it in a while, and I’m glad it lives up to my memory’s high expectations. Supposedly it has chocolate (and I saw a few cacao nibs), but honestly I don’t taste that at all. To me, it tastes like an oatmeal raisin cookie without the raisins. Or like an oatmeal cookie with added cinnamon, I suppose. But seriously, it’s liquid oatmeal cookie, and I love it.

By far my favorite of their holiday teas, and one that I have a full-sized tin of for a reason. :) Outstanding dessert tea.

Sipdown! (3 | 192)

Another cold-brewed tea. I don’t generally drink iced/cold tea, but I’ve been enjoying it lately so taking the opportunity to get through some sipdowns while I can.

I like lychee, but this wasn’t my favorite. I think it’s because lychee is already quite floral on its own, and here it’s paired with jasmine. Maybe if it had been a scented tea, I would’ve liked it better. But jasmine flavoring is used instead, which tastes a bit too perfumey for me. Otherwise, it has a nice lychee flavor to it, and the apple adds a gentle sweetness. Something has slight peppery notes to me, like chrysanthemum, but there is none here.

Anyway, not a bad tisane, just not to my personal tastes. Happy to have it finished!

Sipdown! (2 | 191)

Cold brewed.

This is… interesting. I’ve been feeling slightly under the weather for a couple of days, so I’ve been taking Emergen-C vitamin C chewables. This reminds me of those. Very acidic and tart fake orange. Definitely tasting the citric acid.

It’s not completely undrinkable, but not something I would want to have again either.

Still have a bunch of S&V teas to get through from my last order. That was in September of last year and there are still several I haven’t tried… Tea hoarder life, amirite? ^^’

So I ordered this one because I was curious how it compares to Apple Cinnamon French Toast (a favorite). That one already kind of tastes like coffee cake IMO, and I find it a bit weird that they have two teas that are so similar. So, you know, for science!

It’s definitely similar, but I feel like maybe the apple is more subtle here? I mostly taste coffee cake, with plenty of cinnamon obviously. It definitely has that buttery quality that reminds me of the crumb topping on a coffee cake. Base tea is a bit musty, which I remember also being a thing in the other tea. A shame that S&V’s black base is so weak, when their flavorings are so good.

I might have to try this and Apple Cinnamon French Toast side-by-side to compare them… :P