Madison Bartholemew

I take it all back… many many cups later I think I’ve either grown apart from this one or the freshness of the batch does not last long but now I despise everything about this tea and would like to stab all of the flecks with many small knives.

It now reminds me of drinking a nickle. Like a five cent nickle.

Everyone says that Oolong’s should vary in taste in accordance with the temp of the water, steep time and all of that Jazz.

This one really does. Easily. Much more variation that just the difference boiling of 175 degree water makes on tea leaves.

And over all the whole flavor profile seems darker to me. I get why this one is an acquired taste but, I adore it.

So…
150 degrees!?! 3-5 minutes?!? What?!? it’s an herbal!?! surely… adagio you jest and have lost your mind! This is going to be like how I hate your black tea steeping suggestions isn’t it…
Nope… it’s really good! I was expecting it to be weak. It’s not… It has chocolate and hazelnut and both flavors are strong.
Oddly for me no complaints so far… When I have one I’ll post.
hm
YUM

Before I drink enough to really get into this tea… did anyone notice that the packaging they got from the steepster select sale was not the listed packaging?
I’m not usually that suspicious… but I was really looking forward to the black box of tasty doom.

roasty…. sweet
not too heavy
light mouth feel
I wanted it to be a little more brothy but it’s still pretty good

… Put this one in the delicate category…
Water a little too hot… bitter
too much leaf… bitter
steep for the stated time!… BITTER!!!!!
my normal amount of leaf… BITTER!
HALF my normal amount of leaf… GREAT!
wtf
Anyways… after PAINSTAKINGLY figuring out what part of my soul the leaves wanted in the cup with them… This is pretty good.
It is tart and fruity without being a dirty mushy fruit salad or only tasting like hibiscus which is the highest compliment I can bestow on a fruit flavored tea. Good job guys.
But… why is it named pomegranate when it tastes of raspberries… and pretty much only raspberries? So yea… no pomegranate flavor so I dub this tea “Green Raspberry” from now until forever and then it’s good.

i only put sugar in the third time… I think it is starting to remind me more of butterscotch than white chocolate…

I’m unsure of this one.
I think i was expecting a strong tart blueberry taste since yogic chai usually does whole ingredients. Maybe a few actual dried blue berries floating around the bag.
It looks like they took whole dried blue berries and ground them to a powder and added that to the chai mix. It’s not bad it’s just not what I was expecting. So with this powder flavoring the blue berry taste is there but it’s still not as strong as I would have wanted it. I guess I wanted the blue berry flavor to dominate the blend and be supported by the chai herbs. This blend is more like a chai with an equal flavoring part of blue berry mixed in.
They totally did the right thing in this blend by taking out specific spices. The ones that are left in remind me of baking spices. So this blend is not as punchy as the normal teas from yogic chai at all but it works well.
I like it… it just took me off guard as it is quite a departure from their normal chais.
So if your in the mood for a warm chai-like tea this is pretty awesome.
If you want CHAI with punch and bravado and spirit… this is not it.

There are pink pepper corns in this? really? Except for the fact that I can see them I would have had no idea what so ever.
This tea is faintly chocolate and faintly banana. Not a strong flavor at all… but it’s ok.
I can’t believe I don’t have more to say about this one. The rooibos is fine… the flavors make sense…
There you go?

UPDATE: milk kills this tea… the flavors or so mellow they get lost with the milk… just sugar for my next try.

I’m pretty excited about this one because I love everything that is in the name! it’s like it was blended for me…. but it wasn’t!

Anyways opened up the pouch and was hit with a very yummy baking cookies kinda smell… which only got me more excited. I made 2 32oz pots with different sets of leaves to check to see how much different rations of bits affect the flavor. AKA… where is the majority of the flavor? In the leaves or in the decoration bits. I’m a curious cat today! And I didn’t put anything in these two pots… so now… drum roll

Pot that happened to get more decoration bits in my 3 and 1/2 random scoops:
Since this had a lot of white chocolate chips I expected it not to need sugar but I think it does. Since I was expected smooth nutty and sweet… and those flavor aren’t as present as I would like… I’m picking up more astringency than I normally do from franks blends. That might just be my taste buds on over drive looking for more sweet and nut flavors…
So yea… plain pot with lots of chips and things… disappointing. I’ll be trying it with milk and sugar later but I really like teas that I don’t have to put anything in.

Pot with no decoration bits!:
Yep… the bits make a difference. The black tea taste is much stronger in this pot. There’s some nuttiness but its missing the buttery smoothness that must have been coming from the chips.

Experiment completed… I’m having this with milk and sugar next.

This is so much more mellow than I remember which is awesome.
Subtlety sweet as long as you don’t add sugar.
I’m not getting any tea under the flavor though… :(

infusion tea might have THE most wonderful shop lay out that I have ever witnessed in person… it’s AWESOME

So I’m working my way up the smokiness green tea chain right now… last bag was a gun powder… so now we are at chunmee style. I like it. Where I feel that gun powders get a little tiring for me ( the way that too much jasmine in a row gets old ) so this is a great in the middle tea.

A little mellower in the smoky earthy category and mellower in green taste too. Some times I get almost a pouchong smoothness… sometimes more like a anji-ish flavor.

Yum. This one is a well balanced one too so depending on what I’m thinking about I’ll get a little more from flavor column A or a little more from flavor column B and I enjoy that. What’s me think about where my mind is…

Which is currently SCATTERED ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. AKA last weekend Orlando… this weekend CT… the weekend after that Baltimore… and then NYC… and then NC… THEN a week off… plus day job. I wonder which city this 2oz will last through…

I’m really liking this tea better the more I drink of it.
Toast and mint really go together well in this blend.

It’s pretty earthy for a green. Every once in a while I even get a sip that screams Pu-erh esque right in my face. And I like pu-erh so it’s fine but yea… really earthy. Nice and mellow to.
Surprisingly thin mouth feel when you would expect, from the earthiness, a very round, think feeling. So I would certify this as a light and airy tea. Not refreshing though since I don’t consider anything earthy as being very refreshing.
All of the vegitality of greens are absent but there is an excellent toastiness which pairs with the earth very well.
Yum.

MMMMmmmm I’ve been drinking too many flavored teas lately so I needed this.

This is calm and buttery with some toast and a little bit of flowery sweetness on the end. It’s balanced and has a robust flavor for a white tea.

Is good. I don’t think it’s the best ever but it is definitely better than a lot of silver needles I’ve had.

Without sugar this is a more minty rooibos blend with might seem to have some kinda fruit in there some where. Having had another pseudo chocolate tea before I’m again getting some kinda weird banana taste where you’d expect the chocolate to be.

With a pinch of sugar… really one spoon at most… it’s waaaaaaay to sweet. The mint gets covered up by the fruit flavors and the chocolate appears only way back there in a malty milky kinda way.

So without sugar it isn’t really what was advertised but it isn’t bad either. A little odd but I would have a cup again if it was around. It is slightly refreshing and tasty in the very least. I can see how people would be turned away by the odd fruit and mint combo. It didn’t bother me though.

I added sugar to this like I normally do when trying rooibos blends and it is very very sweet. So I’m going to try it without sugar before I pass any judgments.

Already I’m not so sure about this one. If there is chocolate in here it seems to be very milky and might be being covered up by the vanilla… and I think there might be fruit in here…
Researching HO!

Every once and a while I crave Jasmine tea and I’m on my second 32oz of this one this morning and I want more.
Yes… that is strange. So I’ve been trying to figure out how this tea is different from other jasmines.
The tea base seems a little more toasty sweet than I would expect from a jasmine tea and the base tea also has a very full mouth feel. Taking that into consideration it is probable this one isn’t bothering me after extended sippage because I would drink the base tea alone. I don’t think I can say that for the other jasmines that come to mind. So yea… nice base tea to start.
The jasmine flavor itself has no soapy or over scented qualities and none of the typical mistake markers. Ive even let it cool down to see if any bitter astringency come out and if there is any at all, after letting it sit out for an hour, it is no where near enough to bother me. I really don’t think there is any astringency at all though. ;P
So yea this is pretty solid. For my few and far between Jasmine cravings I need to remember that this is a good one so I don’t go off on more rants when I could have a perfectly pleasant time sipping this one.

“Brews a refreshing taste reminiscent of baked pear and orange blossoms with a crisp clean finish.”

BAKED PEAR MY BUTT!
Pear?!? What were they thinking! OK… moving on.
If you like citrusy… bergomonty… tangy… maybe a little hibiscusy.. type flavors this is probably right up your alley.
I don’t get any sweet out of it though… or baked… and it’s DEFINITELY not mellow. But it is a light tangy as opposed to a “I can’t taste anything but tang for five minutes after taking a sip”.
BIG… Bright… lighter/lightish flavor.
And again… this is not resteepable.

Hot it is pretty good.
I think the honey evens out all of the possible tangyness that could have come from the combination of black tea and strawberries. Smart flavor combination.

Cold… don’t drink it cold or cooling down or anything like that. It gets a medicinal, bitter and just weird weird quality to it.

I actually don’t think i can rate this numerically since the difference between hot and cold is soooo drastic.

I can drink a cup without making funny faces but I’m not at all happy about it.
It’s very tart and missing that pastry part to balance it out.
I’m going to try mixing it with “Birthday Cake” tea to see it then it will become magically delicious.

on first try this doesn’t taste go to me at all…
it seems to have a weird aftertaste that is almost medicinal…
I’ll put down a number after I try it again.

Yes…. I just found this in the back of my cupboard yesterday…
and it’s ok. The apple flavor is about as week as normal since no teas are as apple-y as I want them but, the cinnamon is nice and strong.
So I’m liking this better than other apple/cinnamon teas on the sheer niceness of strong cinnamon.
other than that though… bleh