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Another awesome sample from VariaTEA!

I think I’ve chosen the right tea for this note…this tea is super tasty! This is my second steep and it’s creamy and hay-like and I love that. I reminds me a little bit of my beloved white Rhino. Maybe first flush Darjeelings can be a thing for me?

First steep 3 minutes
Second steep 4 minutes

Thanks for sharing VariaTEA :)

Bird & Blend Advent Day 18 (18-December 2020)

Yay! I’ve had this one sitting in my online cart for a while, just waiting for an opportunity to try it first!

I feel like this is a great creamy peppermint tea. The peppermint is mellowed out for a delicious creaminess that makes it just perfect — still cooling, but not so in-your-face.

The creaminess is almost candy-cane like, but not actually because there’s no cloying sweetness, which is just delightful. The cacao I get just sense a very subtle hint of it somewhere in the mix, but I’m sure it’s helping to mellow the peppermint and add creaminess, which is always appreciated.

I’ll just add that there’s a hint of pineapple in the background as it cools. I’ve had that with a flavoured oolong many years ago, but I can’t recall which one now.

I’ve saved our sachets for a re-steep, so I’m excited to see how it’ll hold up.

It’s 6a here and I’ve completed my ecology exam! I have to submit my final ecology paper today as well and I’m just putting the finishing touches on the APA formatting. Next up, the peatlands final paper due next week. Woot, almost there! Buuuut before peatlands, I’m starting work early today, so I can finish early and watch the all the new Star Wars films back to back haha!

I woke up at 4:15a to get a shower and make tea so I could be as refreshed as possibly at such an early hour and of course I made my all-time favourite: Yuchi WMB. I can’t say enough good about this tea, it will be in my cupboard as long as it exists! It’s just perfect in every single way and never disappoints. The sweetness with the breadiness and a hint of malt is just such a perfect combination.

The base tea from Tea Hippie is alright. A different base or higher quality one may do their teas some favours.

There were no lemon chocolate drops in this sample, so I didn’t have to pick those out. However, there is a subtle hint of lemon here with what seems to be an ever so slight baked note? Maybe like the scent of a lemon tart baking from the neighbour’s house.

I don’t know that I’ve had a lemon dessert tea, so I’m excited to be able to try one, and honestly, I do enjoy it, I just wish the flavours were ever so slightly more.

Random aside: I had a queasy stomach after drinking the vanilla tea from TH, and I have it a little bit now. I initially chalked it up to not being the tea, but now I am starting to wonder. I’ll have to remember the next time I try one of their teas with vanilla.

A sample from VariaTEA!

This tea really reminds me of New Moon’s Immune Defence or Surgical Recovery (without the enjoyable clove) where the ginger kind of outweighs everything else, but is at least mellowed out by the other ingredients. I was excited to try a yerba mate because I don’t think I ever have, but alas, I can’t pick it out of all the other ingredients here.

It’s a tasty ginger tea and I appreciate the chance to have tried it out!

Thanks VariaTEA!

Bird & Blend Advent Day 17 (17-December 2020)

After waiting, and waiting, and waiting, the wee plant shop we get our plants from had the Calathea rosy back in stock yesterday! This morning I placed the order for her! We’ll do a curbside pick-up next week and I can’t wait!

Okay, so this tea had a bit of a repellent scent in the dry sachet — spicy, yet medicinal? I don’t know exactly how to describe it. Steeped, the scent is more mellow, but now sweetly spicy? Is that the cola nut?

Blech, stevia. No, thank you. I don’t even know if I want to continue drinking this, just after the first stevia-filled sip. I feel like I’m being punished trying to drink this to decipher the flavours. Am I drinking Vick’s VapoRub? Maybe this will be better chilled? I’m going to pop this in the fridge for now.

Time for some good tea, because I have my ecology exam at 5a tomorrow!

Lex does say it tastes like cherry cola, but it’s not something that should be a flavour of tea. She ended up tossing hers out.

I’m having kind of a sad day, but it’s my 8 year anniversary on Steepster so I thought I should at least smile about that!

I really had a craving for this tea from VariaTEA and I think I might almost be ready to say I enjoy earl grey cream teas? What! This tea is so tasty, I can’t get over it. It’s just perfectly comforting today and I want to drink every last bit that was sent my way!

Bird & Blend Advent Day 16 (16-December 2020)

The dry tea smells like…grapefruit? Yep, that’s grapefruit. Steeped, it smells like cinnamon and that trademark rooibos scent (that I’m not a fan of).

Lex has determined she does not like this one. To me, this tastes like rooibos with a hint of cinnamon, and nothing more. Sigh. It’s not bad, but it’s not eggnog, and I’d rather have a rooibos that doesn’t taste like rooibos at all haha!

Another awesome tea sent from VariaTEA!

I haven’t had a genmaicha in a long time now, years actually. I’m so excited for this one because banana!

The scent definitely has banana, so that bodes well. The initial sip has banana too, very much like a banana chip, which is what appeared to be in the dry tea. There’s a very subtle creamy aspect and a hint of sweetness that I can see being the marshmallow aspect here.

I did a re-steep of this and it’s just a delicious, which is such an upside to genmaicha. Even if some of the added flavours are lost, the genmaicha itself is so tasty! I’m going to do a third re-steep in the morning as well.

First steep 2 minutes
Second steep 3 minutes, 30 seconds

Overall, really enjoying this one. Thanks VariaTEA!

The teas from VariaTEA arrived today!

Wow, I really enjoyed the scent of this one dried! Lex didn’t and she’s the one who has traditionally enjoyed bergamot.

Also, loving the flavours here. The bergamot is here, but there’s a nice vanilla over it, mellowing it out and just making this a delicious cuppa.

Super helpful for re-focusing on my exam studying as well. Yay!

Thanks VariaTEA! So thrilled you popped this tea in the parcel! :)