CrowKettle

First cup of the day and it’s a herbal. The liquor is a pinkish red and it smells like citrus laced red berry jam, or strawberry rhubarb pie. Hot, it tastes jam sweet, with a smooth, floral rose bridge, and a tart hibiscus/citrus finish. I’m liking this a lot more than I though I would, particularly for the citrus, but it’s not going to win over those wary of hibiscus. It’s also not distinctly strawberry at this stage.

I’m going to put the rest in the fridge and revisit this note later. This tastes like it would be just the thing iced or cooled.

Update cold cup- now it’s cold and I’m getting the sour and citric lemonade aspect from it. When it comes to teas I’m not a sweetener person, but this is unsweetened lemonade and would probably taste great with some syrup or agave. The flavours are still more berry citrus hibiscus than strawberry but it’s an enjoyable, refreshing cup. I think I prefer it hot though, for the pie jam.

I tried to take of a sip of this after eating a bag of frozen blueberries and it was just bitter and awful; I thought I had wrecked this tea sample and would have to dump it. Luckily it was just the contrast of the blueberry sweetness, and rinsing my mouth helped. Yay for half blunders and commonsense! Lesson learned: never eat something sweeter than the thing you are drinking.

Ceylon is a very cutting, bright base as is apparent here. Not my favourite, and I was expecting something smokier, but this cooled off cup does yield a pleasant caramel apple flavour that I enjoy. The Ceylon makes the apple a tart green one but the cinnamon and sweetness rounds it out a bit. It’s actually a little bit like the baked, cinnamon, brown sugar apples my mom would make for dessert every once in a while.

So, not much bonfire from this one, except for a little cinnamon spice. The Toffee caramel is there though, and that’s the important part (for me). Thanks for the sample, Bluebird Tea Co.

I have a lot of these flowering teas; a whole sample bag full, actually. They boggle my mind a bit and I don’t really know how to describe them. Most seem to be gentle, floral, and jasmine infused, and that’s about it.

This one a bit different from those because the vegetal, grassy tea really comes through strong here. It’s not unpleasant or bitter, and couples nicely with the overall nuttiness of the cup. The smell is in-your-face cut grass but the whole thing still manages to taste delicate and light in it’s own way. It’s a little astringent in a drying way.

The instructions for most of these flowering teas say to pour boiling water on the ball to let it unfurl, but once it’s done that I think it’s best to treat it like a typical green if your attempting a second steep. These guys seem to be two-faced between drooping petals and razor talons.

The liquor is a light pinky amber and the flavour is as soft like nibbling on a flower. It doesn’t taste like much at first but then the floral honey sweetness creeps in. I barely taste the tea in this one. It’s mostly amaranth and subtle, but sweet, jasmine. It’s a delicate tea. It got a little sour as it cooled.

I have forgotten how much I love Silver Needle. The subtle floral notes, the juicy sweet finish, the hints of melon and cucumber, the fuzzy little leaves that I want to stuff my pillow with, etc, etc. Yep. I love this kind of tea very much. It’s like embracing your newly cleaned, warm, fuzzy blanket that you’ve had forever right after it comes out from the dryer. Best thing in the world. Pure contemplative comfort.

The flavours are gentle but they are also rich and intoxicating for what they are; this tea actually has a tendency to make my head spin if I drink too much of it. Big overload on crisp, floral sweetness and I’ve only had a few sips. This is the good stuff and reminds me why I love tea so much.

Second steep has sweet citrus notes and it’s creamy, like lemon and butter with a touch of honey.

Third steep tastes like first steep except it’s peppery!

Just rediscovered TV Tropes. And the sun. It’s a wonderful sunny day in the lower mainland- a perfect day to study for finals inside.

I was worried about this one since it mentioned hibiscus. That particular ingredient tends to overwhelm certain teas for me and, while I don’t dislike tart hibby I do get bored of it quickly. It doesn’t take center stage here, thankfully. It shares the spotlight with the pepper zing, lime, and other fruity notes, much like a well prepared spicy sweet and sour soup manages to balance itself out and keep things afloat.

It’s fruity, floral, spicy, and sour… pretty much everything except bitter and salty. The cup is a fresh, clean-tasting tea, without the mouth-drying puckering that’s usually associated with some of the more citric ingredients included here. A big thanks to Bluebird Tea co. for sending this my way!

I didn’t get a chance to drink much of this sample that Bluebird Tea Co. provided, but what I did taste was right up to par with other chocolate mint rooibos blends I’ve tried. I got sweet peppermint, then rooibos, with a little chocolate mixing throughout. My mother stole the rest of the mug, and she told me “it was delicious” while sipping away, so there’s that recommendation! :)

Edit: upon finishing the cup my mother stated again that it was “a very delicious tea” and asked me if I had more hidden anywhere. Definitely a big fan.

This sample is from a swap with Mitch.

I mixed this up with some cold milk and it made a pretty fine “not quite hot chocolate” beverage. Teavana tends to be a bit of miss with me but this tastes like my favourite Himalayan pink salt chocolates in liquid, low fat form. It’s got a chocolatey, gooey center and salted exterior that lingers. This isn’t something I’d order for myself (I’d rather eat all of the listed ingredients outright), but I’m quite happy to drink it here. The last bit of this is going to become a proper latte.

I was planning to drink the rest of this and write a note earlier in the day but life got ahead of me. I managed to pay a visit to my grandfather in the hospital with my mother, as well as see my grandmother and my silly lovebird whom she is pet-sitting. I’m so grateful that everyone lives close by!

Anyways, I picked this tea to be one of those neat little samples that Butiki provides. Initially, I tried comparing this to Cantaloupe & Cream to figure out which one I would “keep” but I can’t make up my mind. Cantaloupe, Watermelon, White Peony, Silver Needle- can I have them all?

This tea smells and tastes like the juiciest, sweetest piece of watermelon on the plate. There is a prevailing honey-sweet aftertaste that is tricking my mind a little bit right now. Maybe it’s because I’m drowsy that I’m wondering if I swallowed all of the watermelon seeds.

I love how this tea is refreshing and cool despite the warm temperature of the actual cup. The back story behind the tea’s name and the music clip included on the blog are cute too.

This still isn’t my favourite thing to drink unaltered but I do enjoy it as a frothy latte with a generous drizzling of raspberry syrup over the top. It’s a nice comfort drink on rainy night like this. Maybe it will be a fun iced latte when it decides to be hot and sunny again. :/

Without milk I found this to be a somewhat sweet but boring black tea. With milk it becomes a syrupy, creamy cup of goodness that wants to be besties with my pancakes. Of the five big mugs that I had over the last few days I never got past the analytical point of deciding it was delicious.

I can’t tell you all if it had nutty notes (I think it had nutty notes), or if its base was interesting or not, but I can say for sure that I drank it very fast and it was a challenge not to have a mug full on hand 24/7. I’ll be revisiting this tea in the fall, on miserable rainy days, and on lazy weekend mornings when I want, but don’t have access to, pancakes.

Thank you, OMGsrsly!

Floral, soapy, and sweet jasmine pearls! I love that strong jasmine can taste like bananas. It’s sometimes a more convincing banana than some intentionally banana flavoured teas.

This is a very nice and simple tea but jasmine isn’t something I really crave too often, and, when I do, I think I prefer the scented white leaves over green tea. I’m still grateful for the chance to try this and for Teavivre’s extremely generous sample system!

Thank you, Stacy, for this sample!

This tea does everything except outright transform into a solid Raspberry Truffle upon steeping. The candied raspberry center that has seeped into the surrounding sweet and creamy chocolate walls is something I can taste very vividly. Yet, despite that convincing profile the cup still manages to be all tea- and a smooth and mellow one to boot. This is delicious. I missed not having new Butiki teas to try.

Out of curiosity I added some milk to my first cup and it tasted as if I hadn’t added a thing. It’s the same level of creaminess with or without milk. Sorcery and witchcraft! I’ll pick up more of this one day.

I steeped this in a normal glass cup.

I wasn’t paying attention to the flavour of this one when I was drinking it; I steeped it to show a curious friend what a flowering tea looked like more than anything else.

The initial 2 minute steep was quite nice; it made a gentle and floral cup that even my friend enjoyed. The second steep was not so great. I should have poured it out after a minute and no more because the the thing got bitter in a ‘meh’ way really quick. Oh, well. Friend decided this was a good point to poke, prod, and dissect the flowering tea so that was the end of that. It was pleasant while it lasted!

Time to watch some Doctor Who and figure out what Devin Townsend songs I want on my iPod (the great internal debate).

Here’s another sample from OMGsrsly. She describes the flavour very well and I’m feeling lazy, so I’ll just add that I enjoyed this one with milk despite it being fruity. It also paired well with a mango gummy.

Sipdown! There was a week where all I drank was this tea. I’m not bored of it yet; the whole mobile flowers equipped with astringent razor blades impression never ceases to amaze me. I strive to keep an ounce of this around in my theoretical perfect tea collection.

Thank you, OMGsrsly, for this sample from our Victoria crawl! I’ve enjoyed all of the Steam teas I’ve tried so far.

Drinking this tea hot to lukewarm right now. This one as a strong juicy aroma that is reminiscent of SunRype Strawberry Kiwi juice that my roommate and I liked to put vodka in last semester. The flavour is similar although it’s not as sugary as the aroma would lead on. It’s still sweet, however, and with a little bit of puckering dryness. The overall affect reminds me of a iced fruity alcoholic drink. The name of this tea further emphasizes that association. There’s a syrupy aftertaste.

Oh, I should make a note of the base tea. It’s green, a little seaweedy, but very subtle and soft in this blend- I’m willing to gamble that it’s a sencha. Probably. I think the pieces of fruit are papaya.

I’m using the rest of this sample for a mug of iced tea tonight. Mmmm… that sounds good. I kind of want to take some of this down to Palm Desert with me. Eh, I’ll likely and up with a travel bag full of fall themed rooibos blends.

So much new tea! The order I placed with Teavivre two months ago finally arrived, along with my official second order from Butiki. To think if I had withheld myself for another week or two I could’ve tried that delicious caramel tea Stacy just put up. Next time. Only when I’m down to 50 teas.

Anyways, that puts me back to just over one hundred teas again, despite my best efforts to swap away large quantities this week. It’s like starting all over again. at least I have tiny samples that I can drink up and check off to make me feel better tonight.

This one is from OMGsrsly and it smells amazing in that sour, milky, sweet way that rich floral green oolongs have. If someone told me I was drinking Quangzhou Milk Oolong from David’s Tea right now I would just nod my head in agreement. I can’t discern much of a difference, although this one tastes and smells almost fruity. The finish and the aftertaste are sweet! I thought I was crazy for picking up fruit but Tea Sipper mentions pineapple notes so I’m not alone!

This is my first flowering tea and I didn’t know what to expect but it worked out well. I drank this with my roommate and we both enjoyed watching it unfurl and pop up.

The jasmine isn’t very strong, especially when compared to the likes of the yunnan jasmine white, but it is still pleasantly present. My roommate said it reminded her of buttery dragonwell- the green base is a very smooth one with little to no vegetal undertones. The finish contains a clover honey like sweetness. It’s filling in a rich, heady floral way but it’s never overpowering.

The great thing about this one is we were able to take our time admiring the flowering tea, get distracted and look at animal gifs on tumblr, and pour ourselves some more tea without having to worry about it getting overwhelmingly bitter or strong. This is a beautiful, easy going tea, with a decent flavour profile, even on its third steep.

This is a nice green oolong but I don’t think it will become a staple of mine. I’m on my second steep of this already and the floral and crisp mineral notes are the most dominant, with some milky butter creeping in subtly. It reminds me a bit of a tieguanyin oolong, in regards to floral crisp flavours (don’t ask me what kind of flowers).

This would be a good casual evening oolong; it’s not fancy or expensive and that makes it strangely accessible, if not particularly exciting.

I had a tiny tin sample of this that I passed along to school friend today. She’s not a big tea drinker but she likes green oolong! She’s my green oolong buddy.

Backlog from yesterday morning. Inspired by a combo breaker matcha-sugar high.

This makes the most amazing latte ever. Unicorns, mermaids, and, umm… nargles sing of its awesomeness in hidden realms. True fact. You’ll understand if you can taste the tangy cheesecake at the end.

I’m hoarding my two packets like a dragon hoards treasure, but I decided to make a cup before heading out yesterday. I had two sips before it was quickly seized by my mother and unceremoniously dumped into her coffee stained travel mug. That’s gross. I bet it tasted lousy in there.

Nom nom nom… If this is only half up to pair with the original blend then that must’ve been a pretty fine dessert tea.

The bag has a bit of a funky aroma but, in my opinion, it is largely overshadowed by the delicious syrupy sweet smell of gooey marshmallow (root). The liquid and bottom of the cup smell sweet too, but the flavour doesn’t quite reach that point of sugary ecstasy promised by the scent. The finish and aftertaste try to fulfill the sweetness but it’s only an impression. The first half of this cup tasted mostly of plain genmaicha before I hit marshmallow (drinking it too fast maybe).

I’m going to add some real marshmallows to the strainer next time and see how that goes. I assume it will be a mess and likely result in a massive sugar overload. Fun, fun, fun.

I’m not going to try to describe this citrus spice concoction. It isn’t half bad with some cream though.

I wish I’d tried this back when there were still sunny fall afternoons. It would’ve been perfect. It warms you up and freshens things out.

Sipdown! Chocolate teas and rooibos blends have a rough history with me but I enjoyed this one despite it all. Before I order more I want to check out Silk Road’s Chocolate Panda herbal blend again, but it’s a toss up between the two.

This blend made me realize that rooibos can smell like old cigarettes/cigars/tobacco (can you tell I don’t smoke?) and, against all logic, I actually don’t mind it at all. I guess I enjoyed the odor of gasoline as a child too, so their is prescience for liking awful, harmful smells on this end. Yay me?