Daniel Scott

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Hi, guys. Still here. So sorry I have not been around at all. About mid-way through the winter school semester, life sort of collapsed around my ears. Turns out that a full-time job with full-time school and learning issues was just a dumb thing to attempt. Pretty much any part of my life that was not school or work closed down, and I have been very depressed for a while from the stress. There was a period in there where I actually even doubted that I still like tea.

After the semester finished, I took a good MONTH off from EVERYTHING (well, except work because I like to eat). I didn’t go on Steepster, barely glanced at Facebook, took a LOT of time to myself to recover and come out of a very black bout.

But I am back! I have something of a plan for next year, and life is back in a better swing. I am my usual chipper self again, and back to lots of tea drinking. I will start reviewing again soon, I promise, and will check in on all the people who added me in my absence. My, you people had faith!

So hello again everybody! Missed you all, and sorry I have not been around to celebrate awesome teas you found and lattes you made. Let me know in comments anything you think I should know that I missed!

So I think I need to call this entry, “The First Time Tea Really DID Taste Like Juice To Dan.”

Some of you guys may remember how disappointing the DAVIDsTEA Spring Collection was last year. It was mostly just…flat, taste-wise. I think I still have a cup or two’s worth of Tangerine Dream in my cupboard which I meant to drink up but didn’t because meh.

But I secretly loved this one, and got a whole tin of it full before it was gone from stores. Then proceeded to pretty much forget about it entirely.

I re-discovered it on my shelf the other day when I was looking for tea that I could keep down with norovirus in my system. I disregarded this as a possible choice, but vowed to keep it in mind as something to drink later.

I pulled it out this morning, and popped the lid off – it’s still full, I’ve basically had none of it since I bought it. Great investment, huh? I had to wince at how much this looks like an old Teaopia tea: a whole tin of cheap sencha with some fruit chunks in it. I’m increasingly biased towards teas with a sencha base, as fewer and fewer of them hold up for me as time goes by.

Uniquity has a review for this tea stating that she(? correct me if I’m wrong) thinks it tastes like – or the taste reminds her of – Tim Horton’s peach juice. I scoffed when I first read that, because juice is so obviously a much stronger-tasting substance, and I always used to be vaguely annoyed/subconsciously envious of people who seemed to have much more developed taste buds than me.

But now… No, she’s right, I tasted it this morning. Never mind the description of it as a green tea that’s mildly fruity, it darn well tasted like juice! That could be largely blamed on the amount of sugar I had in it, but I’ve used that amount of sugar before and never thought tea tasted like juice.

Then again, my tastes are definitely changing/developing in ways I never expected: I recently tried a cup of Fruitopia, something which I used to think of as refreshing, but which I haven’t had in at least a year. When I did, I was shocked to my core at how much sugar I can now taste in it; it’s literally so sweet that it coats my mouth and makes it sticky. There’s no way that shit is “refreshing” or hydrating.

Anyway. There was definitely a strong peach flavour that came through, despite the fact that this tea is meant to be mango and guava flavoured. I’ve been trying more guava-themed stuff lately, so I think I’d recognize that, but I just didn’t taste it. It’s peach and mango. There also seems to be some citus notes underneath…I was thinking it’s not sharp enough to be lemon, so orange or tangerine.

Maybe my thoughts are now biased because of sencha, but the base did not hold up like I remember. It was a little queasy-making because it was so sweet and the base apparently collapses when you add sugar (there’s a mental image), so pretty much for the first time ever with a flavoured tea, I steeped another cup clear. (New leaves, mind you, because I have way too much stuff to justify re-steeping much of anything. Plus, that’s not a fair comparison.)

And…yeah. Part of me is missing that level of sweetness, but the flavour seems better now. Of the fruit, at least – it’s not as sickly. The base does not improve, though, and it’s more obvious that I do not like it.

Oh well. It might be nice iced, and 100g isn’t much when you are making 700mL of it at a time in little pitchers. I’m sure I will find a use for it.

The first tea that hasn’t made me puke since I came down with Norwalk.

…Yay?

Seriously. I essentially got the weekend off, and I COULDN’T DRINK TEA.

Whoop, whoop, I am set up for school! Dad spotted me a bit of money to cover tuition until my Christmas bonus comes in on Friday (I hope), and I got all my tea gear in my locker, if not my tea – sugar, spoons, filterbags, wee travel mug. I went to SBUX tonight to test the hopeful hypothesis that they will give me hot water for free after the Market closes as long as I don’t need a cup, and this hypothesis has so far proved correct. Yes.

So I’m finally getting around to my sample of this that I’ve had floating around since…it came out. Yeah, that long. I let this steep longer than I meant to, but it seems none the worse for wear.

And ooooh pineapple!

I’m such a fan of pineapple-flavoured stuff. Not so much the actual pineapple, because I have difficulty with the texture. But juice and flavouring, that I can do.

This one just has an awesome balance of flavours, to me. There are some people who seem to like the base to be stronger than the flavour in a flavoured tea. I don’t quite understand that; if I wanted only tea flavour, I’d drink a straight tea. And I do drink straight teas, but I generally want a strong flavour in a flavoured tea…and a base which is not weak, but which takes to the background and meshes well with the flavour.

That is the balance I’m getting here. The oolong is nice, but I’m more aware of the pineapple. Pretty much exactly what I want when I picked up something called “Pineapple Oolong.” It’s very bright, and the bit of floral I get at the back of the sip is actually working with the other flavours. That’s nice, because floral notes sometimes make me rather queasy. Then again, that may only be when they are added to the tea and not natural to it.

There also seems to be another fruit in here. From the description, I’m guessing it’s apricot? It comes out a little more as the tea cools. I bet this would be amazing iced!

I want to give this a couple more shots, as well as try it iced, but I think this might end up being a cupboard keeper.

Very nice, anyway. And very relaxing, which I need just now. I had my first Women’s Studies class today, and I really don’t know about the prof… I was about 3-4 minutes late because the building the class is in is numbered in a really confusing way, and I went down the wrong hallway at first. She did not give me a chance to sign the attendance sheet. Um, okay? If this were even the second class, I would accept that, but geez, people coming late because they couldn’t find the room is something that HAPPENS on the first day!

And then she rushed through her PowerPoint slides and didn’t give us more than a few seconds per slide to write anything down – some slides she didn’t even show because she got so caught up TALKING, which I guess must be the only way to communicate! And her written notes suck – no complete sentences, because she’s one of those types that puts up the barest sketch of notes and then “fills in” during class.

ADHD makes my working auditory memory virtually non-existent, so I depend on clear written notes, and the shitty notes she gave us aren’t even on the student Blackboard, so apparently she’s also one of those types who withholds written material to blackmail people into coming to class. So now I have a few pages full of half-finished sentences, and the barest idea of what we discussed in class because I can no longer really remember it. In a few days, I will have no memory of anything she said at all.

I came to the library stressed almost to the point of tears, but the tea is helping immensely. I am definitely never going to her class from now on without tea in hand. And maybe a discreet voice recorder. But mostly tea.

So I’m back in school, and finally have regular access to some sort of computer again. Albeit not mine, which is just not the same thing. Particularly since I can’t access my iTunes…

Still, back in school! I managed to snag a locker someone forfeited from last semester – whoop, you just feel like tourist in school until you get a locker. This is also mighty important when you’re Canadian and need a place to stash all your winter gear – heavy coats on top of books are not fun to cart around a uni campus. And I needed a place to put my tea so I wasn’t hauling bags of leaves around in my bag all the time! So yeah, I got a locker and gleefully stashed my coat in it and went to my second class.

Which was naturally interrupted by one of the school’s normally-rare fire alarms. So I spent most of that class outside with no coat, and getting my Chucks wet in the snow I would otherwise avoid. What can you do.

My school has installed these clean, cold water dispenser things by all the water fountains, so people can easily fill up water bottles! So cool! They don’t dispense hot water, unfortunately, so I still have to trek to a coffee shop/food establishment for that. Still, guess I could try out the shaken bottle of matcha method. People do do that with cold water, right?

Anyway, I ran through a couple of my teas today, but I got a little sick of tasting their flavour being ruined by being brewed in cardboard cups. (I need to remember to bring empty travel mugs that I can brew in!) So I threw up my hands and said, cheap bagged it is so that I don’t keep wasting my stuff. And I went to Timmie’s and got this.

Maybe my standards are low at the end of the day, maybe they added too much sugar (no, I know they did), but this isn’t that bad. I haven’t had a plain EG in forever – what should it taste like? This reminds me more of black licorice than anything citrus. The base could be stronger. It’s not good. But it’s pretty pleasant nevertheless. I could stand to have this again.

Number one, the hard drive on my home computer is apparently worn out (I’m using my mother’s laptop to post this currently), so I may not be around for a bit until we get a new computer, or I get onto the computers at school; whichever comes first. (And yes, I realize I have not been around much lately anyway, but I expected my posts to increase a bit now that I will be at school more. Plus I always feel it fair to post when I know I’m going to be absent.)

In the meantime, if anyone knows a way to transfer the data from the busted hard drive to a new one, I’d appreciate hearing it. We stupidly haven’t backed it up since the last computer switch (cats kept unplugging the external hard drive, so we lazily gave up) and we stand to lose 15 years worth of saved data. Boo.

Secondly, I stopped posting much about Christmas teas…partially because I was so busy, and partially because my Christmas kinda sucked. It’s very First-World-Problems to complain about your gifts, and I did get nice gifts – some nice sweaters and stuff, some school money. I know that I am normally hard to buy for, and I normally never make a list. But this year I actually made a list – mostly tea stuff, like a matcha bowl – and pretty much no one got me a damned thing on it. The only person who got me anything tea-related was my father, by some sheer luck – he doesn’t even live with me, but he knows I like Doctor Who and he got me a TARDIS bathrobe (which is awesome) and a TARDIS teapot (which is AMAZING and which I have wanted forever), and then my family managed to chip the latter by the end of Christmas Day shuffling it carelessly around the kitchen. Oh, and my sister got a copy of a PS3 reboot of a game series that I mostly play – not her – which she is spitefully hoarding in her room even though the console she is also hoarding in her room is a PS2 and won’t play that disc, and even though I let her play several hundred dollars worth of games I buy. So I had to buy my own copy. The overall feeling is just…no one really cares what I actually wanted, have a sweater.

Oh, and I was sick Christmas, and spent it eating chicken noodle soup.

So yeah. F-ck Christmas, and all associated tea flavours. I think I will opt out next year. I do better job getting myself what I want, and I’m sure some of my family members feel the same way. Maybe next year we can give each other money.

Finally…since this tea is discontinued and presumably not coming back, can I review it now?

Because I actually really, really like it…if made properly. Which is good, because I was never installed with a resist-sales feature, so I ended up with a ridiculous amount of this – probably more than a pound.

It smells so amazing, see, so that every time I smell it I have this odd desire to acquire more of it. It smells like…lemon candies, or something. Just yum.

Steeped, it is not anywhere near as strong as you would think from the smell, which is where my steeping preferences for this come in. I do this one at least double-strong, and I steep it for at least a half-hour in an iced-tea pitcher before I put the pitcher in the fridge. Generally, I also leave the leaves in to continue cold-steeping.

And it’s great! Really crisp and refreshing, a bit like lime Kool-Aid, but less sweet and more rejuvenating. If you have any lime mojito pre-mixed stuff around, it’s also nice to pour a splash of that into this tea to pump it up.

Unfortunately, the above described method is not a terribly cost-efficient use of tea leaves – even rooibos. Still, if you have some of this around that you’d like to use up, try that.

I hope at some point that Teavana tries for another tea with a similar taste profile, but stronger flavour. A lemon-lime theme shouldn’t be a bust, but the flavour needs more punch.

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas – December 15

I absolutely love breakfast. It is by far my favourite meal of the day; something that I sometimes fall asleep looking forward to. I don’t like breakfast when it consists of little but sugary stuff, or something I have to gobble on the go (which happens far too often for my liking) – no, I need breakfast to be large and hearty and full of fat and protein for the rest of the day.

Eggs. Eggs are just about my favourite food in the world. Cheese. Toast. Bacon, which is pretty much the only part of a pig I will eat. Okay, maybe ham sometimes. Turkey and chicken. (What? Those are totally breakfast foods.) Hash browns. Tons of spice! Salsa. Cream, especially over eggs. Pancakes, with butter and fruit and syrup. Oatmeal, with whatever crazy things mixed in that you can think of. Cups of milk and fruit juice. Aaaaand…tea, of course! Usually black tea, but I will make wild exceptions.

I am not, however, the sort of person who makes “breakfast smoothies,” although I do like smoothies. Too much fruit, I guess, and not enough meat or eggs. Oh, and most people think of a breakfast smoothie as something containing a banana, and I am not supposed to eat bananas. In fact, that is the reason I did not order this tea when it was first released – I noted that the ingredients included banana. Granted, I’ve never been clear on how problematic banana might be when it’s steeped, given that no one explained to me exactly how my allergies could be triggered by bananas, just “don’t eat them.” So I’ve avoided teas with banana for a while now, just to be safe.

More recently, I’ve finally, tentatively, tried tiny amounts of tea with banana and worked up to full cups, and determined that I don’t seem to get any kind of reaction to steeped bananas. Cool.

So I’ve had a few cups of this now, and really quite like it. I’ve also taken it to work, and made it into an actual tea smoothie with mango and coconut puree, and that was awesome.

There’s quite a bit of leaf in this little packet, since it’s honeybush; I might be underleafing it some and compensating with the steep time, but I’ve gotten 3 cups of it so far and there’s maybe one or two more cups left. The smell of it is quite sweet, and really overpowering; it reminds me a lot of what Rainbow Sherbet did to my kitchen. I let this cool down because I have it with (what else?) breakfast, so it’s usually not that hot by the time I get to it. But that’s fine, because smoothie, right?

The first time I had it, it was sort of sweet and fruity in a non-specific way…but I didn’t steep it more than a few minutes. This time I gave it several minutes, and that seems to have changed the taste profile considerably. The strongest flavour that comes through here now is definitely banana, which is strikingly weird to me simply because of how long it’s been since I actually had banana.

Underneath that, the flavour that is suddenly coming out more is actually honeybush, not the other fruit. I’m not entirely certain if I like that; something about honeybush is a little weird to me. Combined with the other fruit, there’s almost a bubblegum aftertaste that reminds me of stuff dentists put in your mouth.

Still, it’s pretty good. My impression of it on various cups has ranged from “quite good,” to “awesome,” so I almost think it’s one I’d want to experiment with and maybe I should get a bag of the re-blend while I still can.

Oh, and I just tried adding a drop of cream to the last of this cup. That brings out the smoothie experience a lot, since it adds that smoothie creaminess, which is lacking in the flavour alone.

52teas 12 Teas of Christmas – December 14

Oh. My. God. F-ck December, seriously. (Yes, this is why I haven’t been around…)

Work. My lord. I could go on and on about it – although really, most of it is just “retail at Christmas.” Our AGM went down to our offsite storage and re-organized, so I didn’t know where anything was anymore, and then nobody kept track of what we were using in the tracking forms I’ve made, and then we ran out of small shopping bags for people’s purchases, and then H/O said we could only order supplies on Sundays and we ran out on a Thursday, and supplies take 5 week days to come, so we were out of small shopping bags for 8 days. We get HUGE shipments of merch and tea to unpack on days that we’re really busy, or understaffed, or both. Our sales goals are too high. Etc. Etc.

There’s good things about Christmas, of course. People spend more on gifts than they do on themselves, typically, and while it’s often fun to find a few bags of tea that someone will like, it’s way more fun to put together a smashingly grand, gift-wrapped set of tea, tins, and teapot all wrapped up in pretty paper and a bow. The sense of accomplishment when you wave the customer on their way with a well-put together gift they’re excited about is higher, anyway. And, possibly because it’s Christmas, we’re getting merch we normally never get. OMG BREVILLE MILK FROTHERS!

But I’m so tired. I’m officially pulling 8-hour days, but it’s more like 10 or 11 – once more than 12 – when you add in submitting paperwork, ordering supplies, and staying behind to finish things like unpacking shipments the team members couldn’t get to during the day. (This is by choice, mind you; because one thing you need to understand when you take on a leadership position is that it’s not someone else’s problem anymore.) Our poor GM has it even worse. I watch her now to make sure she eats. Oh, and there’s construction on a new Target going in a few doors down, and the DUST! The dust is unbearable, and my asthma is killing me!

And my cats are sick, so everyone in my house is losing sleep over that – waking up to clean kitty puke, trying to get them to eat small amounts every few hours because they won’t eat more than two bites at a time. They’re off to the vet’s this morning.

But my little box arrived from 52teas a few days ago, and for the past few nights I have been coming home tremendously happy because I have a little packet to look forward to and rip open!

I was pleased the first one was Cotton Candy – my all-time 52teas favourite thus far – as it seemed like a good omen for the rest of the box. I think – though I could be remembering wrong – that this was the first tea with the new base, and I do adore the new base. I always had a problem with the old black base, in that it was astringent enough to nearly ruin some of Frank’s teas for me. The new base is infinitely better in my opinion – incredibly smooth with a real depth of flavour.

This is basically the zenith of flavoured tea, if you ask me. I’m still choked it wasn’t made permanent. It’s a little hard for me to explain why I like this one so much, because it’s not as simple as just saying that “it tastes just like cotton candy.” It doesn’t, in fact; it tastes like tea – a deep, rich tea – with a flavour overlay that is like your sweetest, most nostalgic memory of what cotton candy tastes like. Cotton candy that is sweet, but never so overwhelmingly sweet that you get sick, sweet without being sticky or cloying or sickening. The way the best childhood treat tastes only after all imperfections have been removed through a fuzzy mind filter of simple joy.

But I’ve never had it cold. I’ve heard it’s good cold, but since it was so amazing the first time I had it hot, I’ve never bothered to experiment. This time, I figured I would give it a go. I didn’t have the patience for a cold-steep, so I decided to ice it. I’ve already had a cup out of this packet (actually on the fourteenth), so I dumped the rest into my infuser (overleafing it some), brewed it hot, dumped in a few ice cubes and then put it in the freezer for a bit to chill it quickly.

…Then I feel asleep at the computer desk. Long week, you know?

WHUPS. Cotton Candy black tea slushie, anyone?

1) I can’t wait until Christmas is over, and it’s not even December. We are all dead walking.

2) This tea. I can’t decide if I like it or not, to be honest. I feel like there’s nothing wrong with it, nothing to complain about, yet I don’t decisively feel as though I like it.

When I smelled the dry leaf in the store, I went right ahead and picked up the 50g bag rather than a 10g sample. It just smells that good, smooth and sweet and creamy. (Also, I really liked the mellow TOTM packaging. The last packaging I liked this much was when Southern Belle was TOTM.)

The leaves are quite large and unbroken when steeped, really something to see! A teaspoon pretty much explodes in my Tea Master.

Taste-wise, it is not overwhelmingly, artificially vanilla. There’s a creamy vanilla that rides at the back of the sip, not up front, while a floral green oolong is first and foremost. There’s a slightly sharp note to this cup that I haven’t had before, but I think that must be because I lost track of the steep time and gave it a few more minutes than usual while I was getting together some breakfast.

And maybe that’s what makes me a little unsure about it, the floral notes with the vanilla. Do I like that? Or not? Still can’t decide, but I’m still drinking it, so it can’t be bad. If I were more in love with oolongs, I’d probably adore this, but I’m still courting oolongs with some hesitation, like maybe we need to get to know each other a bit better before we move in together and split closet space.

So I had an incredibly stressful day at work yesterday. If I said that a girl went home sick and we had to re-do the zoning schedule on the fly and my best hour on the wall got cut, that would make no sense to most of you. But that is what happened – although it was okay in the end, I still kicked butt. We all did, so we’re going to have fun beating that by ten percent next year. But my day started out on that bad note.

And then someone at work cheerfully told me (as a joke? I guess?) that they had a dream about making out with me and I reacted by stiffly freezing and slightly panicking because I am horrible with social interaction stuffs which are not work related. So we both ended up horribly embarrassed and not looking at each other, and they apologized for freaking me out, which they did not in the way I think they mean – I think they think it is a sexual orientation thing because of that comment, which means they may be offended in that, “oh that was threatening to you, was it,” way, but I am actually bi and just a huge goober SO WHAT A MESS. And I do not want to talk to anyone else at work about it to sort it out in my head because I am in a leadership position and that is the worst position to be in and spread gossip.

ARGH.

And then I came home and binged (which I actually have not done in I-don’t-know-how-long, I have been good about fishes and veggies and fruitses and moderation) on baklava, macaroons, popcorn, ice cream, chocolate, brownies, candy, Turkish delight, 7-Up with vanilla syrup and orange extract (tastes like orange cream soda), and a donair in there somewhere to pretend I was actually eating dinner and then I fell asleep.

Then I got up this morning and was like, KILL ME. And I can’t even drink a detox tea because I have to work. Oh, and I forgot about the time change, so I’m up super early when I could have slept in.

So like.

Peppermint. Tea.

If nothing else, I can calm my stomach because it’s making threatening twinges like it wants to go into murderous spasms of betrayal. I mean, like I said, I’ve actually been treating it well lately. It took me forever to find the 10g of this I have, and now I really know the ridiculous number of teas I have. Wow.

I probably should have read the other tasting notes before I brewed this up. Other people are saying 30-60 seconds. Um. I left this steeping on the counter for like, 10 minutes. Well, now I know why people say only a few seconds. OH MY GOD, THE MINTY BURN. coughs

I might actually have to stop drinking this because the mint is so strong that I’m getting that funny feeling in my stomach you get when you accidentally swallow toothpaste. It’s just such a huge kick-to-the-face peppermint taste.

Some weeks ago, my mother took me out for dinner for my birthday, and since the waiter wouldn’t tell me the brand of tea they offer, I played it safe with a peppermint. I remember that pot very fondly, but the difference between that bagged tea and this is mind-blowing.

I don’t want to rate this until I’ve tried it at a shorter steep time! It’s not unpleasant taste-wise (I absolutely love both peppermint and spearmint), but it’s a bit tough to handle at this strength.

Steep time, beware!

Bit of a backlog: My mom needed me to come in to her store today and price-sticker stuff for their grand opening on Saturday, so I did that. On the way there I picked up some steamed milk at SBUX to make this one into a latte when I got there.

I had nearly forgotten how good this one is. It basically remains the best chocolate tea I’ve ever had.

What’s really weird about that is that this is also a chocolate mint tea. And I hate chocolate mint, to the point that the smell of it can literally bring bile to my mouth if it’s strong enough.

But I like this one. Why?

I guess the mint is soft enough, perhaps? It’s like the mint is cushioned in a soft blanket of cashmere chocolate, while other chocolate mint things are like I’m being stabbed with peppermint and cocoa. Ugh.

Also, I picked up a bottle of caramel syrup from Second Cup on the way home (haha, gotta spread out my small bit of coffee-shop business) so I can mix it up with my vanilla syrup. I’m currently having a caramel matcha latte made with vanilla almond milk. HOLY BALLS, it’s amazing!

When KaiMatcha first appeared on Steepster with a win-free-matcha promotion, I was quite harsh on them. Not because I am out to be a mean person, but because I prefer to give criticism to any tea companies that may be genuinely trying rather than simply let them do something I do not like – I want as many tea companies to be successful as possible. I think that helps the tea-drinking community.

I did not like their website. I still don’t. In fact, I hate their website. I do not object to a focus on health benefits so much – I think tea should sell itself on taste alone, but I also really believe in the health value of tea, and I know some people have been put off by bad experiences with tea – but I do not get a welcoming feel from the site. When I look at it, I feel like I ought to be ordering a StairMaster and getting some free knock-off Tupperware because I ordered NOW!

Am I wrong about that? Am I wrong to think the general public will feel the same way? Perhaps. Maybe they will look at it differently. I don’t know. I did not offer criticism to KaiMatcha on the basis of, “you suck,” but on the basis of, “I am suspicious that you might suck; this looks sketchy to me.”

But I did see KaiMatcha say in the tea vendor’s thread that they felt they have a very quality product and were disappointed no one was interested in trying it yet. Their confidence in their product was interesting. I ultimately felt that I would wait to see what Steepster said about this company and its product. I kept the review page for KaiMatcha Premium open in a saved tab, and refreshed it every day to be there for the first reviews.

When they rolled in and were highly positive, I immediately ordered a can to see for myself. (The one good thing about their website: they take Paypal, hah.)

It arrived today. I shouldn’t drink any THIS late, but I am really upset about some drama at work I will have to deal with, and I having been wanting to know for myself what it is like. So I decided to whisk up a quarter-teaspoon to try it straight and then just dump half of it.

The can is nice. It is sealed much like the Teavana matcha I’m already used to, with a pop top and a screw cap. When I opened it, wow! What a fantastic, fresh, sweet smell. I mean, really sweet.

It didn’t foam up that great, but I’m 100% sure that this is because I’m not whisking it in wide enough bowls. I really want a good stoneware matcha bowl! With a spout, preferably. I can’t seem to get a darn thing to foam at home, even when I get beautiful foam at work (so it’s not my technique). So “low foam covering 70% of the surface” is actually doing better than all the other matcha I’ve tried so far.

I had this straight, no sweetener at all, and…

It’s totally drinkable. Now I finally understand what people mean when they say that good matcha should not be bitter. This must be good matcha, because it’s not bitter in the slightest and it’s very smooth. A bit sweet, a bit creamy. It tastes like green veggies and not like bitter grass drenched in dog urine. It’s not my thing in the sense that I will never be a big green drinker; but I can tell that it is a very good green even though it does not personally excite me. The very fact that I can drink it straight immediately pushes it above a 90. That it is this good at its price point puts it at least on par with Jade Dragon (one of my few actual green tea loves). This is only a few sips worth, so I will give it some more experimental time and report back if I am adjusting the rating or have more to say about it.

…Oh wait. It’s gone stone cold now (haha, so much typing) and I managed to slurp it (which you can’t do when it’s hot) and discovered an intense creamy sweetness at the back. I’m tired, so I just realized that I was not trying to really aerate my sips for the best taste. Of course, I never remember to do that 100% of the time; but if I drank it more thoughtfully, this would be a very rich and drinkable green. Also, this tells me that this matcha would also be good iced.

I think that’s enough for 100.

Wooow, this tea is not faring well in the tasting notes on here, is it? Too tart, sour, tastes like soap, weird clashing flavours, etc…

I accidentally over-steeped this one like whoa. I have no idea how long it steeped for before I got back to it, but from the deep dark reddish color and the fact that I could smell hibiscus across the kitchen(!) I knew it would be tart beyond saving with sugar.

And it is. But…I don’t mind it! Normally I wouldn’t be able to stand hibiscus overpowering a tea, but this time the hibby is so strong that I actually can’t taste anything else, and…as one note by itself, I weirdly don’t mind it. I said something derisive about teas that taste like sour gummies recently, but I actually like sour gummies sometimes. This is like that. It kinda makes me think I might like plain hibiscus tea sometimes, too.

I won’t rate it though, because I literally can’t taste anything else here except maybe a faint hint of cinnamon; and I’m sure that’s not what DT would consider this tea to be at its best, so I don’t think that’s fair.

So. I expected to be able to review a bunch of samples today and yesterday. My plan for my day off yesterday and today was to sit down happily with some tea and play my new copy of old-skool Riven.

That did not happen.

You see – work before play – I decided to first update some Ops forms I created for work and print off more. We absolutely need some for Tuesday. Which was the point when I discovered that the ENTIRE Microsoft Office Suite had mysteriously vanished from our computer.

My sister – in a stunningly self-centered move – uninstalled it because of a minor, annoying, Word-related prompt that appears at start-up. (This is left over from a tech-stupid, failed attempt on our part to install a more complete language pack to Windows.) My sister – who is disabled and does not work or go to school, unlike the rest of the family – somehow decided, “No one uses this, anyway,” and deleted Word, Excel, Powerpoint…

So I spent all of yesterday trying to System Restore and whatnot to fix it. De nada. We are now stuck with no working word processing/spreadsheet programs except crappy free ones. So unless we can borrow old installation discs off someone, we will probably need a new computer. Like we can afford that. Oh, and in the process of trying to fix that, I temporarily couldn’t get Riven to work, either. What a day. I had to vent, guys.

But my 52teas order came today! That’s such an improvement over yesterday, seriously. Just that. Huge improvement.

I decided to try this one first. When I cracked open the bag, wow, what a great smell! It’s very lemon-y on top, but there’s definitely something like butter and cake underneath that. Very promising.

I steeped this up – about 12oz worth with a scant teaspoon of rock sugar – and…the taste is…the taste is… Hmm. Um.

I’m not sure what this tastes like. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to taste like. Does cake taste like this? It’s pleasant enough, but I don’t get “cake.” It’s quite lemon-y.

Overall, it’s pleasant, but I wasn’t sure what to think of it. There’s a quality to it that’s almost like a tiny bit of sourness or astringency, and a tiny note of bitterness. I decided to add just a touch more sugar (white sugar, so that it would dissolve) and some milk. My instinct was that the milk would mellow this one out.

Wow! Did the milk ever help! I’m not so sure about the sugar because I can really taste it; but mellowed with milk, the better notes of this tea really shine through. It’s got a nice balance of lemon and sweet to it. I definitely think I taste something closer to “cake” at the bottom of the sip now (not the back, mind you, the bottom, let’s be specific here), but…damn that white sugar! Seems to be killing things. Man, why did I ever put this nasty stuff in my tea?! Never again, I swear. I’ll just suffer through it not being as sweet! Blech!

VERY nice with a bit of sugar and milk, anyway. Definitely has a “comfort food” factor to it, a good gaming tea!

No tasting notes? I guess this one is that boring, huh?

I’m not feeling well, so I’m drinking cup upon cup of this with a bit of honey. I’ve always liked plain raspberry leaf as a “wellness” tea – it re-infuses decently, you can steep the crap out of it, and it’s so light that a little bag of it goes a long way. I bought this from Teaopia way back when, and it still seems fine – not stale or anything. Admittedly, it looks like grass clippings, and how do you know if grass clippings have lost a lot of flavour? Still, I’ve been told that raspberry leaf keeps very well, and it seems to taste about the same to me!

It’s kind of bland, I guess, but if you’re drinking nothing but this, it seems tastier after a while. I’m guessing that’s because the memory of more exciting teas simply fades from your mind.

…No, seriously, this is very simple and comforting to drink. Very hydrating as well! Yesterday was the first Saturday in a while that I didn’t go home from work with a dehydration headache. (Yes, I know, that’s really stupid when you work in a liquid store, but weekends are usually so busy that I don’t get a chance to drink much as it is, and then I usually end up drinking something with a lot of caffeine and sugar, so that doesn’t help.)

Even given how light it is, I still appear to have used up at least 25 of my original 50 grams. I really need to find where to buy plain raspberry leaf loose now, because I don’t want to give this up, and I don’t want to resort to raspberry leaf TEA BAGS! /snob

(It needs to be a place that takes Paypal…anyone know of one?)

I should note that this is awesome to just put in the cup and sip through a bombilla as well, and just keep topping up the cup until it’s tasteless to get the most goodness from the leaves. A bit of a pain to clean, but hey. No pain, no gain.

Edit: Oh yes, and I got a huuuge haul from DT the other day that I’m excited about! I should have time in the next couple of days to try some saaamples!

Heads up guys, I got some lawyers on my tail about reviewing Teavana teas on here (apparently it looks like statements endorsed by the company if you have lawyer goggles on), so I will not be doing that for the time being. Sorry, you all will have to taste them yourselves!

Don’t be surprised if some of my reviews vanish, or for this blog to vanish entirely…but I will be contacting people personally if that’s the case. I’m not completely sure what’s going to happen yet, or what I may have to take down, but I will not be touching Teavana teas for the near future. I have a HUGE backlog of samples from other tea companies, so I may get to that some evenings instead. Otherwise, since Teavana teas are mostly what I’m drinking now (and I am not around as much to comment on other people’s tasting notes), I may appear to disappear. I’m not actually dead, never fear.

P.S. To whoever is watching me so closely, could you do me a favour and pass on to the appropriate department that we need more Earl Grey/Earl Grey Creme on a continual basis? MUCH APPRECIATED, KISSES.

Not a terribly exciting blend.

It’s got no “wow” factor to it, but it also doesn’t have anything terribly wrong with it. It’s quite tart without sugar of course, but you could have guessed that just from the name. Citrus, right? Turns out this blend actually has both grapefruit and hibiscus, which just has to be sour overkill. Not a good one to drink if you like unsweetened tea…unless, I guess, you’re a big fan of either grapefruit or hibby.

With a small bit of sugar I’m finding it pleasant enough to drink…a calmer, citrus-themed morning tea is how I’m thinking of it, and I’m having it with toast and eggs. (I’ve been trying to review these apart from meals so that there’s no taste interference; but that’s not possibly lately with my hours since I’m only ever home long enough to eat and sleep, so feel free to bear in mind that I’ve had egg in my mouth.)

I think it’s mostly the grapefruit that puts me off this one. I truly dislike grapefruit, but at least it’s not the strongest note here.

Unfortunately, I’d have to say that this one strikes me as having a “flavour hole” in the middle of it, much like DAVIDsTEA’s entire spring collection (for those of you who tried and remembered the way that collection oddly lacked). I think it’s just too one-note, really.

I had someone asking about this…yesterday? Saturday? the past crazy weekend is a blur…but since I hadn’t tried it yet, I called over a co-worker of mine who is big into greens. He stated that he loved it, and said that it reminded him a bit of gyokuro, but that it is quite a bit sweeter. Which all made me more curious to try it myself. Since I’m feeling a bit under the weather at the moment (although I think now it might just be some inexplicable allergic reaction), green tea sounded nice.

And hey, this is quite nice.

I’m pretty sure my water was a smidge too hot when it hit the leaves, but nothing that made them un-salvageable. I’m drinking it unsweetened, but it doesn’t have a strong vegetal or grassy taste to it that would normally put me off the taste of an unsweetened green. There’s a few sweet notes in it

Oh my god, okay, it’s cooling now, and there’s some notes coming out that are really awesome. Scratch “some sweet notes,” there’s actually a lot of sweetness around the edges and maybe three-quarters back in the sip (is a spacial designation that specific utterly ridiculous? but I swear that is where it is) that is very pure, like golden honey. It’s kind of heavy, like cream…if you don’t mind sweetener, I bet a few drops of actual honey would really make that pop.

There’s another taste here though which is dominant, but which I was at a loss to describe. Autumn Hearth is the only other person who has reviewed this tea so far, and she described this tea as having a “umami” taste to it. I admit that I had no idea what that was, but I’ve seen several people describe green tea with it. It is clearly an important taste to understand, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. Wikipedia sez:

“A savory taste […] Now it is widely accepted as the fifth basic taste. Umami represents the taste of the amino acid L-glutamate and 5’-ribonucleotides such as guanosine monophosphate (GMP) and inosine monophosphate (IMP). Although it can be described as a pleasant “brothy” or “meaty” taste with a long lasting, mouthwatering and coating sensation over the tongue, umami has no translation. […] Umami has a mild but lasting aftertaste difficult to describe. It induces salivation and a sensation of furriness on the tongue, stimulating the throat, the roof and the back of the mouth…"

Well! That must be it! That’s what I’m tasting. Thanks, Autumn! (Also, a combination of “sweet” and “umami” basically describes my entire diet…)

…Oops, work just called me in. On my day off, sigh. (We have a guy who is quitting, he probably won’t ever show up again.) So I gotta go, and cannot review a re-infusion of these leaves, so it will have to wait.

Still, I’m happy! I think I finally found a green tea that I like enough to replace that orchid-infused green from Teaopia.

Evidently this has something related to catnip in it, because I left a dry filterbag full of it sitting on my kitchen counter while I ran to my bedroom, and my cats dragged it onto the floor, chewed it open and ecstatically rolled around in it.

Sheesh!

On the other hand, I love this one.

I’m pretty sure this has hibiscus (of course!), but…can it be? It doesn’t come through that strongly for me. The berries and fruit at least rival it! Mostly I get blueberry and pineapple; it’s almost like a gentler cousin of the Blueberry Kona Pop blend. There’s a taste in there that my brain only identifies as “red,” though. The ingredients say there’s red currant in here; maybe that’s it? There’s a great minty kick at the back, and some creaminess throughout the sip.

Basically, I have nothing to complain about.

I will update when this finishes chilling. I fully expect, however, for the mint to pop, which should be awesome.

Chilled Update: Okay, the mint did indeed pop…but what really surprised me is that the creaminess seemed to as well! Very refreshing iced. WIN.

…Of course, this would be a cheap one.

cries

WHY?!

…

First of, this tea smells like garbage. By that, I don’t mean that it smells bad. I mean that it smells like rotting garbage, bags of it.

As for the taste, well… One of my co-workers tried this, and it made him physically ill immediately thereafter, no exaggeration. I struggled with myself to prepare this one (I had to dump out Forever Nuts Caramel Almond Amaretti to make this!) and I can scarcely nerve myself to drink it. I did have a few sips in-store, see, so I’ve gotten a sneak preview…

…Okay, I let this practically go cold trying to work up to drinking it, and again, it’s not as bad as it was in the store. (How does that keep happening?) In-store it tasted like tea that someone had accidentally dropped curry powder in, and I shuddered over it for a while and then fed it to the sink. (Actually, someone was reading the ingredients, and I think they mentioned that there is curry powder in it, but I could be remembering that wrong.) I would have rated that tea with the lowest rating Steepster would allow.

This tea…okay, I’m not sure what’s different. I did steep it longer (the directions say five minutes, which I missed in the store – I think I steeped it for three in the store). Did I drink it unsweetened in the store? Now I can’t remember…

Well, there’s some sugar in my cup now. Maybe that’s what sorta-kinda saves it. It’s got a bit of fruity sweetness to it, and a bit of a spicy bite at the back. I can basically see the “mango curry” taste they were going for here.

I’m just not convinced they really pulled it off. I can be convinced to swallow it, and normally I would rate it above a 50 if I don’t have to outright toss it, but…I have absolutely no desire to drink any more. None.

Singapore Sling! One of my favourite Greek movies. snickers (Seriously, if you like grindhouse at all, check that one out.)

Okay. Rooibos. Berries. Vanilla. Where have I seen this before…

Oh yeah, in Sevenberry Sangria and Opus Rouge! I feel at this point like Teavana just re-blends many of the same basic concepts over and over to see which versions sell best, which is simply not exciting. I’d really like to see this company try a little harder for something different.

That said, it’s not bad at all. Cranberry, cherry and pineapple are riding out front, so it theoretically lives up to its name in that regard…although I have to admit that I’ve never actually had a Singapore Sling, so I’m just guessing here. But yeah. This is my Teavana training speaking, but I bet this would blend nicely with Pineapple Kona Pop… I’ll have to try that.

Supposedly there’s orange in here, but it’s not speaking to me much. There’s maaaaybe citrus of some kind at the back, or maybe I’m imagining things.

It passes the “do I want to put it down long enough to ice it,” test though, because the answer is “no,” although I’m doing it anyway. I’ll update if anything about it stands out when chilled.

One of the better ones, for sure.

Chilled Update: …More pineapple, maybe? I might just be reaching, I think it’s pretty much exactly the same iced. Huh!

Fifth “top six” tea, an oolong, y’all. Steeped at 195*F…

I have to say, I actually really like this one. I didn’t think too much about it before trying it, but chai-like spices and citrus actually work quite well together. I definitely get more blood orange and tangerine out of this than lemon, which can only be a good thing paired with cinnamon and clove. It’s another one that’s both tart and sweet, but this is actually pretty well balanced…especially with the spice coming out more towards the back. I feel like there’s just a wee bit too much citrus at the front, so I’m knocking it down a few points for that. But that’s not a fatal flaw.

It’s got kind of a holiday feel going on for sure; makes me think of stuff like fruit cake and turkey gravy.

I don’t know if it’s going to please all the Teaopia fans who are crushed at Market Spice not making the cut, but…maybe some of them will go for this. I never had Market Spice myself, and I understand it was fairly subtle, so this might be a stronger flavour than some would prefer. Still, I think it’s quite nice.

Hibiscus?!

In a chocolate tea?! What was I just saying about Teavana and hibiscus? Seriously, do the blenders for this company have any idea that not everyone loves for everything to taste like sour gummies?! Arrgh!

This is my last cup before bed, and I was initially going to have this with some Purdy’s fruit creme chocolates I have, but I decided to downgrade at the last moment to some chocolate cake instead. Boy, am I glad I didn’t waste those chocolates now. I’ve heard our new Caramel Sea Salt or whatever is a great chocolate tea, maybe I’ll save those chocolates to have with that instead.

I just don’t know what to say about this tea. The name is great, and immediately raises your expectations that this is going to be an amazing chocolate-y blend with an overlay of fruitiness.

Alas! No. Is there even chocolate in this?!

I can taste berries, yeah. (Ooh, is that what elderberry tastes like? Since I just had this back-to-back with Very Berry White, it’s easier to distinguish the notes they have in common.) I can taste hibiscus. I can even taste mate (more so than oolong, and I thought I might be imagining things until I saw that Amanda had noticed this in the ingredients), but chocolate? Dude, where?

…Oh wait, I think I caught some chocolate notes there when I burped. No seriously, the only chocolate is at the back!

It’s not that this tastes bad, but who on earth decided to market it as a chocolate tea and not a berry tea? It’s actually got a berry-flavoured chocolate taste to it at the back and in the aftertaste, but you can’t market a tea on the aftertaste and not what the sip is riding on. What a mess. FAIL.

(More tomorrow! Maybe I’ll get to some of the ones I actually really like, hah.)